Cohort: POLS 42

Topic of the thesis: Visible Division: Measuring Intra-Party Cohesion through Parliamentary Speech and Legislative Voting

Abstract: This project studies how intra-party cohesion and division can be measured through observable parliamentary behaviour. It conceptualises party cohesion as a multidimensional phenomenon that becomes visible in two different public outputs: what party members say and how they vote during their time in office. On one hand, parliamentary speeches are used to capture discursive cohesion; on the other hand, roll-call votes measure legislative cohesion. Rather than treating these two dimensions as interchangeable, the project examines when they converge and when parties display different combinations of rhetorical unity and legislative discipline. Empirically, the project focuses on one case: the Italian Chamber of Deputies between 1996 and 2022, a period marked by strong party system transformation, government instability, leadership change, party splits, and repeated shifts between government, opposition, and technical government. Combining text-as-data methods with roll-call analysis, the project develops party- and individual-level measures of cohesion and examines whether differences in parliamentary speech anticipate subsequent legislative dissent, abstention, or party switching. The measures will be validated against known episodes of intra-party conflict and through their ability to predict later legislative behaviour. More broadly, the project aims to provide a replicable framework for studying intra-party conflict and cohesion across time and, potentially, across different parliamentary systems.

Research interests: Political behaviour; Political communication; Political parties; Intra-party politics; Legislative behaviour; Comparative Politics; Quantitative methods; Text-as-data

Graduated from: University of Milan; University of Mannheim

Degrees obtained: B.A. in Political Science; M.A. in Public and Corporate Communication – Data Analytics for Politics, Society, and Complex Organizations; M.A. in Political Science

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