This paper examines how Italian political parties positioned themselves on the European Union's response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, focusing on four response dimensions: sanctions on Russia, military support for Ukraine, EU enlargement to include Ukraine, and reception of Ukrainian refugees. The study combines theory-driven expectations from cleavage politics, the inverted U curve and differentiated politicisation with an inductive reading of parties' social-media output to assess whether party family or Europeanist/Eurosceptic divides better explain variation in party stances.
Qualitative content analysis of Facebook posts Four EU response dimensions coded Party-family alignment as a key explanatory factor
Data and methods
The author conducts a qualitative content analysis of Italian parties' Facebook posts in the three months after the conflict began, using a combined inductive and deductive approach grounded in the literatures on cleavage politics, the inverted U curve, and differentiated politicisation. The paper identifies and codes party positions across the four specified dimensions of the EU's response noted above.
Main findings
The paper reports that parties clustered by party family tended to share similar stances across the four EU-response dimensions, while the Europeanism/Euroscepticism divide did not consistently explain positions. It also finds that policy questions (sanctions, arms deliveries) were more salient and contentious among Italian parties than constitutive issues (enlargement, asylum).
- Party-family membership aligned with similar stances on sanctions, military support, enlargement and refugee reception.
- Europeanist vs. Eurosceptic labels did not systematically predict party positions on these EU responses.
- Salience and contestation were higher for sanctions and arms delivery than for enlargement and asylum.
