Back to the future? A spatial analysis of party competition and government formation in the 2022 Italian general elections

The Italian general elections held in September 2022 mark a rightward turn in Italian politics. In a record low voter turnout and highly volatile election, the centre-right coalition won a large parliamentary majority, an outcome that had not happened since 2008. Moreover, the far right FDI (Fratelli d’Italia – Brothers of Italy) led by Giorgia Meloni became the largest party with the 26% of the vote, altering the balance of power within the right-wing coalition. The consensus for the antiestablishment 5Star Movement, a party that played a pivotal role in the Italian parliament since 2013, dropped from 32% in 2018 to 15%. Do the 2022 general elections represent a return to a bipolar pattern of party competition? Based on expert survey data collected by the authors, this paper provides a spatial analysis of party competition, by looking at the most important policy dimensions structuring party competition and locating party positions in the policy space. The structure of the policy space in 2022 will be compared to that characterizing previous elections starting from 2008. After a remarkably short negotiation phase, the right-wing coalition was able to form a government – led by Giorgia Meloni – with an absolute majority of seats both in the Chamber and the Senate, whose size was drastically reduced following the 2020 constitutional reform. While the elections in 2013 and 2018 had resulted in a hung parliament, the 2022 election turned out to be decisive for the first time since 2008, which also saw the victory of the right-wing coalition then led by Silvio Berlusconi. The paper will provide a spatial analysis of government formation by stressing similarities and differences across the period of time 2008-2022.