Styles of Representation in Italy: Constituencies in the Homeland and Abroad

The role of political contexts in conditioning the role orientations of political representatives or candidates has so far only been partially explored. Moreover, it is usually analyzed in a national framework. However, the existence of political parties at a transnational level in the growing number of countries which allow their citizens to candidate in homeland elections in special emigrant districts, seems to open up interesting opportunities for understanding the political profile of party members abroad. In this paper we specifically focus on candidates’ representational styles in homeland and special emigrant constituencies, relying on Italy as a paradigmatic case. Our main objective is to assess whether competing inside or outside the national boundaries affects candidates’ expectations about how they think it is most appropriate to take political decisions. Should they behave as pure delegates of their party voters in the constituency, as pure agents of their parties (partisans), or alternatively as trustees relying on their own independent judgment? Our assumption is that systemic differences between national and abroad districts both at the institutional level (different electoral laws) and at the socio-political level are relevant for developing one of these orientations rather than another. Moreover, we argue that such differences significantly influence candidate styles’ ability to shape perceptions of congruence with their voters over a set of policy issues. In order to test our hypotheses, we implement a series of statistical analyses combining the 2013 Italian Candidate Survey, carried out by the Italian National Election Study (ITANES), and the Transnational Political Incorporation (TRANSINCOR) Candidate Survey, an original online survey we conducted on the emigrant candidates in the 2013 Italian legislative elections.