NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN VOTING BEHAVIOR BETWEEN CHANGE AND CONTINUITY, 1968-2013. A CASE STUDY ANALYSIS CONCERNING TWO LOCAL POLITICAL COMMUNITIES IN ITALY

This academic work is based on a case study analysis concerning two local political communities in Italy, one in the North (Saronno) and the other in the South (Canicattì). This Ph.D. thesis describes and analyzes electoral continuity and change at the level local, considering all the first and second order elections over the last 50 years (more than 150 elections studied and more than 120 electoral swing analyses elaborated). It attempts to provide a new explanation of the North-South cleavage in Italy (in terms of voting behavior) and this explanation is in countertrend to the mainstream debate. In fact, the key assumption is the tendency towards convergence between Northern and Southern voting behavior since the beginning of the post-ideological period, with reference to voter turnout, personal vote and electoral volatility. Finally, this Ph.D. thesis is one of the first studies in Italy that examines the last general elections of 2013, although at the local level