98803 - Analysis of Public Opinion (LM)

Learning outcomes

This course introduces students to the methods used and the main hypotheses advanced in the social sciences to analyze the formation and change of opinions on issues of public concern, political attitudes, and voting choices. The course will cover both general hypotheses developed on a comparative basis and analyses of the socio-demographic characteristics and public opinion attitudes underlying the results of electoral contests held in democratic countries. At the end of the course, the student will be able to: - interpret and discuss the results of scientific analyses of public opinion attitudes and voting behavior; - examine the dividing lines (cleavages) along which the political attitudes of citizens in democratic countries are polarized.

Course contents

The first part of the course presents in a discursive manner the main hypotheses and analyses elaborated in the field of socio-political studies concerning the cleavages or divisive issues along which national public opinions are led to take a position (statism/liberalism, globalism/nationalism, climate change, immigration, civil rights). As well as the factors influencing the formation of such opinions and voting choices, including: the 'ascribed' characteristics of voters (gender, age, education, family), their place in the social structure (defined by class, religious, territorial affiliations), their long-term political predispositions (location on the left-right axis, party identifications, values), their assessment of the objects of competition (incumbent government, parties, leaders). To show how and to what extent these factors influence opinions and voting, the results of studies concerning the Italian elections in 2022 will be examined.
The second part of the course introduces the basic categories and methodological canons of empirical research with coded data (so-called quantitative analysis) concerning social and political phenomena: definition of the questions, the hypotheses and the concepts specifying them, the indicators for detecting the properties being analysed; modalities of conducting sample surveys (polls), with particular attention to the formulation of questionnaires, the sampling plan and administration techniques; how to present survey results and analysis using the main statistical techniques (monovariate, bivariate, multivariate analysis); how to quantitatively analyse textual data taken from social networks with particular attention to the communication of leaders and the reactions of their followers using artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques.
In the third part, participants will be asked to choose a topic from those addressed in the first part, to find scientific literature dealing with it with empirical data and to present the questions, hypotheses and results of the analyses in a professional manner. The verbal presentation, carried out with the aid of PowerPoint cards, and the related classroom discussion may form the basis for the final paper.

This course has as its natural extension the 'Public opinion analysis Laboratory' in which the hypotheses and methods learnt are applied through techniques and software for analysing survey data and textual data from social networks.

Readings/Bibliography

Harold D. Clarke, David Sanders, Marianne C. Stewart, and Paul Whiteley (2004). Political Choice in Britain, Oxford University Press, pp. 2-35.

Liesbet Hooghe e Gary Marks. 2018. «Cleavage theory meets Europe’s crises: Lipset, Rokkan, and the transnational cleavage». Journal of European Public Policy 25 (1): 109–35.

Ronald Inglehart, Changing values among western publics from 1970 to 2006. West european politics 31, fasc. 1–2 (2008): 130–46.

Ronald Inglehart, Pippa Norris, Trump and the Populist Authoritarian Parties: The Silent Revolution in Reverse. Perspectives on Politics. 2017;15(2):443-454.

Vassallo, Salvatore, and Marco Valbruzzi. 2018. “I partiti della Grande Recessione contro i partiti della Grande Depressione. Un nuovo cleavage o un’altra bolla?” Stato e Mercato: 87–116.

Roccato M. (2023). Teorie e tecniche dell’inchiesta e del sondaggio. Il Mulino (capp 1-2, 4-8, 11, 13).

ITANES (2023). Svolta a destra? Cosa ci dice il voto del 2022. Il Mulino.

Vassallo S. e Verzichelli L. (a cura di) (2023). Il bipolarismo asimmetrico. L'Italia al voto dopo il decennio populista. Il Mulino.

Teaching methods

The course consists of fifteen working sessions in which students will be invited to actively participate. Approximately ten of these sessions will consist of classic lectures. In the remaining five sessions, students will be required to present and discuss, in turn, some of the reference texts and set out the hypotheses around which they intend to elaborate the final paper. All classes will be held in presence.

Assessment methods

Each student must write a paper (maximum 10,000 characters) on one of the topics covered in the course, basing their analysis on the relevant scientific literature. The topic should be agreed in advance with the lecturer by proposing a title, an introduction of 1000-1500 characters and the relevant bibliography. Students who are guilty of plagiarism - i.e. if parts of the paper are transcribed from other documents of any kind that are not correctly referenced - will be excluded from the course and will not be admitted to the examination. The final grade will be based on the evaluation of the paper and its discussion as well as an oral interview covering all course content as usual. Attendance is not compulsory. The syllabus, reference texts and tests are identical for attending and non-attending students.

Teaching tools

Video projector, cloud sharing of course materials, sharing of some of the video-recorded lectures.

Office hours

See the website of Salvatore Vassallo