The long-term electoral legacies of civil war in young democracies: Evidence from Italy 1946-1968

Journal article

Are there long-term legacies of civil wars on the electoral geography of post-conflict democracies? We argue that parties derived from armed bands enjoy an organizational advantage in areas where they fought and won the war. Former combatants can create a strong local party organization that serves as a crucial mobilization tool for elections. Parties have strong incentives to institutionalize this organizational advantage and retain electoral strongholds over time. We test our theory on the case of Italy (1946-1968). Our findings indicate that, on average, the communist party managed to create a stronger organization in areas where its bands fought the resistance war against Nazi-fascist forces—and leftwing parties had a better electoral performance in those areas insubsequent elections. A stronger party organization is correlated with a positive electoral performance for many years, while the direct effect of civil war on electoral patterns decays after few years.

Authors: Costalli, S; Ruggeri, A

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Journal: Comparative Political Studies
• Volume: 7
• Issue: 6
• Article number: e7677
• Publication date: 2018-07-16
• Acceptance date: 2018-04-13
• DOI: 10.1177/0010414018784057
• EISSN: 1552-3829
• ISSN: 0010-4140