L'immagine del leader. Quanto conta per gli elettori?

This book analyzes how the images of political leaders are constructed, what they consist of, and how, when and why they influence electoral outcomes. The book is divided into six chapters, each examining the issue of leader images from different perspectives and offering a wide range of examples from politics in Italy, the United States, France and the United Kingdom, which complement the theoretical considerations. As a conclusion, the book suggests that in non-presidential systems, image does matter, but probably a lot less than conventional wisdom would suggest. Where voters locate themselves on a ‘Left–Right’ spectrum, for example, is often a better predictor of voting behaviour. Rather, therefore, than being obsessed with trying to establish how much image matters, the book suggests it may be better first to consider when, where and how it matters. However, while warning against overestimating the importance of the leader’s image in deciding elections one way or another, the author also says that we should not deny its importance, particularly in a country such as Italy where parties (particularly those on the centre-right) appear to owe a significant part of their political capital to their leaders.