The Warming Ballot: Demand and Supply in the Green Electoral Market

Abstract

As global warming intensifies, ballot boxes become more heated, with various parties potentially targeting the green electoral market. In this article, we analyse how, in Italy, the political supply side aligns with the electorate’s environmental demand. To this end, we introduce the Propensity for Green Voting (PGV) measure, representing an individual’s likelihood of voting for a party with environmental protection at the core of its agenda. Using survey data, we detect the area of potential green voting in the Italian electoral market, exploring its overlaps with the potential electorate of the major political parties. Our analysis revolves around three hypotheses concerning the nature of green issue representation in Italian politics: monopolistic, fragmented, or absent. Our findings reveal no single-party monopoly over environmental issues in Italy. Instead, a spectrum of parties within the divided centre-left opposition shows varying degrees of success in appealing to pro-environmental voters, indicating a fragmented green demand as well as a potential unifying theme in the environment for the centre-left camp. Additionally, a segment of the green-oriented electorate remains politically unrepresented in the existing party system, potentially increasing non-voter ranks. A final investigation projects the impact on the current electoral space of a hypothetical new Green party.

Keywords

• party competition
• voting behaviour
• political parties
• green electoral market
• environmentalism
• propensity for green voting