Conferences & Seminars

2025

2025 SISP Conference (Naples)

The impact of local vulnerabilities on electoral participation in Italy

Section 8 - Parties, Leaders, Public Opinion, Elections

Panel 8.4 - Patterns of Peripheralisation and Political Behaviour at SISP Conference 2025

Giorgia Borgnino, Linda Basile, Silvia Bolgherini, Selena Grimaldi

This paper explores how local vulnerabilities, and specifically political-institutional ones, influence voter turnout in local elections. While economic voting theories suggest that citizens generally hold political actors accountable for economic performance, we argue that vulnerable political institutions influence their
engagement and participation as well. Using data on Italian municipalities, we assess territorial vulnerability employing three novel compounded indices that capture territories’ sensitivity and exposure to health hazards, financial crises, and hydrogeological risks. Our analysis reveals that both political-institutional and socioeconomic vulnerabilities shape electoral participation. More specifically, we find that people living in economically fragile areas are more likely to turnout when institutions are weak, signalling in this way their discontent with the local administration, whereas socio-economic vulnerability under strong institutions tends to hamper participation. These findings contribute to the literature on aggregate-level determinants of turnout and offer a way to reconcile contradictory evidence from prior research.

2025 ECPR General Conference (Thessaloniki)

The Impact of Local Vulnerabilities on Electoral Volatility

Panel: The Local Level in Contemporary Politics: Multi-Level Dynamics and Spillover Effects

Section: Local Governments and Politics in Europe in an Era of Global Challenges

Linda Basile, Silvia Bolgherini, Giorgia Borgnino, Selena Grimaldi

Empirical research has long shown that voting behaviour is affected not only by individual-level factors but also by spatial differences. Regional inequalities and rural-urban divides are, for instance, identified as key drivers of populist voting and electoral turnout. Much less is, however, known about the relationship between territorial vulnerabilities and electoral behaviour. Indeed, while several scholars have examined specific vulnerabilities at the individual level (i.e. vulnerable social groups), little attention has been given to the role of territorial fragility. This paper aims to fill this gap by exploring how the vulnerability of (local) territories affects electoral turnout.

2025 Workshop Siena
La Rilevanza di Misurazioni e Mappe per il Policy Advising

A one-day workshop where we presented the results of WP2, namely the construction of the ESPIVaR Index

2024

2024 SISP Conference (Trieste)
Territorial Vulnerability. From an Interdisciplinary Systematic Literature Review to a Compounded Index  
Section 10 - Panel 10.7 Measurement and Indicators in Political Science at SISP Conference 2024 
Linda Basile, Silvia Bolgherini, Giorgia Borgnino, Selena Grimaldi

At the SISP 2024 we presented the results of WP1, namely the findings derived from the Systematic Literature Review on territorial vulnerability and resilience

Measuring vulnerability requires disentangling the concept across several dimensions, which usually are the socio-economic and environmental ones. Nonetheless, the political-institutional dimension of vulnerability stands out, since it determines a territory’s ability to effectively deliver policies and provide timely responses to crises through effective and democratic institutions. And it is, instead, more often than not, neglected. This article aims to fill this gap by constructing a novel composite index of territorial vulnerability based on all three dimensions (environmental, socio-economic, and political-institutional). To this end, we first conducted a systematic literature review to identify the methods and indicators employed by previous empirical studies to measure vulnerability. Then, we propose new indices to assess vulnerability and resilience of Italian municipalities to current and future challenges (economic crises, health emergencies, hydrogeological hazards).

Long Abstract download here
Presentation Slides Territorial Vulnerability. From an Interdisciplinary Systematic Literature Review to a Compounded Index

2024 STAI-AIS Conference (Bari)
From Crisis to Adaptation: Harnessing Emerging Technologies for Government Response to Environmental Challenges
Matilde Biagioni

A paper on a systematic literature review about Emerging Technologies employed by the Public Sector to face Crises presented at the First Conference of Young Sociologists of Environment and Territory (https://www.ais-sociologia.it/evento/crisi-permanenti-la-dimensione-territoriale-delle-sfide-socio-ambientali/ )

Abstract download here
Presentation Slides From-Crisis-to-Adaptation-Harnessing-Emerging-echnologies-for-Government-Response-to-(Environmental)-Challenges.pdf

2023

Doctoral Lesson December 13, 2023 Macerata
Systematic Literature Review: Procedure and First Steps
Selena Grimaldi

Presentation Slides UNVEIL-Systematic-Literature-Review-Procedure-and-first-steps.PDF