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 course provides tools to analyze three main phenomena in particular: the divisions among public opinion on politically salient issues; the way preferences and positions on these issues are distributed within the electorate; the judgment that different segments of the electorate express about major political leaders and parties.

In doing so, the course also offers tools to interpret the dynamics through which parties and leaders define their positions and communication strategies in relation to the expectations and preferences of the segments of the electorate they aim to represent and from which they seek to gain support.

The empirical basis for this type of analysis is primarily made up of survey data. To this end, the course introduces methods and techniques for measuring individual opinions and attitudes through sample surveys.

In the first part of the course, some of the main theories and hypotheses developed in the socio-political field are presented, particularly regarding:

• The dynamics characterizing the competition among parties and leaders for voters’ support in liberal democracies.

• The issues that divide national public opinions and on which parties and leaders are prompted to take a stand (economic regulation, social protection, redistribution, international conflicts, climate change, immigration, civil rights).

• The factors that influence opinion formation on politically salient topics and voting choices, such as individual voter characteristics (gender, age, education, occupation, income, religion), their ideological predispositions (left-right orientation, party identification), and their evaluation of the actors involved in the political competition (the incumbent government, parties, leaders).

The second part of the course presents and discusses methodological aspects related to the execution of surveys, focusing on:

• The design of surveys on individual behaviors and attitudes and questionnaire formulation

• Sampling plans and data collection techniques

• Presentation and interpretation of results (univariate, bivariate analysis, and an introduction to multivariate analysis)

• The different cognitive goals of opinion polls and scientific surveys

• The use of opinion polls both as a tool to study and to shape public opinion

The final part of the course will focus on the cases of Giorgia Meloni and Donald Trump, two leaders who have garnered broad support and acquired prominent roles in Italian and American politics. Although they are often grouped under the same label of “radical populist right” and share similar ideological positions, they exhibit significantly different trajectories, stances, and leadership styles. The analysis of their paths will highlight the influence of differing competitive contexts, party structures, internal and international institutional constraints, as well as the different demands present within their electoral bases.

Readings/Bibliography

Salvatore Vassallo (2026). Sistemi politici comparati. Democrazie e autocrazie. Bologna, Il Mulino. cap. 3.

Paolo Natale (2022). Sondaggi: le tecniche, i rischi, il futuro. Roma-Bari, Laterza.

Salvatore Vassallo e Rinaldo Vignati (2023). Fratelli di Giorgia: il partito della destra nazional conservatrice. Bologna, Il Mulino.

Further reference texts will be made available to students on the course page at https://virtuale.unibo.it/.

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, a case study. All classes will be held in presence.

Assessment methods

The exam is different for attending and non-attending students. Attending students are those who have attended at least 80% of the lessons (12 out of 15).
Attending students will have to prepare and give a presentation with a maximum of 15 slides on a case study agreed with the lecturer and related to the course content. They will then have to complete the exam orally, in dedicated sessions, with some questions on the topics covered in class and on the reference texts (in the parts indicated in class).
Non-attending students will instead take a written test on a computer, consisting of 27 multiple-choice questions and one open-ended question, aimed at assessing their adequate study of the reference texts indicated in the course bibliography.
To take the exam, students must register via the AlmaEsami platform.

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