75-3223 WERTMAN, Douglas Allen, 1948- THE ELECTORATE OF RELIGIOUSLY-BASED POLITICAL PARTIES: THE CASE OF THE ITALIAN CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1974 Political Science, general
Xerox University Microfilms,Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106
THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED. THE ELECTORATE OF RELIGIOUSLY-BASED POLITICAL PARTIES:
THE CASE OF THE ITALIAN CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY
DISSERTATION
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University
By
Douglas Allen Wertman, B.A., M.A.
*****
The Ohio State University
1974
Reading Committee: Approved By
Giacomo Sani Loren Waldman C. Richard Hofstetter illO'fAtC
Department of Political Science ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would first of all like to thank Giacomo Sani for his interest, encouragement, and assistance in the writing of thi3 dissertation and in my study of the politics of
Italy during the past four years while I have been at Ohio
State University. I would further like to thank him for allowing me to use the 1972 Italian survey. I would also like to express my gratitude to Dr. Samuel Barnes of the
University of Michigan for permitting me to employ the 1972
Italian data, of which he was co-investigator with Dr. Sani, and the 196 8 Italian survey, which he directed by himself.
Funds for these surveys ware provided by the Ford Founda tion and the National Science Foundation.
I want to give special thanks to Loren Waldman for his many helpful comments and his willingness to devote so much time and effort to assisting me. I would also like to express my appreciation to Dr. C. Richard Hofstetter for his willingness to join my reading committee. I want to thank the Polimetries Laboratory of The Ohio State Univer sity for help with data processing and the Instruction and
Research Computer Center of The Ohio State University for providing the computer facilities and time. Lastly, bat not least, I want to give deep thanks to my wife, Ellen, for her help with editing, typing, and ideas and for. knowing how much to push me to get going and keep going on this dissertation. VITA
September 1, 19 48 .... Bom - Allentown, Pennsylvania
1970 ...... B.A., Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania
1970-1974 ...... University Fellowship, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
1973 ...... M.A., The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
FIELDS OF STUDY
Department of Political Science
Major Field: Comparative Politics
Geographic Areas: Western Europe; Soviet Union • «
Cross-Uational Topics: Comparative Political Behavior; Comparative Political Parties
Comparative Theory and Methodology
Minor Field: International Relations
Areas of Interest: Comparative Foreign Policy; National Security Policy; Bureaucratic Politics; and Arms Races TABLE OP CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... ii
VITA ...... iv
LIST OF TABLES ...... vii
Chapter
I. ITALIAN CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY AS A RELIGIOUSLY-BASED PARTY ...... 1
Italian Christian Democracy and Its Antecedents: A Brief History Previous Writings on the Italian Christian Democratic Party Purposes of This Dissertation
II. THE RELIGIOUS EXPLANATION ...... 39 < The Impact of the Individual Religious Commitment The Impact of Other Consequential Factors on the DC Vote The Impact of the Catholic Political Tradition The Catholic Sub-Cultural Network The Impact of Religion on the DC Vote: North Vs. South Catholicism as a "Limiting Frame work " Secularization Concluding Remarks
III. THE POLITICAL ISSUES OF MODERATION AND ANTI-COMMUNISM...... 106
The Impact of Centrism on the Support for the DC Anti-Communism Anti-Communism and the Maintenance of the DC Support Base
v TABLE OF CONTENTS (Coat'd) Page
Moderation and Feelings Toward Communism: A Summary Moderation and Feelings Toward Communism: Status Differences Concluding Section: Moderation and Religion
IV. THE INTERCLASSIST APPEAL ...... 159 The Inpact of Economic Attributes and Attitudes on DC Support The Middle Class Electorate The Working Class Electorate The Small Farmers Social Mobility and the DC Vote Urban-Rural Differences and the Inpact of Urbanization Concluding Remarks
V. THE IMPACT OF AGE, SEX, AND POLITICAL BACKWARDNESS ...... 205 c. Sex, Age, and Marital Status Differences in Support for the DC Religion as a Major Cause of Greater Female and Old Age Support for the DC The Impact of Education and Political Backwardness Employment Status Differences Concluding Remarks
VI. CONCLUSION: THE BASES OF SUPPORT FOR THE ITALIAN CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY .... 260
Alternative Explanations for the DC Support Limits on the Expansion of the DC The Multivariate Model Societal Trends and Their Impact on the Maintenance of DC Support Concluding Remarks: Methodology, Findings, and Speculation BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 293
Vi LIST OF TABLES Page
1. Percentage of the Popular Vote in Seven National Elections in Italy, 1946-1972 ... 8
2. Party Preference by Religiosity, 1972 ...... 44
3. Party Preference by Church Attendance, 196 8 and 1972 ...... 48
4. Party Preference by Attitudes Toward the Clergy, 1968 and 1972 ...... 49
5. Party Preference by the Deference Factor, 1968 and 1972 ...... 1...... 52
6. Party Preference by Role the Church Should Play in Politics, 1972 ...... 53
7. Multiple Regression: The Impact of the Individual Religious Commitment on - ( Christian Democratic Support, 1968 and 1972 ...... :---- 55
8. Intercorrelation (Pearson’s r) Matrix of All Religious Factors Used in 1972 .... 57
9. Party Preference by Position on Divorce, 1968 and 1972 ...... 60
10. Multiple Regression: The Impact of the Individual Religious Commitment and Consequential Religious Factors on Christian Democratic Support, 196 8 and 1972 ...... 62
11. Party Preference by Stop Financing Catholic Schools, 1968 ...... 64
12. Party Preference by Catholic Political Tradition and When Respondent Came to Live in His Commune of 1972 Resi dence, 1972 ...... 65
13. Party Preference by Catholic Ties, 1972 .... 73
vii Page
14. Party Preference by Labor Union Membership, 1968 ...... 76
15. Party Preference by Catholic Lay Group Membership, 1968 ...... 77
16. Party Preference by Church Attendance and Catholic Ties, 1972 ...... 78
17. Multiple Regression: The Impact of the Nine Religious Factors on Christian Democratic Support, 1972 ...... 82
18. The Individual Religious Commitment: North Compared with South, 1968 and 1972 ...... 84
19. Multiple Regression: The Impact of Religion in the North Compared with the South, 1968 and 1972 ...... 85
20. Attitudes Toward the Clergy by Acceptability of Christian Democ racy as a Voting Choice, 1968 and 1972 ...... 88
21. Frequency of Church Attendance by Acceptability of Christian Democracv as a Voting Choice, 196 8 and 1972 ...... 89
22. Church Attendance in Italy, 1956-1972 ...... 93
23. Church Attendance by Age, 1968 ...... 95
24. Church Attendance by Age, 1972 ...... 96
25. Party Preference by Self-Placement on a Left-Right Political Spectrum, 196 8 and 1972 ...... 113
26. Placement of Italian Parties on a Left- Right Political Spectrum, 196 8 and 1972 ...... 114
27. Proportion of Christian Democratic Voters Finding Each Other Major Italian Party Unacceptable as a Voting Choice, 1972 ...... 116
viii F age
28. Party Preference by Opinion on Whether the Government Would Be Better if the Communists Were in it and Opinion on Whether the Government Would Be Better if the Neo-Fascists Were in it, 1972 ...... 117
29. Party Preference by Moderation, Free dom, and Democracy Reasons for Liking One's Party, 1968 and 1972 ...... 119
30. Party Preference by Favorability Toward Communism, 1968 and 1972 ...... 124
31. Unacceptability of the Italian Com munist Party (PCI) by Party Preference, 1972 ...... 126
32. Favorability Toward the Italian Com munist Party (PCI) among the Voters for Various Parties, 1972 ...... 127
33. Favorability Toward the Italian Social Movement (MSI) among the Voters for Various Parties, 1972 12-8 (
34. Party Preference by Favorability Toward the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and Favorability Toward the Italian Social Movement (MSI) , 1972 ...... 130
35. Party Preference by the Unacceptability of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and the Unacceptability of the Italian Social Movement, 1972 ...... 131
36. Church Attendance by Party Preference (DC, PLI, and MSI Voters Only), 1972 .... 133
37. Party Preference by Good Catholic as a Communist, 1972 ...... 135
38. Party Preference by Good Catholic as a Neo-Fascist, 1972 ...... 136
39. Mean Favorability Toward the Italian Communist Party (PCI) by Age, 1968 and 1972 (Communist Voters Not Included) ...... 141
ix Page
40. Multiple Regression: The Impact of Moderation, Feelings Toward Com munism, and Feelings Toward Neo- Fascism on the Christian Democratic Support, 196 3 and 19 72 ...... 144
41. Left-Right Self-Placement by Respond ent's Family Status, 1972 ...... 146
42. Favorability Toward Communism by Respondent's Family Status, 1972 ...... 147
43. Favorability Toward Communism by Respondent's Family Status and Party Preference, 19 72 ...... 149
44. Left-Right Self-Placement by Respondent's Family Status and Party Preference, 19 72 ...... 150
45. Multiple Regression: The Impact of the Religious and Moderation Variables on the Christian Democratic Support, 19GG and 1972 ...... '153
46. Party Preference by Respondent Family Status, 1972 ...... 153
47. Respondent Family Status by Party Preference, 1972 ...... 165
48. Zero-Order Correlations and Multiple Regression: The Impact of Economic Attitudes and Attributes on the Christian Democratic Support, 196 8 and 1972 ...... 168
49. Zero-Order Correlations: The Test of Alternative Hypotheses for the Christian Democratic Support among Middle Class Voters, 1972 ...... 173
50. Multiple Regression: The Relative Impact of Alternative Explanations for Christian Democratic Support among Middle Class Voters, 1972 ...... 1 7 4
x Page
51. Zero-Order Correlations: The Test of Alternative Hypotheses for the Christian Democratic Support among Working Class Voters, 1972 ...... 177
52. Multiple Regression: The Relative Impact of Alternative Explanations for Christian Democratic Support among Working Class Voters, 1972 ...... 181
53. Degree of Religious Commitment of Small Farmers in Comparison with Other Status Groupings, 1972 ...... 184
54. Social Mobility: Party Preference by Respondent's Family Status and Father's Status, 1972 187
55. Party Preference by Commune Size, 1972 ...... 190
56. The Impact of Urbanization: Party Preference by Size of Community in Respondent's Youth and Size of Commune of 196 8 Residence, 1968 ...... '19*4
57. Party Preference by Respondent's Family Status and Attitudes Toward the Clergy, 1972 ...... 197
58. Party Preference by Respondent's Family Status and Father's Party Iden tification, 1972 ...... 198
59. Sex Composition of Each Status Group among Christian Democratic Sup porters, 1972 ...... 200
60. Sex and Party Preference, 1968 and 1972 ..... 207
61. Party Preference by Age, 1968 and 1972 ...... 209
62. Party Preference by Age and Sex, 1972 ...... 212
63. Party Preference by Marital Status and Sex, 1972 ...... 215
64. Mean Favorability Toward the Clergy by Marital Status and Sex, 1972 ...... 218
xi Page
65. Church Attendance by Marital Status and Sex, 1972 ...... 219
66. Party Preference by Sex, Controlling for Marital Status and Church Attendance, 1972 ...... 220
67. Party Preference by Sex, Age, and Marital Status, 1972 ...... 223
68. Zero-Order Relationships between Religious Variables and Demographic Characteristics, 1972 ...... 226
69. Party Preference by Sex and Church Attendance, 1972 ...... 228
70. Party Preference by Sex and Attitudes Toward the Clergy, 1972 ...... 229
71. Party Preference by Sex and Follow Church Political Advice, 1972 ...... 230
72. Party Preference by Age and Church * Attendance, 1972 ...... 233
73. Zero-Order Relationships between Religious Variables and Political Backwardness Variables, 1972 ...... 239
74. Zero-Order Correlation between Party Preference and Political Backwardness Variables, 1972 ...... 240
75. Multiple Regression: The Impact of Political Backwardness on Christian Democratic Support, 1972 ...... 242
76. Zero-Order Correlations between Political Backwardness Variables and Demographic Characteristics, 1972 ...... 244
77. Party Preference by Sex and Information on Left-Right Differences, 1972 ...... 245
78. Party Preference by Sex and Awareness of Economic Crisis, 1972 ...... 246
xii Page
Party Preference by Employment Status and Sex, 1972 ...... 250
Comparison of Party Preference among Housewives and Working Women, Controlling for Church Attendance, 1972 ...... 253
Summary: The Impact of Alternative Explanations for Christian Democratic Support, 1972 .... 262
Summary: Zero-Order Correlations between Party Preference and the Major Variables Used in This Dissertation, 1972 ...... 263
Multiple Regression: The Relative Impact on Christian Democratic Support of the Variables Used in This Dissertation, 1972 ...... 273
Party Preference by Father's Party Identification, 1972 ...... 283.
Party Preference by Age among those with Fathers whose Party Identif ication Was Christian Democratic, 1972 ...... 285
Proportion of Christian Democratic Voters among Various Age Groups Having Christian Democratic Fathers, 1968 and 1972 ......
xiii CHAPTER I
ITALIAN CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY AS A RELIGIOUSLY-BASED PARTY
Religion has often been cited as a major source of political cleavage in writings and studies on voting be havior and on the formation and continuance of political party systems. Lipset and Rokkan have called religion one of the four roost significant political cleavages.^- Rose and Urwin, in a comparative study of the composition of political parties, contend that religion is the most impor tant source of political division in western democratic
..2 * «. nations. Religion has been considered an important variable in numerous voting behavior studies dealing with countries which have religiously-based parties as well as many coun-
tries that do not. Gordon Smith suggests that religion may continue to be an important correlate of voting behav ior even after the active involvement of religious issues 4 in political debates has passed. Leon Epstein also con tends that political loyalties derived from religious ties
are not easily erased and that the religiously-inspired party may continue to draw support on the basis of the
religious factor long after the initial impulse for its
1 formation has passed, '* A major focus of this dissertation will be on the mechanisms by which the religious factor is related to voting loyalties and the durability of religion as a correlate of voting behavior. Common religious bonds or orientations to religion have, in fact, been the basis for the formation of politi cal parties in Latin America, the Middle East, and several
Western European countries. The Western European religious parties, largely concentrated in the belt of countries run ning southeast from the Netherlands to Italy, include the
Dutch Catholic People's Party, the Dutch Christian Histor ical Union, the Dutch Anti-Revolutionary Party, the Chris tian Social Party of Belgium, the Catholic Party of Swit zerland, the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social 4
Union of West Germany, the Austrian People's Party, and the
Italian Christian Democratic Party.
These European parties, often grouped in the litera ture as Christian Democratic parties, have largely similar origins in the late nineteenth century and the twentieth century. They, or their antecedents in some cases, i.e., the Zentrum of Weimar Germany or the pre-Fascist Italian
Popular Party, arose to "defend the faith" from the other major forces in society, the liberals and the socialists.
The Church feared the anti-clerical doctrines of these political tendencies. It was concerned about social legis lation which these groups might enact that would be harmful to what the Church felt to be the welfare of its followers and that would also limit its secular authority.
The stress on the defensive nature of religious parties is g prevalent in the literature on these parties.
The pre-political religious ideas were, therefore, at the foundation of the Christian Democratic parties. A political vacuum between the anti-clericals of the right and those of the left provided a political home for the pro-clericals in the center. The initial inspiration of these religious parties or their predecessors was, first, the political outgrowth of the desire to protect church rights in the educational process and in matters of the family, such as divorce and marriage. For example, the C Zentrum in the Weimar period in Germany was most concerned about the particularly Catholic issues and about the de fense of the Church from another Kulturkampf rather than about the major economic and governmental problems of the time.^ A second factor in the formation of these parties was the felt necessity of presenting an "interclassist" appeal which would be opposed to the atheist, class-orien ted leftist parties which were growing with the indus trialization then occurring in Europe. The Church wanted to retain its hold on a substantial portion of the en- 8 larging working class sector of the population.
In the translation of religious orientations into electoral support, these religiously-inspired parties have relied on a network of organizations sponsored by the Church.
These organizations include labor unions* credit banks* rural cooperatives* newspapers* recreational facilities* youth movements* women's groups* agricultural associations* and lay religious groups. This broad range of organizations allows the religious party to supplement its often weak or inadequate infrastructure in competition with other mass parties* to draw support from virtually all sectors of the society* and to incapsulate the lives of many of its sup porters in a constant stream of influences. By acting to increase the homogeneity of primary and secondary rela tions of the individuals affected by this network* the political subculture may sustain religion as a correlate c. of voting behavior even in the passive stage of religious involvement in politics and with the lessening of clerical/ anti-clerical divisions.
Although gaining its basic unity from the pro clerical orientations or denominational memberships of its supporters and maintaining its principles on the religious- related issues* the religious party is likely to be com posed of a heterogeneous array of economic interests and to be more flexible and shifting in its economic policies.
The broad scope of the organizational network* which in cludes workers* employers* and farmers* fosters this division on economic questions and the factionalism common within religious parties. The terms "sub-culture", "lager", "spiritual family",
"segmented pluralism”, "network", and "pillar" have been
applied to this group of organizations and influences which
provide activities to cover and effect the citizen in near
ly every phase of life and which have persisted as trad
itions and associations in many cases for nearly a century.
These concepts have been used to describe both the relig
ious and socialist networks which underly the mass political
parties in various European countries. Val Lorwin clearly
explains this concept in stating that:
A political system is one of segmented plural ism when its cleavages have produced competing networks of schools, communications media, interest groups, leisure-time associations, and political parties along segmented lines, of both religious and anti-religious nature.9
Societies which illustrate the relation of political sub-*
cultures to political party cleavages are the Netherlands,
Austria, and Italy.^ Italy, the case to be examined in
this dissertation, has four basic political sub-cultures,
i.e., the Catholic, the left, the Liberal, and the neo-
Fascist, with the Catholic and the left networks much
larger than the two others. In summary, political sub
cultures have been an important source and result of the
formation and continuance of Western European religious parties as well as their major opponents.
Religiously-based parties in Western Europe have most commonly been formed in countries with a predominantly
Catholic population or at least a sizeable minority of Catholics trying to protect its rights. Lipset suggests that this is because the Catholic Church sees itself as
"God-ordained" with responsibility for the welfare of all persons born within its realm.^ Gordon Smith argues that this is due, first, to the "strongly developed social doc trines" of the Roman Catholic Church which are pertinent to many political issues and, secondly, to the hierarchical framework of the Church and its rigid command structure which engender anti-clericalism and the subsequent response of the Church to the political ramifications of anti- 12 clericalism. The Catholic Church, on the basis of the strength of its social concern and its prestige as a supra national influence, wants to share secular authority, par ticularly in matters of education, the family, and the clergy's position vis-^-vis the state. Rose and Urwin also contend that the Catholic Church is the most likely source of party formation among western religions because 13 of the strong communal solidarity among its followers.
Religion has continued to be a major political cleavage, while in several nations in Western Europe, along with countries in Latin America and the Middle East, religiously-based political parties have been formed. To say that the inspiration of these parties was religious is not, however, to say that religion was and is the only basis for their success. This dissertation, therefore,will test generalizations about religiously-based parties and about religion as a correlate of voting behavior through an examination of one of the most important and successful religiously-based parties in Western Europe, the Italian
Christian Democrats (DC).
Italian Christian Democracy and Its Antecedents: A Brief History
Before discussing some salient features of the his tory of political Catholicism in Italy, I would like brief ly to mention some important special characteristics 6f the
Italian situation. In all post-World War II national elec tions, the DC has consistently maintained its status as the largest and dominant party in the Italian Parliament and the Italian government, and the Prime Minister in every one of Italy's 36 governments since 1945 has been a Christian
Democrat.14 (Table 1) Along with its great success among religiously-based parties, the DC has a special nature in relation to the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic Church, which I earlier suggested is a strong basis for the forma tion of religious parties in Western Europe, has its supra national headquarters in Italy's capital city, Rome. Along with his responsibilities as supreme leader of the worldwide
Catholic Church, the Pope, who for the past several centur ies has always been an Italian native, is more specifically the Bishop of Rome and the Primate of Italy. The social and political interests of the Church are thus especially 8
TABLE 1
PERCENTAGE OF THE POPULAR VOTE IN SEVEN NATIONAL ELECTIONS IN ITALY, 1946-1972*
Parties Elections 1946b 1948c 1953 1958 1963 1968d 1972e
PCI 18.9% (31.0) 22.6 22.7 25.3 26.9 27.2 PSIUP • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • « 4.5 1.9 PSI (31.0) 12.7 14.2 13.8 9.6 20.7% 14.5 PSDI 7.1 4.5 4.5 6.1 5.1 PRI 4.4% 2.5 1.6 1.4 1.4 2.0 2.9 DC 35.2% 48.5 40.1 42.4 38.3 39.1 38.8 PLI 6.8% 3.8 3.0 3.5 7.0 5.8 3.9 MON 2.8% 2.8 6.9 4.8 1.7 1.3 8.7 MSI • • • • 2.0% 5.8 4.8 5.1 4.5 i* others 11.2% 2.3 2.8 1.7 1.3 1.4 1.9
^This table was adopted, v/ith slight modifications, from Alberto Spreafico, "Le elezioni politiche italiane di 17 maggio," Rivista Italians di Scienze Politica 2 (Decem ber 1972): 525-568. The table is on page 553.
bThe PSI and the PSDI were united in 1946 as the Partito Socialista di Unita Proletario.
°The PSI and PCI were united in 1948 as the Popular Front.
dThe PSI and PSDI were united in the 1968 elections as the Partito Socialista Unificato. They had joined to gether in 1966 and split shortly after the 1968 elections. The PSIUP was composed of people who had split from the PSI.
eThe MSI and Monarchists were united in the 1972 election and continue to be united now. Shortly after the 1972 election the PSIUP disbanded because of its poor show ing in the election. visible and considered important responsibilities in the
case of Italy, the home of the Church's center and the coun
try of origin of many of the leading officials in its hier
archy. The Italian Christian Democratic Party, in sum, is
a major example of a religiously-based party, and, in addi
tion, it has certain special characteristics, i.e., its
dominant party status and its location at the center of the
Catholic Church in Rome.^®
In order to provide a brief background of political
« Catholicism in Italy as well as to illustrate some of the
factors involved in the origins of Western European relig
ious parties, given the understanding that the development
of each of these parties was somewhat different in response
to specific national conditions, I will now provide a con
cise history of Christian Democracy in Italy and its ante
cedents beginning with the unification of the country. The
Italian state began its existence in intransigent hostility
and conflict with the leadership of the Catholic Church.
Prior to the unification of the entire Italian peninsula
under the leadership of the King and the Prime Minister of
Piedmont and Sardinia, the papacy controlled much of the
central part of Italy. With the unification the Pope lost
all temporal power except for his control of the city of
Rome. Finally, in 1870, Rome was stormed by the Italian
troops, and the Pope was forced to limit his temporal auth
ority to that one-sixth of a square mile which composes ia
Vatican City. In this period much Church property through
out Italy was confiscated by the state, and Rome was made the
capital city of unified Italy.
The late nineteenth century was a period of debate within the Catholic community over conciliation versus in
transigence and over whether Catholics should participate in
the politics of Italy. Pope Pius IX (1846-1878) led the
Catholic Church at a time when its prerogatives and temporal authority were in conflict with Liberalism throughout Eur ope. The Catholic movement developed more slowly in Italy than in Germany, Austria, and Belgium in this period, but in 1874 the fix*st Catholic Congresses, an intransigent movement of Italian Catholics under the auspices of the C. Church, was organized and strongly opposed the state on the
"Roman Question".16 The 1870's and 1880's were a period of continued hostility between the Church and the Liberal Ital- \ ian State. Pius IX in 1867 had advised Catholics that it would be "inexpedient" (non expedit) for them to vote or to participate in the politics of the Liberal State, but Pope
Leo XIII (1878-1903), his successor, in 1895, made this counsel a prohibition against voting. Some favored a Cath olic mass party to combat the liberals for political power, particularly with the continued broadening of the suffrage beginning with 1882. Others viewed the Catholic Congresses only as an arm of the Church to battle against the Liberal
State and believed that non-cooperation would eventually 11 force the state to relent. As the Church and the State entered the twentieth century, therefore, more and more Cath olics began to participate in politics, and the compulsory prohibition against voting was relaxed in some cases. Pope.
Leo died, however, with the basic issue unresolved and papered over in vague compromise between opposing Catholic groups. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, another meaningful factor entered the picture. Italy was then in a period of industrialization, and the number of urban work ing class individuals was steadily growing. At the same
time the Italian Socialist Party was formed in 1892, and
the anti-clerical left was perceived as a new and possibly K greater threat to the Church. Rerum Novarum ("Of New
Things"), an 1891 papal encyclical, marked an early recog nition of the Church's need to deal with the social issues
related to industrialization and gave rise to more Catholic
involvement in unions and social programs. The Church did not want to lose the entire working class to the parties of
the left.
The new Pope, Pius X, (1903-1914) did not allow a
Catholic party when he came into office, but, in the 1904 election, Pius X eased, although he did not abrogate, the prohibition against political participation. In some important areas Catholics were allowed to vote, and a few
Catholics, although not as representatives of the Church 12 or lay religious groups sponsored by the Church, were per mitted to run for the office of deputy in the Parliament.
By 1909 further relaxation of the ban took place, and 38
Catholic deputies were elected. In 1913, with universal male suffrage now making the question of voting by the Catholic masses more significant, the "Gentilioni Pact" was nego tiated between the Liberal Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti and Count Gentilioni, the leader of the Catholic Electoral
Union, with the approval of Pope Pius X. This electoral agreement provided that Catholic voters would support Lib eral candidates against the Socialists in return for the private promise of understanding by the government for
Catholic views and interests. In this case Catholic voters were in essence being manipulated by the Church and its c organizations to further the purposes of the Pope.^
With the fear of the anti-clerical left on one hand and the realization that intransigence would not bring down the Liberal State and restore the Pope's temporal power, on the other hand, the post-World War I period witnessed the final abolition of the prohibition against Catholic political activity and the formation of a Catholic mass party, the Italian Popular Party, led by a Sicilian priest named Don Luigi Sturzo. The Popular Party was composed of several factions on the left, right, and center which open ly differed on the social positions the party should take and on the issue of independence from the Church hierarchy 13 and the papacy. Sturzo himself favored a more progressive, democratic stand on social questions and autonomy from the
Church.18
The Popular Party's existence was short lived 1919 it won 20.5% of the vote for the Chamber of Deputies. Among single parties this was second only to the 34.5% of the vote gained by the Socialists. The various Liberal and conservative groupings together only achieved 36.0%, a drop from 61.0% in 1913 and 73.7% in 1900. Since these Liberal and conservative groups were the backbone of the government, this meant that the traditional elites would have to coop erate with the Catholics or that the two mass parties, the t* Popular Party and the Socialists, would have to join to gether in a coalition. The first option, although tried in the 1919-1922 period, never worked very well due to the mutual distrust which was a residue of the years of intran sigent Church-State conflict, and the Catholic-Socialist alternative was never successfully negotiated. The economic unrest and dislocation in 1922 and a government unable to effectively govern led to the ascension of Mussolini and Fascism into power in late 1922. For the first two years of Fascism, Popular-Socialist cooperation might have saved democracy, but strong Church opposition to this alliance and disavowal of the actions of the Popular Party even- 19 tually resulted in the party's collapse. More than 14 fifty years had passed from the papacy's loss of Rome and intransigence toward the Liberal Italian state until the Church's removal of support from the Popular Party and hopes of settlement of the Roman Question with the Fascist state. The Catholic Church had undergone major internal debates about whether there should be Catholic political participa tion and what form this participation should take over the years. In the Fascist period the Lateran Pact of 1929, the Concordat between the Italian state and the Roman Catholic Church, made Italy a confessional state and Catholicism the only religion of that state. Territorial rights to Vatican City and the other Church properties throughout Italy, the upholding of the independent status of the clergy vis-a-vis the state, and the recognition of Church rights in matters of the family and education firmly secured the Church's position and superseded the previous actions of the Liberal State. With the death of the Popular Party in 1925 and the existence of Fascism as the only legitimate party until its defeat in World War II, Catholic political work was sub merged. Catholic Action and other associations of the Cath olic subculture, however, were permitted to function under the Concordat and provided the training ground for the future leaders of the DC. In 1943 Catholic political action re-emerged as part of the anti-Fascist Resistance. From 1943 until 1947, first on the National Committee for- Liberation and then in the government, Catholics, now under the banner of the Christian Democratic Party, participated with the entire range of anti-Fascists comprising all political groups from the Communists to the Liberals. With the introduction of universal suffrage for women as well as men, the support of the Church, and the major role played by Catholic political leaders in the Resistance, the DC emerged as the largest party in post-war Italy. This party had closer ties to the Church than Sturzo ever desired, due particularly to its reliance on the Catholic organizational framework to build the DC's electorate and to the socialization of many of the Catholic politicians in Catholic Action and other Church organizations during Fascism. ‘ In the 1946 elections for the Constituent Assembly which would draw up the Italian Constitution, the Christian Democrats gained 35.2% of the vote. By 1948, with the breaking apart of the Popular Front in the previous year and the intensification of the Cold War, the election centered on the Catholic/Communist polarization. The DC gained 48.5% of the votes and an absolute majority of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies. In the five year period until the next election in 1953, however, the DC leader Alcide de Gasperi felt that it was wise to include other center parties in his government. Since then the DC has gotten between approximately 38% and 42% in the national 16 elections and has maintained its leading position among Italian parties in the governing coalition. In the late 1940's and the 1950's the coalition governments usually in cluded the DC, the Social Democrats, the Italian Republican Party, and the Italian Liberal Party or some combination of these parties. By the late 1950's and the early 1960's a major issue was whether there should be an "opening to the left" which would bring the Italian Socialist Party into the government. Many Church leaders and many in the right wing factions of the DC opposed this, but, by 1963, with the changed atmosphere due to Pope John XXIII, the "open ing to the left" became a reality. In the entire period since 1945 there has been great instability, due both to differences among-psrties and differences among factions- 4 within the DC, in the government. There have been 36 governments with an average existence of less than nine months in post-World War II Italy. Previous Writings on the Italian Christian Demo cratic Party There are major substantive reasons for carrying out this study. These concern the importance of religion as a major political cleavage and the significance of religiously- based parties in Western Europe. There are also important literature and methodological factors which are vital con siderations, particularly with reference to the existing body of writings on the DC. 17 The DC has received much attention from Italian polit ical scientists as well as from some non-Italian scholars. A first major topic in this literature centers around the his tory of political Catholicism and the major philosophical trends within the Catholic movement in the pre-Fascist per iod, the Resistance, and the post-World War II period. This body of literature also includes a discussion of the rela tion of the papacy and the Catholic Church to this political 20 history. Another often treated topic with relation to the DC is the factionalism present in the party, including the reasons, such as personal leaders, local groupings, or ideo logical views, for this factionalism and an identification of what factions exist and what their alternative positions 21 on issues and political strategy are.. Other writings dis cuss the organizational structure of the Christian Demo cratic Party and the structure of the Catholic sub-culture 22 and its organizations, such as Catholic Action. Finally, there are studies, analytic articles, and sections of text- 23 books which deal with the bases of mass support for the DC. There are several important methodological questions related to this last group of writings about the DC. First of all, the study of the mass bases of support for the DC has received inadequate attention, and many of the explana tions given for this mass support have been offered by scholars without the presentation of data to test their speculations. Secondly, much of the research which has 18 been done on the popular bases of DC support utilizes only 25 ecological data and techniques in its analyses. This creates two basic problems. The first is the possibility 26 of the ecological fallacy. A second difficulty with this type of research is that it is impossible to answer ques tions which involve attitudes and behavior because of the aggregate nature of the data. Important attitudinal and behavioral variables which are not normally part of aggre gate data include the respondent's party identification, the father's party identification, the level of political information, self-placement on a left-right political spec trum, degree of felt religiosity, degree of church attend ance, and reasons for liking one's party. These variables and numerous others have been widely used in voting be-, havior research to transcend sociological models and to tap dimensions which are important to the study of the popular support of religiously-based parties. There has been relatively little survey research on the mass bases of the DC electorate. The most recent sur- 27 vey research is that of Barnes and Sani. Their research has focused on the bases of the popular support for Italian parties more generally and has not included too much de tailed analysis of the explanations given for the popular support of the Christian Democrats specifically. There are problems with many of the previous stud ies which have used survey data. They have had inadequate samples for the analysis of the DC's popular support. For 2 8 example, Poggi's Le preferenze politiche degli italiani and Hazelrigg, in his article "Religious and Class Bases 29 of Political Conflict in Italy," have only used male respondents due to the infrequency of women revealing their party preference or to the nature of the sampling frame. Since it is widely contended that three-fifths to two- thirds of the DC electorate consists of women and because of the possibility of alternative explanations for the pro- DC voting behavior of men and women, women should be in cluded in a study of the DC electorate. Spreafico, in studying the vote in the 1958 election, used a sample which included only respondents from five cities in Tus- ( cany and Emilia, two regions in the "Red Belt" of Central Italy where the DC's strength is below its national aver- 30 age. Another problem in some surveys is substantial underrepresentation of the parties due to the reticence of Italian respondents to reveal their vote or party iden tification. For example, in the Almond and Verba The 31 Civic Culture survey approximately three-quarters of the Italian respondents refused to tell their vote. This prob lem has been more severe for research on the parties of the left and the right, apparently because of the image of less social acceptability, but in some cases the number of respondents for all of the parties is relatively low. 20 Apart from the inadequacy of the samples in many ar ticles, many of the explanations for the DC popular support 32 have been tested with only bivariate tables and no controls. There have been no exhaustive studies which attempt to inte grate the alternative explanations and hypotheses into one model. These same articles have also tended to use only demographic variables such as sex, class, or age and not to handle attitudinal and behavioral variables in depth. The demographic variables are certainly important, but they are only a part of the picture. In summary, I have shown the importance of the DC as an example of a religiously-based party and the need for further study on the bases of its support to provide empiri cal support for or to cast dcubt on -the- extant generaliza tions about religiously-based parties in general and the DC in particular. The data to be employed in this dissertation are pri marily drawn from two Italian national surveys carried out in the post-election periods of 1968 and 1972, together with some limited analysis from the Almond and Verba Civil Culture survey. 33 Purpose of this Dissertation The first major purpose of this dissertation will be to test alternative explanations and hypotheses, some of which are complementary, some of which are competing, which 21 have been offered in the literature to account for the pop ular support of religiously-based parties in general and the Italian Christian Democrats in particular. Some of these explanations pertain to all members of the electorate, while others are relevant only for sub-groups of the voting pub lic. I will now briefly outline these explanations while reserving the in-depth discussion of them for the data analysis chapters. I have discussed the importance of religion as a polit ical cleavage and the similar religious origins of several political parties in Western Europe. With this focus on the common characteristic of religion, the first major ex planation to be tested concerns the importance of religious attxtudes and behavior and the religious sub-culture as factors in the popular support for the Christian Democrats. Religion has commonly been employed in three basic ways in research: (1) different religious groups (Protest ant, Catholic, Jewish, Moslem, etc.); (2) clerical/anti- clerical divisions; and (3) the practicing individual as opposed to those who are indifferent to religion. Rose and Urwin, in fact, used these three definitions in testing the relative importance of religion as a political cleavage com pared with the other divisions suggested by Lipset and Rokkan, i.e., class, urban-rural differences, and ethnic/ linguistic cleavages. The most common operationaliza tions for the religious factor employed in voting behavior 22 studies include religious group membership, degree of church attendance,.self-perception of religiosity, adherence to the political views of the clergy, and membership in church-spon sored organizations. Religion will be analyzed in several different ways in this dissertation. I will first deal with variables related to the individual's religious attitudes and behavior. Some scholars, particularly those such as Glock.who special ize in studying the sociology of religion, hypothesize that the religious commitment of an individual is divided into conceptually different attitudinal and behavioral dimen- 35 stions. I will assess the relative strength of the rela tionship between several religious dimensions and party preference, which Clock calls the consequential dimensionw of the effects of religion in other sectors of life such as the political world. These dimensions include the rit ualistic factor, church attendance, and the experiential dimension, self-perception of degree of religiosity. I will also examine the role of deference to the clergy and its political orientations. Along with these individual religious factors, I will analyze the effects of the religious sub-culture. Variables included here are the strength of the Christian Democratic political tradition in the respondent's commune and the length of his exposure to this community influence, organ izational memberships within the group of Catholic 23 associations such as the CISL trade union, the Coldiretti Agricultural Association, or Catholic Action, and the read ing of Catholic newspapers. The examination of these relig ious factors will culminate with an assessment of the rela tive contribution of each religious variable and the inter action of the individual and sub-cultural religious factors. A second major explanation relates to the centrist position of a religious party as the moderate defender of the status quo against the political extremes of commun ism and neo-fascism. I will test for the relationship of variables which tap the factors of salience of governmen tal stability, importance of political freedom, and sig nificance given to the protection of the democratic pro cess with DC support to ascertain whether the moderation c explanation is especially applicable to the Christian Democrats. Because this explanation is often mentioned with regard to one sub-group of the electorate, the middle class, I will compare the impact of the moderation factor on the DC vote among the various class groups. A further test of the relationship of centrism to the DC vote will involve an examination of the spatial placement of the DC electors compared with other voters on a left-right polit ical spectrum. The assessment of the moderation explanation will conclude with an examination of the relative importance of anti-communism to the Christian Democratic popular support. 24 This problem will be approached from two perspectives: (1) as part of a more generalized attitude of moderation in op position to the political extremes of both the left and the rights; and (2) as a result of Catholicism and clerical op position to what many of these churchmen perceive to be the atheist, anti-clerical Italian Communist Party. The third major explanation for the popular support of religiously-based parties is their interclassist appeal, i.e., the multi-class nature of their support. I first will examine various explanations given for the voting behavior of separate class groups and then- ascertain whether there is an overarching pattern which transcends class in draw ing voters to a religiously-based party. Because of the religious inspiration of these parties and their stated . philosophy of drawing support from all class groups rather than appealing only to any one status group, religion is obviously the most logical variable to be tested as an ex planation crossing class boundaries. Of particular interest will be the ability of the Christian Democrats and other religiously-based parties to attract a substantial minority of the working class votes in competition with parties which make a specifically work ing class appeal. Hypotheses to be tested in this regard will relate to the party identification and class member ship of each respondent's father, the level of individual income, the degree of subjective satisfaction with living 25 conditions, and subjective identification with the middle class. In an expansion of the analysis on the middle class and the moderation explanation, my examination of the multi class nature of the DC will also focus on a full assessment of the characteristics of the middle class DC electorate compared with the n o n - D C middle class. Of special concern will be a comparison of the old middle classes (artisans, shopkeepers, etc.) with the new middle classes (white col lar workers, clerks, etc.) in terms of their economic roles, traditions, political attitudes, and voting behavior. A fourth explanation related to the popular support for religious parties is actually somewaht a part of the interclassist appeal just discussed. This involves the • < agrarian support, particularly among small farmers, which is associated with separate agrarian parties in the Scan dinavian countries. The reason for treating this separate ly is that it is hypothesized by most scholars that the small farmers give proportionately more support to the Chris tian Democrats than any other occupational group does. A second and related justification for considering this as a separate broad explanation for the success of religious parties is the suggestion that they tend to draw their sup port more from rural areas than urban areas. Many research ers, such as Juan Linz in his examination of rural individ uals in West Germany, discuss the traditionalist nature of 26 these people and the magical quality they attach to the religious -adherence. ^ After testing for the degree of DC support within the different groups of the rural population and ascertaining the attitudes and characteristics.related to.this behavior, I will expand this phase of my analysis by testing for urban-rural differences in terms of style and degree of religious commitment and demographic and attitudinal char acteristics of the two groups. A fifth general explanation relates to the trad itionalism of women and their political backwardness in terms of lack of political interest and lack of political information. The basic problem to be considered is whether the religious commitment-is anadequate explanation for t voting behavior of women or whether there are other fac tors related to an overall traditionalism which are also important in understanding the support women give to the DC, i.e., approximately two-thirds of the DC electorate. Duver- ger and Dogan have both talked of the traditionalist ethos of the home and of the isolation from the political sphere which may be the result of the lack of political discussion 37 and political stimuli from outside this home environment. Political backwardness, whether the individual woman works outside the home, and similar variables will be em ployed in an attempt to test for the traditionalism factor and to determine its relationship to or separateness from 27 from the religious explanation for female support for relig ious parties. This phase of my analysis will also examine the social deprivation hypothesis suggested by Glock and Stark. They hypothesize that those individuals who are socially deprived in terms of lacking the desired attributes of society, i.e., being male, being well-educated, and being young, are more likely to be religious. The sixth general explanation relates to the age factor in the sense of both life cycle differences and gen erational divergencies. First, with respect to the social deprivation hypothesis and the effects of aging on relig ious and political behavior, this dissertation will exam ine the relationship between age and party preference and C. will then analyze the joint and/or separate effects of sex and age. Generational differences, particularly in terms of attitudes toward communism, and degree of intergenera- tional transmission of party identification, will also be tested. In summary, I will examine a large number of spec ific hypotheses drawn from the literature on religious political parties in general, and Italian Christian Democ racy specifically which relate to the six basic sets of explanations I have identified. In brief these six are the religious factor, the moderation explanation, the inter- classist appeal, the agrarian/rural support, the trad itionalism of women and their political backwardness, and 28 the age factor in terms of life cycle and generational dif ferences . A second major purpose of this dissertation and com plement to an examination of the factors which explain the support for religious parties is an. assessment of the .im pact of religion as a limit on the, expansion of the popular support for a religiously-based party. Catholicism is cer tainly a positive factor in attracting voters, but. it has also been called a "limiting framework" which excludes cer tain voters from a party whose uniting principle is its 39 clericalism. I will identify the proportion of the elec torate which states that it would never vote for the DC and then ascertain the impact of religious attitudes and be havior on these negative-feelings toward the religious c party. In addition to the separate analyses of the alterna tive explanations for the popular support of the DC, the third major facet of this dissertation will involve the construction of a multivariate model of the DC vote in order to make an integrated, overall assessment of the relative potency of these various explanations. As I men tioned in my review of the present literature on the popu lar support for the DC, no one has considered these alter native explanations together in an exhaustive and compre hensive manner. By including all the major variables in one model and by comparing the DC voters with non-DC voters, the continued significance of the religious factors in differentiating between voters for religious parties and those for other parties will be made clearer. A fourth major focus of this dissertation, which will be examined throughout the data analysis chapters, is an assessment of the durability of the religious cleavage in political party systems and the problems of religiously- based parties in maintaining their electoral support under the stress of secularization, urbanization, and other societal changes as modernization.takes place. At the pre sent there seems to be little evidence of temporal erosion of Christian Democratic support. Since 1953 the DC vote has varied between 42.4% and 38.3% in the parliamentary c. elections. Only the 1948 election, which followed the dis solution of the Popular Front coalition, the worsening of the Cold War, and the internal polarization of the Italian electorate in terms of Communism/Catholicism, has been an exception to the basic post-World War II pattern. The fut ure implications of societal modernization for the DC have, however, been raised by scholars. . Among these changes in society, many, first of all, have suggested that there is an overall decline in relig iosity and church attendance and in the secular authority of the Church. The important question here is whether or not there will be a loss of formerly religiously-inspired support for religiously-based political parties. Secondly, as I have mentioned above, it is hypothes ized that many religiously-based political parties in West ern Europe have an important agrarian component. With the reduction of the agrarian sector of the economy and the in creasing urbanization of the population, this change in the economic and residential profile of the electorate becomes an important political consideration to a religious party which depends on agrarian support as well as to its oppon ents which also have significant rural popularity. The relevance of urbanization is suggested in the writings of Linz and Lenski.^0 These scholars contend that a large city heightens intra-class communication, hypothesized to be beneficial to leftist parties which make class-oriented appeals, and that a small town increases inter-class c communication, which is hypothesized to be better for the "interclassist" religious parties. Third, expanding educational opportunities may also bring changes among groups hypothesized to be supportive of religiously-based parties. This can be related to pre vious findings on three topics: (1) that women tend to be more religious and to support religious parties more than men; (2) that women tend to have lower political interest, lower political involvement, and lower political informa tion; and (3) that a higher level of education is related to increased political interest, political involvement, and political information. These hypotheses will be tested and 31 their relationship to the electoral support for the DC will be examined in the section of this dissertation which focuses on women. The question here, therefore, is whether increas ing educational opportunities will decrease the political backwardness of women and possibly lessen their pro-DC vot ing. Finally, one other factor, closely related to the one just discussed, which might tend to lessen DC support is changes in attitudes toward the role of women in society. More women may begin to work outside the family environ ment, which may increase the heterogeneity of the political stimuli they receive and expose working women to other than what Duverger and Dogan have called the traditionalist ethos of the home.4'*' ' < While these are some trends which may decrease the support for religiously-based parties over time, there is one factor which may act to stabilize and maintain support for these parties. A possible generational change, which I alluded to earlier, is that, with the "freezing" of the basic alternatives in the Italian political party system, there may be greater stability in intergenerational trans mission of party identification from parents to children. This may become more and more pronounced as the party sys tem ages and the party identifications become more in grained in the electorate. Party identification, found to be a major explanatory variable in the United States and 32 Great Britain, may become increasingly significant in the Italian party system which has been "frozen" since the early 1950's. In contrast with trends which might create problems for the continued maintenance of support for the DC, an in crease in the intergenerational transmission of Party ID might serve to conserve the existing political tendencies within the Italian electorate. In summary, this dissertation will test the alter native explanations given for the vote of religiously- based parties in general and the DC in particular, will examine the factors which limit the expansion of a relig ious party, will construct a multivariate model to inte grate the various explanations given, and will analyze trends which may tend to erode or maintain the support for religious parties over time. 33 Notes - Chapter 1 Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan, "Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, and Voter Alignments: An Intro duction," in Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan, eds., Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspec tives (New York City: The Free Press, 1967), pp. 1-67. 2 Richard Rose and Derek Urwin, “Social Cohesion, Political Parties, and Strains in Regimes," Comparative Political Studies II (April 1969):7-67. An abridged ver sion is reprinted in Mattei Dogan and Richard Rose, eds., European Politics (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1971), pp. 217-237. 3 For recent examples of research in several differ ent nations which employed the religious factor, see Richard Rose, ed., Electoral Behavior: A Comparative Hand book (New York City: The Free Press, 1974). An extensive work which examines the impact of religion in American politics is Gerhard Lenski, The Religious Factor (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1963). A K- Gordon smith, Politics in Western Europe (New tfork City: Holmes and Meier, Inc., 1973), pp. 21-30. 5 Leon D. Epstein, Political Parties in Western Democracies (New York City: Praeger Publishers, 1972), p. 30. ®The nature of Christian Democratic parties is dis cussed in Michael P. Fogarty, Christian Democracy in West ern Europe (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1957); Hans Maier, Revolution and Church (Notre Dame; University of Notre Dame Press, 1965); Margot Lyon, "Christian Democratic Parties and Politics," The Journal of Contemporary History 2 (October 1967):69-87; and Mario Einaudi and Francois Goguel, Christian Democracy in Italy and France (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1957) . Klaus Epstein, "The Zentrum Party in the Weimar Republic," The Journal of Modern History 39 (June 1967): 160-163. 34 ®Lyon, pp. 72-73. Q Val R. Lorwin, "Segmented Pluralism: Ideological Cleavages and Political Cohesion in the Smaller European Democracies," Comparative Politics 3 (January 1971), p. 142. ^ A n early discussion of the concept of political sub cultures can be found in Gabriel Almond, "Comparative Political Systems," The Journal of Politics XVIII (1956): 391-409. On Austrian "lager" see Frederick Engelmann, "Austria: The Pooling of Oppositions," in Robert A. Dahl, ed., Political Oppositions in Western Democracies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), pp. 260-283 and Fred erick C. Engelmann and Mildred A. Schwartz, "Partisan Sta bility and the Continuity of a Segmented Society: The Aus trian Case," American Journal of Sociology 79 (January 1974):948-966. On the Netherlands, see llans Daalder, "The Netherlands: Opposition in a Segmented Society," in Dahl, ed., pp. 188-236 and Arend Lijphart, The Politics of Accom modation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands (Berk eley: University of California Press, 196 8). On the sub cultures in Italy, see Samuel Barnes, "Italy: Oppositions on Left, Right, and Center," in Dahl, ed., pp. 301-331. 13 <- Seymour Martin Lipset, Revolution and Counterrev olution (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1970), p. 219. 12Smith, p. 22. ^■2Rose and Urwin in Dogan and Rose, eds., p. 225. *4A good history of Italy in the period from 1943 to 1968 is Giuseppe Mammarella, L'ltalia dopo il fascismo: 1943-1968 (Bologna, Italy: il Mulino, 1970). 150n the importance of the papacy in Italy, see Lyon, p. 86. On the DC as a dominant party, see Alan Arian and Samuel II. Barnes, "The Dominant Party System: A Neglected Model of Democratic Stability," (Mimeo, The University of Michigan, 1973). ^Richard A. Webster, The Cross and the Fasces (Stan- . ford, California: Stanford University Press, I960), pp. 3-4. ■^Webster, pp. 12-16. Fogarty, p. 322. *®Einaudi and Goguel, pp. 8-13. Webster, pp. 52-55. 35 19 Einaudi and Goguel, pp. 13-24. Webster, pp. 57- 106. 20 Einaudi and Goguel, passim. Fogarty, pp. 313-329. Webster, passim. Gianfranco Poggi, "The Church in Italian Politics, 1945-1950," in S.J. Woolf, ed., The Rebirth of Italy, 1943-1950 (London; Longman Group Ltd., 1972), pp. 135-155. Leicester Webb, Church and State in Italy, 19 47- 1957 (Victoria, Australia: Melbourne University Press, 1258). Alfonso Prandi, Chiesa e politica: La Gerarchia e l'impegno politico dei cattolicx i t a I r a n i (Bologna: IT Mulino, 1968). 21 F. Roy Willis, Italy Chooses Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 252-235. Raphael Zar- iski, "Intra-Party Conflict in a Dominant Party: The Exper ience of Italian Christian Democracy," The Journal of Politics XVIII (February 1965):3-34. Alan Zuckerman, "On the Institutionalization of Political Clienteles: Party Factions and Cabinet Coalitions in Italy." Paper delivered at the 1973 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association in New Orleans, Louisiana, September 4-8, 19 73. 22 ‘ < Gianfranco Poqgi, Catholic Action in Italy (Stan ford: Stanford 'University Press, 1967) Giorgio Galli and Alfonso Prandi, Patterns of Political Participation in Italy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), pp. 16 8- 195. Joseph LaPalombara, Interest Groups in Italian Pol- itics (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1964). 23 There are many articles which deal with voting be havior in Italy. Their findings and methods will be dis cussed throughout this dissertation. They include: Giacomo Sani, "Determinants of Party Preference in Italy: Toward the Integration of Complementary Models," American Journal of Political Science XVIII (May 1974), forthcoming. Gia como Sani, "A Test of the Least Distance Model of Voting Choice: Italy, 1972," Comparative Political Studies (July 19 74), forthcoming. Samuel H. Barnes, "Italy: Religion and Class in Electoral Behavior," in Rose, ed., Electoral Behav ior: A Comparative Handbook, pp. 171-226. Samuel Barnes, ‘‘Left, Right, and the Italian Voter," Comparative Political Studies IV (July 1971):157-176. Samuel Barnes and Roy Pierce/ "Public Opinion and Political Preference in France and Italy," Midwest Journal of Political Science XV (Novem ber 1971):643-660. Lawrence E . Hazelrigg, hReligious and 36 Class Bases of Political Conflict in Italy," American Journal of Sociology 75 (January 1970):496-511. Vittorio Capecchi and Giorgio Galli, "Determinants of Voting Behavior in Italy: A Linear Causal Model of Analysis," in Mattei Dogan and Stein Rokkan, eds. Quantitative Ecological Analysis in the Social Sciences (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1969), pp. 235-283. Galli and Prandi, pp. 166-226. Gianfranco Poggi, Le preferenze politiche degli italiane (Bologna: il Mulino, 1968) 1 Mattei Dogan, "Political Cleavage and Social Stratification in France and Italy," in Lipset and Rokkan, eds., Party Systems and Voter Alignments, pp. 129-195. Mat tei Dogan, "La stratificazione sociale dei suffragi," in Alberto Spreafico and Josepn LaPalombara, eds., Elezioni e comportamento politico in Italia, pp. 407-474. Mattei Dogan, “Le donne italiane tra il cattolicesimo e il marxismo," in Spreafico and LaPalombara, eds., pp. 475-494. Alberto Spreafico, "Orientameiito politico e identificazione parti- tica," in Spreafico and LaPalombara, eds., pp. 689-731. Murray Edelman, "Sources of Popular Support for the Italian Christian Democratic Party in the Postwar Decade," Midwest Journal of Political Science II (May 1958):143-159. Joseph LaPalombara, "Political Party Systems and Crisis Govern ments: French and Italian Contrasts," Midwest Journal of Political Science II (May 1958):117-142. - ‘ <• • See the books on Christian Democracy in footnote 6, for example. 2^Capecchi and Galli. Galli and Prandi. See also many of the findings in Dogan's research reported in Lipset and Rokkan, eds., and in Spreafico and LaPalombara, eds. 26 W.S. Robinson, "Ecological Correlations and the Behavior of Individuals," American Sociological Review 15 (1950):351-357. See also Theodore W. ileckstroth, "Ecolog- ical Inference and the Disaggregation of Individual Decis ions," (Mimeo, Ohio State University, 1973). 27 See the Sani and Barnes articles noted in footnote 23. o 1 Gianfranco Poggi, Le preferenze politiche degli italia. (Bologna: il Mulino, 1968). 29 Lawrence Hazelrigg, "Religious and Class Bases of Political Conflict in Italy," American Journal of Sociology 75 (January 1970):496-507. 37 30 Spreafico in Spreafico and LaPalombara, eds. 31 Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1963). 32Edelman. 33 The 1972 survey was conducted jointly by Giacomo Sani and Samuel H. Barnes; Barnes carried out the 1968 study alone. In both surveys a stratified random sample of elect ors was employed. The interviewing was done by C.I.S.E.R. of Rome in 196 8 and Fieldwork s.r.l. of Milan in 1972. The research done with these surveys includes the Sani and Barnes studies cited in footnote 23. 34 Lipset and Rokkan in Lipset and Rokkan, eds. 35 Charles Y. Glock, "On the Study of Religious Com mitment," Research Supplement to Religious Education 42 (July-August 1962): 98-110. See also Joseph E. Faulkner and Gordon F. DeJong, "Religiosity in 5-D: Am Empirical Analysis," Social Forces 45 (December 1966):246-254. <. 36 Juan J. Linz, The Social Bases of West German Politics (Ph.D. Dissertation. Columbia University, 1959), Chapter 24, "The Politics of Farmers," and particularly pp. 779-780. 37 Dogan in Lipset and Rokkan, eds, and Dogan in Spreafico and LaPalombara, eds. Maurice Duverger, The Polit ical Role of Women (Paris: UNESCO, 1955), pp. 127-129. 38 Charles Y. Glock and Rodney Stark, Religion and Society in Tension (Chicago: Rand McNally and Co., 1365), p. 17. See also "Stefan Christopher, John Fearon, John McCoy, and Charles Nobbe, "Social Deprivation and Religios- ity," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 10 (Winter 1971):385-392. For a comment on this hypothesis, see James E. Dittes, "Conceptual Deprivation and Statistical Rigor," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 10 (Winter 1971):393-395. “ 39 P. Allum, "Italy," in Stanley Henig and John Pmder, eds., European Political Parties (London: George Allen and Unwin /Ltd., 1969), pp. 193-255. 38 40 Lenski, pp. 8-12. Linz, Chapter 24, "The Politics of Farmers." 41 Dogan in Lipset and Rokkan, eds., pp. 162-165. Dogan in Spreafico and LaPalombara, eds., pp. 486-492. See also Duverger. CHAPTER II THE RELIGIOUS EXPLANATION God is concerned with the whole of men's lives: on at least this one point all the churches agree. He is not merely the Lord of the Sabbath, but is equal ly concerned with men's activities the other six days of the week: their work, their play, their politics, their family life.! This chapter will examine the religious explanation for the support of the Christian Democratic Party within the Italian electorate. I will first explore the relation ship between several dimensions of the individual religious commitment and the support for the DC. I will also examine c. the impact of attitudes toward the clergy, the deference factor, and positions on important political issues with religious overtones, such as divorce. Along with these re ligious attitudes and behavior, I will study the impor tance of the religious sub-culture in terms of both the local political tradition and the organizational network of the Catholic Church. Further sections of this chapter will focus on the comparative impact of religion on the Christian Democratic vote in the North and the South of Italy, on the importance of Catholicism as a "limiting framework" which cuts off certain segments of the elector- 2 ate from a party whose nature is religious, and on secu larization. 39 40 Party preference will be treated in this dissertation as a dichotomous variable. The two basic categories will be the Christian Democratic and non-Christian Democratic re spondents. This is especially appropriate for my analyses because the Christian Democratic Party is the only relig iously-based party in Italy and because of what LaPalombara 3 calls "the polarizing impact of Catholicism.11 The Impact of the Individual Religious Commitment Most voting behavior studies using religion as an explanatory factor have commonly employed only a single indicator of the individual's religious commitment. Most often this single variable has been the frequency of church attendance or the religious group membership, depending upon which is relevant to the particular political system being studied. It is likely, of course, that in most cases only one indicator is available to those doing survey research. However, the use of a single variable to represent the whole series of religious attitudes and behaviors has been ques tioned by some scholars and in particular by several who study the sociology of religion. Charles Glock, one of the scholars who prefers a more differentiated view of the religious factor, has suggested that there are five major dimensions of the individual's religious commitment.^ He calls these dimensions: (1) the experiential, which refers to feelings, emotions, or sensations toward religion; (2) the ideological, which pertains to the beliefs about religion held by the indiv idual; (3) the ritualistic, which consists of the specific ally religious practices required of an adherent, such as worship and prayer; (4) the intellectual, which refers to the individual's knowledge of the basic tenets of his faith; and (5) the consequential, which is composed of the secular effects of the individual's religious experience, beliefs, practice, and knowledge and which Glock argues is different in kind from the other four dimensions. In a study of religion among a group of American college students, Faulk ner and DeJong used these five dimensions and found that there is a basis for talking about these five diverse facets - of religion. They suggested that there*is an important need for further research employing these dimensions of religion. The 1972 Italian data which I will use in this dis sertation contain indicators for three of these dimensions; the 1968 data has measures of only two of these dimensions. The dependent variable of this study, i.e., support for the Christian Democratic party, is an important example of the consequential dimension. The individual's attitude toward government policy on divorce is another example of a con sequential factor. Self-perception of religiosity is an experiential factor, while the frequency of church attend ance is a major example of the ritualistic dimension. No measures are available for the ideological and intellectual 42 dimensions. I believe that the latter dimension in partic ular is not very meaningful in relation to voting behavior because it involves simply knowing about the religion— not experiencing it or acting on it. The first facet of the religious commitment which X will examine is the experiential, i.e., the feelings or emotions of the individual toward religion. It should first be pointed out that religious experience is not the same thing as its ritual expression in worship or prayer. In volvement of the individual in the rituals of the church is only an outward manifestation of the religious commitment; the religious experience, however, "gets its value from the point of view of the believer."** It is, in essence, the "7 individual's. felt degree of "union" with the Divine. Many scholars, such as Wach and Carrier, make this differentiation between religious experience and religious practice and argue further that it is difficult to measure O the individual's degree of religious experience. However, I believe that the 1972 survey contains an item which does at least partially tap this concept. The respondents were asked" "Do you consider yourself very religious, somewhat religious, a little religious, or not at all religious?" This allows each respondent to define the degree of felt religiosity according to his own internal standards of religious adherence. It is clear that this item does tap a dimension which is separate from ritual practice in the church. Although there is a moderately strong relationship between the frequency of church attendance and the degree of self-perceived religiosity (Pearson's r=.473 and gamraa= .608), they are not considered the same thing by many re spondents, While 39.5% of the respondents stated that they attend church at least once a week, the category of great est ritual participation, only 19.3% consider themselves very religious, the category of greatest self-perceived religiosity. In summary, I would contend that religious experience is a separate dimension of the religious commit ment from church attendance and that, although it is a difficult concept to measure, the 1972 indicator of self perceived religiosity is a meaningful part of the indiv idual' s religious experience. * This measure of religious commitment has a moderately strong relationship with the support for the Christian Demo cratic Party. (Pearson's r=.409 and gamma=.668) (Table 2) Among those who are very religious, 58.7% voted for the DC; among those who are somewhat religious, 36.3% were DC sup porters. Only 11.1% of those who were a little religious or not at all religious supported the DC. This experien tial facet of the religious commitment has not been com monly used in studies on the political relevance of relig ion. However, these findings suggest that it is an im portant facet of the religious commitment. 44 TABLE 2 PARTY PREFERENCE® BY RELIGIOSITY,b 1972 Religiosity Party Preference Christian 1Non-Christian Party Not Democratic Democratic Indicated (N) Very Religious 58.7% 16.0 25.3 (356) Somewhat Religious 36.3% 28.1 35.6 (986) A little Religious or Not Religious 11.1% 56.8 32.1 (379) Don't Know, Not Applicable 6.1% 60.6 33.3 (120) Pearson 's r = .409 Total (N) = (£841) Gamma = .668 ■ - - ^Party preference is operationalized for 1972 as the respondent's reported vote. Party preference is operational ized for 1968 as the party the respondent habitually feels closest to. U "Do you consider yourself very religious, somewhat religious, a little religious, or not religious?" 45 The second factor to be explored here, the one most often employed as the sole religious variable in voting be havior studies, represents, the ritualistic dimension of Glock1s typology. The frequency of church attendance has been found to have a strong relationship to voting for relig iously-based parties in Austria, Belgium, West Germany, 9 Italy, and the Netherlands. Church attendance has been called a form of religious behavior which develops a sense of group belonging, which produces an integrating, unifying effect, and which promotes a feeling of community among the participants.10 Lenski likewise contends that church attendance is an important indicator of the "associational" aspect of the individual's commitment to the religious group and the' religious community.'11 Barites suggests that this behavior is an indication of the individual's "inser tion in the Catholic organizational network" and of his "psychological identification with the Catholic sub-cul ture."12 In both 1968 and 1972 there was a moderately strong relationship between the frequency of church attendance and the vote for the DC: the greater the frequence of church attendance, the greater was the likelihood that the individual would support the Christian Democratic Party. (For 1972, Pearson's r».425 and gamma=.618) (Table 3) When looking at all the Italian parties separately, it becomes graphically clear that the DC is particularly dependent on 46 TABLE 3 PARTY PREFERENCE BY CHURCH*ATTENDANCE, 1968 AND 1972a Church Attendance Party Preference Christian Non-Chrlstlan Party Not Democratic Democratic Indicated (N) At Least 54.0$ 18.0 28.0 (728) Once A Week ( 6 1 . 2 % ) (20.1) (18.7) (1196) Often During 29.7 38.0 (313) The Year (34.9$) (41.9) (23 .2) (482) Sometimes 19.2% ^1.2 39.6 (323) ( 2 3 . 9 % ) (52.4) (23.7) (431) Rarely 14. 2$ 49.1 36.0 (228) (20.3%) (60.6) (19.0) (231) Never 15.0% 52.6 32.3 (133) ( 8.6$) (71.7) (19.7) (152) Don * t Know, 0 ' » 9 % 62.1 R7.1 <(116) Not Applicable ( ) ( ) r ) (8)° 1972 Total (N)= (1841) 1968 Total (N)« (2500) 1221 1968 Pearson's r=.42 5 Pearson's r=. 378 Gamma =.618 Gamma =.652 aThe 1972 percentages are the upper ones In each case. The 1968 percentages are the lower ones In each case and are surrounded by parentheses. ^Percentages were not calculated because the number of cases was less than 10. 47 religious support. For example, in terms of the religious composition of each party, 64.3% of the DC voters in the 1972 sample stated that they attend church at least once a week; no other single party had more than 38.2% of its supporters giving this response. In fact, most of the other parties had a substantially lower level of church attendance than this. An important attitudinal variable with relation to the individual religious commitment is his generalized feel ings of favorability or unfavorability toward the clergy. This is operationalized as the score given the clergy on a thermometer which ranges from 0, least favorable, to 100, most favorable. It is a measure of the felt pro-clericalism among the electorate and is an attitude which is dependent K on the individual's self-perception or nis religiosity as well as his favorability toward the present institutions and leaders of the Church. In both 1968 and 1972, there is a moderately strong relationship between greater favorability toward the clergy and support for the DC. (For 1972, Pearson's r=.513 and gamma=.658) For 1968 the mean pro clericalism score of the DC voters is 73.0 and of the non- DC voters is 42.6; in 1972 the scores are 71.6 and 39.7 respectively. An examination of the degree to which those with the most pro-clerical attitudes, represented by 80- 100 on the thermometer, supported the DC in 1968 and 1972 clearly shows the relationship between favorability to the clergy and support for the DC. In 1968, 72.1% of this group 48 supported the DC; in 1972, 62.6% voted for the DC. (Table 4) At the other end of the clericalism scale, i.e., scores be tween 0 and 20, only 11.7% voted for the DC in 1968 compared with 8.7% in 1972. Along with this generalized attitude of favorability to the clergy is the specific question of whether an indiv idual states that he actually listens to the political advice of the clergy or considers this advice very important in his decision on how to vote. This consideration can be related to what has been called the deference hypothesis. The model of voting behavior which for a long time has had the greatest popularity, particularly in the analysis of Euro pean politics, is one based on class and economic orienta tions as the major correlates of the vote. However, the < question arose as to why there were so many deviants from this class-based explanation. In the case of Great Britain, for example, a country for which a class model of voting be havior seems to have a great deal of explanatory power, many scholars have attempted to understand the "working class Tories," i.e., those members of the working class who vote for the party identified with the middle and upper classes, the Conservatives. To account for this behavior, some students of British politics have suggested the defer ence hypothesisThis proposition is based on the con tention that many working class individuals, and partic ularly those not integrated into strong working class 49 TABLE 4 PARTY PREFERENCE BY ATTITUDES TOWARD THE CLERGY, 1968 ADD 1972a Attitudes Toward The Clergy Party Pre-farence Christian Non-Christlan Party Not Democrat!c Democratic Indicated (N) * 2-20 8*7# 63.2 28.1 (299) (11.7#) (70.1 ) (18.2) (341) 2]-44 18.7# 47.7 33.6 (166) (16.3#) (61.6) (22.1) (263) 45-55 27.3# 35.3 37.4 (479) (35.4#) (40.7) (23.9) (565) 56-79 39.0# 30.5 ,30.5 (279) (47.6#) (34.1) (18.3) (469) 80-99 12.4 23,6 (<4?0 (72.1 % ) (13.4) (14.5) (698) Don* t 23.5# 18.8 57.7 (187) Know- (34.8#) (20.7) (44.5) (164) 1972 Total (N)=(l84l) 1968 Total (m)=(2500) 1972 1968 Pearson's r=.513 Pearson's r=. 448 Gamma = .658 Gamma =. 651 aThe 1972 percentages are the upper ones in each case. The 196 8 percentages are the lower ones in each case and are surrounded by parentheses. Attitudes toward the clergy is operationalized by the favorability toward the clergy on a thermometer which ranges from 0 to 100. 0 is the most unfavor able position and 100 is the most favorable. 50 communities, will support the middle class party because it is tied into the dominant and traditional social, religious, and educational institutions of the nation. This explanation suggests that they view this party as the social elite which best knows how to govern the country. Butler and Stokes, in their analysis of working class Tories, question this deference hypothesis and suggest that this explanation is probably not peculiar to the working class supporters of the Conservatives and may, in fact, if it is at all important as a basis of Tory strength in Britain, be more generally applicable across classes.14 Lipset, like many scholars of British politics, contends that the deference hypothesis is meaningful be cause of the “halo of high prestige and statua" which sur rounds the upper class. Analogous to this idea of cross- class deference, Lipset implicitly suggests that individuals may have ties to religiously-based political parties because of their deference to the clergy and its political orienta ls tions. In the literature on religious parties, it is, in fact, common to read about messages from the Pope, the bishop, or the local priest on political matters.1® It is often contended in this literature that these messages are extremely important in the voting behavior of the religious. Although the differing wording of the items which I will use as indicators of deference to the clergy in 1968 and 1972 warrants some caution in conparing the two surveys 51 17 in this regard, there is a moderately strong relationship between listening to the advice of the clergy and voting for the DC in both 196 8 and 1972. (For 1972, Pearson's r=.317 and gamma=.679) This group of electors which indi cates that it is likely to follow the advice of the clergy in politics does so because of, first, the prestige of and respect for the clergy, and, secondly, the communications process from clergy to church adherents. In summary, those who listen to the clergy's political advice are more likely to vote for the DC. (Table 5) A final factor to be examined in this part of the chapter is the attitude toward the role the respondents feel the Church should play in politics. It is logical that thecc who feel the Church should-participate more in* politics are more likely to be individuals who: (1) state that they follow the political advice of the clergy; and (2) support the religiously-based party in the political system. The first hypothesis is confirmed in the 1972 data; there is a moderately strong relationship between one's at titude toward the role of the Church in politics and the deference factor. (Pearson's r=.318 and gamma=.649) There is a moderate relationship between voting for the DC and attitude toward the role of the Church in politics. (Pear son's r=.230 and gamma-.547) (Table 6) However, only 3.5% of the entire sample believed that the Church should in volve itself more actively in politics, and another 14.8% 52 TABLE 5 PARTY PREFEHEI’CE BY THE DEFERENCE FACTOR, 1968 AMD 1972 1972 Follow Church Political Arivicea Party Preference Christian Non-Christian Party Not Democratic Democratic Indicated (N) Yes 60.93 17.^ 21.7 (32?) No 26.33 39.3 3^.3 (1291 No Opinion, Mo Answer 32.9^ 20.6 ^6.5 (228) Total (N) s=18*H Pearson * s r=.317 Gamma =.679 1968 K Importance of the Clergy’s Ooinion Partv I refernnee Christian Non-Christ!an Party Not Democratic Democrat!c Indicated m Much 69.03 17.0 lii.O (770) Some it-0.63 35.^ 23.9 (68°) Little 28.93 1*9.0 22.1 (502 ) None 19.**3 62.5 18.1 (397) Don't Kn-'W, No Answer 21.83 35.2 43.0 (1^2) Total a"In your opinion should a good Catholic follow the advice of the Church to vote for a political party?" "Would you please tell me what importance you give to the opinions of the clergy?" 53 TABLE 6 PARTY PREFERENCE BY ROLE THE CHURCH SHOULD PLAY IN POLITICS, 1972 Role the Church Should Play in Poll tics Party Preference Christian Non-Christian Party Not Democratic Democratic Indicated m Involve itself more actively in politics 5 5 * b % 24.6 2 0 , 0 (6$) Interfere only in exceptional cases 50, 7% 18,8 30.5 (272) Not involve itself in political life 2 7 , o % 39.0 33.2 ' (1322) No Ooinion, No Answer 38.5^ 15.^ 46.2 (182) (N)=(l84l) Pearson's r=.230 Gamma =.547 54 of the electorate stated that the Church should involve itself in politics only in exceptional cases. On the other hand, 71.3% of the electorate said that the Church should not involve itself in politics. In this chapter I have carried out individual tests of the relationship of five factors with the support for the DC. These are: (1) the experiential factor, self-per ception of religiosity; (2) a ritualistic factor, frequency of church attendance; (3) a generalized attitude toward the clergy; (4) an indicator of deference to the political opin ions of the clergy; and (5) the individual's attitude toward the role the Church should play in politics. Each has been shown to have a moderate or moderately strong re- ’ _,c. .. . lationship with the support for the Christian Democratic Party. In order to assess the relative impact of these five independent variables on the support for the DC, I will use multiple regression analysis. The dependent variable will be the respondent’s vote in a dichotomous form of DC and non-DC.*-® A regression analysis for 1968 reveals, first, that the three variables available in that survey, i.e., church attendance, attitude toward the clergy, and the importance of the clergy's political advice, together ex plain 24.9% of the variance in the DC electoral support, and, second, that the attitude toward the clergy is the most important variable. (beta=.300) (Table 7) The five 55 TABLE 7 MULTIPLE REGRESSION: THE IMPACT OF THE INDIVIDUAL RELIGIOUS COMMITMENT OH CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC SUPPORT, 1968 AND 19?2a 1221 Variable^ Beta Sigma Religiosity .1^3 . 0 2 2 Church Attendance .180 . 0 2 2 Attitudes Toward Clergy .319 . 0 2 2 Political Advice of Clergy . 1 * 7 . 0 2 0 Role Church Should Play . 0 5 6 . 0 2 0 R^.598 R z-.358 1968 Varl able0 Beta Sigma Church Attendance *173 *021 Attitudes Toward Clergy .300 *021 Importance of Clergy’s Opinion .132 .021 Rf.^99 Rz=.249 aThe regression analysis throughout this dissertation was done first by the calculation of the Pearson r correlation coefficient between each pair of variables. Missing data were eliminated on a pairwise basis. After the entire matrix of correlation coefficients was calculated, this matrix was passed on for usage in a regression program. The betas are the standardized regression coefficents. ^The 1 9 7 2 variables are ordered as follows: (1 ) religiosity-not religious, a little religious, somewhat religious, very religious; (2 ) church attendance-never, rarely, sometimes, often, at least once a week; (3 ) attitudes toward the clergy-score on the favorability thermometer ranging from 2 to 9 9 i ( * 0 political advice of clergy- does not follow, does follow; and (5 ) role of the Church- not involve itself, interfere only in exceptional cases, involve itself more actively. The dependent variable is party preference, coded as non-DC and DC. cThe 1963 variables are ordered as follows: (1) church attendance, as in 1972; (2) attitudes toward clergy, as in 1972; and (3) importance of clergy's opinion-much, some, little,none. The dependent variable is the same as in 1972. 56 variables in the 1972 regression analysis together explain 35.5% of the variance in the DC vote. The ordering of the beta coefficients for those three variables present in both 196 8 and 1972 is the same. However, the beta coefficient is slightly higher for each of the three variables in 1972. For 1S72, attitude toward the clergy is once again the strongest single factor, and church attendance is the second most powerful. (Table 7) These findings point to two major conclusions. The first is that each of these factors contributes meaning fully to an understanding of the support given the Chris tian Democratic Party in Italy and that each should be ap plied more generally in studies of religiously-based par ties. Separate contingency table analysis done controlling for two or three of these independent religious variables at one time tended to confirm that each of these variables makes an independent contribution to explaining the DC vote or at least suggested no reason to doubt the basic findings from the regression analysis. A further piece of informa tion which points to the need for the use of a variety of religious factors in a study of the bases of support for a religious party is the moderate or strongly moderate inter correlation of these variables. (Table 8) They are certain ly related to each other but this correlation is not so high as to suggest that they are all the same dimension. The second general conclusion is that together these 57 TABLE 8 INTERCORRELATION (PEARSON ' S R) MATRIX OF . ALL RELIGIOUS FACTORS USED IN 1972a Variables 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1. Earty Preference *221 .425 .409 .209 .513 .317 .396 .230 .145 2. Catholic Ties .107 • 066 .071 .141 .094 .099 .107 .095 3* Church Attendance .473 .258 ;440 .178 .242 .191 .127 4. Religiosity .141 .434 .227 *312 .161 .059 5* Catholic Political Tradition .203 .095 .169 .0 75 .286 6. Attitudes Toward Clergy .275 .371 • 220 .138 7* Follow Church Poli tical Advice .219 .318 .140 8. Maintain - Divorce .130 .113 9. Church Role in Politics *076 10. Readership of Catholic Newspapers ■ aThese same relationships were also measured by the use of the gamma coefficient. The gamma coefficients were higher In every case, but the relative magnitude among the variables was very similar In comparing the results using the Pearson's r with those using the gamma* 58 variables explain a sizeable proportion of the variance in the vote for the DCi In 1972, for example, the five relig ious factors used here explained 35.5% of the variance in the DC vote. No single factor explained more than 26.3% of the variance. The Impact of Other Conse quential Factors on the DC Vote I will next analyze whether those who hold pro-Church positions on important social and political issues tend to apply religious attitudes more generally and, therefore, to vote for the religiously-based party which promotes and defends the social interests of the Church. A major exam ple of this type of issue, i.e., one which is an indicator of the consequential dimension of religion, is the view of each voter toward the allowing of divorce in Italy. Whether or not to legalize divorce has been the most important and controversial religio-political issue in Italy in the past decade. It has caused splits within the governing center-left coalition before and since the passage of a divorce law in 1971. This law was supported by every party except the neo-Fascist MSI and the Christian Demo crats. It has been one of the major political issues in Italy in the past several years and has threatened to in crease political polarization and strife. This has been as a result of the passage of a divorce law in 1971 and the holding of a referendum in May 1974 on the abrogation of this law. It was clear that many Christian Democratic leaders, Communists, and others wanted to avoid this con frontation on a religious issue which in some ways would have been reminiscent of the 19 48 election. However, no compromise could be found, and the leaders of the Catholic Church in Italy, as well as many conservative Catholics and Christian Democrats, pushed for the referendum. In as serting its position on this social and political issue, the Italian Conference of Bishops stated on February 22, 1974 that all Catholics must act to protect the integrity of the family and, therefore, vote to repeal the divorce law. The abrogation of the divorce law, therefore, was a major goal of the Church, and the Christian Democratic Party, c willingly or unwillingly, was also deeply involved in this task. In the referendum on May 12-13, 1974, the repeal at tempt was defeated by a 3-2 margin. This was, of course, a major defeat for the Church and the DC. Because this is a major religio-political issue, I would expect there to be an important relationship between opposition to divorce and voting for the Christian Demo cratic Party. In fact, there is a moderately strong rela tionship between attitudes opposing divorce and the sup port for the DC in both 1968 and 1972. (For 1968, Pear son's r=.348 and gamma=.605; for 1972, Pearson's r=.396 and gamma=.605) (Table 9) Of those who revealed their party, in 1968, 72.15 of those who strongly disagreed with 60 TABLE 9 PARTY PREFERENCE EY POSITION ON DIVORCE,a 1968 AND 1972* Position on Divorce Party Preference Christian !Non-Christian Party Not Democratic Democratic Indicated (N) Strongly 15.1* 52.5 32.4 (423) Agree (20.13) (61.2 ) 18.8 (399) More or less 22.5# 37.7 39.8 (236) agree <27.5$) (50.4) (22.1) (367) Vore or less 23.8,3 33.3 42.9 (147) disagree (32.9/0 45.4 21.7 (240) Strongly 48.63 22.9 28.6 (704) disagree (58.93) (22.8) (18.4) (1084) No Opinion, 35.33 27.2 37.5 (33D No Answer (40.53) (32.7) (26 .8) (410)- 1972 Total (N)=l84l 1968 Total (N)=2500 .1972 1£68 Pearson’s r=. 396 Pearson’s r=.348 Gamma =• 605 Gamma =.605 *. 1 In 1968 the divorce question was agreement br disagree ment with the statement: "We ought to have, in Iraly, the right to divorce." This was before the passage of the divorce law in 1971. In the 1972 survey the divorce question was agreement or disagreement with the statement: "The right to have a div orce should be maintained in Italy." The 1972 percentages are the upper ones in each case. The 196 8 percentages are the lower ones in each case and are surrounded by parentheses. 61 divorce, the Church's position, voted for the DC; in 1972, 71.5% of those who strongly disagreed with divorce voted for the DC. Beyond the simple relationship between position on divorce and the DC vote, it could be expected that divorce will exert an important independent influence. This is, first, because the individual's view on the divorce law and his voting behavior are both consequential factors of relig ion. Secondly, the DC is the only specifically religious party in Italy; it is also the largest party in opposition to divorce. Only one other party, the neo-fascist MSI, favors the repeal of the divorce law and also voted against the original divorce law in 1971 in the Parliament. The voter who fellows the Church's position on divorce should'be more likely to vote for the Christian Democratic Party than those who do not make this connection between religion and politics. In fact, adding the position on divorce to the regressions reported earlier shows an increase in the var iance explained in the DC support of 1.9% for 1968 and 3.0% in 1972. Divorce has the second largest beta coefficient in both years, although its beta is very close in magnitude to that of church attendance. (Table 10) For the 1968 survey, there is one other consequen tial factor available. This is the individual's attitude on whether the financing of Catholic schools ought to be stopped and whether the money should be put into state TABLE 10 62 MULTIPLE REGRESSION: THE IMPACT OP THE INDIVIDUAL RELIGIOUS COMMITMENT AND CONSEQUENTIAL RELIGIOUS FACTORS ON CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC SUPPORT, 1968 AND 1972 1972 Variable3 Beta Sigma Religiosity .114 .022 Church Attendance .174 .022 Attitudes Toward Clergy ,272 .022 Political Advice of Clergy .128 .020 Role Church Should PI ay .054 .020 Position on Divorce .182 .020 R=,621 R 385 1968 Va.ri '-ble*> Beta Si rrma Church Attendance .137 .021 Attitudes Toward .c. Clorgy .264 Importance of Clergy* s Ooinion .118 .021 Position on Divorce .156 .019 R=.518 R2=.268 aDivorce is ordered as follows in 1972: strongly agree, more or less agree, more or less disagree, strongly disagree, ^Divorce is coded in 1968 in the same way as it is in 1972, 63 schools instead. As Table 11 shows, there is a moderately strong relationship between the individual's position on this issue and the support for the DC. (Pearson's r=.304 and gamma=.504) Although there is a great difference be tween DC and non-DC voters on this issue, the proportion of DC voters committed to the pro-Church position on this issue is substantially less than in the case of divorce. This may be in part due to the great number of children of committed Catholics who attend the public schools. Includ ing this variable in the 1968 regression analysis increases the variance explained in the DC vote by .7%. The Impact of the Catholic Politxcal Tradition Up to this point I have explored several a’ctitudinax and behavioral variables - related to the individual's relig ious commitment. Each of these was found to be related to the DC support. This section of Chapter 2 will explore the importance of the community political tradition or local political environment. Table 1 showed the pattern of the DC voting support for the entire nation over the period 1946-1972 in all the national elections. At the level of the province, there has been a high degree of continuity in the support for the DC. The correlation, using provin cial level data, between the first election in 1946 and the most recent election in 1972 is .836; for the pairs of elections between 1963 and 1972, the correlations vary 64 TABLE 11 PARTY PREFERENCE BY STOP FINANCING CATHOLIC SCHOOLS, 1968 Ought to stoo financin.ee Chrlstian Non-Christian Party Not Democratic Democratic Indicated (N) Completely agree 25.5^ 55.8 18.7 (726) More or less agree 37.4*5 39.2 23.4 (457) More or less disagree 58 • 2 % 25.6 16.2 (340) Strongly d i s? ,7-ree 62. 2% 22.9 14.9 (238) No Opinion, N o An swer 43.0a 26.4 25.5 (689) Total (N)=2500 Pearson*s r=.30 4 Gamma -.504 aThis Question was agreement or disagreement v:ith the statement: ”We ought to stop financing Catholic schools and soend more money for state schools*” 65 between .96 and .98. There has been basic continuity within these units. However, there is also great variation in the degree of support for the DC among Italy's 94 provinces and thousands of communes. Galli and Prandi suggest that there are, in fact, five basic geo-political regions in Italy. These are (with the proportion of the vote for the DC in 1972 in each in cluded) : (1) the Catholic Northeast, 49.4%; (2) the indus trial triangle of the Northwest, 39.2%; (3) the Red Belt of Central Italy, 31.5%; (4) the Continental South, 44.1%; 19 and (5) the islands of Sicily and Sardinia, 39.2%. The DC continuity has been greater in the three northern and central regions than in the two southern zones, although c. the trend xn the South has also been toward greater con- 20 sistency at the provincial level. The region of the greatest DC support, the Catholic of "white" Northeast, has a strong Catholic network which plays a major role in sus taining the DC. The party organization of the DC has not been so well developed as that of the Communists, for exam ple, so that the Church and its organizational structures and influences have certainly played a major role in mobil- 21 izing DC support. In the 1972 survey the proportion of respondents saying they go to church at least once a week is 13% larger in the Northeast than in any other part of Italy. However, the Northeast is not unique among the five 66 geo-political regions in terms of organizational memberships in the Catholic network. The concept of local political tradition or community has been widely discussed. Butler and Stokes, for example, have written of the wide regional variations within Britain and of the consequences of these zones of strength and 22 weakness of each of the parties. Because of the social pressures in the areas of strength, many scholars have con tended that there is an impulse toward even greater strength and greater political homogeneity in these regions. There are likely to be more primary, or face-to-face, contacts which emphasize the strongest party and will, therefore, ac cording to the theory, increase the voting support of strongest party. In order to test for the contribution of local polit ical tradition to explaining the support for the DC, I have operationalized this concept in terms of the proportion of the vote gained by the DC in 1946 in the commune where each respondent resided in 1972. The 1946 data provide a bench mark at a point when the parties were only beginning to emerge after more than 20 years of suppression under Fascism. The communes in the 1972 survey vary in size between a few hundred people and a few million people, so that it is probably more appropriate to apply these data to individ uals in smaller communes. However, they are the best avail able and are certainly an improvement over the use of 23 provincial level data for all respondents. I earlier pointed to the differences among the five geo-political zones of Italy, but the communal differences are even more pronounced; the support for the DC varies between 6.6% and 88.2% in the communes represented in this survey compared with the 35.2% of the vote the DC received nationally in 1946. There is a moderate relationship between the local Catholic political tradition and the vote for the DC. (Pearson's r=.209 and gamma=.264) However, when the politi cal tradition factor is considered in the 1972 regression analysis, it adds only a very smail degree of explanatory power to that due to the individual religious attitudes and behavior. In order to specify further the effect of the Cath-c. olic political tradition, a control was added to the anal ysis to test whether the individual has always lived in his commune of 1972 residence or when he came to this commune if he has not always lived there. Examination of the degree of the DC tradition in the individual's commune of birth, if not the same as his present residence, might be useful, but this information is unavailable. Control by age might also further explicate this relationship, but it would reduce the frequency of cases in some cells to too small a number. In the analysis controlling for when the respond ent came to the commune of his 1972 residence, I found a slight impact of political tradition as the time when the individual came to his 1972 commune changed. There was very little difference -in the degree of support for the DC within each level of the DC political tradition among those who came to the 1972 commune between 1900 and 1944 or between 1945 and 1960 or who have always lived in their commune of 1972 residence. Those who came to their 1972 commune after 1960 were less DC within each level of political tradition. However, these differences between pre-1960 and post-1960 were not very great. There are larger differences within each category of when the respondent came to his 1970 com mune due to the Catholic political tradition. However, we have seen in earlier analysis that this impact of political tradition is lessened greatly by the influence of the indiv idual religious attitudes and behaviors. (Table 12) In c summary, there is no conclusive evidence that the impact of local political tradition is a major factor in explaining the Christian Democratic vote. Of course, the ethos of greater church attendance in the Northeast may be an exam ple of the local political tradition working through the intermediary of individual religious attitudes and partic ipation. The multivariate model of the DC support that I will test in the concluding chapter of this dissertation will examine these indirect linkages to the DC vote. The Catholic Sub-Cultural Network Many scholars have stressed the importance of TABLE 12 69 PARTY PREFERENCE BY CATHOLIC POLITICAL TRADITION AND WHEN RESPONDENT CAME TO LIVE IN HIS COMMUNE OF 1972 RESIDENCE, 1972 When Came to Commune Catholic Political Tradition8, 15.0^-25.0^ 25.l3-**5.o3 **5.1$ or Missing more data DC 32.75* **6.2$ 37.5% Always Non- there DC 37.8 36.3 2**.0 20.0 No 36*0, 31.0, 29.8 **2.5 Party (276) (526) (206 ) (80) DC 26.3% 32.*$ 50.0,3 1* 6. 6% 1873- 19**** Non- DC **1.0 28.8 2 0 . 6 2 6 . 7 No 32.7 38.8 29.** 2 6 . 7 Party (61) (139) (3**) - (15) DC 30.8^ 28.1^ 50.0.3 3 3 . 3 3 19**5- 1960 Non- DC **1.3 36.3 1 0 . 0 *l-*4-.** No 27. 9 35.6 **0.0 22.3, t Part£ (78) (135) (30) (18) DC 20.3.3 27.3^ 3 5 . 7 # 1*6.2% 1961- 1972 Non- DC ****.9 38.2 2 5 . 0 3 0 . 7 No 3**.8 3**«5 3 9. 3 23.1 Party (69) (110) (28) (13) Total (N)=l8**l aCathollc political tradition is defined by the proportion of the vote pra.ined by the Christian Democratic Party In 19**6 in the commune where the respondent resided in 1972. ^The percentages in each block represent the proportion for the Christian Democrats, non-Christian Democrats, and those who did not indicate their party. 70 "communications networks" of organizations and mass media in transmitting political information and in reinforcing previous messages in order to maintain the existing politi cal ties of the voter. This group of writings suggests the importance of a series of related organizations as an intermediary socializing force between the party and the mass electorate to provide influences in virtually every 5 A sector of life. Liepelt, for example, emphasizes the role played by "large scale organizations that integrate the individuals or groups of individuals into the par'tisan 25 arrangements of the political community." Sani points out that the linkage between the party and the organiza tion must be clearly fixed in the minds of the voters in 26 order for these pressures to be effective. In this . regard, Sartori has argued that the major factor leading to success in an electoral battle between a class appeal and a religious appeal is "the relative strength of the 27 organizational support of each belief system." I contended in Chapter 1 that in the translation of religious orientations into electoral support religiously- based parties relied heavily on the organizational network of the Church to supplement their own often inadequate infrastructure. In the case of Italy, there is a broad array of organizations allied to the Church or to the DC which can act to encapsulate the lives of individuals and provide a steady stream of influences. These organizations include separate religious groups for men, women, and youth, the CISL trade union, the ACLI workers' organiza tion, the Coldiretti agricultural association, banks, co operatives, the Catholic Action, and many others. I have already analyzed the impact of church attendance which is viewed by many scholars as an important example of "inser- 2 8 tion into the organizational network of the Church." In this section of my dissertation I will examine the impact of organizational ties with the Catholic network and of newspaper readership of Catholic sub-culture papers. Before examining the impact of organizational ties on the DC vote, I will briefly discuss some of these groups. Catholic Action, first of all, is directly sponsored by the Church and is the largest laymen's organization. It at- c tempts to spread the Catholic faith and to extend the influ ence of the Church throughout the social, economic, politi cal, and personal spheres of life. Catholic Action is under the centralized control of the Church and exists in all of 29 the dioceses across Italy. The Coltivatori Diretti agri cultural organization is more formally named the Italian Confederation of Small Farmers and was organized in 1944. "Its goal was to be the defense and betterment of the econ omic situation of the small farmer."30 Through its ties to the governmental agricultural agencies and its strong infrastructure, the Coldiretti has been able to gain over 90% of those small farmers who are organized. There are 72 also two important labor organizations related to the Catholic network. The ACLI, or Italian Association of Christian Workers, was organized by the Catholic Church and the Catholic Action to present an appeal to working class Catholics and to prevent their religious commitment from being undermined by the Communists and the Socialists in the labor movement. In its formative period, this group was not intended as an alternative union to the General Confederation of Italian Labor (CGIL). However, with the breaking up of the Popular Front in 1947 and the coming of the Cold War, there were splits within CGIL. In the late 1940's the Italian Confederation of Workers' Unions (CISL) was instituted as a rival to the CGIL and was composed 31 larqely of Catholic workers. These organizations brief** ly discussed here provide examples of the broad network of Catholic organizations which touch nearly every phase of life and every sub-group of the population. For the analysis in this dissertation, ties with the Catholic network will be defined as membership in one or more of the Catholic organizations, whether direct due to one's own membership or indirect through the membership of the head of the household in the respondent's family. There is a moderate relationship in 1972 between Catholic ties and support for the Christian Democratic Party. (Pearson's r=.221 and gamma=.505) (Table 13) Nearly twice as many among those with ties to the Catholic network voted 73 TABLE 13 PARTY PREFERENCE EY CATHOLIC TIZS, 19?2 Catholic Tlesa Party Preference Christian Non-Chrlstien Party Not Democratic Democratic Indicated (N) Has Catholic Ties 5 6 . 1 # 19.** 2 4 . 5 (278) Does Mot Have Ties 29.1 ^ 35.6 3 5 . 3 (1563) Total (N)=l84l Pearson*s r=-,??1 Gamma =*505 aCstholic ties were defined by the individual’s own membership in one of the Catholic organizations discussed in the text or through the membership of the head of the household in the respondent *s family. 74 for the DC compared with those who had no ties. Organiza tional ties does continue to exert an important independent influence on the vote when added to the regression analysis'” increasing the variance explained by all facets of the religious factor by 1.5% to 40.3% and having a beta coef ficient of .123. Compared with the other items examined previously in this chapter, the organizational ties variable shows the least amount of intercorrelation with the other religious factors (Table 8 ) The answer to this and to its strong independent contribution to explaining the DC support may lie in findings from other studies which have suggested that women, for example, tend to participate less in pol- 32 itics and in organizations. While 62.2% of the DC s up- c porters are women, only 42.8% of those with ties to Cath olic organizations are women. The relationship between sex and ties is small and negative.(Pearson's r=-.076) In summary, the explanation, to be offered here and to be explored in greater depth later, for the lack of strong intercorrelation of the organizational ties with the indiv idual religious attitudes and behavior is that the type of individuals who join organizations are not necessarily the model type of supporters for religiously-based parties. The data for 196 8 on organizational memberships are not so complete as those for 1972. However, in some respects they are more detailed, and allow for differentiation 75 between union memberships and memberships in more directly Church-sponsored organizations such as Catholic Action. For both these types of organizations, members are much more likely to vote for the DC than those with no direct or in direct ties. The degree of support for the DC is largest among those who belong to the Catholic and other lay relig ious groups, but there is also strong support for the DC among those who have direct and/or indirect ties with the CISL trade union. (Tables 14 and 15) Since only 25.5% of all DC voters in 1972, for exam ple, were directly or indirectly tied to one of the Cath olic organizations analyzed above, it should be reiterated that church attendance may act as a ritual integration into the Catholic organizational network. Church attendance,- c in essence, may be a partially complementary and partially reinforcing factor with organizational memberships on the support for the DC. An analysis of the impact of church attendance and organizational memberships together shows that each of these factors makes a separate and sizeable con tribution to explaining the support for the DC. Table 16 shows that there is an important impact of organizational memberships even among those who attend church at least once a week. Both church attendance and organizational memberships are clearly important facets of the Catholic network which supports the Christian Democratic Party. TAELE 14 PARTY PREFERENCE BY LABOR UNION MEMBERSHIP, 196 8 Union Membership3 Partv Preference Christian Non-Christian Party Not Democratic Democratic Indicated (N) Cl SL (Catholic Union) 6 1 . 9 % 27.1 11.0 (118) CGIL (Communist 6 . 8 % 82.6 10.6 (161) Union) Other Union13 5 0 . 3 % 33.2 16.4 (292) Not a Union * c. Member 43.2,3 34.1 22.8 (1929) Total (N)=2500 aUnion membership was defined to include "both the respondent*? o t t i membership or the membership of the head of the houpehold in the respondents family# ^Incl\xded in this group are the Coltlvntori Dlrettl # x*rhich is a Catholic sub-culture organization; UIL, a mainly Socialist, Social Democratic, and denublionn union; non-Catholic agricultural organizations; and other unions of a small size. 77 TABLE 15 PARTY PREFERENCE BY CATHOLIC LAY GROUP MEMBERSHIP, 1968 Catholic Lay Grout) Membership8- Party Preference Christian Non-Christlan Party Not Democratic Democratic Indicated (N) Catholic Lay Group 82.5)C 12#6 ^.9 (103) Ties No Ties ifO.8# 37«7 21.5 (2397) Total (N)=2500 aLay Group membership was defined to include both the respondent*s o v m membership or the membership of the head of the household in the respondent’s family. TABLE 16 PARTY PREFERENCE BY CHURCH ATTENDANCE AND CATHOLIC TIES, 1972 Church Attendance Catholic Ties Ties No Ties DC Non-DC No Party DC Non-DC No Party At Least Once A 70.6# 9.5 19.9 49.8# 20.1 30.1 Week (146) (582) Often 50.0# 28.6 21.4 29.5# 29.9 40.6 (42) (271) Sometimes 41.9# 30.2 27.9 15.7# 42.8 41.5 (43) (280) Rarely, Never 37.8# 29.7 32.5 12.0# 51.2 36.8 (37) (334) No An sver, Not 0.0# 40.0 60.0 0.9# 64.2 34.9 Applicable (10) (106) Total (N)=l84l 79 Another part of the Catholic/Christian Democratic network is the series of newspapers, both national and local, which spread the message of the Church, the DC, or even a faction within the DC. As with the organizational structure, the newspapers serve to mobilize support for the positions of the Church and the DC and to reinforce the political orientations of the mass electorate. I would like to sug gest two important considerations about Italian newspaper readership patterns before analyzing its impact on the DC vote. First, it is clear that many voters do not pay great attention to newspapers, or at least to the political sec tions of these papers. In 1972, 66.1% of all respondents reported that they had never followed the electoral cam-' c paign of 19 72 in the newspapers. Among DC voters, this proportion was 71.5%; for the other parties it was 57.9%. One reasons for this low readership, along with a lack of interest in politics, may be the elitist nature of many Italian papers. It requires a great deal of knowledge about Italian politics to understand fully many of the political articles. Much more is assumed and not included in the articles than might be the case in many American news papers, for example. The other point to be made, based on analysis by Sani, is that there are close ties between many of the news papers and political groups in Italy and that "the percentage 80 of respondents who, judging by what they read, expose them selves to sources of information likely to contain contra dictory stimuli is rather small.In summary, it is clear that there are many Italians who do not read the political sections of newspapers and that those who do are more likely to read newspapers which reinforce their existing political views. The relationship between the readership of Catholic newspapers, defined as those newspapers with ties to the Church, to organizations of the Catholic sub-culture, or to the DC, and the support for the DC is the smallest of all the factors which have been examined in this chapter. (Pearson's r=.145 and gamma=.325) When this factor is in cluded in the regression analysis, its beta is negligible and not significant. This chapter has attempted to identify all of the major variables related to the religious factor which may have an impact on the support for a religiously-based party. The nine factors used in the 1972 analysis together explain 40.3% of the variance in the electoral support for the DC. Pro-clericalism, or one's attitude of favorability to the clergy, continues throughout this analysis to have the strongest influence on the vote. The individual's view on divorce and the degree of church attendance are the next most powerful factors. The same ordering was found in the 1968 regression analysis. Religiosity, organizational ties, 81 and the deference factor each add about the same impact to the support for the DC in 1972, while the political tradi tion factor, the attitude on the church's role in politics, and the readership of Catholic newspapers contribute very little to an explanation of the DC support. (Table 17) The Impact of Religion on the DC Vote: North Vs. South Many Italian and American scholars have talked of two Italies, of the differences between an industrialized, Eur- 35 opearnzed North and an underdeveloped, Mediterranean South. This dichotomization of Italy in terms of political culture has also been disputed by many scholars. 3 8 Nevertheless, both Allum and Hazelrigg suggest that religion is less im- c. portant in the South than in the North as a determinant of voting behavior. Hazelrigg contends that the political sub cultures are less developed in the South and that, there- 37 fore, communal pressures will be less. Allum argues that traditional clientilistic relationships between notables and the lower strata were significant factors in the DC vote in the South in the late 1940's and early 1950's com pared with the more developed political traditions of the North . 3 8 For my analysis I divided Italy between North and South on the basis of the Galli and Prandi geo-political regions; the North is composed of the Catholic Northeast, the industrial triangle of the Northwest, and the Red Belt 82 TABLE 17 MULTIPLE REGRESSION: THE IMPACT OF THE NINE RELIGIOUS FACTORS 01! CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC SUPPORT, 1972 Variable3, Beta Slama Religiosity .120 .022 Church Attendance .158 .022 Attitudes Toward the Clergy .256 .022 Political Advice of the Church • 121 .020 Role Church Should Play in Politics .046 .019 Position on Divorce .172 i020 Catholic Political Tradi tion .041 .020 Catholic Ties .122 .018 Readership of Catholic • Newspapers .019 .019 RI*6?5 Rz=.403 aC«tholic political tradition was ordered by the percentage of vote joined by the DC in the 19**6 election South and the islands of Sicily and Sardinia. Table 18 shows that there are not very great differences between the North and the South in both 1968 and 1972 in terns of relig ious attitudes and behavior. Analysis of the potency of religion in the North compared with the South reveals, how ever, that .the religious factors as a whole do have some what more explanatory power for the DC vote in the North. In 1968, church attendance, clericalism, the defer ence factor, and the individual's view on a divorce law to gether explain 31.2% of the variance in the DC vote in the North compared with 24.1% in the South. For 1972, these four variables plus political tradition, organizational ties, c. and religiosity explain 43.2% of the variance in the DC vote in the North compared with 37.3% in the South. These are relatively constant differences for the two surveys when considering the total cluster of religious variables. (Table 19) There are, however, some differences in the relative impact of the various religious factors between these two years in comparing the North with the South. For example, in 1968 the factor of attitudes toward the clergy is sub stantially stronger in the North than the South, while the opposite is true for 1972. There is no obvious explanation for such a discrepancy, particularly in light of the very similar orderings of clericalism, church attendance, the deference factor, and views on divorce in their relative 84 TABLE 18 THE INDIVIDUAL RELIGIOUS COMMITMENT: NORTH COMPARED \TTH SOUTH, 1968 AUD 1972 Religious Cotvt.I frnent North South Railcloslty (1972) Very Hell-clous? lk.M 26.5^ Somewhat Religious 55.0 51.*t A little Religious or not at all 23.7 16.1 rell clous No Answer 6,9 6.0 (1090) (75D Church Attendance 1968 1972 1968 1222 At Least Once A klrnW ^5.9£ 36.9^ Week 1*9.3# c 1 o o Often 19*6. ■15.5 18.8 */♦*- Sonatinas l6.it 17.2 I8.it 18.0 Rarely or never lit.5 19.2 16.5 20.2 No Answer 0.3 6.7 0.U 5.7 (1^23) (1090) (1077) (75D Attitudes Toward the Cl. erry 1968 1972 1968 1972 2-20 12. 2** 15.8& 15.8J* 17.0^ ,21-i)4 9.1 9.9 12.5 7.7 ^5-55 22.9 23.2 22.1 30.1 56-79 19.1 16.6 18.3 13.2 80-99 28.8 25.6 26.9 20.2 No Answer 8.0 9.0 it.6 11.9 (lit23) (1090) (1077) (75D Ties (1972) Ties 83. 8 % 86.5-^\ No Ties 16.2 13.5 (1070) (751) 85 TABLE 19 MULTIPLE REGRESSIONt THE IMPACT OP RELIGION IN THE NORTH COMPARED WITH THE SOUTH, 1968 AND 1972 North South Variable Beta Sigma Beta Si tana 1222 Catholic Ties .160 .023 .098 .029 Church Attendance .182 .029 .138 .03^ Religiosity .09 6 .029 .128 .033 Catholic Political Tradition .032 .02 ^ .094 .030 ■=)- Attitudes Toward CM ca Clergy .222 .030 . .03^ Follow Church Political CO rl ca Advice .12^ .02 ^ . • 031 Position on Divorce .212 .026 .118 .031 R 5 . 6 5 7 R s-6 1 1* < R =.^32 . R -•373 I9 6 8 Church Attendance .110 .028 .152 .032 Attitudes Toward Clergy .359 .028 . m .032 Importance of Clergy's Politioal Opinion .060 .027 .186 .03^ Position on Divorce .16 h .025 • 1^3 .029 R^.558 .^90 R -.312 R 2=.2*4-1 impact in 196 8 and 1972 for the nation as a whole. Never theless, these religious factors together are more powerful in explaining the DC vote in the North than in the South. These findings are suggestive, but whether this is due to the explanation given by Hazelrigg and Allum and whether the North and South do create a duality in Italy's political culture cannot be definitively answered here. Catholicism as a "Limiting Framework11 One of the purposes of this dissertation, as a comple ment to the study of the explanations for the support of the DC, is an assessment of the factors which limit the expan sion of the popular support for a religiously-based party. c. As this chapter has shown, Catholicism and the various di mensions of the religious factor are powerful positive forces in gaining voters for the Christian Democrats. Since this party is based on the uniting principle of religion, Allum has suggested that the religious nature of the DC may act as a "limiting framework" which repels those individuals 39 who are opposed to the religious principle. In 1968, 1 1 .1 % of those who answered the question, "are there parties for which you would never vote?," stated that they would never vote for the DC; in 1972, this figure was 10.5%. This compares, for example, in 1972 with the 49.1% of those re sponding who stated that they would never vote for the Ital ian Communist Party and the 55.2% who would never vote for 87 the neo-Fascist MSI. The DC, however, did receive the third largest proportion of answers declaring it unaccept able as a voting choice. It is clear from an analysis of the individuals who claimed that the DC was an unacceptable alternative for them that there is a strong anti-clerical basis to this op position in both 1968 and 1972. In 196 8 , 59.0% of the 161 respondents who declared the DC to be unacceptable were in the range of 2 to 20 on the clericalism thermometer. Only 10.6% of those respondents who did not declare the DC to be unacceptable were in this category. I would contend that those individuals in the 2 to 2 0 range would be an anti- clerical group. The results for 1972 are similar, although the degree of hostility to the clergy was somewhat less than in 1968 among those who would never vote for the DC. (Table 20) In further examination of this question, it is clear that this group which finds the DC unacceptable as a voting alternative is also made up of people who go to church much less frequently than the rest of the population. For exam ple, in 196 8 , 54.7% of this group went to church rarely or never compared with only 13.9% of the remainder of the Italian people. The results for 1972 are again similar; the differences are, however, again smaller. (Table 21) Because of some coding differences, i.e., those who said they were not Catholics were not asked the church attendance TABLE 20 88 ATTITUDES TOWARD THE CLERGY BY ACCEPTABILITY OF CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY AS A VOTING CHOICE, 1 9 6 8 AND 1972a Attitudes Toward the Clergy Acceptability of DC as a Voting Choice- DC Not Given os DC Unacceptable Unacceptable No Answer 2-20 46,6# 16.3# 9.5# (59*03) (10.6#) (10.5#) 21-44 13*7 9.4 7.2 (16.2) (10.6) (9.7) 45-55 20.6 25.6 28.0 • (13-0) (22.1) (24.7) 56-79 17.3 13.4 (5*0) (18.1) (21.6) 80-99 6.1 26.3 21.6 (3*7) (35.0) (23.0), No Answer 7.6 5.1 20.1 (3.1) (3.7) (10.6) (N) 1972 (131) (1114) (596) 1968 (161) (1290) (10^9) 1972 Total (N)=18*H 1968 Total (N)=2500 aThe 1 9 7 2 percentages are the upper ones in each case. The 1 9 6 8 percenta.n-es are the lower ones in each case and are surrounded by pe-entheses. ^In both 1968 ana 1972 respondents were asked, "Are there parties for which you would never vote? Which ones?," 89 "TABLE 21 FREQUENCY OF CHURCH ATTENDANCE BY ACCEPTABILITY OF CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY AS A VOTING CHOICE, 1968 AND 1972a Church Attendance Acceptability of DC as a Voting Choice DC Not Given as DC Unacceptable Unacceptable No Answer At Least Once 15. 42.23 39.93 A Week ( 9.93) (53.93) (4-6.23) Often 10.7 16.2 19.8 (15*5) (19.1) (20.1) Sometimes 21.4 17.5 16.8 (19.9) (15.9) (18.5) Rarely or 29.8 18.5 19.4 Never (54.7) (10.9) (14-.8) No Answer, 22.9 5.6 4-.0 Not Applicable*3 ( 0 .0 ) (0.3) (0.4) (N) 1972 (131) (1114) (596) 1968 (161) (1290 ) (1049) 1972 Total (N )=a(1841) 1968 Total (N)=(2500) aThe 1972 percentages are the upper ones in each case. The 1 9 6 8 percentages are the lower ones in each case and are •surrounded by parentheses. ^When this question was among in 1 9 7 2 , only those who stated that they were Catholics in an earlier item were given this question. It was prlven to all respondents in 1968. 9P question in 1972, it is more appropriate to compare the total of rarely, never, and missing data as one group. Pre vious surveys have found very few Protestants and Jews in Italy, so that most of these 103 who said they were not Catholic are probably individuals who have completely dropped away from the Church. Those who declare the DC unaccept able consist of 52.7% in one of these three categories of church attendance, while for the rest of the population this group is only 23.9%. (Table 21) In conclusion, these results strongly suggest that Catholicism is a "limiting framework." It does permanently cut off a certain portion of the population from the DC. This proportion is not nearly so large as that which rejects the PCI or the MSI. Fui-tber analysis also- suggests that €hc proportion of respondents who reject the DC increases as one goes further to the right or the left on the political spec trum. An explanation based on a spatial model may also be in part appropriate. In summary, both the religious factor and the spatial hypothesis, which is a major topic in Chap ter 3, may be useful in understanding the limits on the expansion of the DC. Secularization Secularization has been widely discussed as a societal trend which may have relevance for the maintenance of the strength of religiously-based parties. It has been defined 91 in many ways by scholars who have written about it. Shiner, for example, identifies six ways in which he says the con- 40 cept of secularization has been employed. Among these six are secularization as: (1) a decline in the prestige and influence of the religious "symbols, doctrines, and institutions"; (2) the religious group's becoming less con cerned about the supernatural and more concerned about this world; and (3) religion's becoming an "autonomous reality" apart from the other spheres of life, among others. Smith conceptualizes secularization as a "decline of the explicit ly religious values throughout society" and as "religion 41 occupying a diminishing part of consciousness." The measure most widely used as an indicator of secularization c is a longitudinal comparison of the level of church attend ance . Secularization will be defined in this dissertation very much like Shiner's first type. It will be measured by the level of church attendance over time and will be seen as a process in which fexver and fewer individuals feel religious and attend church and in which the influence of what Shiner calls the "symbols, doctrines, and institutions" of the Church decreases. Conradt, in analyzing the 1969 West German elections, found that there has been a constant decline of church attendance over the preceding 15 years ac-* 42 cording to the available survey evidence. He further sug gests that this may in part be responsible for the decrease 92 in the proportion of the national vote gained by the Chris tian Democratic Union there. Gordon Smith more generally contends, in writing about Western European societies, that there has been a "general decline in religiosity, if meas ured in terms of formal observance, as well as in the sec- 43 ular influence of the church authorities." The available evidence in Italy, does in fact, show a decline in church attendance over the past 15 or 20 years. In 1959 (Civic Culture survey), 57.4% of those surveyed stated that they went to church weekly or more often. In 1968, this figure had dropped to 47.8%; in 1972, only 39.5% of the respondents stated that they went to church at least once a week. Two DOXA surveys, from 1956 and 1961, reported by Luzzatto Fegiz further substantiate this pattern of declining church attendance. In 1956, when asked, "have you been to Church in the last 7 days?," 69% said yes. In 1961, when asked, "did you attend Church on Sunday?," 53% stated that they had.^ In summary, the proportion of those who attend church weekly has dropped from 69% in 1956 to 57.4% in 1959 to 53% in 1961 to 47.8% in 1968 to 39.5% in 1972. (Table 22) Further evidence of a decline in church attendance can be gained from the respondents' answers when they were asked, in 1972, to assess their degree of church attendance compared with 5 years earlier. Only 5.8% of those sampled said that they went to church more often than they had five 33 TABLE 22 CHURCH ATTENDANCE IN ITALY, 1956-1972 1956: "Have you been in Church In the last 7 days?" Source: DOXA survey, July 1956 Yes-69% No -31 (N)=648______ 1959s "About how often do you attend services? Weekly or more often? Once in a while? Only on major holidays? Never?" Source: The Civic Culture survey, June-July 1959 Weekly or more often -57*4/6 Once in a while -24,2 Only on major holidays- 9*2 Never - 5*2 No Answer - 4.0 1961: "Did you attend Church on Sunday?" Source: DOXA survey, December 1961 No -47 (N)=2100 1968: "Do you attend Church at least once a week, often during the year, sometimes, rarely, or never?" Source: Barnes CISER survey, 1968 At least once a week -47*8/6 Often during the year-19,3 Sometimes -17,2 Rarely - 9*2 Never - 6,1 No Answer - 0,3 (N)=250O 1972: "Presently do you go to cnurch at least once a week, often during tne year, sometimes, rarely, or never?" At least once a weeK -39,5/6 Often during the year-17,0 Sometimes -17,6 Rarely -12,4 Never - 7*2 No Answer - 6,3 (N)=1841 years earlier; 29.4% reported that their level of church at tendance was less than five years earlier. 58.1% stated they went to church with about the same frequency as five years before; 6.7% did not answer. Tables 23 and 24 clear ly illustrate that this decline in church attendance, al though most pronounced among the younger age groups, has occurred across all age levels. The secularization hypoth esis, which suggests generational changes, seems to explain these changes over time better than a life cycle hypothesis, 45 which only explains the differences between young and old. Along with the decline in church attendance, there have been changes in the position of the church vis-H-vis the Christian Democratic Party. In the immediate post-war c period, the Church and the Catholic Action fully mobilized their resources to the "launching and support (and control) 46 of a mass political party." Wiskemann and Kogan both con tend that DeGasperi, much more than present leaders of the DC, was willing to "depend upon the Church for much of his voting support." When Fanfani became' the secretary of the DC, he emphasized the need to build a strong organiza tion of the party and to not be dependent so much on the Church's network. Galli and Prandi, Kogan, and others sug gest that the influence of the church hierarchy in the party and in electoral activities has been lessening over the years. The strong stand taken by the Italian Conference of Bishops on the divorce, which I mentioned earlier, is, of 95 TABLE 23 CHURCH ATTENDANCE BY AGE, 1968 A£e Church Attendance At Least Once Rarely or No A Week Often Sometimes Never An swer (N ) 21-30 44 .7# 20.9 17.2 17.0 0.0 - ^ 506) 31-40 39.956 19.8 16.3 15.6 0.0 (596) 41-50 43.4# 18.6 22.5 15.0 0.4 (488) 51-60 * 9 . 7 % 16.8 16.6 16.6 0.4 (**53) 6I-70 60.8# 18.6 11.7 8.2 0.7 (291) 71 or older 56.6# 16.4 12.4 14.2 0.4 (226) Total (N)=2500 TABLE 21+ CHURCH ATTENDANCE BY------AGE,w — 1972 r 1 — Age Church Attendance At Least Once Rarely No A Week Often Sometimes or Never Answer (N) 21-30 26.2# 23.2 21*3 17.1 12.2 (328) 31-1+0 26*5# 21*8 20*2 23.9 7.6 (381) 1+1-50 3 9 . # 17.2 17.1+ 19.6 5.9 (373) 51-60 1+6.3# 15.1 15.8 20*0 2*8 (285) 61-70 57.3# 9.0 15.1 16*1 2.5 (279) 71 or * older 50.5# 11.7 12*2 20*2 5.3 (188) Hissing Data ——- —— (8) Total (N)=181+1 Percentages not calculated because there were less than 10 cases* 97 course, an example of the Church involving itself very heavily in political affairs and in pushing the DC force fully to support its position. This discussion has sug gested that, although the religious factors are strong cor relates of the DC electoral support, the DC may be more independent of the direct control and influence of the Church than it was 20 years ago. Because the religious factors have such great explan atory power for the DC electoral support, the decline in church attendance may have an important political effect. The analysis done to test this hypothesis leads, however, to the conclusion that in the recent post-war period the decline in church attendance has not had much impact on the support for the DC. First, with the exception of the c especially large vote gained by the DC in the critical and polarizing 1948 election, the national vote totals have been very consistent. Correlations reported earlier in this chapter also suggested that this continuity is also true at the provincial level. Secondly, in the 1972 survey, only 13.1% of the DC voters had ever voted for a different party. The Italian Communist Party, 11.5% of whose re spondents had ever voted for a different party, was the only party with a smaller proportion. At least 30% of the other parties' supporters have voted for different parties. The critical datum, those who have switched away from the DC, is unavailable, but, since its national vote totals for 98 1968 and 1972 are very similar and since it gained only a small proportion of new voters, it can be assumed that changes due to secularization cannot have been very great between 1968 and 1972. A third important piece of information is that, al though there has been a drop in church attendance, this has largely not been individuals leaving the church com pletely. While those going to church at least once a week has declined, many of these individuals now state that they go to church often or sometimes. Therefore, they may still have strong group membership and church ties. The propor tion of those never going to church has increased only very slightly from 1959 to 1972. Finally, the variable of church attendance five years ago compared with now adds no variance explained in the support for the DC when it is included in a multiple regression analysis with the nine religious fac tors. The beta coefficient is very small and not signifi cant. In summary, secularization has had no important short term impact on the DC vote between 196 8 and 19 72 or earlier in the post-war years. I have found no short term impact of secularization in the recent past. If the rate of decline in church at tendance continues at the same pace so that there is only a very slow increase in the proportion of those completely dropping av/ay from the Church, the impact of seculariza tion is not likely to be great over the next few decades. 99 The problem of longer term changes remains. There are two small indications that there may be more change over the long term. First, while the differences are very small, 15.9% of those who voted for the DC in 1972 and attended church less than five years earlier considered voting for another party. Of those with the same degree of church attendance, 13.5% considered changing. Of those who at tended church more than five years earlier, 10.5% consid ered voting for another party in 1972. Along with these differences, the strength of the individual's party iden tification shows a similar pattern among DC voters. Among the 1972 DC electors, only 1.8% among those with more church attendance have a "not very close" party identification; c 4.9% of those with the same level-of church attendance have a not very close identification. This figure is 12.4% among those with less church attendance. If the trends in declining church attendance continue at the rate they have over the past 15 years and if these two slim pieces of evi dence are any indication, secularization may have a long term impact on the DC vote. However, this is very specula tive. The impact of secularization in the near future, for which there is more solid evidence for conjecture, is not likely to be very much. Concluding Remarks In summary, this chapter has shown that religion is an important determinant of the vote for the Christian 100 Democratic Party and that there are several dimensions of religion which are individually important in explaining the DC support. Religious variables were found to have a great er impact in the North than the South; the reason for this may be differences in the development of political sub cultures in the two zones of Italy. There is no basis, however, for confirming this hypothesis. As well as being a major contributor to explaining the support for the DC, the religious principle which inspired its formation acts also to limit its expansion. Finally, secularization, in terms of decline in church attendance, has taken place in Italy between 1956 and 1972, but its short term impact on the DC vote has been very minor. 101 Notes - Chapter 2 ^Lenski, p. 1. 2 Allum in Henig and Pinder, eds., p. 229. 3 Joseph LaPalombara, "Italy: Fragmentation, Isola tion, and Alienation," in Lucian W. Pye and Sidney Verba, eds., Political Culture and Political Development (Prince ton: Princeton University Press, 1965), p. 301. 4 Charles Y. Glock, "On the Study of the Religious Commitment," Research Supplement to Religious Education 42 (July-August 1962):98-110. 5Joseph E. Faulkner and Gordon F. DeJong, "Religios ity in 5-D: An Empirical Analysis," Social Forces 45 (Decem ber 1966}:246-254. ^Herve Carrier, The Sociology of Religious Belonging (New York: Herder and Herder, 1965), p. 33. £ ^Faulkner and DeJong, p. 253. Q Carrier, pp. 32-33. J. Wach, Sociology of Religion (Chicago: 1944), p. 21 quoted in Carrier, p. 32. Q On Italy, see Samuel H. Barnes in Rose, ed., Elec toral Behavior: A Comparative Handbook, pp. 171-226. See also Giacomo Sani, "Determinants of Party Preference in Italy: Toward the Integration of Complementary Models." On Belgium, see Keith Hill, "Belgium: Political Change in a Segmented Society," in Rose, ed., pp. 29-108. On the Netherlands, see Arend Lijphart, "The Netherlands: Contin uity and Change in Voting Behavior," in Rose, ed., pp. 227- 268. On West Germany and Austria, see Klaus Liepelt, "The Infra-Structure of Party Support in Germany and Austria," in Dogan and Rose, eds., European Politics, pp. 183-202. On West Germany, see David Conradt, "The West German Party System: An Ecological Analysis of Social Structure and Voting Behavior, 1961-1969," in II. Eckstein and T.R. Gurr, Comparative Politics Series 3, No. 01-028. ■^Carrier, p. 111. 102 ^Lenski, p. 23. 12 Barnes in Rose, ed., Electoral Behavior: A Compar ative Handbook, p. 213. 13 For example, see Eric A. Nordlinger, The Working Class Tories (London: IlacGibbon and Kee, 1967)7 Also see Robert McKenzie and Allan Silver, Angels in Marble: Work- ing Clas3 Conservatives in Urban England (London: Heinemann, 1968). 14David Butler and Donald Stokes, Political Change in Britain (College Edition) (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1971), pp. 120-126. 15 Lipset, Revolution and Counterrevolution, p. 229. 16 In the case of The Netherlands, see Lijphart, The Politics of Accommodation, pp. 35-36. On Italy, see Paolo Facchi, La Propaganda Politica in Italia (Bologna: il Mulino, 1960) and Prandi, Chiesa e politica. In 1972 the question was: "In your opinion should a good Catholic follow the advice of the Church to vote for a political party?." In 1968 the question was: "Would you please tell me what importance you give to the opinions of the clergy? Much, some, little, or no importance. 18 Although this technique is commonly used, it is technically incorrect to use dichotomous dependent varia bles in multiple regression analysis. For a discussion of the assumptions which are violated by this technique, see William Zavoina and Richard McKelvey, "A Statistical Model for the Analysis of Legislative Voting Behavior." Pre pared for delivery at the 1969 Annual Meeting of the Amer ican Political Science Association, New York, September 1-6, 1969. ^Galli and Prandi, pp. 42-47. 20 See Douglas Wertman, "Report on Electoral Contin uity in Italy." (Mimeo: Ohio State University, 1973). ^Galli and Prandi, pp. 72-108 and pp. 168-195. 103 22 Butler and Stokes, pp. 79-86. 23 Giacomo Sani employed a provincial level indicator in his "Determinants ...” paper before the commune level data became available. <% jt See Samuel Barnes, Party Democracy; Politics in an Italian Socialist Federation (New Haven!' Yale University Press, 1967), pp. 238-244. Giacomo Sani, "Mass Level Response to Party Strategy: The Italian Electorate and the Communist Party" in Donald Blackmer and Sidney Tarrow, eds., Communism in France and Italy (Princeton: Princeton Univer sity Press, 1974, forthcoming). Sani, "Determinants . . . ." 25 Liepelt in Dogan and Rose, eds., European Politics, p. 187. 26 Sani, "Determinants . . . ." 27 Giovanni Sartori, " The Sociology of Parties: A Critical Review," in Otto Stammer, ed., Party Systems, Party Organizations, and the Politics of New Masses (Berlin: Institut fur politische VJissenschaft, Free University of c. Berlin, 1968), p. 18. 28 Barnes in Rose, ed., Electoral Behavior: A Compara tive Handbook, p. 213. 29 Gianfranco Poggi, Catholic Action in Italy (Stan ford: Stanford University Press, 1967). Galli and Prandi, pp. 168-182. ^®Galli and Prandi, pp. 183-188. ^ O n ACLI, see Galli and Prandi, pp. 188-192. On the splits within the Italian labor movement and CISL, see Galli and Prandi, pp. 210-221. Much information on all of these Catholic organizations can be found in Joseph LaPalom- bara, Interest Groups in Italian Politics (Princeton: Prince ton University Press, 1964) . 3 2 For example, see Lester Milbrath, Political Partic- ipation (Chicago: Rand McNally and Company, 1965), p p . 135- 136. Milbrath lists a number of studies which have reported that men participate in politics more than women. 104 33 Two books about the Italian newspapers are Vit torio Capecchi and Marino Livolsi, La Stampa Quotidiana in Italia (Milano: Bompiani, 1971) and Maurizio Dardano, II Linguaggio dei Giornali Italiani (Bari: Laterza, 1.97 3) . 34 Sani, "Hass Level Response to Party Strategy: The Italian Electorate and the Communist Party." 35 Among those who have argued for the North-South dichotomy are Sidney Tarrow, Peasant Communism in Southern Italy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967); Edward Ban- iiela, The Moral Basis of a Backward Society (New York: The Free Press, 1958); John Clarke Adams and Paolo Barile, The Government of Republican Italy (Second Edition) (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1966); and LaPalombara in Pye and Verba, eds., pp. 282-329. 36 Samuel Barnes and Giacomo Sani, "Mediterranean Political Culture and Italian Politics: An Interpretation," British Journal of Political Science (Spring 1974, forth- coming). Kenneth Bode and Timothy Hennessey, "Region as a Political Variable: Within-Mation Differences and Polit ical Culture in Italy." Paper delivered at the 1967 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, West Lafayette, Indiana. Edward Muller, "Cress-National Dimen sions of Political Competence," American Political Science Review 64 (1970):782-809. Alan Zuckerman, "Social Structure and Political Competition: The Italian Case," World Politics XXIV (April 1972):428-443. These last three studxes em ployed the Civic Culture data in their research. 37 Haselrxgg, pp. 505-509. ^®P. Allum, "The South and National Politics, 1945- 1950," in S.J. Woolf, ed., The Rebirth of Italy, 19 43-1950 (London: Longman Group, LtdTi 1972), pp. 95-120. 39 Allum, in Henig and Pinder, eds., p. 229. 40 Larry Shiner, "The Concept of Secularization in Empirical Research," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion VI (Fall 196 7)207:220. 41 Donald Eugene Smith, Religion and Political Develop- ment (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, Inc., 1970) , p. T T T 7 105 42Conradt, pp. 21-22. 43Gordon Smith, Politics in Western Europe, p. 30. 44 . . . Pierpaolo Luzzatto Fegiz, II volto sconoscxuto del Italia, seconda serie, 1956-1965 (Milano: Giuffre, 1966), p7 12 86. 45 Rodney Stark, "Age and Faith: A Changing Outlook or an Old Process?," in Charles Y. Glock, ed., Religion in Sociological Perspective: Essays in the Empirical Study of Religion (Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company, Inc., 1973), pp. 48-57. ^Poggi in Woolf, ed. , p. 147. if *7 The quotation is from Elizabeth Wiskeraann, Italy Since 1945 (liew York: St. Martin's Press, 1971), p. 52. Norman Kogan, A Political History of Postwar Italy (Hew York: Praeger, 1966). CHAPTER III THE POLITICAL ISSUES OF MODERATION AND ANTI-COMMUNISM A second ideational basis of religiously-based par ties, along with the religious factor, which has been stressed in the literature on these parties is moderation and centrism. The Italian Christian Democratic Party, like other religiously-based parties, has been called a "moder ate bloc" which acts as an "electoral coalition against the extremes."^ This chapter will examine the relationship of attitudes of centrism and moderation and feelings toward, communism to the support for the DC. Earlier I argued that religiously-based parties arose to defend the Church against the anti-clerical forces in society. This protection of the religious status quo committed them to the role of parties of principle on relig iously-based parties, along with their strong moral stance on religious issues, are flexible in their economic policies. Lipset suggests, in analyzing the centrism of religious parties, that "they must appeal to the lower strata, while retaining the support of deeply religious conservatives." Einaudi and Goguel argue that these parties, in attempting 106 107 to draw support from all sectors of society/ try to be all 3 things to all men in their economic policies. Religiously- based parties, while being called parties of the center, are said to be pluralistic and vague in the economic sphere. This is partially because they have deep internal faction alism and include left and right wings within their leader- 4 ship. The "interclassist" nature or "social synthesis" in the composition of the support base of the DC will be exam ined in the next chapter; the essential point for this chapter is that centrism is in part a function of this bal ancing of social forces with varying positions on economic issues. The commitment of the religiously-based party is, of course, to the protection of the religious status quo. ' The hypothesized centrism of these parties, many of whom play leading governmental roles in Western Europe, also involves the defense of the political structures and the economic system from basic change. The religiously-based parties are considered to be upholders of freedom and democracy within the political system. In the case of Italy, Einaudi and Goguel emphasize the commitment of 5 Christian Democracy to the "method of freedom." It has been contended that the DC's centrist stance toward the protection of the economic and political status quo is of particular importance in attracting the support of the middle class groups, such as the artisans, the small 108 shopkeepers, and the white collar workers. Poggi suggests that after World War II there was a greater legitimacy and acceptability of the Church among the Italian middle classes. Similarly, he contends that Christian Democratic Party found greater acceptability and popularity among these middle class groups than had the Italian Popular Party, its ante cedent. He argues that this was because of the felt need among these groups for a party to defend democracy and the economic status quo.6 Chapter 4 carries out more detailed analysis of class differences in the support for the DC; this chapter will examine whether centrism and anti-commun ism are particularly important among the middle class groups. Finally, the centrism of religiously-based parties evolves 'from the vacuum or yap in the center of the politi cal spectrum at the time of the formation of many of these parties. In Italy, for example, there were strong political forces on the left and on the right, but there was no major 7 political group to fill the wide middle ground. In Italy and other European nations, it was natural, for the reasons mentioned above, and also strategically sound for these par ties to inhabit this middle ground. In summary, centrism has been a major characteristic of religiously-based parties in Western Europe because of the flexible and vague nature of their economic policy, be cause of their interclassist base and the factionalism which is present within them, because of a basic commitment to 109 the religious, economic, and political status quo, and be cause of a void of political forces between the left and the right in many of the political systems where these religiously-based parties arose. The Impact of Centrism on the Support for the DC One significant method of testing the relationship of moderation and centrism to the electoral support for the Christian Democratic Party is to examine the individual's self-positioning on a left-right political spectrum. There is now a growing body of literature on spatial models of O voting choice. Downs suggested this approach in 1957, while a critique by Stokes in 1963 contended that there were problems with some of the assumptions of Downs' for-c g mu1ations. More recently there have been a number of studies which employ this type of model in order to analyze the vot ing behavior of individuals. The debate over the applic ability and reality of spatial models in studying the voting choice of individuals within the mass electorate has con tinued through differing findings in this recent research. Some of these survey research studies have suggested that there are significant shortcomings to this approach and that it does not provide a meaningful explanation of the cog nitive process of individual voters.^ Others who employ this model have found it useful in studying the voting 110 choice of the electorate and argue that it is much more 11 realistic than Stokes' 1963 critique of Downs suggests. Sani points out that some of the differences in the find ings of recent survey research on this topic may result from alternative types of questions being used to tap this factor.^ Among these pieces of research which have found spatial models to be applicable to the mass electorate, several have employed the Italian case as a testing ground. The studies by Barnes, Barnes and Pierce, and Sani have, in fact, been among the most successful in responding to the criticisms made by Stokes and in suggesting that spatial models may be more in line with reality, at least in the Italian political system, than he and other cricics be- 1 3 lieve. Specifically, in" a study of the 1968 election, Barnes found that three of the assumptions criticized by Stokes were not so unrealistic for the Italian case. These three were: (1) unidimensionality that all political con flict occurs on one basic left-right dimension; (2) ordered dimensions, that there is a range of alternative and ordered views on issues over a left to right political spectrum; and (3) common reference, that the ordering of alternatives is basically similar among the mass electorate and between the mass and the political elite."^ Sani found that the least distance principle, which is based on the assumption that the individual will vote for the party Ill whose position on the left-right spectrum is nearest his own position on this dimension, had great applicability to the Italian case, although there were some data and theoret ical factors which led him to call for caution in his inter- 15 pretation. The left-right terminology is commonly used in Italian politics by the political elite and by many of the mass elec torate. It can be called an information simplifying device, a summary dimension of political conflict, or a "coarse 16 cognitive map" of the political spectrum. In other words, there is no assumption that this is a well-developed ideo logical framework; it is simply an individual's perception of politics in left-right terms. Converse, for example, c has pointed to the Ictek of a constrained belief system in 17 the case of most American voters. In the Italian case, in fact, when asked in an open-ended question to define the difference between left and right, 49.7% of the respondents in 1968 and 57.3% in 1972 were unable or unwilling to answer or gave incomprehensible answers. Left-right self-placement and the positioning of parties, is, therefore, a device for mentally ordering parties and simplifying one's understand ing of political struggle. The terms left and right, of course, also have strong positive or negative connotations to many within the electorate. The question used to tap self-placement was one which asked for the individual to place himself on a scale which extended from 0 on the far 112 left to 100 on the far right. Of those asked this item, 24.2% were unwilling or unable to answer in 1968, while in 1972 this proportion was 38.6%. In order to test for the relation of centrism to the support for the DC, I will use an answer of 45 to 55 on this scale as an indicator of a centrist response. In 1968, 74.4% of those in this category voted for the DC, while, in 1972, 60.0% in this group voted for the DC. With those who did not indicate their party eliminated, these proportions jump to 85.5% and 77.6% respectively. In terms of the com position of the DC electorate on this left-right self placement scale, DC voters averaged 54.3 in 196 8 and 55.2 in 1972. Table 25 shows that there is a moderately strong c. relationship between centrism on this scale and support for the Christian Democratic Party in both 1968 and 1972. (In 18 1972, Pearson's r=.407 and gamma=.683) Table 26 illus trates, in terms of the positioning of the DC as a party on the left-right spectrum, the central placement of the DC on this scale in both 1968 and 1972, whether the position ing was done by DC voters, voters for other parties, or those who refused to reveal their vote. In combining the information on self-placement and the position of the DC, 6 4.8% of those who placed both themselves and the DC in the 45-55 category voted for the DC. Of those who indicated their party, 84.6% in this group voted for the DC. In terms of the composition of the DC electorate, of those 113 TAELE 25 PARTY PREFERENCE BY SELF-PLACEMENT ON A LEFT-RIGHT POLITICAL SPECTRUM, 1968 AND 1972 Score on Left-Right Political Spectrum13 Party Preference Christian Non-Christian Party Not Democratic Democratic Indicated (N) 2-20 4.1# 77.2 18.7 (219) (7.2#) (85.0 ) ( 7.8) (320 ) 21-44 8.3* 6 8 .5 23.3 (206) (18.7#) (65.0 ) (16.3) (449) 45-55 6 0.0# 17.3 2 2 .8 (486) (74.*#) (12.7) (12.9) (727) 56-79 42.6# 3 6 .6 2 0 .8 (101) (51.2#) (33.8) (14.9) Uyl) 80-99 46.6# 36.4 17.0 (118) (50.7*) (36.2 ) ( 8.2 ) (211 ) No Answer 27.6# 19.3 (711) (34.3#) (19.8) < & ? > (60 6) 1972 Total (N)=1841 1968 Total (N)=2500 1972 2£68 Pearson's r*.407 Pearson's r- .374 Gamma = .683 Tho *972 Jercentases are the upper ones in each case. 2 Percentages are the lower ones in each case and are surrounded by parentheses. Respondents were asked to place themselves on a political spectrum which extended from 1 on the extreme left to 100 on the extreme right. TA13LE 26 PIACEMENT 01*’ ITALIAN PARTIES OK A LEFT-RIGHT POLITICAL SPECTRJM, 1968 AND 1972a 1263 Placement Done m _____ Self PCI PSIUP PSU PRI DC PLI MON MSI ^ Christian D e m o c r a t i c 54.3 11.0 16.3 31.3 50.2 55.7 70.4 71.8 75.2 (I06lf) V o t e r s Voters for Other Parties 35.9 13.3 17.1 33.6 51.4 5L.9 74.8 78.6 8l.2 (919) T h o s e who did not indicate 45.9 13.8 17.0 3h.l 52.5 55.4 69.5 72.9 77.1 (517) their party Total (N)=£500 i m . Placement Done Self Manifesto PCI PSIUP MPL PSI PSDI PRI DC MSI Xlii Christian Democratic 55.2 8.5 15.2 20.4 21.7 32.0 44.2 51.9 55.4 60.8 77.9 (611) Voters Voters for Other Parties 37.3 11.1 18.1 20.7 23.8 33.4 U6.2 53.0 56.0 67.9 86.2 ,(6ll) Those who did not indicate h5.8 7.8 18.9 21.0 2lt7 33.9 43.5 52.0 54.8 65.5 84. 8 (619) their party Total (N)«=l84l ^The scores in each case represent the mean placement of the party on a left-right scale which extends f r o m 0 on the left to 1 0 0 on the right. Those who failed to answer were not included in the mean. 1711 115 who answered both questions on self-placement and DC place ment (which was 63.2% of the 611 DC voters), 64.5% placed both themselves and the DC in the 45-55 grouping. Further evidence of the centrist nature of the DC electorate is found in the answers given by the DC voters to a question asking them the names of the parties for which they would never vote. In 1972, for example, the largest number of responses indicating unacceptability as a voting choice was given to the major party which is farthest left, the Italian Communist Party, while the second largest num ber was given to the party farthest to the right, the neo- fascist MSI. (Table 27) Finally, the 1972 survey included two items in which the respondents were asked whether the government would be better if the Communist Party were in it and whether the government would be better if the MSI were in it. 48.4% of those responding no in both cases voted for the DC. This was the largest proportion for the DC among all the possible combinations of these two questions. (Table 2 8) I have, in summary, provided four separate pieces of evidence which suggest that centrism and non-extremism are strongly related to voting for the Christian Democratic Party. Respondents in 1968 and 1972 were also given an open- ended question in which they were asked why they liked the party for which they had voted. Of those who gave a re sponse which indicated centrism, moderation, protection of 116 TABLE 2? PROPORTION OF CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC VOTERS FINDING EACH OTHER MAJOR ITALIAN PARTY UNACCEPTABLE AS A VOTING CHOICE, 1972a Acceptability Unacceptable to Not Given as No Party DC Voters Unacceptable Answer (N) PCI 59.1# 16,7 24.2 (611) PSI 6.**# 69.4 24.2 (611) PSDI 0.7# 75.1 24.2 (611) PRI 0.5# 75.3 24.2 (611) PLI 2.5# 73*3 24.2 (611) MSI 33.9# 41.9 24.2 (611) Respondents were asked, "Are there parties for which you would never vote? Which ones?" Each party is treated here as having been either named or not named as an unacceptable choice. t TABLE 28 PARTY PREFERENCE BY OPINION ON WHETHER THE GOVERNMENT WOULD BE BETTER IF THE COMMUNISTS 17ERE IN IT AND OPINION ON WHETHER THE GOVERNMENT WOULD BE BETTER IF THE NEO-FASCISTS WERE IN IT, 1972 Government Better if Government Better if Neo- Communists Fascists (MSI) in it____ In it No Answer No No Ho DC Non-DC Party DC Non-DC Party DC Non-DC Party Yes 35.4% 40.0 24.6 13.6% 57.2 29.2 22.4% 43.3 34.3 (65) (435) (67) No 31.7% 46.0 24.6 48.4% 24.6 27.0 44.0% 20.0 36.0 (126) (564) (75) No Answer 40.0% 20.0 40.0 1 23.1% 32.7 44.2 35.4% 14.9 49.7 (15) (104) (390) Total (N) - (1841) democracy, or freedom, 82.2% voted for the DC in 196 8 and 76.3% voted for the DC in 1972. (Table 29) This is a further indication that centrism is related to the support for the DC. A final test for the moderation explanation might be an examination of the relationship between salience of gov ernmental stability is, however, a somewhat ambiguous term because to many Italian voters it may not mean so much the protection of the democratic status quo as stability under an authoritarian government. The evidence shows that gov ernmental stability is equally important to DC and non-DC voters in both close-ended and open-ended questions. Gov ernmental stability, because it may have the different connotations mentioned above and because it may be a valeftce issue which is positively valued by much of the electorate, is probably not a very good indicator of centrism and does not cast doubt on the evidence presented previously. The large bulk of the evidence strongly supports the hypothesis that centrism is an important factor in the electoral support for the DC. Some scholars have, however, suggested that centrism on a left-right spectrum should be more carefully examined in terms of the level of informa tion of the individual voter. Converse and Pierce, for example, argue that there may be a difference between what they call nominal centrism and real centrism in responses to self-positioning on a left-right political spectrum. 119 TABLE 29 PARTY PREFERENCE BY MODERATION, FREEDOM, AND DEMOCRACY REASONS FOR LIKING ONE'S PARTY, 1968 AND 1972a Party Preference Christian Non-Christian Party Not Democratic Democratic Indicated INI Respondent liked his party because of Its 82.6# 12.5 **.9 (26*0 moderation, (76.3*) (15.8) (7.9) (253) protection of democracy, or c. commitment to freedom13 aThe 1972 percentages are the upper ones; the 1 9 6 8 percentages are the lower ones and are surrounded by parentheses, ^In both 1 9 6 8 and 1972 respondents were asked: "What do you like most about your party?" 120 They suggest that the nominal centrists are those for whom the center is the easiest location psychologically to place themselves if they have low political information and do 19 not really understand the left-right dimension very well. In testing this hypothesis, the first point to be made is that those with less information, less political interest, and less education constitute a substantially larger propor tion of those who failed to respond on the question of self- 20 placement. Of those who did respond, there is very little difference among DC voters or among non-DC voters in degree of centrism due to diverse levels of political information, political interest, or education. There is, therefore, no evidence to suggest that the problem of nominal centrism is a very real one or distorts my findings. The important factor is that for the more politically backward members of the electorate the applicability of the centrist explan ation may be less than for those who are more politically informed and interested. Anti-Communism A major theme in the literature on the Christian Democratic Party has been the anti-communist nature of the party. For example, Allum contends that the DC was the "dominant bourgeois party and hence became the pillar of Italian anti-communism" in the early post-World War II 21 period. Lipset suggests more generally that religiously- 22 based parties have difficulty compromising with "heresy." 121 Religiously-based parties in their formative years, in fact, as I suggested in Chapter 1, were inspired by the need to defend the Church from major anti-clerical forces in soc iety. Anti-communism also acted as an important screen to prevent working-class Catholics from developing a class consciousness and a positive orientation toward left-wing parties. An important case of this anti-communism was the 1948 Italian election. This election occurred in the period when the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was quite severe and after the breaking apart of the Popular Front government, which had included all the parties of the political spectrum from the Communists to the center-right c. Liberals. It was a major confrontation early in the life of the Italian Republic and was fought along the lines of Catholicism vs. Communism. Numerous statements by priests, bishops, and cardinals in this election campaign and after exhorted the anti-communist line because of their fear of 23 communism damaging the Church. More recently, the cam paign in 1974 to overturn the divorce law in a national referendum took on anti-communist tones on the part of many of the leaders of the DC and the neo-fascist MSI. Further more, Capecchi and Galli, on the basis of causal analysis with ecological data, contend that the DC vote is "charac- 24 teristically anti-communist." In summary, in addition to the centrism of many DC voters which we have found in the 122 last section of this chapter, anti-communism specifically is thought to be a major source of support for a religious ly-based party. Anti-communism is further posited to be due both to the religious inspiration of these parties and to their centrist, moderate nature. Although left-wing parties, whether socialist, soc ial democratic, or communist, exist in all European coun tries which have religiously-based parties, the presence in Italy of the largest non-ruling communist party may act as a special symbol to be attacked by the Church and the Christian Democrats. Dogan, for example, suggests that "the communist vote is condemned by the ecclesiastical 25 hierarchy more severely than the socialist vote." In Italy there has been a papal decree of excommunication for all communist militants for more than 25 years. Although this decree has not been followed for many years, there has been no similar condemnation of socialist militants. According to Table 27, DC voters are less willing to ac cept the Communist Party as a voting choice than the Italian Socialist Party or the Italian Social Democratic Party. Of course, this is only to be expected because these latter two parties are also governmental partners with the DC. Hostility to communism is certainly an important feature of the centrism among the DC mass electorate, as we have already seen in terms of the degree of 123 unacceptability of the PCI as a voting choice (Table 27} and negative feelings toward the PCI as a partner in the government. (Table 2 8) Table 30 clearly demonstrates that there is a strong relationship between feelings toward com munism and support for the Christian Democratic Party in 1972. (Pearson's r=-.544 and gamma=-.6 83) The results for 1968 are very similar. Greater hostility to the PCI on a 100 point thermometer (0 being most unfavorable and 100 being most favorable) means that the respondent was more likely to vote for the DC. Of those who rate the PCI be tween 0 and 20 on the scale, 6 3.7% voted for the DC in 1968. In 1972, 56.7% in this group declared themselves DC voters. The proportion of DC voters who failed to respond c to tills question was much lower than was the case with spatial self-placement, possibly indicating a greater under standing and broader impact of the feelings toward commun ism compared with attitudes of centrism on a left-right spectrum. However, the degree of unfavorability toward com munism among the DC voters is, in fact, very nearly the same as that among the voters of the parties to its right, whose supporters are on the average a greater distance spatially from the PCI than are the members of the DC elec torate. (Table 26) The basic similarity in the degree of hostility toward communism in comparing DC voters and right-wing electors can be seen in terms of the 124 TABLE 30 PARTY PREFERENCE BY FAVORABILITY TOWARD COMMUNISM, 1968 AND 1972a Favorabillty Tovxard Party Preference Christian Non-Christian Party Not Democratic Democratic Indicated (N) 2-20 21.0 22.3 (672) (22.3) (14.0) (1071) 21-44 27.0 (174) <8:8. (37.1) (20.7) (353) 45-55 26 .8# 24.7 48.5 (295) (32a*) (33.2) (34.8) (371) 56-79 8.4# 47.9 43*7 (167) (14.0#) (64.8) (21.2) (193) 80-99 4.1# 70.4 25.5 (314) (3.7#) (82.4) (l4.0) (329) No Answer 26.5# 16.0 57.5 (219) (41,0#) (16.4) (42.6) (183) 1972 1968 Pearson’s r=-*544 Pearson’s r=-.475 Gamma = -*6 8 3 Gamma = -.6 5 0 ®pie 1972 percentages ate the upper ones In each case* The 1968 percentages are the lower ones In each case and are surrounded by parentheses. ^In both 1968 and 1972 respondents were asked to rate their favorabllity toward the Italian Communist Party (PCI) on a 100 point scale. 0 was the most unfavorable position and 100 was the most favorable position. unacceptability of the PCI as a voting choice. There is virtually no difference on this score. 59.1% of the DC voters declare the PCI unacceptable, while the proportion of the Italian Liberal Party (PLI) voters doing so is 62.1% and of the neo-fascist MSI voters is 61.9%. (Table 31) There is also a great similarity between the DC and the parties to its right in terms of the favorability toward the PCI. On the thermometer of feelings toward the PCI, DC respondents have a mean of 18.3; among PLI voters the average score is 18.6, and among MSI electors the mean is 17.7. The mean score of the other parties to the left of the DC clearly follows the spatial ordering of these par ties from Table 26. (Table 32) In summary, it has been demonstrated that,, in terms of favorability toward the P^CF, there is not a great difference between the electorate of the DC and the electorate of the parties to its right. However, the hostility of DC voters to communism can be differentiated from that of the PLI and MSI electors in two ways. The first is that unfavorability to commun ism is, among DC voters, part of a more general attitude of centrism and opposition to political extremism. This has already been examined in part earlier in this chapter, but the evidence points to the clear conclusion that op position to the MSI, as well as opposition to communism, is an important part of the attitudes of moderation among many DC electors. Table 33 shows that there is a clear 126 TABLE 31 UNACCEPTABILITY OP THE ITALIAN COMMUNIST PARTY (PCI) BY PARTY PREFERENCE, 1972 Party PCI Preference Unacceptabllltva PCI PCI Not Given No Unacceptable As Unacceptable Answer (N) PCI 0,8# 82.^ 16.9 (261 ) PSI 22. 9# 50.3 2 6 .8 (153) PSDI-PRI 50. 0% 31.1 18.9 (90) DC 5 9 . 1 % 16.7 24.2 (611) PLI 62. 1% 20.7 17.2 (29) MSI 6 1 . 9 % 19.1 19.1 (63) Party Not Indicated 1 6 . 2 % 31.3 52.5 (619) Total (N)=1826b aPCI unacceptability was defined as those who responded that they would never vote for the PCI, b15 cases from minor parties were not included in the analysis. TABLE 32 FAVORABILITY TOWARD THE ITALIAN COMMUNIST PAgTY (PCI) AMONG THE VOTERS FOR VARIOUS PARTIES, 1972 Voters For The: PCI PSI PSDI-PRI DC PLI MSI Mean Favorability Score= 88.1 U7.9 28.3 18.3 18.6 17*7 aThe scores represent the mean favorability toward the PCI on a thermometer which ranges from 0 as the most unfavorable score to 100 as the most favorable score. Missing data were deleted before the averages were calculated. 127 TABLE 33 FAVORABILITY TOWARD THE ITALIAN SOCIAL MOVEMENT (MSl) AMONG THE VOTERS FOR VARIOUS PARTIES, 1972a Voters For The: PCI PSI PSDI-PRI DC PLI MSI Mean Favorability Score= 10.7 11.9 16.1 2 2 7 b 32.9 64.5 aThe scores represent the mean favorability toward the MSI on a thermometer which ranges from 0 as the most unfavorable score to 100 as the mcst favorable score. Missing data were deleted before the averages were calculated. 128 129 spatial ordering to the score on the favorability thermom eter toward the MSI among the major political forces in Italy. The DC is in the middle between the left and the center-right, i.e., PLI, while the MSI respondents have a much higher degree of favorability to their party than does any other political group. The MSI voters in the 1972 sur vey had a mean favorability of 84.5 toward the MSI compared with the next closest favorability average— the 32.9 mean among the PLI voters. Tables 34 and 35 show that the DC is successful among a high proportion of the voters who find both the PCI and the MSI unacceptable as voting choices or who give both the PCI and the MSI low favorability ratings. Two major conclusions-can be- drawn from my findings at this-point. c' First, the DC electorate is as unfavorable to communism in its attitudes as are the voters of the parties of the right and center-right. Unfavorability to communism has also been shown to be an important correlate of the DC vote. Secondly, the Christian Democratic electorate is also a moderate, centrist group which is almost as unfavorable to the MSI as it is to the Communist Party. The mean favora bility of DC voters toward the MSI is 22.4, while the favor ability of DC electors tov/ard the PCI is only slightly lower at 18.3. The favorability thermometer toward the MSI has only a very small relationship to the Christian Democratic vote, however, because of the high degree of unfavorability 130 TABLE 34 PARTY PREFERENCE BY FAVORABILITY TOWARD THE ITALIAN COMMUNIST PARTY (PCI) AND FAVORABILITY TOWARD THE ITALIAN SOCIAL MOVEMENT (MSI), 1972 Favorability Party Preference DC Parties to the Other Party Not Voters RlKht of the DC Parties Indicated sn +PCIa +MSI 18.5* 18.5 14.8 1*8.1 (27) +PCI +MSI 7.5* 0.0 57.5 35.0 (40) +PCI -MSI 11.3* 0.2 60.9 27.5 (432) +PCI +MSI 20.0* 40.0 10.0 3 0 .0 (10) i?ci +MSI 28*3* 3.8 11.9 5 6 .0 c (159) +PCI -MSI 25.0* 0.0 34.7 40.3 (124) -PCI +MSI 31.1* ^6.2 2.8 19.8 (106) -PCI +MSI 57.1* 8.2 11.2 23.5 (98) -PCI -MSI 55.7* 2.8 18.8 22.6 (605) Total (N)= 1841 a+ equals 56-99 on the favorability scale; + equals 45-55 oh the favorability scale; and - equals 2-44 on the favorability scale. Both favorability scales run from 0 as the most unfavorable to 100 as the most favorable. TABLE 35 PARTY PREFERENCE BY THE UN ACCEPTABILITY OF THE ITALIAN COMMUNIST PARTY (PCI) AND THE UNACCEPTABILITY OF THE ITALIAN SOCIAL MOVEMENT (MSI), 1972 Unacceptability Party Preference Parties to the Right Other Party Not DC of the DC Parties Indicated M PCI Unacceptable® MSI Unacceptable 61.6* 3.1* 21.1 13.9 (237) PCI Unacceptable MSI Acceptable 58.9* 13.1* 9.3 18 .i* (365) PCI Acceptable MSI Unacceptable 13.1* 0.6 56.5 29.7 (<*6it) PCI Acceptable MSI Acceptable 22.9* 8.1* 37.1* 31.3 (179) No Answer 2 A second factor to differentiate the DC voters from those who vote for the PLI or the MSI is the greater relig ious commitment of the Christian Democratic electorate. (See Chapter 2) I have earlier outlined the intensity of the anti-communist campaign of the Church in the 1940 's and 1950's. The role of the Church in the crucial 1948 elec tion is a major case of this anti-communist commitment. The moral stance of the Church on this issue would, therefore, C be expected to have an important impact on those voters who are more integrated into the Catholic network and who choose the party closely identified with the Church. Although the MSI's electors attend church and oppose divorce more than the voters of any other party except the DC, the DC is clear ly by itself in being categorized a religiously-based party. Table 36 shows the greater level of church attendance, for example, among the DC electorate compared with the PLI and MSI voters. In the 1972 survey there was a moderately strong relationship between attitudes toward the clergy and feelings toward communism (Pearson's r=-.369) and between frequency of church attendance and feelings toward commun ism (Pearson's r=-.365. In both cases those with the TABLE 36 133 CHURCH ATTENDANCE BY PARTY PREFERENCE (DC, PLI AND MSI VOTERS ONLY), 1972 Church Attendance Party Preference. Christian Democrats Liberals MSI At Least Once A Week 61*.3% 27.6* 3 0.2* Often During The Year 16.5 20,7 17.5 Sometimes 10.1 20.7 15.9 Rarely or Never 8,8 6.9 31.7 No Answer, Not Applicable 0,2 24,1 4.8 (N) (6 1 1) (29) (63) 134 greater religious commitment, i.e., greater favorability to the clergy and a higher level of church attendance, were more likely to be unfavorable to communism. The impact of the religious factor is clearly of greater importance to the unfavorability toward communism among the DC voters than it is to the unfavorability toward communism among the electors of the parties to the DC's right. One variable which clearly shows the relationship between religion and anti-communism is the question in the 1972 survey which asked, "in your opinion can a good Cath olic be a communist?" Of those who said no, 52.4% claimed that they voted for the DC, 23.3% voted for other parties, and 24.3% did not indicate their party. (Pearson's r=.348 and gammas.628) (Table "?7) A similar question pertaining '' to whether good Catholics could be MSI supporters showed greater uncertainty among the voters, but, for those re sponding no, the DC gained 44.4%, the other parties got 28.5%, and 27.0% did not indicate their party. (Pearson's r=.204 and gamma=.403) (Table 38) In this case only 38.5% of the DC voters responded "no" compared with 54.5% in the case of the good Catholic's being a communist. In summary, the first conclusion to be drawn is that lower favorability to communism is clearly related to sup port for the DC. Secondly, the unfavorability toward com munism among the Christian Democratic electorate is about as strong as that of voters for the parties to its right. 135 TABLE 3? PARTY PREFERENCE BY GOOD CATHOLIC AS A COMMUNIST, 1972 In your opinion can a good Catholic be a communist? Party Preference Christian Non-Christian Party Not Democratic Democratic Indicated (N) Yes 22.3# 43.3 34.5 (1010) No 52.^# 23.3 24.3 (.635) No Answer 27.0# 13.3 59.7 (196) Total (N)«(l84l) Pearson's r=.348 Gamma s.628 136 TABLE 38 PARTY PREFERENCE BY GOOD CATHOLIC AS A NEO-FASCIST, 1972 In your opinion can a good Catholic be a neo-fascist? Party Preference Christian Non-Chri stian Party Not Democratic Democratic Indicated iSLL Yes 2 6 . 5 % , ‘ 40.0 33.5 (959) No 44.4^ 28.5 27.0 (529) No Answer 34.6j£ 21.5 43.9 (353) if T OO H H Total (N) C Pearson • a r=.204 Gamma *.403 137 This is true despite their greater spatial distance from the PCI as defined by the survey respdndents. Finally, the distinctive feature of the hostility to communism among many DC electors is that it can generally be attributed to atti tudes of moderation and centrism and to the significant religious commitment of many of the DC voters. Anti-Communism and the Main- tenance of the DC Support Base Several recent developments suggest that there may be changes in the anti-communist component of the DC sup port. First, since the time of Pope John XXIII in the late 1950's and early 1960's, the amount of anti-communist prop aganda from the Church has lessened compared with 20 years' ago. Secondly, the Catholic Church, again in the period of Pope John and now under Pope Paul VI, has attempted to cultivate better relations with the communist nations of Eastern Europe, such as Poland, Hungary, or Czechoslovakia, which have substantial Catholic populations. Thirdly, there has been an increase in the Catholic-Communist dialogue between the Church and the PCI and between the DC and the PCI.26 A fourth factor is that the Cold War has lessened in tone and in degree of confrontation. Finally, the "opening to the left" of the late 1950's and early 1960's has brought another left-wing, secular party, the Italian Socialist 138 Party (PSI), into the governing coalition. However, since the PSI is closer to the center than is the PCI and in light of Dogan's suggestion that anti-communism and anti-social ism are not nearly the same thing, this last factor may not be so important. Nevertheless, the bulk of the evidence suggests that the tensions between Catholics and Communists may be decreasing. The campaign for the divorce referendum in early 1974, in which both leaders of the Italian Church and leaders of the DC, such as Party Secretary Amintore Fanfani, raised the specter of a victory for communism if the repeal of the divorce were to fail, does show the need for caution in the assessment of this dialogue. This anti communist line may, of course, be largely DC campaign tac- ' c. tics which will not greatly hamper any future Catholic- Communist cooperation. It should be added that the sub stantial defeat for the referendum may suggest that the anti-communist strategy was not very successful in appeal ing to the Italian voters, at least in relation to the religio-political issue of divorce. The problem to be studied, with regard to trends in DC support and in light of the developments which I have just discussed, is the impact of feelings toward the Com munist Party in 196 8 compared with 1972 and whether there are any generational differences in the degree of favor- ability toward communism. First, the zero-order correla tion between favorability to communism and the DC support 139 was very similar in 1968 and 1972. (Pearson's r=-.475 in 1968 and -.544 in 1972) Secondly, among DC voters there was only a small difference between 1968 and 19 72 in terms of the mean favorability toward the PCI. The mean score for DC voters in 196 8 was 17.4, while in 1972 it was 18.3. The other approach to this question lies in an exam ination of generational differences in favorability toward the PCI and in the desirability of the PCI in the govern ment. Among DC voters, in both 1968 and 1972, there are only very small age group differences in favorability to the PCI, and these differences do not follow any meaning fully interpretable pattern. The same lack of generation al differences is true among DC voters for the question of desirability cf the PCI in the government. Thus far, there fore, I have found that less favorability to communism was similarly important in 1968 and 1972 as a correlate of the DC electoral support and that among DC voters the degree of favorability to communism changed only slightly between 1968 and 1972. There were also no generational differences among DC voters in favorability to the PCI. The results for the entire non-communist electorate, including the DC voters, are, however, somewhat different. Between 196 8 and 1972 there was an increase in the mean favorability toward the PCI from 27.0 to 31.7 among the non-communist voters. In terms of generational differences, the 196 8 pattern is erratic, although those more than 60 140 years old are least favorable to the PCI. However, there were only very slight differences among the age groups below 60. In 1972 the inter-generational differences are much clearer, with those under 40 showing a higher degree of favorability to communism than those older than 40 and particularly than those older than 64. (Table 39) In com paring the age groups.between 1968 and 1972, it is clear that there were substantial increases in the favorability toward communism among those younger than 40 in 1972; the changes were much smaller generally among those older than 40. Several explanations might be offered for the pat terns reported above for DC voters and for the entire non- * e communist electorate. First, it is clear that low favor ability to communism was an important factor to the DC electoral support in both 1968 and 1972. Secondly, there were no meaningful differences within the DC electorate be tween 196 8 and 1972 or among the various age groups in terms of favorability to communism. When the results for the total non-communist electorate are considered, the interpretation becomes more difficult. One possibility is that there has been a trend toward greater favorability to communism, al though this trend has not greatly affected the DC elector ate. A second possibility might be that there is greater social acceptance of declaring oneself favorable to com munism. Under this interpretation the higher mean 141 TABLE 39 MEAN FAVORABILITY TOWARD THE ITALIAN COMMUNIST PARTY (PCI) BY AGE, 1968 AND 1972 (COMMUNIST VOTERS NOT INCLUDED) Age Mean Favorability Toward PCI 1968 1972 21-25 27*6 37.0 26-30 29.2 37.1 31-35 25.7 34.4 36-40 28.0 37.9 41-45 30.7 29.2 46-50 27.9 3 0 .6 51-55 29.7 33.2 56-60 26.9 31.2 61-65 21.9 28.5 66-or older 22.0 2 3 .3 All 27.0 31.7 favorability score in 1972 compared with 1968 might in part be an artifact of greater willingness among survey respond ents to reveal their true feelings toward communism to the interviewer. This explanation is suggested by data re ported by Sani which show an increasing willingness of Italian respondents in surveys over the period from 1955 to 1972 to identify themselves as voters for the Communist 27 Party. By analogy, voters for other parties who are some what sympathetic to the PCI might feel more open to indi cating this. There are, however, problems with any inter pretation of these results for the non-communist electorate because of the lack of consistent generational differences between 1968 and 1972. A final possibility which would in part explain the diverse generational patterns between 1368 and 1972 is that the DC electorate has aged slightly and may comprise a slightly smaller proportion of the younger age groups in 1972 compared with 1968. In summary, although it has been demonstrated that there were changes, or at least reported changes, for the non-communist electorate between 196 8 and 1972 and by gen eration in 1972 in terms of hostility to communism, there is no evidence that these changes will lead to a decline in the electoral support for the DC. This is especially clear given the continuity and strength of the low favor ability toward communism within the DC electorate. 143 Moderation and Feelings Toward Communism: A Summary In order to assess the relative impact on the DC support of the factors introduced in this chapter, I will do regression analyses for the 1968 and 1972 data. For 1972 this analysis shows that feelings toward communism, in terms of the score on the thermometer, exerts the largest influence on the support for the DC.(beta=-.415) Centrism, defined as a score in the middle of the left-right political spectrum, has an important, although considerably smaller, independent impact on the DC vote as well. (beta=.210) At titudes toward governmental stability and the opinions on whether a good Catholic can be a communist and whether a good Catholic can be-a.-neo-fascist. also have an impact." c However, it is smaller in each case than that of centrism. The score of the MSI on the thermometer has a small and not significant beta coefficient. Together these modera tion, feelings toward communism, and feelings toward neo- fascism variables explain 36.8% of the variance in the DC vote. This is not very much smaller than that explained by the religious factors. For 196 8 the comparable betas for feelings toward communism and centrism, the only two varia bles available in 1968, are very similar to those reported in 1972. (Table 40) The conclusion to this chapter will include a joint analysis of the effects of the moderation and religion variables on the support for the DC. TABLE 40 144 MULTIPLE REGRESSION: THE IMPACT OP MODERATION, FEELINGS TOWARD COMMUNISM, AND PEELINGS TOWARD NEO-FASCISM ON THE CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC SUPPORT, 1968 AND 1972 1222 Variable® Beta SIgma Salience of Governmental Stability -.071 .019 Centrism • 210 • 021 Favorability Toward Communi sm -.415 *022 Favorability Toward 00 0 <*> Neo-Fascism • • 020 Good Catholic as Communist • 111 • 024 • Good Catholic as 00 0 Neo-Fascist • • 022 Rf.607 R 2 s=*368 Variable** Beta Sigma Centrism *211 *019 Favorability Toward Communism -»386 *019 Rf.512 R 2*.262 aThe 1972 variables were ordered as follows: (l) salience of governmental stability-not Important, a little important, somewhat important, very Important; (2 ) centrism- 2-20 and 80-99 on a ieft-right self-placement scale, 21-44 and 56-79* 4-5-55* (3) favorability toward communlsm-2 to 9 9; (4) favorability to neo-fasclsm-2 to 99; (5) good Catholic as communist-yes, no} and (6) good Catholic as neo-fascist-yes, no* ^The 1968 variables are ordered as are the similar 1972 variables* 145 Moderation and Feelings Toward Communism: Status Differences The next chapter of this dissertation will more fully examine the class composition of the Christian Democratic electorate and test for its hypothesized "interclassist'' appeal. However/ because of the close relation of middle class status to moderation in much of the literature, this will be examined here. As mentioned earlier, Poggi contends that the Catholic Church and the party identified with it became more acceptable to the middle class groups in Italy after World War II because the Church and the DC were seen as defenders of the status quo from communism and extrem- 9 Q ism. Kogan argues, for example, that "the fear of left- wing extremism had led the formerly laic and liberal middle and upper classes to turn to the Church and to the party identified with it as their best defense."29 Similar patterns emerge in a test for status differ ences in left-right self-placement and in degree of favor ability to communism. Those in the group of professionals, large landowners, industrialists, public bureaucrats, and white collar workers and those in the group of small farmers are both most centrist and least favorable to the Italian Communist Party of all the status groupings. (Tables 41 and 42) The individuals of the "old" middle class, such as small shopkeepers and artisans, are somewhat more centrist TABLE 41 LEFT-RIGHT SELF-PLAGQ1DJT BY RESPONDENT'S FAMILY STATUS, 1972 Familyo Status® Left-Right Self-Placement No 2 = 2 0 21-4H 4*;-'?5 .56-79 80-99 Answer S E l Industrialist, White Collar, 9.9* 13.2 36.8 ll.l 6.7 22.2 (342) Professional Small Business^ men, Artisan 10.6* 14.3 25.7 7.0 7.4 33.8 (284) Skilled Workers 15.9* 13.7 22.3 3.9 7.1 37.0 (408) Small Farmers 7.3* 3.4 35.9 5.8 6.3 40.8 (206) Peasants 14.3* 6.? 15.2 5.7 3.8 54.3 (105) Unskilled Workers 16.3* 11.4 17.0 1.4 4.8 49.1 (289) Missing Data 6.2* 7.7 27.3 2.9 5.3 49.8 (147) Total (N)-(1841) Respondent family status was assigned to each Individual first by his or her own occupation* If this were not available, retired end unemployed individuals were assigned to the status level of their former occupation* Housewives and students were assigned to the status level of the head of the household. TABLE **2 147 FAVORABILITY TOWARD COMMUNISM BY RESPONDENTS FAMILY STATUS, 1972 Family Status Favorability to Communism No 2-20 21-**** **5:55 54-79 8 O - 9 9 Answer m Industrialist, White Collar, 12,6 1**.3 9.1 8 . 2 6 . 7 (3**2) Professional Small Business men, Artisan 3 7 . 3 * l**.l 16.9 7 . 0 13.0 9.2 (28**) Skilled Workers 2 5 . 7 * 11.3 18.** 12.8 2 2 . 3 9.6 (**08) Small Farmers 53.*** 5.8 11.7 6.3 8.7 l**.l (206) Peasants 2 5 . 7 * 2.9 11.** 9 . 5 32.** 18.1 (105) Unskilled Workers 2 3 .2 * 6.6 17.3 9 . 0 2 7 . 7 16.3 (289) C Missing Data **0,7* 5 .3 17.7 7 . 2 11.0 17.2 (207 ) Total (N)=(18**1) 148 and less favorable to communism than are the skilled work ers, peasants, or unskilled workers, but they are more in these regards to these latter groups than to the small farmers and the white collar workers, industrialists, and professionals. In examining the patterns by status among the DC electorate, I found results which are very similar to those for the entire electorate. The degree of centrism and the degree of unfavorability to communism are greater for all status groupings among the DC electorate compared with the respondents who declared themselves for other parties. However, there are clear intra-DC differences which show the small farmers and the white collar workers, industrial- c. and professionals most centrist and least favorable to communism. (Tables 43 and 44) The "old" middle class grouping again falls between these first two groups, on one hand, and the skilled workers, peasants, and unskilled workers, on the other hand. Among the non-DC electorate the differences are not very great on the question of cen trism; the middle class individuals are slightly more cen trist. The exception to the general pattern is that the small farmers are in this case the least centrist. This may be true, however, because this group includes the share croppers who, according to past studies, tend to support the PCI. 30 In the case of feelings tov/ard communism, the group of white collar workers, industrialists, and professionals 149 TABLE 1*3 FAVORABILITY TOWARD COMMUNISM BY RESPONDENT'S FAMILY STATUS AND PARTY PREFERENCE, 1972 Family Status Favorability to Communism No 2 -2 0 21-1(4 *56-79 8 0 - 9 9 Answer Industrial ist, White DC 7 1 . 3 * Ilf. 8 7 . 0 1.7 0 .0 5 . 2 (115) Collar, Pro ■3- 00 fessional Non* • 1 3 . 6 1 0 . 9 13.6 18.2 1 .8 (110) DC Small DC 61.1* 1 1 .6 13.7 3 . 2 0 .0 10.5 (95) Businessmen, Artisans Non- 3 3 . 3 * 15.3 10-. 8 8 .1 2 9. 7 2.7 (111) DC Skilled DC 5 ^ 5 * 1 8 .8 ll*.9 1 .0 i*.o 6 . 9 (101) Workers Non- DC 1 2 . 3 * 9 . 6 16.1* 17.1 1*1 .1 3.1* (11*6) Smal 1 DC 7 3 . 9 * 2.7 9 . 0 1 .8 0.9 H . 7 Clil) Farmers Non- DC 1 B A % 10.5 13.2 18.1* 31*. 2 5.3 (38) Peasants, DC 5 ^ . 2 * 8.1* 16 .8 i*.7 6.5 9. 3 (107) Unskilled Non- Workers DC 1 3 . 1 * 5 . 9 7 . 8 11.8 5 0 . 3 11.1 (153) Missing DC 56.1* 8 «5 18.3 1.2 1.2 ll*.6 (82) Data Non- DC ?>.5 * 3. 8 15.1 11.3 31*. 0 11.3 (53) Total (N)=(1222)J aThose who did not Indicate their party (N=6l9) were not Included In this analysis* 150 TABLE 44 LEFT-RIGHT SELF-PLACEMENT BY RESPONDENT’S FAMILY STATUS AND PARTY PREFERENCE, 1972 Family Status Left-Right Self-Placement No 2-20 2 1 - 4 4 45-55 56-79 80-99 Answer (N) Industrial- 1st, White DC 1.7* 2 . 6 6 5 .2 1 3 . 9 5 . 2 U . 3 (115) Collar, Pro fessional Non- 2 1 . 8 % 29.1 19.1 1 0 . 9 10 . 9 8 .2 (110) DC Small DC 1 . 1 % 3o2 4 7 . 4 6 4 3 10.5 3 1 . 6 (95) Businessmen » Artisans Non- 2 2 . 5 % 2 7 .0 16.2 7.2 8.1 17.1 (111) DC Skilled DC 1 . 0 % 5.0 4 0 . 6 5 . 9 14 . 9 3 2 . 7 (101) Workers Non- DC 3 2 . 1 % 2 5. 3 1 4 .4 6. 2 5.5 1 6 . 4 (14^) Small DC 0 . 9 % 0.9 52.3 9 . 0 7 . 2 2 9 . 7 (111) Farmers Non- DC 3 1 . 6 % 1 0 .5 5. 3 5 . 3 13.2 3 4 . 2 (38) Peasants DC 3 . 7 % 3.7 29.6 7.4 11.1 4 4 . 4 (27) Non- DC 2 5 . 5 1 0 . 6 8.5 6 . 4 2.1 4 6 . 8 (47) Unskllled DC 2.5* 5 . 0 35. 0 2.5 1 1 .3 4 3 . 8 (80) Workers Non- DC 3 5 . 8 * 1 9 . 8 12.3 1.9 0 . 9 29. 3 (106) Missing DC 1.2* 0 . 0 4 3 . 9 1.2 4 . 9 4 8 . 8 (82) Data Non- DC 2 0 . 8 % 2 2 . 6 9.4 3 . 8 7 . 6 3 5 . 9 (53) Total (N)=(1222)a aThose who did not indicate their party (N=6l9) were not included In this analysis* 151 and the old middle class stand apart from the other status groupings in being decidedly less favorable to communism. This is due to the greater support for the center-left (PSDI and PRI) and for the Liberal Party and the MSI among these tv/o status groups than among the other levels of status. In summary, the findings of this section support the proposition that the middle class groups and the small far mers would be more centrist and more opposed to communism. This pattern for all respondents is very similar to the inter-status differences in centrism and feelings toward communism within the DC electorate. In reinforcing the con clusions of earlier parts of this chapter, I have clearly found that the degree of centrism and opposition to commun*- ism is greater across all levels of status among the DC electorate compared with voters for other parties. The next chapter of this dissertation will more fully elucidate status differences in support for the DC. Concluding Section; Modera tion and Religion Chapter 2 showed that religion had a major impact on DC electoral support, explaining 40.3% of the variance in 1972 and 27.5% in 196 8 when there were fewer variables available for analysis. Chapter 3 has illustrated that moderation and unfavorability to communism have a substantial influence on DC electoral support, explaining 36.8% of the variance in 1972 and 26.2% in 1968 with fewer variables available for this analysis also. Regression analysis for both 196 8 and 1972 shows that the religion and moderation variables to gether explain 51.4% and 35.4% of the variance in 1972 and 1968 respectively. In both cases the same four variables have the largest betas. Feelings toward communism has the strongest independent influence; clericalism, centrism on a left-right spectrum, and position on divorce follow in order of importance in both years. In 1972, organizational ties, frequency of church attendance, deference to the clergy's political advice, degree of religiosity, and one’s opinion on the compatibility of Catholicism and communism also contribute to the DC support. In 1968, deference to the clergy's opinion and freauency of church attendance'are also meaningful, but they are in a class apart from the other four variables. (Table 45) In summary, it is clear that religion and moderation explain some of the same variance in the DC vote. However, they are also complementary in part because each explanation makes a separate and important con tribution to explaining the DC vote. Before turning from these two broad areas of ideas to chapters which will examine the impact of demographic charac teristics, such as sex, age, commune size, class, and others, political socialization, and the degree of political back wardness, I want to examine further the open-ended question on the individual's reasons for liking the party for which TABLE 45 MULTIPLE REGRESSION: THE IMPACT OF THE RELIGIOUS AND MODERATION VARIABLES ON THE CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC SUPPORT 1968 AND 1972 1972 Variable Beta Sigma Catholic Organizational Ties *092 *017 Church Attendance .088 .020 Religiosity * 0 ? 6 .020 Catholic Political Tradition .001 .018 Attitudes Toward Clergy *195 .020 Follow Clergy Political Advice.082 .019 Position on Divorce .19-2 .018 Role of Church In Politics .013 .018 Catholic Newspaper Readership . 0 3 9 .018 Sail ence-Govemmental Stability - . 0 5 2 . 016 Centrism »159 .018 Favorability Toward Communism -. 2 5 1 .021 Favorability Toward Neo-Fascism .0*1-7 .018 Good Catholic as a Communist .06 8 .022 Good Catholic as a Neo-Fascist *053 .020 R * . 7 1 7 R 2=.51^ 1268 Variable Beta SIgma Church Attendance .065 .020 Attitudes Toward Clergy . 1 8 4 .021 Importance of Clergy's Opinion .068 .020 Position on Divorce .112 .018 Position on Financing Catholic Schools .046 .018 Centrism .152 .018 Favorability Toward Communism -#237 .020 he voted. Earlier in this chapter, I showed that among those giving a response which expressed centrism, protec tion of democracy, or commitment to freedom, the DC had substantial support. (Table 29) I will add this variable to my regression analysis in a dichotomized form. All those who responded that they liked their party because of free dom, liberty, moderation, religion, or stability will be in cluded in one category, while those who expressed reasons such as general ideology, general party program, defense of class interests, or other economic reasons will be put into the other category. There are two reasons for employing this variable in my analysis. The first is that it more fully taps the dimension of freedom and liberty and the pro tection of democracy than any of the other factors which £ have used in this chapter. My earlier discussion of the DC emphasis on the "method of freedom" in politics shows the need for the inclusion of this factor in my analysis of the DC vote. The second reason for employing this variable is that it provides for the individual's self-expression of the motives for his vote rather than giving him categories or choices which are imposed upon him in various questions. Obviously an individual's vote is much more complicated than a simple reason in one question, but it does give an idea of the salience of reasoning by each individual. This var iable allows for the combination of the two broad idea tional bases of the DC support. For 1968, the percentage of 155 the variance explained in the DC vote was increased from 35.4% to 40.8% with the inclusion of this variable; this variable also had the highest beta. For 1972 the results were similar; the percentage of the variance explained in the DC support jumped from 51.4% to 56.0%; this variable once again had the largest beta coefficient. In conclusion, this chapter has shown the important impact of unfavorability to communism and of centrism on the DC vote and has suggested that religion and moderation are in part complementary explanations for the DC electoral support. jC. 156 Motes - Chapter 3 ^Dante Germino and Stefano Passigli, The Government and Politics of Contemporary Italy (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), p. 113. 2 Lipset, Revolution and Counterrevolution, p. 221. 3 Einaudi and Goguel, p. 34. Raphael Zariski, Italy: The Politics of Uneven Development (Hinsdale, Illinois: The Dryden Press, Inc., 1972), pp. 171-172. ^Willis, pp. 252-285. Zariski, "Intra-Party Conflict in a Dominant Party: The Experience of Italian Christian Democracy." Zuckerman, "On the Institutionalization of Political Clienteles: Party Factipns and Cabinet Coalitions in Italy." ^Einaudi and Goguel, pp. 28-31. ^Poggi, "The Church in Italian Politics, 1945-1950," in S.J. Woolf, ed., pp. 143-144. ' c ^Poggi, pp. 143-144. Webster, The Cross and the Fasces, makes this point clear in Chapters 1, 4, and 5. Q Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper, 1957). Q Donald Stokes, "Spatial Models of Party Competition," American Political Science Review LVII (June 1963):368-377. ^Philip E. Converse, "The Problem of Party Distances in Models of Voting Change," in M. Kent Jennings and L. Harmon Ziegler, eds., The Electoral Process (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966), pp. 175-207. Butler and Stokes, pp. 20 3-216. **Bames, "Left, Right, and the Italian Voter." Sani, "A Test of the Least Distance Model of Voting Choice." Barnes and Pierce, "Public Opinion and Political Preferences in France and Italy." Hans D. Klingemann, "Testing the Left- Right Continuum on a Sample of German Voters," Comparative 157 Political Studies 5 (April 1972):93-106. J.A. LaPonce, "Note on the Use of the Left-Right Dimensions," Comparative Political Studies 2 (January 1970):481-502. 12 Sani, "A Test of the Least Distance Model of Vot ing Choice." 13 See footnote 11. ^flames, "Left, Right, and the Italian Voter.1' ^■5Sani, "A Test of the Least Distance Model of Voting Choice." ^■6Sani, "A Test of the Least Distance Model of Voting Choice. 17 Philip E. Converse, "The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics," in David Apter, ed., Ideology and Dis content (New York: The Free Press, 19 6 4]“!! 18 For purposes of the correlational and regression analysis, the selfr-olacement variable was eode^ as follow^: 1=45-55; 2=21-44 and 56-79; and 3=2-20 and 80-99. 19 Philip Converse and Roy Pierce, "Basic Cleavages in French Politics and the Disorders of May and June 1968." Prepared for the Seventh World Congress of Sociology, Varna, Bulgaria, September, 1970, pp. 6-10. Barnes and Pierce, p. 655. Klingemann, pp. 97-9 8. 20 Political information was defined in two ways. The first was by the question; "In recent times there has been a great deal of talk about an economic crisis. Have you heard of it?" The other was on the basis of the degree of information about the political leaders who appeared on the "Tribuna Elettorale" television program during the 1972 election campaign. The results were very similar with those two different variables. 21 Allum in Henig and Pinder, eds., p. 228. 22 Lipset, Revolution and Counterrevolution, pp. 231- 232. 2 3 Prandi, Chiesa e politica. Facchi, La propaganda politica in Italia. 24 Capecchi and Galli, p. 244. 25 Dogan, "Le donne italiane tra il cattolicesimo e il marxismo," in Spreafico and LaPalombara, eds., p. 483. 26 For an example of this dialogue, see Paul Hofmann, "Church-Communist Talks Stir Bologna," The New York Times, 3 February 1974. 27 Sani, "Mass Level Response to Party Strategy: The Italian Electorate and the Communist Party." 2 ft Poggi, "The Church in Italian Politics, 1943-1950, in S. J. Woolf, ed., pp. 143-144. 29 Kogan, A Political History of Postwar Italy, p. 30 30 Capecchi and Galli, p. 237. Dogan, "Political Cleavage and Social Stratification in France and Italy," in Lipset and Rokkan, eds., p. 148. CHAPTER IV THE INTERCLASSIST APPEAL In a comparative study of the bases of support of political parties in 20 western democratic nations, Rose and Urwin argue that: In economic affairs, single-claim religious parties are unlikely to be ideological, for support is drawn across class lines. The pragmatic thing for such parties is to show considerable programmatic flexibility or incoherence. Both survey and aggregate-data research have pointed to the interclassist composition of several religiously-based par- 2 ties, including the Italian Christian Democratic Party. The third chapter of this dissertation briefly dis cussed this proposition that religiously-based parties, while being parties of principle on religious issues, are more flex ible in their economic policies. It has been hypothesized that this pliancy is because of the religiously-based parties' strategy of superseding appeals oriented toward specific classes, such as worker-oriented platforms of some leftist parties, and, thereby, gaining and maintaining support across the entire range of classes in society. The litera ture suggests that it is the religious appeal which attracts a multi-class electorate. Epstein, for example, contends 159 160 that "Christian parties in continental Europe thus viewed religion as a means of cutting across the growing class 3 consciousness of industrial workers." A related factor which is often mentioned with regard to the religiously- based party's attempt to appeal to various classes in soc iety is the network of organizations tied to it and to the Church. There is, in fact, a great range of organizations, such as the CISL trade union and the Coltivatori Diretti agricultural organization, which are important within dif ferent sectors of the economic structure.^ An important outcome of this multi-class composition of religiously-based parties, according to Lipset and other 5 scholars, is intense intra-party factionalism. This fac tionalism, although it creates great difficulties and some times paralysis in policy-making, is hypothesized to be a significant aid to the religiously-based party in allowing it to be "all things to all men" and to present different economic faces to different sectors of the electorate.^ Germino and Passigli also argue that in the case of the Italian Christian Democratic Party different interest groups, such as the Coldiretti, the trade unionists, or the business groups, support specific candidates within the DC in the 7 parliamentary elections. It has been contended in numerous writings that the Italian Christian Democratic Party is an "interclassist" party or "catch-all" party. Edelman has called the DC a 161 g "federation of diverse groups." Otto Kirchheimer argues that: Nothing prevents the party from phrasing its appeals so as to maximize its chances of catching more of those numerous elements which are not disturbed by the party's cler ical ties. The solidary element of its doc trinal core has long been successfully em ployed to attract a socially diversified clientele. This chapter will examine the extent to which the DC elec torate comes from a wide range of class groups and will then analyze the appeals with reference to individual class group ings. The variable to be employed throughout this chapter as an indicator of objective class position is the respond ent's family status. This variable is constructed by as- c signing each individual to a status level, first, by his own occupation, or, secondly, by his former occupation if he is unemployed or retired or by the occupation of the head of the household if she is a housewife or a student. Finer dis tinctions of occupation are available, but these have been grouped together to represent roughly comparable status levels. The attribution of a status level to an individual not actually employed is done on the assumption that these people share the class norms and attitudes. Because women comprise a larger proportion of those who do not work, Chapter 5 of this dissertation will examine fully the impact of women and the home environment on the DC support. 162 The Impact of Economic Attri butes and Attitudes on DC Support This section will test whether the DC is actually an "interclassist" party and then will examine a series of fac tors related to the individual's objective economic condi tions and to the individual's subjective perception of his status and his economic well-being. I will attempt to ascer tain how important an influence this entire cluster of econ omic and status variables is in differentiating the elec torate of the DC from the non-DC voters. Analysis of the 1968 and 1972 surveys indicates that the DC is an "interclassist" party. Table 46 shows that in 1972 the DC obtained relatively the same proportion of the^ vote in each of the status levels, although it was somewhat underrepresented among the skilled workers and the peasants and overrepresented among the small farmers. The relation ship betwen the respondent's family status and the DC sup port is virtually non-existent in both 1968 and 1972. (For 1972, Pearson's r=.013 and gamma=.005) Examination of the class composition of the DC electorate makes it clear that the Christian Democratic voters have a profile which is very similar to the entire electorate and is more like the entire electorate than any other Italian party. Only the skilled worker group, which composes 5.7% less of the DC electorate than it does of all the respondents, and the small farmer TABL 2 46 PARTY PREFERENCE BY RESPONDENT FAMILY STATUS, 1972 Family Status Party Preference Others Party Hot PCI PSI PSDT. PRI DC i£I MSI Indicated Hi! Industrial ist, Pro 1.2* 7.4 2.5 3.7 29.6 12.3 6.2 37.0 (81) fessional White Collar 7.3* 6.5 4.6 4.6 34.9 2.7 4.6 34.9 (261) Small Businessmen, 12.3* 9.9 4.9 3.2 33.5 2.1 5.3 28.9 (284) Artisans Skilled Workers 16.4* 11.8 2.5 1.0 24.8 0.2 2.7 40.7 (408) Small Farmers 8.7* 5.3 1.0 1.5 53.9 0.0 1.9 36.4 (206) Peasants 31.4* 5-7 1.9 1.0 25.7 1.0 3.8 29.5 (105) Unskilled Workers 23 .2 * 6.6 3.1 0.3 27.7 1.0 1.7 36.3 (289) Missing Data 10.1* 8.7 1.9 1.0 39.6 0.5 3.1* 34.8 (207) ' Total (N)=(l84l) .a Pearson's r=.013 Gaaaa =.005 16 4 class, with 7.0% more among the DC respondents than all re spondents, deviate by more than 3.0% from the composition of the entire electorate. (Table 47) For 1968, the com position of the DC electorate is even more like that of the entire electorate; no class group differs by more than 3.0%. In terms of objective status membership, the Christian Democratic electorate is an "interclassist" one, and the status variable is not a useful predictor for differentiat ing Christian Democrats from other voters. A second objective economic characteristic of each voter is his family's income. This variable has a slightly stronger relationship with the Christian Democratic vote than does status; those whose income is higher are a little c less likely to vote tor the DC. (For 19 72, Pearson's r=-.097 and gamma=-.150) This finding, however, confirms the basic lack of relationship between the DC support and objective economic characteristics. A large body of literature has been written on the influence of the individual's social origins and childhood socialization on his adult political behavior. One large segment of this literature has focused on the influence of the class milieu in which the individual was raised.^-® One indicator of the class environment during each respondent's childhood is the profession of his or her father. Given the minimal impact of status in explaining the DC vote in 196 8 and 1972, it might be expected that social origins would TABLE 47 RESPONDENT FAMILY STATUS BY PARTY PREFERENCE, 1972 Family Status Party Preference PCI m . PSDI PHI DC PLI MSI No Party All Industrial ist, Pro 0.4* 3-956 3.6J6 8.656 3.9* 34.5* 8.Q* 4.7* 4.4* fessional White Collar 7.3 11.1 21.8 34.3 14.9 24.1 19.0 14.4 14.2 Small Businessmen Artisans *13.4 18.3 25.5 25.7 15.5 20.7 23.8 12.9 15.4 Skilled Workers 25.7 31.4 18.2 11.4 16.5 3.4 17.5 26.2 22.2 Small Farmers 6.9 7.2 3.6 8.6 18.2 0.0 6.3 9.0 11.2 3.4 Feasants 12.6 3.9 3.6 2.9 *9.4 6.3 4.9 5.7 Unskilled Workers 25.7 12.4 16.4 2.9 13.1 10.3 7.9 16.6 15.7 Missing Data 8.0 11.8 7*3 5.7 13.4 3.4 11.1 11.3 11.2 This analysis has so far concentrated on three ob jective economic characteristics of the respondents and has found that none of these three attributes has a strong rela tionship with support for the Christian Democratic Party in Italy in either 1968 or 1972. Some scholars, such as Ale jandro Portes, have, however, argued that the more important economic variables are those which deal with the subjective C. attitudes of the individual. These social-psychological factors include the individual's subjective class identifi cation and the individual's satisfaction with his economic situation and living conditions. Portes contends that these subjective factors are important intervening or mediating variables which are, in turn, influenced by objective charac teristics, such as status and income.^ The three subjective factors just mentioned do, in fact, have a stronger rela tionship with the DC vote than the three objective economic characteristics employed here. Middle class identification (for 1972, Pearson's r*.083 and gamma*.184), greater satis faction with the family economic situation (for 1972, Pear son's r = .182 and gamma*.291), and greater satisfaction with 167 living conditions (for 1972, Pearson's r=.157 and gamma =.259) are related to support for the DC, but these rela tionships are also weak. The total impact on the Christian Democratic vote of . these six economic attitudes and attributes is much smaller than the influence of either the religious variables re ported in Chapter 2 or the moderation variables reported in Chapter 3. The percentage of the variance in the 1972 DC vote explained by the six objective and subjective economic variables is only 7.7% compared with 40.3% for the relig ious factors and 36.8% for the moderation factors. Re gression analysis for 1968 reveals even lower explanatory power for the economic variables. (Table 48) While the ear- * c. lier analysis showed that both the religious and the mod eration variables had important independent influence on the DC support when considered together in a multiple re- 12 gression, this is not true for the economic factors. In fact, inclusion of the six economic variables in the 1972 regression analysis adds only 0.8% to the variance explained by the religious and moderation factors. The Middle Class Electorate In Chapter Three, I found that the middle class groups were somewhat more centrist and less favorable to communism, both for the entire sample and within the Christian Demo cratic electorate. It was also the case that centrism and 168 TABLE 48 ZERO-ORDER CORRELATIONS AND MULTIPLE REGRESSION: THE IMPACT OP ECONOMIC ATTITUDES AND ATTRIBUTES ON THE CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC SUPPORT, 1968 AND 1972a 1268 Variable Pearsc V Gamma l£ta 51gma . Family Status »000 .033 •019 .025 Subjective Class Identification #028 .103 .035 • 026 Satisfaction with Family Income ,108 • 222 • 120 .025 Satisfaction with Job .083 .156 .042 .025 Income of Family -*037 -•0 3 8 -.110 .025 Father*s Pro fession .004 .019 • 010 • 022 Rs.l46 R -.021 1972 Variable r Gntnma £&£& Sima Family Status .013 .005 -.0 3 9 • 023 Subjective Class Identification .083 . m .08 9 .02** Satisfaction with Family Economic Situation .182 .291 .17 3 .029 Satisfaction with Living Conditions *157 •259 •090 .029 Family Income -»097 -.1 5 0 -.2 1 5 .025 Father's Pro fession .030 .028 •019 • 024 R5 .2 7 7 R =.077 ! variables are ordered as follows (1) family status-industrialist and professional, white collar workers, artisans and small businessmen, skilled workers, small farmers, peasants, and unskilled workers; (2) subject ive class ID-working class ID, middle class ID; (3) satisfac tion with family income-not at all satisfied, a little satis fied, somewhat satisfied, very satisfied; (4) satisfaction with job-same as variable 3; (5) family income-low to high; and (6) father's profession-same as family status. 169 unfavorability to communism were strongly related to the support for the DC and that these two characteristics were widely shared, even if the middle class groups held them to a somewhat greater extent, within the group of DC voters. The first section of this chapter has pointed to the inter classist nature of the DC electorate and to the low pre dictability of the economic attitudes and attributes in dif ferentiating DC voters from the electors for other parties. Finding class and other economic factors to be of minimal importance, I will now examine the intra-class differences in support for the DC and then compare the middle classes, working classes, and small farmer groups with one another to ascertain if there is an overarching explanation (or c explanations) which transcends class. Much has been written about the politics of the mid dle classes, and a large proportion of this literature has drawn a theoretical difference between the "old" middle 13 classes and the "new" middle classes. I will first exam ine how important the differences between these two groups are. Linz states that the "old,” or "independent," middle classes, which include artisans, small shopkeepers, and small businessmen, are "out to secure the persistence of the structures of early capitalism or at least to secure as much for themselves as possible."*4 The "new," or "salaried," middle classes, which consists of white collar workers in particular, "emerged from the economic structure of the 170 advanced industrial society, recruiting itself from the most heterogeneous background."^ In essence, Linz, Lipset, and others contend that there are important social and political differences between a more traditional "old" middle class nostalgic for the economic system of an earlier period and a "new" middle class which was formed in the growth of an advanced industrial economy and is more modern and committed to the new economic structures. Table 46 clearly demonstrates that, in terms of elec toral choice in Italy, there is very little difference be tween the old and new middle classes. The old middle class gives a slightly higher proportion of its vote to the Ital ian Communist Party (12.3% compared with 7.3% of the new c. middle class vote), but the differences across the political spectrum are minimal. In the case of the Christian Demo crats, the margin is only 1.4%. A further attempt to find divergence between the old and new middle class groupings was carried out through an analysis of attitudes relevant to the individual's view of the ethos and economic organization of modern society. These attitudes include agreement or disagreement with the following statements: (1) these days no one wants to work anymore; (2) it is necessary to give more room for private initiative; (3) only true socialism can save Italy; and (4) these days there is not enough respect for authority. When these attitudes were examined separately for the DC electorate, 171 for the non-DC voters, for those who did not indicate their party, and for the entire sample, there was very little dif ference between the old and new middle classes in most cases. The old middle class groups were more likely to state that no one wants to work anymore, but this was the only one of these items on which there was any diversity. Linz argues that part of the hypothesized tradition alism of the old middle classes, and of the artisans in 16 particular, is their greater religious commitment. In the 1972 survey, however, the levels of favorability toward the clergy, church attendance, self-perception of religiosity, and deference to the clergy were very similar between the old and new middle class groups. This limited analysis is not, of course, meant to be a full refutation of the many hypoth eses which have been offered with regard to differences in the political behavior of the old and new middle classes. However, the evidence suggests that, first, the behavior of these two groups toward the. DC and toward the religious com mitment and, second, the attitudes of these two groups toward centrism, communism, and the individual's view of modem society are not very different. For these reasons, I would argue that they can be usefully and meaningfully considered together as one middle class group in the following analysis. A series of hypotheses as to why working class indiv iduals should support a religiously-based political party was offered in Chapter 1 and will be analyzed in depth later 172 in this chapter. For the purposes of later inter-class com parisons and because many of these hypotheses are also rele vant to the middle class electors, I will now present an analysis which suggests which factors are especially impor tant as correlates of Christian Democratic support within the middle class. Table 49 provides a summary of the hypotheses tested with regard to the support for the DC within the middle class. The zero-order relationships reported in Table 49 show that religious factors, unfavorability to communism, cen- trism, and father's party identification separately have the strongest relationships with the DC vote. Table 50, which presents a multiple regression analysis which incorporates the entire group of variables tested individually above, c indicates that these factors together explain 53.0% of the variance in the middle class vote for the DC. The variables which exert the greatest impact on the DC vote when con sidered \*ith all the other factors are of three basic types. There are two religious factors, i.e., attitudes toward the clergy and religiosity, the centrism and favorability to communism variables, and the party identification of the respondent's father. The open-ended question on reasons for liking one's party, which incorporates religious, moderation, freedom, and protection of democracy responses, also makes an important contribution. Only one economic factor, income, has an important influence on support for the DC within the TABLE 49 ZERO-ORDER CORRELATIONS S THE TEST OP ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESES FOR THE CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC SUPPORT AMONG MIDDLE CLASS VOTERS, 1972a Hypotheses relating to: Pearson's r Gamma (1) Catholic Ties .140 .378 (2) Individual Religious Commitment a. Church Attendance .382 *532 b. Religiosity .414 .684 c. Attitudes Toward Clergy .498 *639 d. Follow Clergy Advice .306 .698 e. Position on Divorce *385 *571 (3) Catholic Political Tradition .195 *263 (4) Sex (Being Female) .168 .328 (5) Father's Profession .092 .061 (6) Father's Party Identification .293 #490 (7) Family Income -.120 -.181 (8) Satisfaction with Family Economic Situation .186 .315 (9) Satisfaction with Living Conditions #197 *339 (10) Subjective Class Identification .052 .103 (11) Commune Size -.181 -.246 (12) Centrist Self-Placement .409 *706 (13) Favorability Toward Communism -.436 -*551 aMiddle class voters are defined as those who are industrialists, professionals, white collar workers, small businessmen, and artisans. All variables are ordered as they were in the previous analyses. 174 TABLE 50 MULTIPLE REGRESSION: THE RELATIVE IMPACT OF ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS FOR CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC SUPPORT AMONG MIDDLE CLASS VOTERS, 1972 Variable Beta sygma Cafchblic.Ties • 0*4-9 •029 Church Attendance • 016 .035 Religiosity • 107 .034 Sex • 039 .029 Catholic Political Tradition .020 .031 Father’s Party Identification d 2 3 .029 Attitudes Toward the Clergy .173 .036 Follow Clergy Political Advice .077 .030 Position on Divorce .080 .032 Reasons for Liking Party .241 .031 Centrist Self-Placement .135 .032 Favorabillty Toward Communism -.14? .033 Commune Size -.027 .031 Subjective Class Identification -.046 .032 Satisfaction-Economic Situation .073 .038 Satisfaction-Living Conditions .051 .037 Family Income -.167 .033 Father’s Profession .043 .029 R5.728 R^.530 175 middle class. Those with greater income are less likely to support the DC. This section has suggested that there are not great differences between the old and new middle classes in their political and religious behavior and that religion, feelings toward communism, centrism, father's party identification, and the respondent's income level are the most important correlates of the DC vote within the entire middle class. These findings will be discussed in greater detail in the conclusion of this chapter in connection with a comparison with similar tests for the working class electorate. The Working Class Electorate The working class electorate in this analysis includes the skilled workers, the peasants or farm laborers, and the unskilled workers. The voting behavior literature contains a large number of hypotheses which suggest the factors that may cause differences in partisan choice among the working class voters. Most of these factors have been tested for the entire electorate in earlier chapters and for the middle class electorate in the preceding section of this chapter, but I will attempt in this section to summarize and discuss the hypotheses and to cross-reference them with other parts of this dissertation. The first three hypotheses to be examined refer to the religious factor. These hypotheses are that working class individuals will be more likely to support the religiously- 176 based party if they: (1) have organizational ties within the Catholic network? (2) are more religiously committed; and (3) live in areas with a stronger Catholic political tradition. All three hypotheses are, in fact, supported by the data in the 1972 survey, but the degree of relationship is greater for organizational ties and the various facets of the individual religious commitment than it is for the local political environment. (Table 51) Of those with ties to CISL, the Catholic trade union and one of the major Cath olic organizations, 55.0% supported the DC (N=40) , while only 29.3% of those with no ties (N=538) and 8.5% of those with ties to other trade unions (N=177) supported the DC. Two other propositions previously examined in detail Both of these hypotheses were also supported within the work ing class electorate, and the relationships, particularly for the feelings toward communism, are very strong. (For feelings toward communism in 1972, Pearson's r=-.584 and gamma =-.738). Several hypotheses which relate to the effect of ob jective and subjective economic factors on the political behavior of the working class have received wide attention in the literature. One often-mentioned hypothesis concerns "embourgeoisement." It suggests that as working class individuals gain a higher income and higher standard of TABLE 51 177 ZEBO-ORDER CORRELATIONS! THE TEST OF ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESES FOR CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC SUPPORT AMONG WORKING CLASS VOTERS, 1972® Hypotheses Relating To;______Pearson’s r Gamma (1) Catholic Ties .256 .665 (2) Individual Religious Commitment a* Church Attendance .*8* .691 b. Religiosity .373 . 6 3 0 o. Attitudes Toward Clergy .515 . 6 7 0 d. Follow Clergy Advice • 2 6 2 .587 e. Position on Divorce . 3 6 6 .579 (j3) Catholic Political Tradition .183 • 220 (*) Sex (Being Female) • 261 .*95 (5) Father's Profession .0*0 .0*8 (6) Father's Party Identification .297 • 6 2 2 (7) Family Income -.078 -.109 (8) Satisfaction with Family Economic Situation .1*6 . 2 3 6 (9) Satisfaction with Living Conditions .126 .211 (10) Subjective Class Identification .138 .395 (11) Commune Size -.lo7 - . 2 2 6 (12) Centrist Self-Placement .322 .562 (13) Favorabllity Toward Communism -.58* -.738 ®Working class voters are defined as those who are skilled workers, peasants, and unskilled workers. 178 living they will tend to vote less for the leftist, working class parties and more for the bourgeois parties. This proposition received much popularity in the 1950's in Great Britain when the Conservatives gained increasingly large margins in several parliamentary elections. These gains were attributed to working class individuals becoming bour geois and therefore voting for the party perceived to be of the middle class. Labour victories in the 1960's brought this hypothesis into question, and research by Goldthorpe, 17 et al. and by Hamilton have rejected it. For example, Goldthorpe, et al., argue that: The understanding of contemporary working class politics is to be found, first and foremost, in the structure of the worker's group attachments and not, as many have suggested, in the extent of his income and possessions . ^8 c' In the 1972 Italian survey there is similarly no evi dence to support the "embourgeoisement" hypothesis. The level of income has only a small relationship with the support for the Christian Democratic Party, and this relationship is, in fact, negative. These results, coupled with earlier findings that organizational ties and religious factors, such as church attendance, are strongly related to support for the DC, tend to back up Goldthorpe's elt al. emphasis on group attach ments rather than income in explaining the voting behavior of the working class. One other background economic character istic, father's status, also has only a small relationship 179 with support for the DC within the working class. (Table 51) Three subjective economic factors, which were dis cussed in detail earlier in this chapter, are hypothesized to lead to a lower rate of voting for leftist parties and more support for bourgeois parties. These three are: a middle class subjective class identification; greater satis faction with the family economic situation; and greater sat isfaction with one's living conditions.'*'9 The relationship of these three factors to the DC vote is relatively similar; the gamma measure is somewhat higher for the middle class subjective identification. (Table 51) Of the working class individuals who perceived themselves to be middle class (N=55), 43.6% supported the DC in 1972. Of the working class indiv- c iduals who perceived themselves to be working class (N=421), 26.1% chose the DC. 22.7% of those who did not indicate their subjective class identification were DC voters (N=326). Two other factors, being female and having a father with DC party identification, are introduced in this analysis to make the inter-class comparisons complete, but they will be discussed in greater detail in Chapters 5 and 6 respect ively. Both of these factors have a moderately strong rela tionship with support for the DC. One final proposition to be considered in this analy sis of the working class is that working class electors in smaller communes will be more likely to vote for an inter classist, religiously-based party. According to Linz, Lipset, 180 and Lenski, this is likely because there is a greater de gree of inter-class communication in smaller towns and a larger degree of intra-class communication among workers in 20 larger cities. There is a moderate relationship between . the size of the respondent's commune and support for the DC within the working class; those in smaller communes are somewhat more likely to support the DC. (For 1972, Pear son's r=-.167 and gamma=-.226) A multiple regression analysis which incorporated all of these variables was carried out. First of all, no econ omic attributes or attitudes exerted an important independent influence on the DC vote within the working class. Several religious variables, including especially favorability to the clergy and church attendance and to a lesser extent position on divorce and the deference factor, made major contributions to the support for the DC among the workers. Organizational ties in the Catholic network also continue to have an im portant impact on the DC support. Feelings toward communism is the variable with the largest single beta coefficient in this analysis, but the centrism factor loses its influence in the multiple regression. The open-ended question on reasons for liking one's party, which combines moderation, protection of democracy, and religion, has the second largest beta coef ficient. Commune size and Catholic political tradition both • lose their impact in the regression. Finally, father's party identification and sex complete the group of variables 181 TABLE 52 MULTIPLE REGRESSION: THE RELATIVE IMPACT OF ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS FOR CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC SUPPORT AMONG WORKING CLASS VOTERS« 1972 Variable Beta Catholic Ties .157 .024 Church Attendance • 168 .029 Religiosity -.024 .029 Sex .094 .025 Catholic Political Tradition -.016 .025 Father's Party Identification .113 • 024 Attitudes Toward Clergy .177 .028 Follow Clergy Political Advice • 088 • 024 Position on Divorce .079 .026 Reasons for Liking Party .234 .027 Centrist Self-Placement .034 .026 Favorablllty Toward Communism -.244 .030 Commune Size -.020 .025 Subjective Class Identification .022 • 024 Satisfaction-Economic Situation .047 .030 Satisfaction-Living Conditions -.027 .030 Family Income -.039 .025 Father's Profession • 012 .024 R=.769 R -.591 182 which have an important independent impact on support for the DC among the Italian working class electorate. (Table 52) The Small Farmers As Linz points out, the countries with large Catholic populations and religiously-based political parties in con tinental Europe do not have agrarian parties as do the Scan- 21 dinavian countries. Small fanners, who tend to support these Scandinavian agrarian parties, are hypothesized by Dogan, Linz, and others to be strong supporters of religious ly-based parties in continental Europe. For example, Linz states that in the case of West Germany, "all survey data indicate that no large occupational group has been as decided in its support of the CDU and in its rejection of the SPD as 22 farmers." Using aggregate data, Dogan finds a substantial correlation between the proportion of small and medium far- 23 mers and the proportion of Christian Democratic votes. As reported earlier in this chapter, 5 3.9% of the small farmers stated that they had voted for the DC in 1972. Of those small farmers who did indicate their party, 84.8% voted for the DC. In terms of the DC class composition, the small farmer group was the only status grouping which was substantially overrepresented, comprising 18.2% of the DC electorate and only 11.2% of the entire electorate in 1972. In a parallel to Linz's finding that in the early 1950's the 183 small farmers in West Germany rejected the left alternative more than any other occupational group, it was shown in Chapter 3 that the small farmers were one of the groups in Italian society least favorable to communism. In fact, 53.4% of the small farmers rated the Italian Communist Party be tween 2 and 20 on the thermometer in the 1972 survey. (Table 42) Along with the low favorability of many small farmers toward the PCI, two other factors have been suggested to ac count for the strong support given the DC by small farmers. The first factor is a hypothesized high degree of religious commitment among the small farmers. For example, Linz states the following about small farmers as a group: c Its religiosity is likely to have a more social character, be more responsive to community pres sures, and often linked with magical conceptions stemming from a desire to control an environment less humane and predictable than that of the bourgeoisie or the intelligentsia. However, it is the type of religiosity that is most likely to constitute the basis for a Christian Demo cratic Party.2 4 In the 1972 survey, the degree of religiosity, the frequency of church attendance, the level of favorability to the clergy, and the degree of following church advice in politics was fairly consistent across status levels with the exception of the small farmers. These small farmers are, in fact, more religiously committed on each of these facets of religion than any other status grouping, as is clearly demonstrated in Table 53. For example, 57.3% of the small farmers stated that TABLE 53 184 DEGREE OP RELIGIOUS COMMITMENT OP SMALL FARMERS IN COMPARISON WITH OTHER STATUS GROUPINGS, 1972 Proportion of Most Highly Second Most Committed Proportion of Religiously Proportion of Response on Small Farmers Committed Status Entire Sample Each Giving the Grouping Giving Giving Dimension Most Religious Most Religious Most Religious of Religion Response Response5 Response Very or Somewhat 85.5# 77.2# 72.9# Religious (peasants) Church Attendance At Least 57* 3# 42.5# 39.5# Once A (white collar Week workers) Follow Church Political 27.2# 19.0# 17.5# Advice- (peasants) Yes 80-99 on Favorability 37.3# 23.0# 23.5# to Clergy (peasants) £ As this table shows, the small farmers were the most religiously committed on each of these four facets of religion. In three cases the peasants were the second most religiously committed group; the white collar workers were the second most religious in the case of church attendance. 185 they attended church at least once a week in 1972; no other status grouping had more than 42.5% of its members declaring that they attend church at least once a week. The second factor which is important to the high de gree of Christian Democratic support among small farmers is the membership of many in the Coltivatori Piretti agricul tural organization which is tied into the Catholic organiza tional network and is also related to the governmental agri cultural organizations which are controlled by the Christian Democrats who hold power. 24.9% of the small farmers have either direct or indirect (the head of the household is a member) ties with the Coldiretti. The Coldiretti, in fact, contains about 90% of the small farmers who belong to agri cultural organizations and overwhelms the Communist-related Alleanza Contadina in size of membership. Of those who are members, 59.0% said they voted for the DC in 1972, 13.1% stated that they voted for other parties, and 27.8% refused to reveal their party preference. Unfavorability to commun ism, the religious factor, and Catholic organizational ties are the major variables which explain the high degree of support for the DC among Italian small farmers. Social Mobility and the DC Vote The earlier sections of this chapter reported that there was virtually no relationship between the status of the respondent's father and the support for the DC among the entire electorate, the working class, or the middle class. 186 These tests were carried out, however, only in terms of the father's status in relation to the vote and without regard for the direction of the respondent's social mobility from his family origins to his 1972 family status. Two divergent hypotheses are most common in the lit erature regarding the effects of social mobility on the par tisan choice of voters. First of all, Lipset argues that "the bulk of the socially mobile, whether their direction be 25 upward or downward, vote for the more conservative party." The second proposition is that those who are mobile across class boundaries are more likely to vote for the party which is predominant in the class of their origin than the members of the class to which they are mobile. In Great Britain, for * c. example, Abramson, found that: Upwardly mobile persons were more likely to vote Conservative than were persons of working class origins who were not upwardly mobile? they were less likely to vote Conservative than were middle class respondents who had middle class o r i g i n s . 26 I will test these alternative hypotheses relating to social mobility with regard to the impact of social mobility on the support for the DC. Table 54 shows the impact of soc ial mobility on the support for the DC, with respondents and fathers divided into three categories of status: middle class, working class, and small farmers. The data for the upwardly mobile and downwardly mobile do not support Lipset's hypoth esis or Abramson's finding. The proportion of the vote in both of these categories is relatively similar for the parties 187 TABLE 54 SOCIAL MOBILITY: PARTY PREFERENCE BY RESPONDENT'S FAMILY STATUS AND FATHER'S STATUS, 1972 Respondent Status Father's Status Middle Working Small Class Class Farmer Left of DC 21.3% 32.7% 30 .0% Middle Class DC 36.2 29.8 40.0 Right of DC 10.6 5.8 10.0 No Party 31.9 31.6 20.0 (301 (275) (30) Left of DC 35.5% 34.1% 33.3% Working Class DC 28.2 24.9 35.9 Right of DC 3.6 3.4 0.0 No Party 32.7 37.6 30.8 c (110) (624) (39) Left of DC 15.4% 13.8% 24.1% Small Farmer DC 53.8 56.9 44.1 Right of DC 7.7 1.5 1.9 No Party 23 . 1 27. 7 29.6 (13) (137) (54) Total(N) = (15 81) Parties to the left of the DC are the Communists, Socialists, Social Democrats, and Republicans. Those with missing data on either respondent's status or father's status were not included. 188 to the left of the DC compared with the total for the DC and the parties to its right. Those individuals who were small farmers, whatever their family origins, were clearly the most supportive of the Christian Democratic Party. Both the DC and the parties to its right did better among the voters who were middle class with middle class origins than those who were middle class with working class origins or those who were working class, whether their origins were in the middle class or the working class. The DC did most poor ly among those who were working class with working class origins. However, the DC still managed to obtain the support of 24.9% of the respondents in this group. In summary, there is some minor impact when the joint effects of respondent's c status and father's status are considered: the consistently working class were least supportive; the mobiles were slight ly more supportive of the DC whether the mobility was upward or downward; the consistently middle class were more support ive of the DC than the three previous groups; and the small farmers were substantially most supportive, whatever their origins. Urban-Rural Differences and the Impact of~Urbanization Dogan, McHale and McLaughlin, and others have called the Italian Christian Democrats a party which draws its great- 27 est strength from rural areas. Recently, xn another national context, the West German one, Conradt has found a 189 "sharply increased importance to the ruralism variable" in explaining the vote for the Christian Democratic Union in the 1969 Bundestag elections compared with earlier post-war 28 elections. Analysis of the 1968 and 1972 surveys shows that the Christian Democratic Party in Italy does, in fact, have a higher degree of support in the smaller communes than in the larger cities. (For 1972, Pearson's r=-.196 and gamma=-.261) The differences are particularly marked in a comparison of the support for the DC in the communes of less than 10,000 people with the support in the larger cities of 200,000 or more people. (Table 55) In a regression analysis with the religious variables, the moderation variables, and the economic factors, the beta for commune size is inconse quential. Commune size adds less than 0.1% to the variance explained in the support for the DC in 1972 and has a similar ly small impact in 1968. Linz has argued that religion is of more pervasive im portance to rural individuals than those who live in urban areas and that the individual religious commitment is gener- 29 ally greater in these rural areas. Lenski argues that x n urban areas "religion becomes increasingly a highly compart mentalized activity rather than an integral part of daily life" and that the norm of secularism is part of the urban environment."*® These two pictures together would suggest that there is a greater degree of religiosity and tradition alism in rural areas and that, therefore, religiously-based 190 TABLE 55 PART*; PREFERENCE BY COMMUNE SIZE, 1972 Commune Sizea Party Preference Christian Non-Christian Party Not Democrati c Democratic Indicated (N) Up to 5,0 00 43.4# 2 6 .7 3 0 .0 (454) 5*001 to 10,000 40.6# 3 0 .8 2 8 .6 (276) 10,001 to 20,000 34.0# 33.0 33.0 (200 ) 20,001 to 30,000 27. 3* 2 8 .0 44.8 (143) 30,001 to 50,000 2 9 . 1 % 35.0 35.9 (103) 50,001 to 100,000 2 o , 6 % 37.6 35.6 (173) 100,001 to 200,000 32.3% 33.3 34.3 (99) 200,001 to 500,000 23.9% 40.3 35.8 (134) 500,001 or more 2 1 , 2 % 42.9 35.9 (259) Total (N)=(l84l) Pearson's r=.196 Gamma =.26l aCommune size Is defined In terms of the population of the commune where each respondent lived in 1972# 191 parties would do better in smaller communes. I have just reported that there is some relationship between commune size and the support for the DC. It is also clear that rural electors do tend to be more religious, less well edu cated, and less politically informed than urban dwellers. The degree of religious commitment, whether measured as church attendance, religiosity, favorability toward the clergy, opposition to divorce, or listening to the clergy's political advice,'is highest in the smaller communes. For example, 54.0% of those in communes under 5,000 people at tending church at least once a week decreased steadily with increasing commune size. In fact, only 26.6% of those in cities of more than 500,000 people went to church at least c. once a week. Commune size is one possible antecedent of religion, along with sex, age, status, education, and Catholic political tradition, whose indirect impact on the DC vote through religion will be measured in my multivariate model in Chapter 6. The urban-rural differences are not so large when only the DC electorate is concerned. Allum has suggested that urban DC voters are more likely to be male, middle class, and politically informed than the rural DC sup- 31 porters. There are, first of all, only very small differ ences in the degree of religious commitment among DC voters as commune size changes. The pattern for the sex variable is mixed; there is no clear evidence that urban DC voters are more often male. The class mixture of the DC electorate fluctuates with commune size. Only 32.0% of those in the communes under 30,000 people in size who support the DC are middle class individuals; middle class is defined as above to include the old middle class, the new middle class, the professionals, and the industrialists. 36.4% of those in communes of more than 500,000 people who support the DC are middle class. The proportion of DC supporters who are mid dle class is greatest in the cities of 100,000 to 500,000, where 48.4% are middle class. The white collar workers com pose a larger proportion of the DC middle class in the larger cities, while the artisans, small shopkeepers, and small busi nessmen make up a greater part of the middle class DC elec- e. torate in smaller communes. DC supporters in the urban areas are somewhat better educated and politically informed, but the urban-rural differences in this regard are not as large as they are for the entire electorate. In summary, Allum’s picture is accurate to a certain extent but overemphasizes urban-rural differences, particularly in terms of class and sex composition. I have shown that there are real differences in the urban and rural milieu among the entire electorate in terms of religiosity and political awareness. This supports Linz's hypothesis about the greater importance of religion in the rural areas and also agrees with Lenski's picture of urban areas as being more secular than the rural environment. 193 This suggests that geographical mobility from rural to urban areas may have an impact on support for a religiously-based party. It is clear that urbanization has been occurring in Italy over the past 100 years. Population figures for this period do indicate that there has been increasing urbanisa- 32 tion. In order to test the impact of urbanization on the maintenance of DC strength, I will employ two variables which are available only in the 1968 data. These two factors are the size of the community where the respondent lived as a youth and the size of the commune where the respondent lived in 196 8. Geographical mobility in terms of changes in the size of the community between childhood and adulthood will give an indication of whether each respondent has moved t<5 a more urban area. There is a clear pattern of lesser support for the DC among those who were raised in a small village or isolated farmhouse and then moved to a large city compared with those who stayed in a smaller commune. Among those raised in a small or medium-sized city, there is also a drop in DC sup port for those who moved to larger cities. This drop, how ever, is smaller than for those who were raised in the vil lages. (Table 56) Linz's view of the rural milieu and Len- ski's picture of the urban environment do suggest this impact of urbanization. Urbanization may, therefore, be an important long-term trend in acting to lessen the degree of support TABLE 5*S THE IMPACT OF URBANIZATION t PARTY PREFERENCE BY SIZE OF COMMUNITY IN RESPONDENT'S YOUTH AND SIZE OF COMMUNE OF 1968 RESIDENCE, 1968 Size of Community in Youth 1968 Commune size 5,000 or 5.001- 20 ,001- 50,001- 200,001 or less 20.000 50.000 200.000 more Large City, DC 3?.5£ 37*1# 57.79S 47.855 35.255 Suburbs of large City Non- DC 20.8 45.7 26.9 17.4 41.8 No Party 41.7 17.1 15.4 34.8 23 .I (24) (70) (26) (23) (182) DC 47.1# 43.55S 43.8# 36.7# 30.055 Medium- Sized City, Non- Small City DC 37.2 37.4 34.1 46.0 48.0 No Party 15.7 19.1 22.1 17.3 22.0 (172) (377) (267) (139) (100) DC 53.*# 44.1J5 47.255 27.855 33.355 Village, Isolated Non-DC 29.3 32.8 31.3 46.6 43.8 Farmhouse No Party 23 .I 25.6 22.8 194 17.3 <>21.5 a a (32*0 *•*'* ; (363) \(144) / X+JJi(133) \J((57) / TotalA W W i \lw(N)«=(2X*01) Those who did not indicate the size of community of their youth were not included in this analysis. (N=99) 195 for the Christian Democrats within the Italian electorate. The magnitude of its impact will depend on the degree to which urbanization continues and on the complementary or countervailing influence of other trends discussed in this dissertation. Concluding Remarks This chapter has covered an extensive body of material dealing with the impact of class and commune size. I will first briefly summarize its major findings which pertain to the entire electorate and then end with a comparison of DC support in the middle and working classes. This chapter has reported that the DC is an "interclassist" party# i.e., has a multi-class, composition, and that economic variables have very little influence on the DC vote within the Italian electorate. Commune size was also found to have only a very small impact on the DC vote in the multiple regression analy sis. Social mobility had only a very small influence on the DC support in 1972. Urbanization had an important impact on those individuals who were raised in small communes or smaller cities and migrated to larger cities. Urbanization may, in fact, be an important long-term trend which tends to decrease the Christian Democratic support in Italy. This is, of course, also dependent on other trends and their influence. Urban-rural differences among the entire electorate in terms of religious commitment were found to be as hypothesized by Linz and Lenski; the more rural individuals had a greater 196 degree of church attendance, favorability to the clergy, and religiosity. When only the DC electorate was consid ered, the urban-rural differences were smaller. Finally, small farmers, who are concentrated in the smaller communes, are the individuals most supportive of the DC and are also the group which is most religious on all dimensions of the religious commitment and is among the most centrist and least favorable to communism. There are several factors which clearly have a strong influence on the support for the DC among both middle class and working class individuals. These include attitudes toward the clergy, feelings toward communism, moderate and religious reasons for supporting one's party, and father's c. party identification. (Tables 50 and 52) Tables 57 and 58 respectively show the influence of attitudes toward the clergy and father's party identification across status groups. The influence of favorability to the clergy is some what less within the skilled worker group, but it does have an important influence on the vote for the DC within each status grouping. Among the religious variables, church attendance, a measure of "insertion in the Catholic organizational net- 33 work," has a much stronger impact on the DC vote within the working class than the middle class. This finding is in line with the greater impact of Catholic organizational ties among the working class. Self-perception of religiosity, on TABLE 57 PARTY PREFERENCE BY RESPONDENT'S FAMILY STATUS AND ATTITUDES TOWARD THE CLERGY, 1972 Favorability to Clergy Respondent's Status Industrialist, Artisan, White Collar, Small Skilled Small Peasants, Professional Businessmen Workers Farmers Unskilled Workers No Non- No Non-. No Non- !No Non-■ No DC Non-DC Party DC DC Party DC DC Party DC DC Party DC DC . Party 2-20 12.5/S 53.6 33.? 7.8# 70.6 21.5 8.0# 62.1 29.9 21.4# 64.3 14.3 5.6# 68 i 26.4 (563 (51) (87) (14) (72) 21-44 14.7# 58.8 26.5 20.0# 40.0 40.0 12.2# 48.8 39.0 38.5# 30.8 30.8 15.8# 47 ,4 36.8 (34) (30) (41) (13) (33) ^5-55 30.9# 31.9 37.2 28.6# 44.0 27.4 15.9# 37.5 46.6 48.7# 23.1 28.2 22.9# 37 .6 39.4 (94) (84) (88) (39) (109) 56-79 34.3^ 32.9 32.9 44.4# 31.1 24.4 33.3# 29.2 37.5 54.5# 21.2 24.2 42.9# 37 .1 20.0 (70) (45) (72) (33) (35) 80-99. 67.6# 5.9 26.5 62 .3# 17.0 20.8 52 .2 # 14.4 33.3 69.6# 8.9 21.5 61.3# 17 .5 21.3 (68) (53) (90) (79) (80) Total (N)=(l475)a aThose with missing data on status or on attitudes toward the clergy are not included. (N=366) TABLE 58 PARTY PREFERENCE BY RESPONDENT'S FAMILY STATUS AND FATHER'S PARTY IDENTIFICATION, 1972 Respondent's Status______Father's Party Identification Christian Democratic Non-Christian Democratic Party Not Indicated DC Non-DC No DC Non-DC No DC Hon-DC No Party Party Party Industrialists, Professionals, 57.4# 21*. 1 18.5 26.8# 49.5 23.7 30.4# 25.7 44.0 White Collar (5*0 (97) (191) Workers Artisans, Sr.aH 60.0# 22.5 17.5 23.7# 55.9 20.3 33.5 31.8 34.7 Businessmen (40) (59) (120) Skilled Workers 68.8# 12.5 18.8 19.4# 45.2 23.9# 28.6 47.5 (32) (280) Small Farmers 79.5# 7.7 12.8 47.4# 26.3 26.3 49.7# 17.5 32.9 (39) (19) (143) Peasants, 60.0# 25.0 15.0 20.6# 52.4 27.0 27 .6# 34.0 38.4 Unskilled Workers (20) (63) (297) Missing Data 52 .2 # 17. 4 30.4 31.0# 41.4 27.6 40.7# 21.3 38.0 (23) (29) (150) Total (N)~ (1841) 199 the other hand, is more strongly related to DC support among the middle class. The individual's opinion on divorce and of the importance of the political advice of the clergy have a relatively similar influence within the two groups. The religious variables, in summary, have a larger impact within the working class, explaining 44.4% of the variance in the DC vote compared with 36.2% of the variance in the middle class DC support. This larger impact among the working class seems to be particularly due to the greater explanatory power of integration in the Catholic network through organizational ties and church attendance in differentiating DC voters from non-DC electors within the working class. Sex differences make a greater contribution to DC support within•the working class; the imbalance of women c over men is larger in the DC working class electorate. (Table 59) This finding is as has been hypothesized by Dogan. He argues that "religious motivation supersedes socioeconomic motivation" among the working class women and that "a dis- 34 crepancy occurs between the male and female vote." Centrism has a greater impact on DC support within the middle class, while the influence of feelings toward commun ism, although still important, is less than is the case for the working class. The generally higher level of negative feelings toward the PCI among the middle class voters may lower its ability to differentiate DC and non-DC voters with in this group. Finally, Catholic political tradition, commune TABLE 59 200 SEX COMPOSITION OF EACH STATUS GROUP AMONG CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC SUPPORTERS, 1972 Family Status Sex Men Women (N)_ Industrialists, Professionals, White Collar **5*2# 5^.8 (115) Workers Artisans, Small Businessmen 48,*$ (95) Skilled _ , , Workers k 0 » 6 % 59*^ (10i) Small Farmers 5 6 .8 (ill) Peasants, Unskilled Workers 33•9 % 66,1 (107) Missing Data 86*6 (82) Total (NM611) 201 size, and all the economic factors, with the exception of income’s negative impact within the middle class, are of min imal importance in explaining the DC support within either the middle class or the working class. All of the variables in this analysis together explain 53.0% of the variance in the DC support within the middle class and 59.1% of the variance in the DC vote among the working class electors. The stronger impact of the religion factor and of feelings toward communism in explaining DC sup port among the workers probably accounts for this differ ence. The major point of this chapter, in summary, is that the DC is an "interclassist" party and that attitudes toward the clergy, feelings toward communism, and moderate, demo- c. crat.i c reasons for liking one's party are most important in explaining DC support within both major class groups. 202 Motes - Chapter 4 ^■Rose and Urv/in in Dogan and Rose, eds., European Politics, p. 229. 2 For example, on The Netherlands, see Lijphart, The Politics of Accommodation, pp. 27 and 29. On Italy, see Barnes In Rose, ed.', Electoral Behavior: A Comparative Handbook. Also see Sani, "Hass Level Response to Party Strategy: The Italian Electorate and the Communist Party." See Dogan's estimates based on aggregate data in "Political Cleavage and Social Stratification in France and Italy," in Lipset and Rokkan, eds., p. 158. 3 Leon D. Epstein, Political Parties in Western Democ racies, p. 88. ^Galli and Prandi, pp. 168-195. . . ^Lipset, Revolution and Counterrevolution, p. 222. 6 C' Lipset, Revolution and Counterrevolution, p. 222. Zariski, Italy: The Politics of Uneven' Development, p. 171. 7 Germino and Passigli, p. 124. O Edelman, p. 147. q Otto Kirchheimer, "The Transformation of the Western European Party Systems," in Joseph LaPalombara and Myron V7einer, eds., Political Parties and Political Development (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966) , p. 185". ■*"°For example, see Butler and Stokes, pp. 34-40. ^Alejandro Portes, "Leftist Radicalism in Chile: A Test of Three Hvpotheses," Comnarative Politics 2 (January 1970) : 251-274." 12 For similar results concerning the relatively small impact of the economic factors, see Sani, "Determinants of Party Preference in Italy: Tov/ard the Integration of Com plementary Models." Sani operationalized the vote differently. 203 13 Juan Linz, The Social Bases of West German Politics (Ph.D. Dissertation: Columbia University, 1959), p. 507. Lipset, Revolution and Counterrevolution, pp. 288-290. 14Linz, p. 507. ^Linz, p. 507. ^Linz, p. 654. 17 Richard F. Hamilton, Affluence and the French Worker in the Fourth Republic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967) . J. Goldthorpe, D. Lockwood, F. Bechhofer, and J. Platt, The Affluent Worker; Political Attitudes and Behavior (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 196 8). 18 Goldthorpe, et al., p . 82. 19 Portes, passim. 20 Linz, p. 344. Lenski, pp. 8-12, p. 322. Lipset, Revolution and Counterrevolution, p. 2 87. • ( ^Linz, p. 754. ^Linz, p. 761. 2 3 Dogan, "Political Cleavage and Social Stratification in France and Italy," in Lipset and Rokkan, eds., p. 146. ^4Linz, pp. 779-780. 25 Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 196 3), p. 272. 26 Paul R. Abramson, "Intergenerational Social Mobility and Partisan Choice," American Political Science Review LXVI (December 1972):1292. See also Joseph Lopreato, "Social Mobility and Political Outlooks in Italy," in Dogan and Rose, eds., European Politics, pp. 202-212. 27 Dogan, "Political Cleavage and Social Stratification in France and Italy," in Lipset and Rokkan, eds., pp. 144-145. Vincent IJ. McHale and John E . McLaughlin, "Electoral Align ments, Regional Imbalances and Developmental Change in Post- War Italy." Prepared for the Annual Meeting of the Canadian 204 Political Science Association, Montreal, Canada, June 2-5, 1972, p. 28. 2 8 Conradt, p. 31. ^Linz, pp. 779-780. ^ L e n s k i , pp. 8-12. ^ A l l u m in Henig and Pinder, eds., pp. 233-234. 32 Stefano Passigli, Emigrazione e comportamento polit ico (Bologna: il Mulino, 1969), p. 37. 33 Barnes in Rose, ed., Electoral Behavior: A Compara tive Handbook, p. 213. ■^Dogan, "Political Cleavage and Social Stratifica tion in France and Italy," in Lipset and Rokkan, eds., p. 163. CHAPTER V THE IMPACT OF AGEr SEX, AND POLITICAL BACKWARDNESS Previous chapters have suggested that religious fac tors, moderation, and feelings toward communism are strongly related to support for the Italian Christian Democratic Party and that status and other economic attributes and attitudes are very weak predictors of the DC vote. This chapter, which will be the final in the series of chapters which examines the alternative hypotheses given in the literature to explain the support fcr religiously-based parties, will focus on %he impact of sex, age, and political backwardness on the support for the Christian Democrats within the Italian electorate. It has commonly been asserted that women tend to vote for conservative or traditional parties, such as religiously- based parties, and that these parties are particularly depend ent on the support of women. It has been confirmed in sev eral survey-researcn studies that the Italian Christian Demo crats and several other religiously-based parties draw the greater proportion of their support from women.^ This chap ter will examine the alternative hypotheses which have been given to explain the degree of female support for the DC. 205 206 These propositions relate to marital status, degree of relig ious commitment, employment status, and degree of political information, political interest, and political discussion. Political backwardness, which is operationalized as low levels of political information and political interest, will be tested first as a correlate of support for the DC within the entire Italian electorate; it will then be examined as an explanation of specific relevance to female electors. Finally, the impact of age will also be explored in this chapter. Sex, Age, and Marital Status Differences in Support for the DC Many scholars have argued that women are more likely to support religiously-based parties because of their greater religious commitment, their lack of integration into the fork ing place environment, and their greater degree of political backwardness. These factors and their relation to the voting behavior of Italian women will be examined in later sections of this chapter. First I will test basic hypotheses relating to sex, age, and marital status. Barnes, Dogan, Edelman, LaPalombara, and others have found that women are more likely than men to vote for the 2 Italian Christian Democratic Party. Analysis of the 1968 data, which Barnes employed in his study, and of the 1972 data confirms this finding; the Christian Democrats did much better in gaining support among women than men. (For 1972, Pearson's r=.20 8 and gamma=.400) (Table 60) 207 TABLE 60 SEX AND PARTY PREFERENCE, 1968 AND I9?2a A. PARTY PREFERENCE BY SEX, 1968 AND 1972 Party Preference Christian Non-Chrlstlan Party Not Indicated iNj. Men 26 .0* 40.3 33*7 (886) (3 2 .2 #) (46.9) (20.9) (1242) Women ,39-9?* 2 6 .5 33*6 (953) (52 .8^) (26.7) (20.5) (1258) 1972 Total (N) =(1839)b 1968. Total (N) =(2500 ) 1972 *968 Pearson •s r=.208 Pearson's r=.2l8 Gamma =.400 Gamma =.485 B. SEX DY FARTY PREFERENCE, 1968 AND 1972 Sex Party Preference Christian Non-Christian Party Not Democratic Democratic Indicated CO Cn»-I Men 3 7 . 6 % 58.4# . . 0 (37.6;%) (63.4#) Women 6 2 .2 41.4 (62.4) (36.6) (49.9) Missing 0.2 0.2 0.0 Data (0.0) (0.0) (0 .0 ) (N)-1972 (611) (6 1 1) (619) (N)-1968 (1064) (919) (517) 1972 Total (N )=(1841) 1968 Total (N)«(2500) aThe 1972 percentages are the upper ones in each case; the 1968 percentages are the lower ones and are surrounded by parentheses# ^Two cases were not included because of missing data on sex 208 Furthermore, in terras of the sex composition of the DC vote, slightly more than 62% of those who voted for the DC in 196 8 and again in 1972 were women. This corresponds very closely with Dogan's report that on the basis of a dozen surveys done in Italy between 1952 and 196 3 "nearly two- 3 thirds of those voting Christian Democratic were women." The DC, therefore, was and still is very dependent on the female sector of the Italian population for the continued maintenance of its dominant position. This dependence on female support is clearly much more important for the DC than any other Italian party. Among the other major parties in Italy, only the PSDI, with 52.7% of its voters being women, had a majority of women in its electorate. c Older age is another characteristic which is often hypothesized to be a major correlate of voting for a relig iously-based party in Italy and other Western European nations. For example, Linz found that those over 60 years of age were disproportionately supporters of the West German Christian Democratic Union.^ Analysis of the 196 8 and 19 72 data shows that there is a relationship between age and voting for the DC, but this relationship is weaker than that between sex and DC support. (For 1972, Pearson's r=.152 and gamma=.186) (Table 61) The relationship is slightly less in 1968. In that year, the DC did best among those 60 or older. However, the patterns were not consistent across age groups; the DC did not do very v/ell among those aged 21-25 but also those 209 TABLE 61 PARTY PREFERENCE BY AGE, 1968 AND 1972a Age Party Preference Christian Non-Christian Party Not Democratic Democratic Indicated (N) 21-25 27.8# 1*2.1* 29.7 (158) (33*9#) (l*l*.l) (22.0) (21*5) 26-30 26* 6% 1*0.1 (177) (1*0.6#) < % i > (19.2) (261) 31-35 21*. 6# 39.2 (171) (1*0.2#) c2o:l> (19.5) (266) 36-1*0 28.6# 32 .1* .39.0 (210) (42.1#) (35.4) (22.5) (280) 41-1*5 31-5# 37.0 3i.5v (162 ) (92.2#) (36.6) (21.3) (268) 1*6-50 36.0# 30.8 ,33.2 (211)c (90.9#) (36.1*) (22.7) (220) 51-55 1*0.0 ,31-5, (130) (37*8^) (1*2.9) (19.1*) (217) 56-60 32.3 31*. 2 (155) ( 2 : 8 ) (3l*.5) (20.8) (226 ) 61-65 37.1# 33.6 29.3 (11*0 ) (52.1#) (2i*.7) (23.3) (146) 66 or older 1*5.9# 21*. 8 29.1* (327) (5 0.8#) (30.9) (18.3) (356) 1972 Total ( N M 1 8 4 1 ) . 1968 Total (N)-(2^85)D 1972 1968 Pearson's r=*.152 Pearson's r=.098 Gamma =. 186 Gamma =• 127 aThe 1972 percentages are the upper ones and the 1968 percentages are the lower ones. ^Age was not available for 15 respondents In 1968* 210 aged 51-55. The magnitude of the difference between the older people and the remainder of the electorate was on the average not very large. The pattern in the 1972 data was similar; the 66 and older group was most supportive of the DC and the 21-25 and 51-55 age groups were least supportive. In terms of the age composition of the DC, 24.1% of the DC electorate in 1968 was aged 60 and older compared with 20.0% of the entire electorate. In 1972, 33.0% of the DC elector ate was 60 or more compared with 25.4% of the entire elec torate . Sex and, to a lesser extent, age are related to Christ ian Democratic support. It has been argued that much of the relationship between age and vote is due to the greater life 5 c expectancy of women. However, in both the 196 8 and the 1972 surveys, there was not a substantially larger proportion of women among the older age cohorts than among the younger ones. It has also been suggested that old age is one characteristic which indicates that the individual is "socially deprived," i.e., does not share the most highly regarded attributes of society. These most desired attributes, according to Glock and Stark, are younger age, being male, and being well-edu cated rather than being older, female, and poorly educated.** This line of reasoning further suggests that older women and men would be more likely to be religious as a compensation for this social deprivation and that, for this, reason and others, they would be more likely to support religiously- 211 based parties than younger individuals. The greater sup port among older individuals would, therefore, not be de pendent only on a preponderance of women in these age cate gories . Analysis of the joint impact of sex and age on the support for the DC shows that age has a relatively similar influence among men and women. Women give a larger pro portion of their vote to the DC in every age group than do men. However, the older men support the DC to a greater degree than do younger men, and the older women are also more supportive of the Christian Democrats than are the younger women. (Table 62) Although the impact of age is relatively small, it is in part independent of the influ- c ence of sex differences. The total impact of sex and age on the proportion of the variance explained in the DC vote is very small in the multiple regression analysis which includes all of the variables previously introduced. In Chapter 6 I will assess the indirect effects of sex and age on the vote through their impact on the individual's religious commitment and political backwardness. A third major characteristic which Duverger, Dogan, and others contend is of major importance in the support 7 for a religiously-based party is marital status. Duverger argues that "husbands and wives appear to vote in the same way; any differences between the votes of the sexes there- 0 fore depend entirely on those of unmarried men and women." 212 TABLE 62 PARTY PREFERENCE BY AGE AND SEX, 1972* Age Ses Men Women Non- Party Not Non- Party Not DC DC Indicated DC DC__ Indicated 21-25 19 .5* 51.9 2 8 .6 35.8* 33.3 30.9 (77) (81) 26-30 23 .8# 37.5 3 8 .8 28.9* 29.9 41.2 (8 0) (97) 31-35 15.0* 41.3 43.8 33.0* 31.9 (80) (91) 36-40 2 7 . 3 % 36.4 36.4 29.1* 29.1 41.8 (99) (110) 41-4-5 21M 41.7 36.9 42.3* 32.1 2 5 .6 (84) (78) 46-50 2 5 . 0 % 43.8 31.3 45.6* 19.3 35.1 (96) (114) 51-55 19.3* 45.6 35.6* 35.6 28.8 ( 5 7 ) (73) 5 6 -60 24.7* 37.7 37.7 42.3* 26.9 3 0 .8 (77) (78) 61-65 3^.1* 38.6 27.3 42*3* 25.0 52.7v (88) (52) 66 or 37.2* 35.1 27.7 53.1* l6 02 3 0 . 7 v older (148) (179) Total aTwo cases were not used In the analysis because of missing data on sex. ^The gamma coefficient between party preference and age 18 #186. When controlling for sex, this relationship Is .173 among men and .225 among women# 213 Duverger's research was done in the late 19 40's and early 1950's and was based partially on public opinion polls and partially on aggregate election results from France and Germany. In a similar way, Dogan has contended in three different writings on this topic that about 85% of the wives vote the same way as their husbands do, at least in the case of France, and that the "difference between the female vote and the male vote is, therefore, determined, in great part, not from the vote of married women, but . . . g precisely from very old widows and young single women." .Dogan and Duverger base their, arguments on the economic dependence of the married women on their husbands, the lower degree of political information and social contacts of women, and the role of the husband as the leader of the family whose political preference the wife will normally follow. Dogan, like Duverger, utilized some surveys,but he also relied heavily on aggregate election results in much of his research. Dogan did the bulk of his work in the 1950's and early 1960's. Dogan and Duverger both, there fore, based many of their conclusions and arguments on aggregate data; their research was also done between 10 and 20 years ago. This section of my dissertation will test their basic hypothesis in order to examine its accuracy, to give the findings a more solid empirical base through the use of survey data, and to update the findings. In terms of the 214 substance of their argument, the greater religious conmit- roent of women than men (Table 68) is one major piece of evidence which casts some doubt on the contention that there is such a large degree of similarity between husbands and wives as hypothesized by Duverger and Dogan. A further datum which shows a need for caution in this regard is that 68.2% of the women in the 1972 survey and 60.7% of the men stated that they do not discuss politics with their family. The 1968 and 1972 surveys afford no direct measure of the similarity of husbands and wives in their voting behavior. However, analysis of the degree of DC support among men and women who are married, widowed, and single provides a measure of the similarity of voting of each c. of these groups in the aggregate and gives an indirect indication of the differences between husbands and wives in support for the DC. Widows, who Dogan and Duverger argued would support a religiously-based party most heavily, do, in fact, have the highest rate of support for the DC. The magnitude of the difference between married women and widows in both 1968 and 1972 is slightly less than 10%. (Table 63) Single v/omen also support the DC to a greater degree than married v/omen in both years, but the differ ence between these two groups is only 3.0% in 1968 and 6.8% in 1972. In comparing married women with married men, however, I found that the difference in support for the DC is larger than that between widows and married 215 TABLE 63 PARTY PREFERENCE BY MARITAL STATUS AND SEX, 19721a Marital Status § S Z Mea Women Non- Party Not Non* Party Not DC DC Indicated DC DC__ Indicated Married 25.1# 40*1 34.8 3 7 . 5 % 26.4 36.1 (676) (656) Widowed 43*2# 27.3 29.5 47.3# 23.3 29.5 (44) (146) Single 25.9* 42*4 3 1 .6 44.3# 28.6 27.1 (158) (140) Total (N)=(l820)b ^ h e gamma coefficient between party preference and sex is *400. When controlling for marital status, this relationship Is . 3 8 8 among married individuals, .123 amon$ widowed people, and *434 aaong single voters* bi9 individuals who are divorced, separated or did not indicate their marital status were not included in this analysis* Two respondents whose sex was not recorded are also not in this analysis* 216 women or between single women and married women in both surveys. The DC gained 18.7% more support from married women than married men in 1968 and 12.4% more in 1972. The relationship between sex and vote, in terms of the gamma, in 1972 among married people was .388. This is virtually the same as the relationship between sex and vote among the entire electorate, which was .400. The relationship between sex and vote was a little less among married people than among single people, but it was substantially greater than that among widowed individuals. (Table 63) In sum mary, as Dogan and Duverger have argued, widows and single women do support the DC more than married women. However, these differences are not of a large magnitude. The evi- c. dence also indicates that a sizeable number of husbands and wives do not vote alike and that married women make a proportionately greater contribution to the differences in DC support between men and women than hypothesized by Dogan and Duverger. This underemphasis of the importance of husband-wife differences for the support of the DC becomes clearer when the relative size of the married, widowed, and single elec torate is examined. It is true that there are more than three times as many widows (15.3% of the women) as widowers (5.0% of the men), so that these widows, who have a high rate of support for the DC, do make an important contribu tion to the male-female differences. The differences in 217 support for the DC between single women and single men, with single women supporting the DC 18.4% more often, also contribute to the larger female vote for the DC. However, the widowed and single individuals make up a much smaller proportion of the electorate them the married people, who are 68.8% of the women and 76.3% of the men. The greater degree of support for the DC by married woemn than mar ried men, due to this substantially greater number of married people in the electorate, accounts for at least as much of the male-female differences in support for the DC as does the impact of widows and single women. The lower degree of husband and wife similarity than hypothesized by Dogan and Duverger may be due, as I c suggested earlier, to differing levels of religious commit ment. Married women were, in fact, more religious than married men in 1972. For example, 65.4% of the married women attended church at least once a week or often com pared with 43.9% of the married men. Married women also averaged 60.7 on the clericalism thermometer, while married men had a mean of 47.7. Tables 64 and 65 show married women to be more like single women and widows in their religious behavior than like married men. It is clear from Table 66 that the greater religious commitment of married women is generally important in dif ferentiating their support for the DC from that of married men. As reported earlier the relationship between sex and 218 TABLE 64- MEAN FAVORABILITY TOWARD THE CLERGY BY MARITAL STATUS AND SEX, 1972 Marital Status and Sex Favorabilitv to Clergy m Married Women 60.7 (566) Widows 68.1 (118) Single Women 60.5 (12?) Married Men 47.7 (629) Widowers 64.2 (41) Single Men 45.2 (153) Total (N)s=(l634) a aThose with missing data on sex, marital status, or attitudes toward the clergy were not included in this analysis. 219 TABLE 65 CHURCH ATTENDANCE BY MARITAL STATUS AND SEX, 1972 Church Attendance Marital Status and Sex Men Women Married Single Widowers Marrled Single Widows At Least Once A 30.9# 25.9# 52.3# 44.4# 52.9# 58.2# Week Often 13.0 20.3 9.1 21.0 22.9 11.0 jC. Sometimes 22.5 13.9 13.6 16.3 12.1 12.3 Rarely, Never 25.2 26.6 20.4 15.1 6.4 17.8 Missing Data 8.4 13.3 ^.5 3.2 5.7 0.7 (N) (676) (15&) (44) (656) (140) (146) Total (N)=(l820)a ^ h o s e with missing data on sex or marltfl status v r e t e not Included In this analysis. 220 TABLE 66 * PARTY PREFERENCE BY SEX, CONTROLLING FOR MARITAL STATUS AND CHURCH ATTENDANCE, 1972 Gamma Coefficient Between Sex and Church Party Preference Among: Attendance Married Widowed Single At Least Once A .272 .470 .103 Week a Often • 021 .468 a Sometimes • 393 • 053 Rarely, Never .101 a .045 00 00 r\ All . .123 •434 ^ h e number of male cases was very small in each of these instances, numbering 4, 6, and 9 respectively. the DC vote among married people, as measured by the gamma, is .388. For those married people who attended church often (gamma=.021) or rarely or never (gamma=.101), the impact of church attendance substantially lowered this relationship. The relationship between sex and the DC vote among married individuals who attended church at least once a week (gamma=.272) was also lower than that for all married people. Finally, among those who attended church sometimes, there was little impact on the relationship be tween sex and vote. (gamma=.393)‘(Table 66) The impact of religion on the voting differences between married men and married women was also clear when attitudes toward the clergy was used as the control variable. The gamma rela**c tionship between sex and the DC vote among married people was, as reported above, .388; this correlation was lowered to between .156 and .321 by controlling for the level of favorability to the clergy.^ In summary, these results show that, although the impact of religion is not completely consistent across all levels of church attendance, religion, whether operationalized as attitudes toward the clergy or frequency of church attendance, does play an important role in the differences in the support for the DC between mar ried men and married women. Other factors which may con tribute to husband-wife differences include slightly greater favorability toward communism among married men than mar ried women (married men have a slightly higher mean 222 favorability toward the PCI, 43.5, than married women, 38.3), greater political awareness among married men, and lack of political discussion between husbands and wives in some cases. Further analysis of the joint impact of sex, age, and marital status on the 1972 DC vote substantiates the basic findings reported thus far in this chapter. Among young women aged 21-35, there was virtually no difference in degree of support for the DC due to marital status. Among women 56 years of age or more, there is only a small difference between widows and married women in support for the DC. These findings suggest that age has a greater impact on the DC support among women than does marital C- status. (Table 6 7) Duverger has found that in France couples in which the husband was 50 years old or more were 17% more likely to vote similarly than couples in which the man was younger than 50. Duverger, in fact, reported that, in couples in which the husband was above the age of 50, 97% of the coup les voted alike. Duverger's sample was small in this case, and he was cautious in reporting them as suggestive rather than conclusive. However, he argued that one possible reason for this result is that older couples may have been married a longer time and may, therefore, have developed more homog eneous political views.^ The 1972 Italian data, however, show different findings when this matter is considered. 223 TABLE 67 PARTY PREFERENCE BY SEX, AGE, AND MARITAL STATUS, .1972 Age S e z Men Women Married Widower Single Marri ed Widow Single b 21-35 I4.3*ft b 24.8# 32.1* 32.5* (126 ) ' (1) (109) (18?) T z T (77) b 36-55 23.3# 31.3* 37.9* 32 .0# 47.1# (301) (0 ) (32) (311) (25 ) (34) 56 br older 32.9* 41.9* 23*5* 45.9* 50.4# 72.4# (249) (43) (17) (148) (119) (29) Total (N)s=( 1820)° aThe percentages in each category represent the proportion of that group supporting the Christian Democratic Party, - c ^Percentages were not calculated because of the small number of cases, cThose with missing data on sex or marital status were not included in this analysis. 224 The difference in support for the DC between married men end married women was fairly consistent across age groups; both married men and married women also showed increasing support for the DC with age. These findings suggest that there is an impact of age on married people in terms of greater support for the DC, but there is no evidence of greater homogeneity in political views as the length of time the couple is together increases. (Table 67) In summary, this section of Chapter 5 has found that sex has a moderately strong relationship with the DC vote and that age has a smaller relationship with the DC vote. Marital status also had a lesser relationship with the DC vote than sex. Women were found to be more supportive of the DC; older peop]e and widows were also more likely to c support the DC. ily analysis suggests that Dogan and Duver ger have overestimated the impact of widows and single women on the male-female differences in their support for a religiously-based party and have underestimated the hus- band-wife differences in support of this type of party. Religion as a Major Cause of Greater Female and~oTder Age Support for the DC Linz, Dogan, Duverger, Edelman, and others have argued that women are more likely to have a stronger religious com mitment, i.e., to.feel more religious, to attend church more often, to be more susceptible to the political advice of the clergy, and to be generally more pro-clerical, than men and 225 are, therefore, more likely to vote for a religiously- 12 based party. In the case of West Germany, for exanple, Conradt has found, through the analysis of surveys done between 1950 and 1970, that "the greater support by women for the Christian Democrats is basically a function of 13 higher religiosity among Catholic women." Sex does, in fact, have a moderately strong relationship with the var ious dimensions of the individual's religious commitment in Italy in 1968 and 1972. (For 1972, see Table 6 8). Women are, therefore, more likely to be influenced by the clergy. Comparison of the religious commitment of men and women on several key variables clearly illustrates the greater religious commitment of women. Among women, 47.5% attended church at least once a v;eck in 1972 compared wi£ii 30.8% of the men; 17.7% of the women attended church rarely or never or stated they were not Catholics, compared with 34.8% of the men giving one of these responses. 28.5% of the women gave the clergy a favorability score of 80-99, while only 15.2% of the men did this. Only 9.8% of the women gave the clergy a favorability rating of 2-20 compared with 2 3.2% of the men. 62.6% of the women stated that they did not follow the advice of the church in politics compared with 7 8.1% of the men. On these and the other dimensions of the individual religious commitment discussed in Chapter 2, women are more likely to be more religious.(Table 68) 226 TABLE 68 ZERO-ORDER RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN RELIGIOUS VARIABLES AND DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS, 1972 Religious Variables® Demographic Characteristics^ Commune Sex Age Size Education H H CM CM H 1 1 Church .201® . . .123 Ov .028 Attendance (.292) (.152) (.035) Religiosity .227 .200 -.129 -.096 (.393) (.214) (-.157) (-.179) Attitudes .228 .208 -.212 -.114 Toward Clergy (.301) (.169) (-.194) (-.138) Follow Church Political .121 .152 -.165 -.059 Advice (*298) (.227) (-.286) (-.136) H < CM CM I I • . Position .141 .226 j -.280 ' } on Divorce (.230) (.236) (-.421) aThe religious variables were ordered as follows: c (1) church attendance-never, rarely, sometimes, often, at least once a week; (2) religiosity-not at all, a little, somewhat, very; (3) attitudes toward clergy-2 to 99 on thermometer; (4) follow Church political advlce-no, yes; and (5) position on divorce-strongly agree, more or less agree, more or less disagree, strongly disagree# bThe demographic characteristics were ordered as follows: (1) sex-male, female; (2) age-low to high; (3) commune size- small to large; and (4) education- low to high# °The upper coefficient of each pair is the Pearson's r; the lower coefficient Is the gamma# 227 Analysis of the joint impact of each of these relig ious dimensions and sex on the support for the DC indicates that the influence of religion is stronger than the effect of sex differences. For each dimension of religion, the difference in the degree of DC support within each sex group due to varying levels of the religious commitment is greater than are sex differences within each level of the religious commitment. For example, in the case of the atti tudes toward the clergy, men in the 80-99 category gave the DC 48.2% more support than did men in the 2-20 group; women in the 80-99 group gave the DC 55.7% more support than did those in the 2-20 level. The largest male-female differ ence within any level of attitudes toward the clergy was 10.5%. There were, of course, some differences due to sex. (Tables 69, 70, and 71) Other factors which might account for these will be discussed later in this chapter. Finally, regression analysis done separately for men and for women indicates that virtually the same proportion of the variance is explained by religious factors in the support for the DC among men as among women. For 1972, 38.4% of the variance in the female support for the DC is explained by religious variables compared with 39.0% among men. Most of the fac tors have relatively similar impact in both sexes. The largest difference is on the organizational ties variable. It has a substantially larger beta coefficient among men (beta=.192) than among the women (beta=.072). This finding 228 TABLE 69 PARTY PREFERENCE BY SEX AND CHURCH ATTENDANCE, 19?2a Church Attendance jis n . Women DC Non-DC No Partv DC Non-DC No Party At Least Once A * * 9 . 5 % 20.5 30.0 56.7? 16.3 26.9 Week (273) (653) Often 30.4# 32.0 37.6 33.5* 28.2 38.3 (125) (188) Sometimes 16.1# 45.6 38.3 23.1* 35.7 61.3 (180) (163) Rarely 51o8 36.3 16.5? 45.1 (137) ??;! Never 10.5* 61.6 27.9 23 .6? 36.2 40.4 (86) (47) No Answer 0.0# 64.7 35.3 3.2? 54.8 41.9 (85) 1 (31) Total (U)=(l 339 )b The gamma coefficient between party preference, dichotomized as DC/hlon-DC, and sex is .400. Controlling for church attendance clearly shows the impact of religion as a major factor in the greater female support tor the Christian Democratic Party. The gamma relationship be tween party preference and sex is .181 among those who at tend church at least once a week, .112 among those who at tend often, .29 3 among those who attend sometimes, .155 among those who attend rarely, and.584 among those who never attend church. ^The two cases with missing data on sex were not in cluded in this analysis. 229 TABLE 70 PARTY PREFERENCE BY SEX AND ATTITUDES TOWARD THE CLERGY, 1972a Attitudes Toward the Olergy Sej Men Women DC Non-DC No Party DC Non-DC No Party 2-20 7.8* 66.0 26.2 10.8* 55.9 33.3 (206) (93) 21-44 17.7* *5.1 37.2 18.1* 56.9 25.0 (102 ) (72) CM .C *5-55 23.1* 37.3 39.6 31.5* 31.1 0 0 (239) 56-79 36.8* 33.6 29.6 40.9* 27.9 31.2 (125) (15*) 80-99 56.0* 15.7 28.3 66.5* 11.3 22,2 (159) (£72) No Answer 10.9* 25.5 63.6 28.8* 15.9 55*3 , (55) (132) Total (N)=(l839)t aThe gamma coefficient between party preference, dichotomized as DC/Non-DC, and sex Is *400. Controlling for favorability toward the clergy further substantiates the findings of Table 69. The gamma relationship between party preference and sex Is .241 among those 2-20 on the thermometer, .003 among those 21-44, .268 among those 45-55, .144 among those 56-79, and .258 among those 80-99 on the thermometer. ^The two cases with missing data on sex were not included in this analysis. 230 TABLE 71 PARTI PREFERENCE BY SEX AND FOLLOW CHURCH POLITICAL ADVICE, 1972a Follow Church Political Advice Sex Men Women DC Non-DC No Partv DC Non-DC No Partv Yes 50.8* 27.** 21.8 67.2* 11.1 21.7 (124) (198) No 21.8* 44.2 34.0 31.5* 33.7 34.8 (692) (597) No Answer 22.9* 24.3 52.9 37.3* 19.0 43.7 (70) (158) * Total (N) = i(I839)b aThe impact of following church political advice or not on the relationship between party preference and sex is not nearly so much as that of church attendance or favora bility toward the clergy. The gamma relationship between sex and party preference is .5 31 among those who said yes and .309 among those who said no compared with .400 among all. ^The two cases with missing data on sex were not in cluded in this analysis. 231 is in line with expectations from Chapter 2 that organiza tional memberships were more common among Catholic men than Catholic women. The important conclusion to be drawn from this in formation and previously reported findings that women have a greater religious commitment than men is that a major reason for the greater support of women for the DC is that women are more religiously committed. Gamma coefficients are reported in Tables 69, 70, and 71 which show that con trolling for religion does in most cases lower the rela- » tionship between sex and the DC vote. For example, the gamma correlation between sex and support for the DC within different levels of favorability to the clergy varies be tween ,00 3 and .268. The zero-order correlation beLween sex and the DC vote is .400. (Table 70) The gamma corre lation between sex and the DC support is between .112 and .29 3 when controlling for level of church attendance, with the exception of those who never attend church. In this case the garnma is .584. Although I have no evidence of this, it may in fact be the case that there are some older women who never attend church because they are physically unable but who are very religious and strong supporters of the DC. (Table 69) On the question of listening to the clergy's political advice, there is much less impact on the sex-DC vote relationship. In fact, among those who answered yes, the correlation was larger than the zero-order 232 relationship of sex and the DC support. (Table 71) Never theless, the great bulk of the evidence does suggest that religion is one of the important factors which leads to larger female support for the DC. In summary, it is clear that women support the DC more than men, that women are more religiously committed than men, that greater religious commitment is similarly related to higher levels of support for the DC among men and among women, and that the higher degree of the female religious commitment is a major factor in the larger proportion of female support for the DC. Linz and others have similarly argued that greater religiosity is in part responsible for the higher level of 14 DC support among older people compared with younger voters. c Older age is, in fact, related to a greater degree of relig ious commitment across all of the dimensions studied in Chapter 2. However, with exception of the issue of divorce there is a smaller relationship between religious factors and age than there is between the religious variables and sex. (Table 6 8) Table 72 shows that the impact of religion across age groups is substantially greater than is the influ ence of age across the varying levels of church attendance; the difference in support for the DC due to church attend ance varies between 28.1% and 53.2% within the various age groups. A further, and related, hypothesis suggested by Lorwin is that "with religious practice held constant, younger TAB-E ?2 PARTY PREFERENCE BY AGE AND CHURCH ATTENDANCE, 1972b Age Church Attendance At Least Oneq A Week fiftsn Sometime?, Rarely or Never Non- No Non- No Non- No DC Non-DC No Partv DC DC Partv DC DC Partv DC DC Party 21-25 4?.4*5 18.4 34.2 39.355 32.1 28.6 26.355 44.7 28.9 12.5# 59.4 28.1 (38) (28) (38) (32) 26-30 50.955 15.1 34.0 27.155 29.2 43.8 18.255 39.4 42.4 4.055 56.0 4o.o (53) (48) (33) (25) 31-35 54.8# 14.3 31.0 20.0?5 48.6 31.4 15.6?5 37.5 46.9 15.9£ 38.6 45.5 (42) (35) ,, , (32) (44) 36-40 49.2$ 10.2 40.7 25.055 29.2 45.8 28.9JS 44.4 26.7 12,855 46.8 40.4 (59) (48) (45) (47) 41-45 60.355 17.? zzilLs 28.1JS 34.4 37.5 15.655 37.5 46.9 7.155 67.9 25.0 (58) (32) (32) (28) 46-50 54.9?! 15.4 29.7 43.855 18.8 37-5 18.255 33.3 48.5 13.355 60.0 26.7 (91) (32) (33) (45) 51-55 47.55* 27.1 25.4 26 .3# 36.8 36.8 12.555 54.2 33«3 3.855 57.7 38.5 (59) (19) (24) (26) 56-60 50.755 19.3 30.1 29.255 33.3 37.5 14.355 47.6 38.1 16.1?5 41.9 41.9 (73) (24) (21) ( 3D 6l—65 50.0?S 25.0 25.0 55.655 11.1 33.3 23.1# 26.9 50.0 12.555 75.0 12.5 (76) (9) (26) (24) 66 or older 60.355 17.3 22.3 47.4# 15.8 36.8 12.855 4612 41.0 32.255 30.5 37.3 (179) (38) (39) (59) CS Total (N)=(l725r Those who did not respond to church attendance question not included. The gamma coefficent between party preference and age ia .186, When controlling ^ for level of church attendance, it is« (1) among those who attend church at least once wLo a week, .029; (2) among those who attend often, .1971 (3) among those who attend sometimes, .096; and (4) among those who attend rarely, or never .266. 234 voters give less support to the confessional parties them 15 do older voters." Lorwin suggested this as a general hypothesis and found it to be accurate in the case of the Netherlands. The pattern of age differences in support for the DC within each level of church attendance varies among the categories of this religious factor. In the case of those who attend church at least once a week (gamma=.029) or who attend church sometimes (gamma=.096), age makes very little difference on the degree of support for the DC and has a rather confusing pattern of effects. Among those who attend church often (gamma=.197) or those who attend rarely or never (gamma=.266), age has a greater impact. The rela tionship between age and the DC vote without the religious c. controls jls .186 (Table 72) . The greater relationship between age and the DC vote among those who attend church rarely or never might be be cause the group of those 66 years of age or older may con tain a number of highly religious individuals who are physically unable to attend church. The support of the 66 and older age group for the DC is, in fact, 16% higher than that of any other age group among those who attend church rarely or never. In conclusion, the moderately higher degree of religious commitment among older people is a major factor in the moderately higher level of support for the DC among older people. The test on Lorwin's hypothesis showed that the results are mixed, but age is not strongly related to DC 235 support at any level of church attendance. Lorwin's argu ment is, therefore, probably not very important in explain ing the support for the Christian Democrats. Lorwin's hypothesis was couched in general terms and was upheld in the Netherlands. However, its general applicability can be doubted after the findings reported above. Women and older people have a stronger religious commitment than men and younger people. This greater relig iousness is clearly of major importance to the higher degree of support for the DC among women and older people. This finding parallels earlier ones about voting differences be tween married men and married women and about the DC support among small farmers and in more rural areas. c. The Impact of Education and Political Backwardness This dissertation has examined the impact of sex, age, and commune size differences on religion and on the vote for a religiously-based party. These variables were hypothesized to be related to a stronger religious commitment in part be cause they are indicators of social deprivation. They are posited by Glock and Stark to be measures of the attributes least highly desired in society, i.e., being old, female, and rural. Another factor hypothesized to be related to a strong degree of religious commitment and to the vote for the religiously-based party is education.^ Table 68 shows that, with the exception of the moderate correlation between 236 education and view on divorce, the relationship of educa tion to the religious variables is small. In both 1968 and 1972 religion also had a small relationship with the sup port for the Christian Democratic Party. (For 1972, Pear son 's r=-.082 and gamma=-.139). Political backwardness has been hypothesized by Linz, Lipset, Dogan, Duverger, LaPalombara, and others to be an important attribute which makes it more likely that many women, in particular, will be susceptible to the appeals of the Church rather than to appeals based on grounds of econ- 17 omic self-interest. This argument is somewhat related to our earlier discussion of deference to the clergy in Chapter 2. Political backwardness here includes five basic types of measures: sense of political efficacy, i.e., "the feeling that individual political action does have, or can have, an 18 impact on the political process-; the degree of information about politics; the attention the individual pays to politics in the mass media; the degree of discussion about politics with family, friends, and co-workers; and the degree of inter est in politics. After testing the relationship of political backwardness, which is defined as a low rate of each of these factors, to the DC vote for all respondents, I will test the comparative impact of this factor and the other variables analyzed earlier in this dissertation on the support for the DC among men and women separately. 237 Dogan, Duverger, Linz, and others have argued that lower class individuals and, in particular, women vote for a religiously-based party because of a ''traditionalist” ethos rather than a conservative political and economic philosophy.^-9 Earlier analysis has shown that the individ ual religious commitment, in all its varying dimensions, is strongly related to the DC vote within the entire elector ate or among men and women. This religious commitment is certainly one form of attachment to a traditional institu tion of society. The scholars mentioned above make the argu ment that this traditionalist ethos is due in part to the isolation of many individuals, and especially many women, from the political sphere. Duverger, for example, draws a c striking picture of what he calls the "traditional woman's world, closed and limited." He states that: The withdrawal into a small restricted group, this semi-exclusivc concentration on a micro cosm, are in direct conflict with an interest in politics, where problems must be stated in general terms, where everything must be taken into account, where an awareness of the macro cosm is vital.20 The isolation from the political sphere, the introversion, and the concern with the problems of the home or the "micro cosm" is hypothesized to result in a high degree of political backwardness. Political backwardness is then posited to be important to a party which makes its appeals based on trad itional institutions in society. 238 Political backwardness, in terms of the five sets of variables mentioned above, has a small to moderate relation ship with the degree of religious commitment. Feelings of political efficacy has the smallest relationship generally, while all the other variables have their largest relation ship with the view toward divorce and have small to moderate correlations with the other religious dimensions. (Table 73) Those who are politically backward are somewhat more likely to be religious, but this is not a very strong relationship. Among the political backwardness variables, a low degree of political information is the most strongly related to the support for the Christian Democratic Party. The measures used to tap political information include whether c the individual was aware of the economic crisis in 1972, the individual's knowledge about the Italian parties, the in dividual's ability to give any difference between left and right, and the individual's ability to recall the names of party leaders who appeared on the ''Tribuna Elettorale" cam paign program on Italian television during the 19 72 election campaign. This last measure shows the smallest relationship of the four with the DC vote, but it is different in some senses because it requires that the respondent has seen the 21 television program. The other measures, political interest, political discussion, political efficacy, and attention to politics in the media, have small to moderate relationships with the DC vote. (Table 74) A multiple regression analysis 239 TABLE 73 ZERO-ORDER RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN RELIGIOUS VARIABLES AND POLITICAL BACKWARDNESS VARIABLES, 1972a Political Backwardness Variables''0 Religious Variables Follow Church Attltudes on Church Position Attendance Religiosity Clergy Advice Divorce Has heard of -.084 -.163 -.198 -.142 -.289 economic -.142) (-.303) (-.277) (-.349) (-.510) crisis? Information- -.097 -.200 -.232 -.127 -^310 Parties -.106) (-.229) (-.190) (-.173) (-.322 ) Information- -.118 -.159 -.198 -.078 -.213 Left-Right -.174) (-.269) (-.255) (-.197) (-.337) Political -.075 -.132 -.161 -.069 ' -.329 Interest -.082) (4-.169) (-.152) (-.129) (-.378) Political -.095 -.0 3 6 -.097 -.128 -.004 Efficacy -.121) (-.05*0 (-.112) (-.268) (-.003) Political -.107 -.181 -.207 -.0 9 2 -.237 Discussion -.116) (-.229) (-.194) (-.171) (-.293) Follow Politics -.079 -.139 -.174 -.054 -.286 in Newspapers -.121) (-.248) (-.219) (-.136) (-.429) Follow Campaign -.029 -.0 6 6 -.069 -.063 -.146 on Television -.041) (-.121) (-.092) (-.160) (-.263) ®The upper number is the Pearson's r correlation coefficient. The lower number, surrounded by parentheses, is the gamma coefficient. ^All the oolitical backwardness variables are ordered from most backward tb least backward. The specific operational izations are discussed in note 21 of Chapter 5* All the religious variables are ordered from least religious to most religious. 240 TABLE 74 ZERO-ORDER CORRELATIONS BETWEEN PARTY PREFERENCE AND POLITICAL BACKWARDNESS VARIABLES, 1972a Political Backwardness Variables** Pearson*s r Gamma 1. Has heard of economic crisis? -«2}.l -.424 2* Information- Political Parties -.250 -.307 3. Information- Left-Right Differences -.256 -.482 Political Interest -.176- —•2*1-6 5. Political Efficacy -.111 -.195 6. Political Discussion -.209 -.257 7. Follow Politics in Newspapers -*152 -.293 8. Follow Campaign on Television -.108 -.229 9. Remember Names of Political Leaders from Television -.107 -.216 aAs with the other correlational analyses, party preference is dichotomized between DC and non-DC voters. Those who did not indicate their party were not used in calculating these correlations. ^The political backwardness variables are ordered from most backward to least backward. The negative correlations indicate that a greater degree of political backwardness, i.e., less political information, less political interest, less political discussion, less feelings of political efficacy, and less attention to politics in the media, is positively related to support for the Christian Democratic Party© 241 which includes these various 1972 measures of political backwardness shows that together these variables explain 12.5% of the variance in the support for the DC. (Table 75) This is more than the economic attitudes and attributes treated in the last chapter, but it is substantially less than the variance e>q?lained by either the religious varia bles or the moderation variables. In a regression analysis which included all the variables introduced so far in this dissertation, the political backwardness variables together added 1.0% to the variance explained in the 1972 support for the DC. As mentioned earlier, this political backwardness hypothesis is posited to be of particular importance with c regard to the larger female support for the DC. Many studies in various countries have found women to be less efficacious, less politically aware, less interested in politics, less 22 attentive to the media, and less likely to discuss politics. Almond and Verba, in their five nation Civic Culture study, found that: "In Italy . . . the general rate of political discussion is low, and particularly low among women." They found further that of the five nations they studied, "Italian 23 women appear least frequently (politically) aware of all." LaPalombara contends that women are less knowledgeable about politics and less interested in politics than men and are, therefore, more likely to heed the advice of the Church and 7 A vote for the DC. 242 TABLE 75 MULTIPLE REGRESSION: THE IMPACT OF POLITICAL BACKWARDNESS ON CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC SUPPORT, 1972a Varlable . Beta Sigma Has heard of economic crisis? -*082 *026 In fo rmat1on-Po11tlcal Parties -.155 *029 Information-Left-Right Differences -.17^ *026 Political Interest -.013 .036 Political Efficacy -.1^5 .022 Political Discussion -.089 #028 Follow Politics in Newspapers -#018 #029 < Follow Campaign in Television -#06** *028 Remember Names of Political Leaders from Television -.079 #028 R 5 . 3 5 ' * b Rz-.125 aThe negative sign of the beta coefficients means that greater political backwardness, l#e#« less political information, less political interest, less political discussion, less feelings of political efficacy, and less attention to politics in the media, is positively related to support for the Christian Democratic Party. The political backwardness variables are ordered from most backward to least backward# Party preference is ordered non-DC/DC# ^Including education in this regression analysis only increases the variance explained very slightly. With education in the regression, the R is #359 and the R is #129# 243 This argument, which LaPalombara, Dogan, Duverger, and others make, as stressed earlier, is based on the assump tion that women play a dependent role in the family, are not expected to be knowledgeable about politics, are more concerned about the family and the home, i.e., the "micro cosm, " than about political problems, and do not discuss politics very much outside the home or even within it. Analysis of the 196 8 and 1972 surveys does indicate that women were generally more backward in both election years. There is a moderately strong relationship between sex and most of the political backwardness variables. (Table 76) For example, 45.8% of the women stated that they were not aware of the economic crisis in 1972, while only c 21.8% of the men gave this response. Only 15.6% of the women were in the upper fourth of the scale on information about Italian political parties, while 44.1% of the men were in this group. 73.0% of the women were unable to give any kind of difference between left and right in Italian politics: this was true of 40.3% of the Italian men. Twice as many women as men had no interest in politics. The proportions were 51.3% compared with 25.6%. However, as in the case of the religious variables, there is not a great difference between men and women in the variance in the DC support explained by political backward ness variables. Among men the variance explained is 8.3%; among women, it is 10.3%. Tables 77 and 78 show that the TABLE 76 244 ZERO-ORDER CORRELATIONS BETWEEN POLITICAL BACKWARENESS VARIABLES AND DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS, 1972* Political Backwardness Variables § 2 Z Age Commune Education -.185 -.30** <185 -.317) (-.371) (.199) Has heard of economic -.255 -.18** .137 orisis? -.503) <-.2**5) (.193) Information- -,2**8 .13** Partles : : & > (-.191) (.108) Information- -.331 -.079 .13** Left-Right -.601) (-.098) (.181) Political Interest -.127 • 1**6 : : $ > (-.127) (.1**0) Political Efficacy -•051 .012 .05** -.122) (-.002) (.072) Political Discussion -.**09 -.305 .060 -.581) (-•2**3) (.0**5) Follow Politics in -.338 -.075 • 1**7 N ewspapers -.606) (-.116) (.181) VT\XT\000 O O 1 1 Follow Campaign in -.187' . . .125 Television -.379) (.166) Remember Names of Political Leaders from -.237 -•1**5 .121 Television -.**36) (-.155) (.162) The upper numbers In each case are the Pearson’s r coefficients; the lower numbers are the gamma coefficients* In summary, this table shows that women, older individuals, • and more rural individuals are more likely to be politically backward* The political backwardness variables are ordered from most backward to least backward. The demographic characteristics are ordered as follows* (1) sex-men, women; (2) age-younger to older; and (3) commune size-smaller to larger* 245 TABLE 77 PARTY PREFERENCE BY SEX AND INFORMATION ON LEFT-RIGHT DIFFERENCES, 1972 Information on Left- Right Differences Sex Men Women DC Non-DC No Party DC Non-DC No Party Was able to give a differ ence between 2 2 , 9 % 49.0 28.2 33.1# 40.1 26.8 left and (529) (257) right Was unable to give left- 30.5# 27.5 **>2.0 42*4# 21.6 36.1 right difference (357) (696) Total (N)=(1839) ^ w o cases with missing data on sex are not included. 246 TABLE 78 PARTY PREFERENCE BY SEX AND AWARENESS OF ECONOMIC CRISIS, 1972 Has Heard of Economic Crlsls?a Sex Men Women DC Non-DC No Party DC Non-DC No Party Yes 23.8# 42.6 33.6 34.4# 32.9 32.7 ( 693) : j c.(517) No 33.7# 32.1 34.2 46.3# 19.0 3 4 . 6 (193) (436) Total (N)=(l839)b aThe question asked respondents was: "In recent times there has been a great deal of talk about an economic crisis in Italy. Have you heard about it?" ^Two cases with missing data on sex are not included. 247 impact of differences in the degree of political informa tion is very similar among men and women. Among men, the DC support was 7.6% greater among those who were unable to give any response to the question asking about left-right differences. Among women, the margin 9.3% in a similar direction. (Table 77) Among men, the DC gained 9.9% more support from those who had not heard of the economic crisis; among women, this difference was 11.9%. (Table 78) In both cases, there was an additional impact of sex differences of about the same magnitude as those due to political backward ness. There were also very small differences between men and women in terms of the variance explained in the support for the DC by the moderation variables and the economic at titudes and attributes. The entire group of variables used in this dissertation together have a very similar influence on the DC support within the male electorate in conparison with the female electorate. In summary, women are more politically backward and have a greater religious commitment than men. This apparently accounts for much of the differ ence between DC support among men and women. However, the factors which lead men to support the DC do not seem to be very different from those which lead women to support the Christian Democratic Party. 248 Employment Status Differences Duverger, Dogan, Linz, and others, as mentioned ear lier, have argued that the female support for religiously- based parties is due to "traditionalism." This traditional ism is contended to be due largely to the influence of the home ethos which Duverger described in contrasting the em phasis on the "microcosm" with that on the "macrocosm" or larger political world. Linz also argues that the isolation of women in the home from the political sphere and the lesser integration into the occupational market makes them more 2 5 susceptible to appeals other than self-interest. Duverger contends that: The exercise of a profession develops extro- • e version, the keeping of a house introversion. The human contacts implicit in working life, the social problems arising from it, and the collective and political interests which it engenders are probably more important than the sense of economic independence it gives.26 The hypothesis that results from this discussion is that work ing women would be less likely to support a religiously-based party than housewives because of their greater exposure to the working-place environment and the world outside the home in general and their lesser political backwardness. As with the research on marital status differences discussed earlier, this work on differences in voting behavior due to employment status was done 10 to 20 years ago and needs updating and in some cases a firmer empirical base through survey research. 249 Housewives were somewhat more supportive of the DC than those women who were employed? they had 4.6% greater sup port for the DC in 196 8 and 5.7% more support in 1972. Re tired women were, however, the most supportive of the DC in both 1968 and 1972. They gave the DC 14.3% more support than employed women in 1968 and 14.5% more support in 1972. The difference between retired men and employed men was very similar in both surveys and was very much like that of women. Among the men, the retired individuals were 11.7% more supportive of the DC in 1968 and 11.4% more supportive in 1972. (Table 79). In summary, there is some impact due to status as a housewife rather than being employed out side the home. However, the influence on the DC vote is ... c. not of a very large magnitude. The greatest difference, among men and among women, is between retired individuals and those currently employed. This is in line with ear lier findings that older people are most supportive of the DC among the various age groupings. Retired people, in fact, make up 63.3% of the voters who are 66 years of age or older. Retired people older than 65 gave 44.9% of their vote to the DC compared with a support level of 45.9% for the DC among all the electors more than 65 years of age in the 1972 survey. The impact of the home ethos, i.e., the difference between the voting behavior of working women and housewives, is not so great as the writings mentioned above suggest. TABLE 79 250 PARTY PREFERENCE BY EMPLOYMENT STATUS AND SEX, 1972 Employment Status Sex Men Women DC Non-DC No Party DC Non-DC No Party Presently Employed 23.1* 40.7 36.1 34.8* 3 0 .0 35.2 (648) (250) Housewives 40.5* 25.5 34.0 (548) Retired 34.5* 37.6 27.9 49.3* 21.3 29.4 (197) (136) a Unemployed 33.3* 33.3 33.3 (24) Student 18.2* 72.7 9.1 10.0# 7 0 .0 20.0 (U) (10) Total (N)=(l833)b aPercentages not calculated because there were less than 10 cases* ^Two cases with missing data on sex were not Included. Six other cases were excluded because of missing data on employment status. 251 First of all, as Duverger argued, housewives are more politically backward than working women. 36.4% of the working women have more than an elementary education; only 9.6% of the housewives have more than an elementary education. 36.0% of the working women were unaware of the economic crisis in 1972; 55.1% of the housewives stated that they were unaware of the economic crisis. 46.2% of the working women were unable to give any definition of left-right differences; 60.7% of the housewives could not respond to this question. Housewives are, therefore, more politically backward than working women. This appears to have had only a very small impact on the degree of support for the DC among housewives compared with working wcmcn. The gamma relationship between the housewife/work ing woman distinction and the DC vote was only slightly changed by controlling for the degree of information about 27 the economic crisis or left-right differences. Religion was probably a major force in minimizing the differences in support for the DC between housewives and working women. The religious commitment of these two groups was very similar in 1972, with housewives being slightly more religiously committed. Housewives averaged 61.6 on the clericalism thermometer, while the mean favor- ability score of working women was 57.3. 67.1% of the housewives attended church at least once a week or often; 66.4% of the working women attended church this frequently. 252 Table 80 shows that the impact of church attendance on sup port for the DC is relatively similar among housewives and working women and acts to minimize the differences in their support for the DC. The gamma coefficients between the housewife/working woman distinction and the DC vote were not changed very much by controlling for church attendance. As with their religious commitment, housewives and working women had very similar feelings toward communism in 1972. The mean favorability score toward the PCI among working women was 38.3; housewives averaged 37.1 on this thermometer. In conclusion, housewives and working women were very similar in terms of their religious commitment and their feelings toward communism. These two factors, and C particularly the religious variables, have a major impact in minimizing the difference in the degree of support for the DC. The greater political backwardness of housewives has a very small impact. However, there seems to be little support in the case of Italy for differentiating housewives and working women because of a "home ethos." Their support for the religiously-based party is not very different. Concluding Remarks I have found in this chapter that women do support the DC more than men and that the DC is dependent on female . support for the maintenance of its voting strength. Age is also related to the DC vote, but the relationship is weaker 253 TABLE 80 COMPARISON OF PARTY PREFERENCE AMONG HOUSEWIVES AND WORKING WOMEN, CONTROLLING FOR CHURCH ATTENDANCE, 1972a Church Attendance Sex and Employment Status Employed Women Housewives DC Non-DC No Party DC Non-DC No Partv At Least Once A Week 53.6* 19.6 26.8 58.8# 1^.1 27.1 (112) (255) Often 27 .8# 35.2 37.0 33.6# 25.7 *0.7 W (248) Sometimes 16.7# 33.3 5 0 .0 26.5# 3^.9 38.6 (42) (205) Rarely, Never 16.7# ^3.3 40.0 13.6# **5.7 40.7 (30) (81) Total (N)=(770)b The relationship between party preference, dichotomized as Non -DC/DC, and the working woman/housewife distinction is .159. When controlling for church attendance, the gamma coefficient Is .209 among those who attended church at least once a week, • 2*4-8 among those who attended often, •205 among those who attended sometimes, and -.128 among those who attended rarely or never. b This includes all housewives and working women* with the exception of 16 housewives and 12 working women who did not answer the question on church attendance. 254 than that between sex and support for the DC. As hypothes ized by Dogan, Duverger, Linz, and others, widows and single women are more supportive of the DC than are married women; however, the magnitude of the marital status difference is not very great. In fact, the difference between married women and widows is less than the difference between married women and married men. The importance of the married women to the vote for a religiously-based party is, in summary, probably underemphasized by the above-mentioned writings. Women and older people were found to be more relig ious across all dimensions of the religious commitment than were men and younger people. However, a comparison of the determinants of the DC vote within each sex group found c that religion has a similar impact among men and women. Women and older people, therefore, give greater support to the DC in part because more of them have a strong religious commitment. Education was found to have a very small relation ship with the DC vote. Political backwardness, however, had a somewhat larger relationship with DC support; the factors of political information, political efficacy, political dis cussion, attention to politics in the media, and political interest together explained 12.5% of the variance in the DC vote in 1972. There were only small differences in the impact of political backwardness when men and women were compared. 255 The final findings of this chapter was that house wives were slightly more likely to support the DC than working women. (4.6% more in 1968 and 5.7% more in 1972). This is in accord with the Dogan and Duverger hypothesis that the home ethos has a traditionalist impact and makes support for a religiously-based party more likely. How ever, the magnitude of the impact due employment status was much smaller than these writings suggest. Similar degrees of religiousness probably account for these smaller than hypothesized differences. Throughout this dissertation I have examined trends or developments which may tend to undermine DC support. With regard to the questions examined in this chapter, it c. was pointed out that education had only a very small impact on the DC vote. However, education is strongly related to the measures of political backwardness. Those with more education were much more likely to be more politically in formed, to discuss politics more, to pay attention to politics in the media, to be interested in politics, and to feel efficacious. Increasing levels of education, which occur as societal modernization takes place, may decrease the degree of political backwardness in Italy over the long term. However, the impact of political backwardness on the vote is not nearly so great as is that of modera tion and religion. Therefore, the changes in education may have an indirect impact on support for the DC; however, it 256 is not likely that any changes due to increasing educa tion in Italy will have very much impact on the DC vote in the near future. Finally, it was suggested in the first chapter that there may be changes in attitudes toward women in society which might lead to more women's taking an active role outside the family in jobs and other activities. In accord with the Dogan and Duverger hypotheses, such a development would decrease the influence of the home ethos. However, it seems unlikely that there will be very much impact on the DC vote in this regard for two reasons: (1) there was not a very large influence due to differences in employ ment status; and (2) as a recent newspaper article sug- c gested, with regard to the woman's role in Italian society, 2 8 "change may come, but slowly." In summary, the important female support for the DC is not likely to be undermined by educational developments or attitudinal changes toward women in Italian society, at least for a long period of time. 257 Notes - Chapter 5 On Italy, see Barnes, "Italy: Religion and Class in Electoral Behavior," in Rose, ed., Electoral Behavior: A Comparative Handbook and Dogan, "Political Cleavage and Social Stratification in Prance and Italy," in Lipset and Kokkan, eds., pp. 159-161. On West Germany, see Conradt> p. 51. On the Netherlands, see Arend Lijphart, "The Netherlands: Continuity and Change in Voting Behavior," in Rose, ed., Electoral Behavior: A Comparative Handbook, pp. 255-256. On Norway, see Angus Campbell and henry Valen, "Party Identification in Norway and the United States," Public Opinion Quarterly XXV (Winter 1961):505-525. 2 Barnes in Rose, ed., Electoral Behavior: A Compara tive Handbook. Dogan, "Political Cleavage and Social Stratification in Prance and Italy," in Lipset and Rokkan, eds., pp. 159-160. Edelman, p. 145. LaPalombara, "Politi cal Party Systems and Crisis Governments: French and Italian Contrasts," p. 139. 3 Dogan, "Political Cleavage and Social Stratifica tion in France and Italy," in LiDset and Rokkan, eds., c pp. 159-160. 4 Linz, p. 85 3. 5Linz, p. 851. ^Glock and Stark, p. 17. 7 Duverger. Dogan in Lipset and Rokkan, eds. Dogan in Spreafico and LaPalombara, eds. D Duverger, pp. 45-46. g Dogan, "Le donne italiane tra il cattolicesimo e il marxismo," in Spreafico and LaPalombara, eds., p. 484. ^The gamma coefficients between sex and the DC vote among married individuals, controlling for the degree of favorability to the clergy, were: 2-20 on the clericalism thermometer, .321? 21-44, .220; 45-55, .250? 56-79, .221? 258 and 80-99, .156. Among all married people the correlation between sex and the DC vote was .388. ■^Duverger, p. 47. 12 Edelman, p. 145. Duverger, p. 66. Linz, p. 242. Dogan, "Political Cleavage and Social Stratification in France and Italy," in Lipset and Rokkan, eds., pp. 162-163. 13 Conradt, p . 51. ^Linz, p. 89 3. 15 Lorwm, p. 167. 16Glock and Stark, p. 17. Also see Christopher, Fearon, McCoy, and Nobbe, p. 385. 17 Linz, p. 204 and p. 214. Hamilton, pp. 97-9 8. 18 Angus Campbell, Gerald Gurin, and Warren E. Mil- . ler, The Voter Decides (Evanston, Illinois: Row, Peterso^i, and Company, 195 4), p. 187. 19 Duverger, pp. 66-67 and pp. 128-129. Dogan, "Political Cleavage and Social Stratification in France and Italy," in Lipset and Rokkan, eds., pp. 164-165. Linz, p. 204. 20 Duverger, p. 128. 21 Political Interest is an index composed of the in dividual's interest in politics and the individual's interest in the 1972 campaign. Political discussion is an index composed of whether the individual discusses politics with his family, his friends, and his co-workers. Political efficacy is an index composed of the responses to two items: (1) "Do you agree with the following statement: 'I do not believe that the government worries much about what people like me think'"; and (2) "Do you agree with the following statement: 'Politics and the government sometimes seem so complicated that people like me really can't understand what is going on.'" Two separate measures of attention to politics were included in this analysis: (1) "During the electoral campaign, did you follow the TV program Tribuna Electorale?"; and (2) "Did you follow the electoral campaign 259 in the newspapers?" The political information measures in clude: (1) an index based on the individual's ability to recall spontaneously or with help the nane3 of 10 Italian political parties; (2) "In recent times there has been a great deal of talk about an economic crisis in Italy. Have you heard about it?"; (3) "Do you remember the name of any of the leaders who appeared on that program?" which was a follow-up item to the question of whether the individual had seen the "Tribuna Elettorale" program; and (4) "What are the differences between the parties of the left and the parties of the right?" 22 See Robert E. Lane, Political Life; Why People Get Involved in Politics (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1959) . All see' Milbrath, p. 58 and pp. 135-137. 23 Almond and Verba, p. 391. 24 LaPalombara, "Italy: Fragmentation, Isolation, and Alienation," in Pye and Verba, eds., pp. 321-322. ^"*Linz, p. 214. 26 „ „ „ ’ t. Duverger, p. 1.2 8e 27 The gamma correlation between the housewife working woman distinction and the DC vote was .159 in 1972. With controls for whether the individual had heard of the econ omic crisis in Italy in 1972, the gamma was .187 among those who said no and .096 among those who said yes. With con trols for whether the respondent was able to define any left-right differences, the gamraa was .140 among those who could not and .095 among those who could. 2 8 Judith Harris, "Feminist Movement in Italy: Change May Come, but Slowly," Mew York Times, 7 April 197 4. CHAPTER VI CONCLUSION: THE BASES OF SUPPORT FOR THE ITALIAN CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY In the first chapter of this dissertation, I set down four major purposes of my research. These were: (1) to examine alternative hypotheses which have been given to ex plain the electoral support for Western European religiously- based parties in general and the Italian Christian Democrats in particular; (2) to explore the impact of religion as a limit on the expansion of religiously-based parties; (3) to construct a multivariate model and examine the relative c. potency of the different explanations for the DC support; and (4) to examine the impact of various societal trends on the support for the DC. In this chapter I will discuss the findings and their implications in each of these areas of re search . Alternative Explanations for the DC Support Religion has, of course, been the most widely dis cussed explanation for the support of religiously-based parties. This is true because their pre-political inspira tion arose from religious origins. They were also based on 260 261 the broad range of organizations and influences which made up the religious sub-culture at the time of their forma tion. I tested the relationship of the total cluster of related religious factors to the DC through the use of nine variables; these variables included indicators of individ ual religious attitudes and behaviors, of the strength of the Catholic political tradition in the respondent's local community, and of membership in the Catholic organiza tional network. This group of variables together explained 40.3% of the variance in the support for the DC in 1972. (Table 81) Those factors with the largest zero-order cor relations with the DC vote were favorability to the clergy, frequency of church attendance, felt religiosity, and atti- c tudes toward divorce. (Table 82) The impact of the Cath olic political tradition was very small in the regression analysis which examined the impact of all nine religious variables on the support for the DC; its indirect impact will be explored in the multivariate model which I will present later in this chapter. Although the zero-order rela tionship between Catholic organizational ties and support for the DC was not so large as between most of the indiv idual religious attitudes and behaviors and the DC vote, organizational ties were found to exert an important inde pendent influence on the DC support, particularly among those who attend church less frequently. In summary, re ligion is an important and enduring explanation for the DC TABLE 81 262 SUMMARY: THE IMPACT OF ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS FOR CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC SUPPORT, 1972a Multiple Variance Explained Explanation Correlation Coefficient in DC Support The Religious Factor .635 .403 (9 Variables) Moderation and Feelings Toward #607 . 3 6 8 Communism (6 Variables) Reasons for Liking One's Party .508 . 2 5 8 Economic Attitudes and Attributes .277 .077 (6 Variables) Political Backwardness .354 .125 (9 Variables) Education .082 .007 Sex *208 .043 Age .152 .023 Commune Size .196 . 0 3 8 Father's Party Identification .296 .085 All Variables .768 .590 aThese coefficients are based on the Pearson's r correlation and on multiple regression analysis. TABLE 82 263 SUMMARY: ZERO-ORDER CORRELATIONS BETWEEN PARTY PREFERENCE AND THE MAJOR VARIABLES USED IN THIS DISSERTATION, 1972 Variable Pearson's r Gamma Religiosity .409 .6 6 8 Church Attendance .4-25 .618 Attitudes Toward Clergy *513 .65 8 Follow Church Political Advice*317 *679 Church Role in Politics *230 *5^7 Position on Divorce .396 .605 Catholic Political Tradition .209 .264 Catholic Organizational Ties .221 .505 Newspaper Readership .145 .325 Centrlsm .407 *683 Favorabllity Toward Communism -.544 -.683 Salience of Governmental Stability -.020 -.112 Good Catholic as Communist .348 .628 Good Catholic as Neo-Fascist .204 .403 Reasons for Liking Party #508 .831 Respondent Family Status .013 .005 Subjective Class Identification .083 .184 Satisfaction with Family Economic Situation .182 .291 Satisfaction with Living Conditions *157 *259 Family Income -*097 -.150 Father's Profession .030 .028 Heard of Economic Crisis -.211 -.424 Information-Partles -.250 -*307 Information-Left-Right -.256 -.482 Political Interest -.176 -.246 Political Efficacy -.111 -.195 Political Discussion -.209 -*257 Follow Politics in Newspapers-.152 -.293 Follow Campaign in Television -ol07 -o2l6 Remember Names of Political Leaders from TV -.108 -.229 Education -.082 -.139 Sex . 2 0 8 .400 Age .152 .186 Commune Size -.196 -.261 Father's Party Identification .296 .500 264 support. My analysis has also made clear that, in order to tap more fully the richness of the relationship between religion and the vote, the entire series of religious fac tors should be included in any study of the electoral sup port for a religiously-based political party. A second major explanation of the support for religiously-based parties in Western Europe is that they are centrist, moderate parties which uphold freedom and protect democracy and the economic status quo from the political extremes. This cluster of variables includes in dicators of centrism on a left-right political spectrum, feelings toward communism, and feelings toward neo-fascism. These variables together explain 36.8% of the variance in c. the support for the DC in 1972, nearly as much as do the religious factors. Feelings of hostility toward communism and centrism had the largest relationships with the vote. (Table 82) Feelings toward communism may have a more com prehensive impact because nearly one-third of the DC voters failed to indicate their self-placement on the left-right political spectrum, possibly showing a lesser understanding of the spatial ordering of Italian parties. In fact, many of those who were less politically aware did not respond to this item. A much smaller proportion of DC voters failed to answer when asked their favorability toward the PCI. Finally, among DC electors, the industrialists, profession als, and white collar workers, the small farmers, and the 265 artisans and small businessmen were more likely than those in other status groupings to be centrist and less likely to be favorable to communism. These two explanations, religion and moderation, are the most commonly mentioned in the literature on the Italian Christian Democratic Party. In order to explore these two sets of factors in greater depth, I employed an open-ended question in which the individual was asked to state his own motives for voting as he did in 1972. While a post election question concerning the individual's reason for his voting choice must be treated carefully because of the complexity of an individual's internal decision-making process, such a question does provide a direct measure of at least the most salient motive in the individual's mind. It also allows for a deeper examination of the impact of attitudes favoring freedom and democracy. This variable was coded for my analysis with those responses indicating favorability to religion or centrism, democracy, or freedom as one category; all other answers, such as general ideol ogy or economic interests, were in the other category. In combining the nine religious variables and the six modera tion variables with this item in my multiple regression analysis, I found that the two broad ideational areas of religion and moderation together explain 56.0% of the var iance in the DC vote. VThile these two explanations did overlap somewhat in their explanatory power, it is also 266 clear that they are complementary. Both religion and mod eration, therefore, have an important independent impact on the support for the DC. The remainder of the variables introduced in the re gression analysis increased the variance explained in the DC support by only 3.0%. Six economic attitudes and attri butes were found to have small explanatory power for the DC support. (Tables 81 and 82) This was in line with expecta tions because of the great stress in the literature on the interclassist appeals of the Christian Democratic Party. The DC was somewhat overrepresented among small farmers. This group, compared with those in other status levels, has the strongest religious commitment, has important organiza- c tional ties to the DC through the Coltivatori Diretti agri cultural association, is least favorable to the PCI, and has one of the highest levels of centrism. The DC was somewhat underrepresented among the skilled workers. How ever, its basic nature is "catch-all" or "interclassist"; its class composition is very similar to that of the entire electorate. Political backwardness, which was defined in my anal ysis as a low level of political efficacy, political infor mation, political interest, attention to politics in the media, and political discussion, has been hypothesized to be an important characteristic of the support for the DC, particularly among women. Each of the nine variables used 267 as indicators of political backwardness has a small to mod erate relation to the DC vote; the political information and political discussion variables have the largest correla tion with the DC vote. (Table 82) Together these political backwardness variables explain somewhat more of the var iance in the DC vote than do the economic attitudes and attributes. (Table 81) However, political backwardness has a much smaller impact on the DC vote than either the religious factor or the moderation factor. Four background characteristics were also tested as correlates of the DC vote. Women were more likely to vote for the DC than for other parties; women also compose 62% of the Christian Democratic electorate. Women are also-rtore religious and more politically backward than men. Commune size was also moderately and negatively related to the vote for the DC. Older individuals were also more likely to vote for the DC than younger people; however, the relationship between age and vote was less than those of both sex and commune size with DC support. Finally, education has a very small relationship with the DC vote. (Table 81) Each of these four variables is hypothesized to be related to relig ion and political backwardness in the same direction as it is related to the vote. Therefore, although these four characteristics together add very little variance in the multiple regression analysis of the DC vote, they will be 268 considered as antecedents of the religious variables and the political backwardness variables in the model of the DC vote which I will present later in this chapter. Finally/ the party identification of each respond ent's father has a moderately strong relationship with the support for the DC. By itself, it explains a greater proportion of the variance in the DC vote than all six econ omic factors together or the four background characteristics together. The concept of party identification and its in ter gene rational transmission will be more thoroughly exam ined in the section of this chapter which deals with the impact of societal trends on the DC vote. In summary, this dissertation has tested a broad c- range of hypotheses which have been given in the literature to explain the support for Western European religiously- based parties in general and the DC in particular. Religion and moderation, the two most widely discussed explanations, do have the largest impact by far on the support for the DC. From my analysis it is clear that previous characterizations of the electoral support of the DC as religious, moderate, interclassist, and female are applicable. Limits on the Expansion of the DC A second facet of this dissertation is a brief exam ination of the impact of religion as a limitation on the ex pansion of religiously-based parties. It has been argued 269 that, since the DC and other religiously-based parties were initially inspired by the religious principle, it is likely that religion may also act as a "limiting framework" which repels those individuals who oppose this religious prin ciple.^ In a question eliciting the names of those parties each individual found to be unacceptable as a voting choice, 10.5% of those who answered in 1972 stated that they would never vote for the DC. This was substantially smaller than the number who rejected the communists or neo-fascists. It is clear from the analysis of those individuals who rejected the DC that anti-clericalism was an important factor in their opposition. Further analysis also sug gested that those who rejected the DC were more likely to c be closer to the ends of the left-right political spectrum. Religion may act as a parameter or limitation on the expan sion of a religiously-based party. However, at least as defined by the question above, the DC is not rejected nearly so much as the parties of the left and the right. The Multivariate Ilodel This section of my concluding chapter will attempt to assess the relative impact or potency of each of the 35 var iables in Table 82. The model employed in this dissertation involves both the direct linkage of these 35 variables and the indirect linkage of several of these factors to the DC vote. Sex, age, commune size, education, status, and the 270 Catholic political tradition are hypothesized to have an indirect impact on the support for the DC through their influence on the religious factors of religiosity, church attendance, attitudes toward the clergy, attitudes toward divorce, the deference factor, attitudes toward the role the Church should play in politics, and readership of Cath olic sub-culture newspapers. Previous analysis in this dis sertation has suggested that women, older people, rural individuals, and those in areas with a strong Catholic political tradition have a stronger religious commitment. We have also seen that there is a very small relationship of education and status with most of the religious factors. However, since education and status have been hypothesized to be related to the degree of the individual's religious commitment, they will be included in my model as possible antecedents of religion. Sex, age, commune size, and education are also hypoth esized to have an indirect impact on the Christian Demo cratic vote through their influence on the political back wardness factors. Analysis in Chapter 5 showed that women, older people, rural individuals, and the more poorly edu cated were more politically backward; among these variables, education has particularly strong relationships with political backwardness. Finally, status is posited to have an indirect impact on the DC vote through its influence on centrism and feelings toward communism. Analysis confirmed 271 this relationship both among DC voters and among the en tire electorate. In summary, therefore, along with the direct impact of all 35 variables on the DC vote, there are the following indirect paths: (1) sex, age, commune size, and education through the religious variables and the polit ical backwardness variables; (2) status through religion, ceitrism, and feelings toward communism; and (3) Catholic political tradition, through the religious variables. Table 83 shows the direct and, if hypothesized, in direct effects of each of the 35 variables which are posited to be related to the DC support in 1972. The variables with the largest direct impact on the vote center around the explanations which individually explain the largest propor- c tion of the variance in the DC vote: (1) religion and (2) moderation. The largest beta coefficient, in fact, is that of the open-ended question, which elicits the individual's expressed reasons for his vote. This variable is in a dichotomous form; religion, moderation, protection of de mocracy, and freedom responses are included together in one category, and economic interests and general ideologv are in the other. (beta=.243) Peelings toward communism (beta= -.202) and centrism (beta=.116) also have an important im pact. Among the religious variables, feelings toward the clergy has the largest influence. (beta=.129) Ties to the Catholic organizations has an important impact and shows the smallest reduction from its zero-order correlation to 272 its beta coefficient among these variables which have a major influence on the DC vote. (beta=.106, Pearson's r=.221) This is due in part to the fact that the model type of DC voter, i.e., female, older, and more political ly backward, is also the type of person least likely to join an organization and that this variable has only a small relationship with the other religious factors. Therefore, organizational ties must be considered to have an important independent impact even though three-quarters of the DC electorate does not have direct or indirect ties to Catholic organizations. Both church attendance and at titudes toward divorce also make contributions to the DC support. Since religion and moderation together accout c. for 56.0% of the variance explained in the DC vote, it is no surprise that the factors with the largest independent and direct impact on the suppott for the DC come from these two explanations. (Table 33) Of these factors which also have an indirect impact on the support for the DC, sex and education contribute the largest total effects. Along with the religious and modera tion explanations for the DC vote, many scholars have pos ited the traditionalist female explanation for the DC vote. Sex has a negligible direct effect on the DC vote; however, there are substantial indirect effects which increase its total impact on the vote to .16 4. The indirect influence of sex is .074 through religion and .07 4 through political 273 TABLE 83 MULTIPLE REGRESSION: THE RELATIVE IMPACT ON THE CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC SUPPORT OP THE VARIABLES USED IN THIS DISSERTATION, 1972 Direct Indirect Total Variable Effects Effects Effefets Religiosity .0 5 0 .05 0 Church Attendance .077 .077 Attitudes Toward Clergy 0129 .129 Follow Church Advice .055 .055 Church Role in Politics .015 .015 Position on Divorce .07 2 .072 Catholic Political Tradition .003 .067 .07 0 Catholic Ties .106 .106 Newspaper Readership .048 .048 Centrlsm .116 - • 116 Pavorability Toward Comrauni sm -.2 0 2 -.2 0 2 Salience of Govern1- 1 1 0 0 0 0 . . vn mental Stability VA Good Catholic as Communist .043 .043 Good Catholic as Neo-Fascist .067 .067 Reasons for Liking Party.243 .243 Family Status .016 7o4o .056 Subjective Class ID .0 2 0 • 020 00 Satisfaction with 0 Family Economy .058 . Satisfaction with Living Conditions • 008 • 008 Family Income -.063 -.063 Father's Profession .008 .008 Heard of Economic Crisis -.015 -.015 Information-Parties -.059 -.059 Information-Left-Right -.059 -.059 Political Interest -.0 0 1 -.0 0 1 Political Efficacy -.0 3 2 -.032 Political Discussion -.049 -.049 Follow Papers -.049 -.049 Follow Television -.003 -.003 Remember Names from TV -.025 -.025 Education -.048 -7U 2 -.1 6 0 Sex .016 .148 .164 Age -.047 .088 .041 Commune Size .00 0 -.0 5 2 -.0 5 2 Father's Party ID .07 6 m m hmw .076 R5.768 R -.590 274 backwardness. These two, which represent a total of 15 indirect paths to the vote, are related to a traditional institution, the Church, and to greater susceptibility to its appeals. Education has a similarly large total impact on the DC, with its effects being -.160. Much of this results from its indirect influence on the DC vote through its strong relationship to the nine political backwardness variables. The other variables with both direct and indirect effects on the DC vote as hypothesized in my model have a smaller total impact on the DC support: (1) Catholic political tradition (.070); (2) status (.056); (3) commune size (-.052); and (4) age (.0 41) . c Finally, the party identification of the factor has a beta coefficient of .076, which is larger than that of any of the political backwardness variables or any of the econ omic attitudes and attributes and is of a magnitude similar to that of church attendance and attitudes toward divorce. This concept will be fully discussed in the next section of this dissertation. In conclusion, the multivariate model reaffirms the findings with relation to the separate explan ations for the Christian Democratic vote. The most prom inent factors in this analysis are those which relate to the religious, moderation, and traditionalist female explana tions and to a lower degree of education through its impact / on the series of political backwardness factors employed here. 275 Societal Trends and Their Impact on the Maintenance of DC Support A series of factors posited to be part of the pro cess of societal modernization were considered in this dis sertation as trends which might undermine the support for the Italian Christian Democratic Party. These trends in clude secularization, urbanization, increasing educational opportunities, and changes in attitudes toward the role of women in society. One other possible trend, which is un related to modernization, but which may have an impact on the DC vote is a hypothesized change in the degree of un- favorability toward communism among the non-communist elec torate and in particular among the DC electorate. C Religion has been shown to be the single most power ful explanation of the support for the DC. Therefore, any changes in this basis of support may have an important im pact. It is clear that secularization, if defined as in volving a decreasing level of religious practice, as it often is, is occurring in Italy. In the period from 1956 to 1972, there was a 30% decline in the proportion of those attend ing church at least once a week. However, the impact on the DC vote of this has apparently been very small. The DC has retained a fairly similar portion of the national vote over this period; there has also been a great continuity at the provincial level. In the 1972 survey, 86.9% of those sampled reported that they have always voted DC. 276 The most plausible explanation for this combination of secularization and basic continuity in the DC vote is that many of these people with lower levels of church at tendance are still integrated into the Catholic network. While frequent church attendance declined rapidly between 1956 and 1972, there v/as only a very slight increase in the number of individuals who attend church rarely or never. From these findings, it is likely that there will be no large adverse impact of secularization in the next few decades. However, if the fact of the decline in church attendance becomes faster and there is an increase in the number who rarely or never attend church, the impact of secularization may become greater. I suggested in Chapter 3 that attitudes toward coift- munism may be changing because of the decrease in the degree of anti-communist propaganda from the Church, the Church overtures toward the communist governments in Eastern Eur ope, and the lessening of the Cold War tensions. I found that there was only a slight increase in mean favorability toward the Italian Communist Party among the DC voters; this increase on the thermometer was from 17.4 to 18.3. There were no consistent age group differences which might be amenable to a generational interpretation. Among the entire non-communist electorate, there was an increase in favor ability from 27.0 to 31.7 between 196 8 and 1972. There were also clear age group differences in 1972; those aged 40 277 and less were likely to favor the PCI more than those older than 40. There were large increases in favorability toward the PCI among the younger age groups; the increases in favorability were much smaller among those older than 40. I earlier discussed alternative interpretations for these two results and argued that there is no clear evidence that hostility to communism will lose its impact as an explana tion for the DC vote. In both 1968 and 1972, the favor ability toward communism was strongly related to the DC vote. In summary, there is no great likelihood that changes in attitudes toward communism of a magnitude great enough to undermine DC support will take place in the near future. < /'mother trend whose future inpact I analyzed was urbanization. Linz argues that religion is of pervasive importance to small farmers in particular and to rural in dividuals more generally; Lenski contends that in urban areas religion is a more compartmentalized activity and that 2 norms of secularism are present. Furthermore, Linz and Lipset suggest that among working class individuals in par ticular there is more inter-class communication, which is hypothesized to be beneficial to interclassist parties, in rural areas and more intra-class communication, which is hypothesized to be beneficial to leftist parties, in urban 3 areas. For these reasons, it is posited that moving from a rural area to an urban area will make it less likely that 278 an individual will vote for a religiously-based party. In an analysis of 196 8 data, I found that there is a clear pattern of lesser support for the DC among those who were raised in a small village or isolated farmhouse and then moved to a large city compared with those who remained in small communes. Urbanization may, therefore, be an im portant long-term trend which acts to decrease support for the DC. Its impact is, of course, impossible to determine and will occur gradually if not compensated by other fac tors . In Chapter 5, I considered two other trends which might have an impact on the DC bases of support. These two are particularly relevant to the female portion of the DC electorate. They ere of special importance because of the DC's dependence on women, who compose more than 62% of its electorate. The first of these trends is increasing educa tional opportunities which result from the modernization of Italian society. The moderately strong correlation be tween age and education suggests that the level of educa tion in Italian society is increasing over time. (For 1972, Pearson's r=-.3Q4 and gamma=-.371). Education has only a small zero-order correlation with the DC vote, but it has a larger indirect impact through its influence on the political backwardness variables. Over the long term, therefore, increasing levels of education may decrease the degree of political backwardness in Italy, most importantly 279 among women. However, given the relatively small impact of the political backwardness factors on the DC vote, par ticularly when compared with the influence of religion and moderation, it is unlikely that the DC support base will be undermined by increasing educational levels, at least in the near future. The other trend which I examined in Chapter 5 related to possible changes in the attitudes toward women in society- changes which might allow more women to work outside the home and which, therefore, might"remove them from what Dogan and Duverger call the traditionalist ethos of the home. Their argument about the influence of the introverted home environment suggests the hypothesis that working women,-who have greater social contacts outside the home, would be less likely to vote for the religiously-based party than house wives. First, the impact of the home ethos was not very great.^ The gamma between DC vote and being a housewife rather than a working woman was only .159. Secondly, recent reports on the role of the Italian women have suggested that changes will come about very slowly. Therefore, for these two reasons, it is unlikely that there will be any negative impact on the support for the DC, even if more women work outside the home. From the analysis of this trend and the previous one on educational developments, there is no evi dence that there will be an erosion of the female support on which the DC is so dependent. 280 I have presented the evidence and my speculations about the long-term impact of five different factors and have suggested that of these five urbanization is the only one which may adversely affect the level of support for the DC in the near future. From the data analyzed here, I would contend that it is likely that the major pillars of religion, moderation, hostility to communism, and tradi tionalism among women will not be basically eroded in the 5 next few decades. It is clear that even without the religious factor, there would be important support for the DC because of major political issues such as the protec tion of democracy and capitalism from the political extremes of the left and the right. Before concluding this section, c however, I will discuss the role of the transmission of party identification across generations as a trend which may act to maintain support for the DC. Party identification has been widely discussed as a major explanatory variable in studies of American voting g behavior. However, its utility for research in European 7 nations has been questioned recently by some scholars. Party identification is defined as an enduring psycho logical attachment to a political party which tends to remain firm even if the individual changes his vote for an elec tion. However, it has been argued that in some cases in Europe, party identification seems to change with the vote if the individual changes his vote between elections. In 281 the case of the 1972 Italian survey, almost every individ ual who said that he habitually felt closer to the DC also voted for the DC. This is certainly not a full test of the concept of party identification in the Italian context, but it is clear that the concept of respondent's party ident ification cannot be meaningfully used in research when there is such a high coincidence between party identifica tion and vote. Of course, many voters in Italy certainly do develop enduring attachments to political parties; the great degree of continuity of DC voters, with 86.9% report ing that they have always voted DC, and a similarly large proportion of continuity among PCI voters, are indications of this. The Italian party system is relatively young whenC compared with the American. However, since the early 1950's, there has been a basic "freezing of alternatives." With the exception of the splits and unions among the socialist parties and the fading away of the Monarchist Party as a separate entity, it is clear that Italians have had a basic continuity in their voting choices. The two largest parties, the Christian Democrats and the Communists, have been con stantly present in the entire post-war period. This basic stability in voting alternatives is im portant in light of Converse's argument that as a party system ages individuals will tend more and more to develop lasting ties to parties and that the aggregate level of Q party identification will increase. Dennis and ilcCrone, on the basis of several surveys, have suggested that the aggregate level of party identification has increased in Italy.My basic argument is that, as the Italian party system ages, it is likely that because of increased expos ure to parties more Italians will develop strong ties to parties and that these party identifications will be trans mitted to their children. According to this argument, the older DC voters would be less likely to have fathers who were DC, Popular, Catholic, or Center identifiers than the younger DC voters. If this were true, there v/ould be a trend toward an increasing transmission of party identifica tion. This would act as a force to conserve existing polit ical tendencies and to maintain the support for the DC. 1 Over time, this impact of party identification would level out across generations as the degree of party identification reaches a stable level. First of all, as indicated in earlier analysis, the party identification of the respondent's father has a mod erately strong relationship with the support for the DC in 1968 and 1972. (For 1972, Pearson's r=.296 and gamma=.500) (Table 84) The party identification of the father was coded in three categories and was ordered from DC identification of the father to no identification of the father known to the respondent to non-DC identification of the father on the assumption that an individual with no knowledge of his TABLE 84 283 PARTY PREFERENCE BY FATHER'S PARTY IDENTIFICATION, 1972 Father's Party Identification Respondent's Party Preference Christian Non-Christian Party Not Democratic Democratic Indicated INI Christian Democratic® 63.8* 18,4 1 7 . 9 (207) Father did not identify vrith any party or 32.1* 27.7 40,2 (1230) respondent did not know it Non-Christian Democratic 20.8* 57.4 21,8 (404) Total (N)*=(l84l) aThis category includes those respondents who said their father's party identification was Christian Democratic’, Popular Party (the pre-Fascist antecedent of the DC), Catholic, or Center. 284 father's party identification will be more likely to vote for the DC than an individual who knows that his father preferred another party. It is clear .then, although there are some differ ences which follow no consistent age patterns and may be due in part to small numbers of cases, father's party iden tification has a relatively similar impact across age groups. Those with a DC father are about equally likely to support the DC across age, with the exception of the fluctuations mentioned above. (Table 85) I have shown, therefore, that father's party identification is related to the DC vote and that there is not a great difference in the impact of this variable across age groups among those who do have DC fathers. c In both 196 8 and 1972, the younger voters have the largest proportion of fathers who were DC or Popular Party, i.e., the DC's pre-Fascist antecedent, identifiers. However, in 196 8, among the voters of ages 36-55, there is a lower proportion of respondents with DC fathers than among those voters aged 56 or older. The opposite is true in the 1972 survey. The 1972 data, therefore, clearly support my hypothesis; the evidence is not quite so perfect in the 196 8 data. In summary, since the impact of father's identifica tion among those with DC fathers is relatively similar across age groups, the larger number of respondents under 35 years of age with DC fathers suggests that transmission of 285 TABLE 85 PARTY PREFERENCE BY AGE AMONG THOSE WITH FATHERS WHOSE PARTY IDENTIFICATION WAS CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC, 1972 Age Party Preference Christian Non-Christlan Party Not Democratic Democratic Indicated (N) 21-25 63.6* 22.7 13.7 (22) 26-30 56.3* 18.8 24.9 (32) 31-35 56.7* 33.3 10.0 (30) 36-40 57.7 % 15.^ 26.9 (26 ) 41-45 63. 6.% 9.1 27.3 (U) 46-50 84.2# 0.0 15.8 (19) 51-55 75*0# 2 5 .0 0.0 (12) 56-60 50.0# 28.6 21.4 (14) 61 -65 50.0# 10.0 40.0 (10) 66 or older 77 M 12.9 9.7 (31) Total ( N M 2 0 7 ) 286 family political tradition across generations may be more important in conserving DC strength among younger voters. In fact, in 1972, the gamma correlation between father's party identification and DC support was .660 among those aged 21-35, .589 among those aged 36-55, and .46 8 among those aged 56 and older. This finding implies that, if this process continued party identification of the fathers (or mothers) may act to maintain DC electoral strength in the future. (Table 86) Concluding Remarks: Method ology, Findings, and Specula tion Before concluding this dissertation, I must add a caution in terms of the use of multiple regression tech-c niques with a dichotomous dependent variable. There are other techniques which might be used to test further my basic findings. However, others have successfully employed multiple regression under these circumstances.^ In addi tion to this, one factor which increases confidence in the % findings is the use of gamma coefficients throughout this dissertation to complement the Pearson's r correlation coef ficient. Examination of the zero-order relationships, sum marized in Table 82, does show that there is a similarity in sign and relative magnitude in most cases between these two measures of association. Religion and moderation do have the strongest zero-order relationship with the DC vote among both 287 TABLE 86 PROPORTION OP CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC VOTERS AMONG VARIOUS AGE GROUPS HAVING CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC FATHERS, 1968 AND 1972 Proportion of Christian Democratic Age 1972 1968 21-25 31.8* 2 6 . 5 * (44) (83) 26-30 3 8 . 3 * 2'».5* (47) (106) 31-35 4 0 . 5 * 1 5 . 9 * (42) • (107) 3 6 -40 2 5 . 0 * ,9.3* (6 0) (118) 41 -4 5 1 3 . 7 * 8 . 8 * (51) (113) 4 6 - 5 0 2 1 . 1 * 14 . 4 * (76) (90) 51-55 2 4 . 3 * 9 . 8 * (37) (82) 56 -60 1 3 . 5 * 1 3 . 9 * (52) (101) 61-65 9. 6 * 19 . 7 * (52) (76) - 66 and older 16.0* 1 2 . 7 * (150) (181) Summary 21-35 36.8* 2 2 . 0 * (133) (296) 36-55 2 0 . 9 * 1 0 . 4 * (224) (403) 56 or older 14 . 2 * 14 . 5 * (254) (358) 288 the Pearson’s r and the gamma coefficients reported in Table 82. The economic factors are also shown to be weak predictors of the DC vote with either measure of associa tion. The basic findings of this dissertation are that religion, moderation, and the traditionalist female explana tion are the most important in explaining the vote for the Christian Democratic Party. Recent studies in several other national contexts have also stressed the continued and major impact of religion in explaining the vote for other import- 12 ant Western European religiously-based parties. Finally, I have also clearly found that the DC is an "interclassist" party and that economic attitudes and attributes are not im portant predictors of the support for the DC. The question that arises is: With this large number of variables considered, what about the other 41% of the variance in the DC vote which is not explained by the 35 variables I have used in my model? Obviously, there are, first of all, other variables which might be included that are difficult to measure or unavailable in either 196 8 or 1972. One major factor, for example, might be the DC's dominant party status and its colonizing of the state power structure. Patronage, i.e., individual job security, may be a factor in the vote of some electors. Another factor might- be the special appeal of certain leaders of the DC nation ally or within their local fiefdoms. There might also be a 289 continuation of the patron-client system or of the depend ence on the continued national power of the local leader of the DC. The differences in the impact of the religious factors in the North compared with the South may, for exam ple, suggest a greater emphasis on the politics of person alism in the South compared with more developed sub-cultures in the North. This is, of course, only one possibility and has been disputed by others. Finally, there are idiosyn cratic attitudinal factors which are pecular to different individuals. One clue to this lies in the responses which those who changed parties between 1968 and 1972 gave as the motives for their change. As well as reasons of government and party policy, there were several totally unique and per- c sonai reasons. Secondly, there may also be problems related to the technique, as suggested above. Third are the problems com mon to all survey research which include: respondents answer ing untruthfully and calling themselves DC voters when they were not; measurement error, i.e., respondents mis-choosing categories, as between agree and strongly agree; transcrip tion error; and coding error. These latter are, of course, hopefully random rather than systematically biased. This dissertation has examined a broad range of hy potheses which have been given to explain the support for religiously-based parties in general and the DC in partic ular. V/hile I have confirmed the correctness of the broad 290 arguments with regard to religion, moderation, and sex. I have also rejected other less global hypotheses. Another important contribution of this dissertation is that it has included the first such exhaustive multivariate model of many of the factors which are significant in the voting support for the DC. My assessment of the evidence has suggested that there is not a great likelihood of very large change in the support for the DC in the near future. I should possibly caution against an overemphasis on continuity in the elec toral support for the DC. However, past trends in the vote for the DC give no reason to dispel this emphasis on con tinuity rather than change in the voting behavior of the c Italian electorate toward the Christian Democratic Party. In spite of the major problems confronting Italy, particu larly with relation to her economy, and the great instabil ity of governments, my analysis suggests that the Christian Democratic Party will have relative stability in its elec toral support and will continue to be the largest party in the Italian political system. 291 Notes - Chapter 6 ^Allum in Henig and Pinder, eds., p. 229. 2 Linz, pp. 779-730. Lenski, pp. 8-12. ^Lipset, Revolution and Counterrevolution, p. 287. Linz, p. 344. 4 Dogan, "Political Cleavage and Social Stratification in France and Italy," in Lipset and Rokkan, eds., pp. 164- 165. Linz, p. 204. Duverger, pp. 66-67 and pp. 128-129. '*For a more general analysis of the problem of sta bility and change in Italian voting patterns, see Giacomo Sani and Samuel Barnes, "Partisan-Change and the Italian Voter: Some Clues from the 1972 Election." Prepared for the International Political Science Association Congress in Mon treal, Canada, August 1973. C See Angus Campbell, Philip Converse, Warren E. Miller, and Donald E. Stokes, The_ American Voter (New Y.ork: John' c Wiley, 1960). For a discussfon ~of "thisand other major vot ing behavior studies in the United States, see Kenneth Prewitt and Norman Nie, "Review Article: Election Studies of the Survey Research Center," British Journal of Political Science 1 (October 1971):479-502. 7 For a good discussion of the problem, see W. Phillips Shively, "Voting Stability and the Nature of Party Attach ments in the Weimar Republiv," American Political Science Review LXVI (December 1972) :1203-1225. 8 Lipset and Rokkan in Lipset and Rokkan, eds., p. 3. Q Philip Converse, "Of Time and Partisan Stability," Comparative Political Studies 2 (July 1969):139-171. For a discussion of the arguments made by Lipset and Rokkan and by Converse, see Ronald Inglehart and Avran Hochstein, "Align ment and Dealignment of the Electorate in France and the United States," Comparative Political Studies 5 (October 1972):343-372. 292 Jack Dennis and Donald McCrone, "Preadult Develop ment of Political Party Identification in Western Democ racies," Comparative Political Studies 3 (July 1970):259- 260. ^ O n the assumptions which are violated by this tech nique, see Zavoina and McKelvey. Research using a dich- otomous dependent variable in multiple regression analysis includes: C. Richard Ilofstetter, "Organizational Activists: The Bases of Participation in Amateur and Professional Groups," American Politics Quarterly 1 (April 1973):244- 276; and Marion R. 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