A New Dataset on Change, Continuity, and Political Careers in the Italian Parliamentary Elite (1946-2022)

The study of political elites and the parliamentary class has long been a core concern of sociological and political science research in Italy. Still today, the Italian case remains a particularly important empirical setting for the analysis of elite and parliamentary class evolution, given the impact of the profound transformations that have characterised systems of political representation in many Western European countries over the past decades. In this work, we present a novel dataset on the Italian parliamentary class covering the period from 1946 to 2022, illustrating through selected examples its versatility for future empirical research. The dataset results from the merging and harmonisation of several existing sources, combined with a renewed effort of original data collection, and enables a systematic analysis of the Italian parliamentary elite across multiple dimensions. First, it allows for the study of both change and continuity in the characteristics of Members of Parliament over a period of more than 75 years, from different analytical perspectives, including descriptive representation as well as party-related and institutional career patterns. Second, for each MP and each legislature, the dataset enables the analysis of the linkage between, on the one hand, individual socio-demographic characteristics, political career features and, on the other hand, parliamentary behaviour, such as roll-call voting, speeches, amendments, and bill sponsorship. Third, the dataset is designed to be compatible with existing data on party politics and parliamentary elites in other Western European countries, thereby facilitating cross-national research. Finally, we outline several potential avenues for future research enabled by this dataset, including in-depth analyses of gendered patterns in parliamentary careers and behaviour, as well as investigations into the link between party- or institution-based characteristics of MPs and the emergence of personalised forms of parliamentary activity.