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&. Radaelli and . Franchino, Bolgherini, 2003.

, Later on, the main parties of each coalition merged, in order to create the Democratic Party (formed by the main parties of the former 'Olive Tree') and the 2008 election-winner 'People of Freedom' , a fusion of Forza Italia and National Alliance plus other minor parties. For an overview of the recent changes resulting from the, 2008.

, They were mostly telephone interviews performed by a team of interviewers of the Centre for the Study of Political Change (CIRCaP) at the University of Siena

, Radical-Socialists, the Olive Tree, Italy of Values, Union of the Democrats for Europe and other smaller components of the centre-left majority. What is labelled as 'centreright' refers to those MPs who belong to the Centrist Christian Democrats, Forza Italia, the Northern League, National Alliance and other small components of the centre-right minority. As for representativeness in terms of parties (here giving the records for the main parliamentary groups), we obtained the following ratios between interviewed MPs and the number of MPs in the lower house: 34.6 per cent vs. 34.5 per cent for the Olive Tree, 21.1 per cent vs. 19 per cent for Forza Italia; 11.4 per cent vs. 10.7 per cent for National Alliance, Communist Refoundation, Italian Communists, Greens

, For instance, the mean value on the scale from 'unification has gone too far' to 'unification should be strengthened

, Individuals having a score lower than 6 on the scale of EU institution trust, answering less than 6 on the question 'unification has already gone too far' to 'unification should be strengthened' and avoiding the answer 'very much attached to EU' have a score of 1 (low pro-Europeanism), Such a scale has been created in the following way: individuals having a score higher than 6 in the 1 -10 scale of EU institution trust

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, He is the editor of the Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica. His research interests focus on political elites, budgetary policy and parliamentary institutions. He has authored several volumes, articles and chapters in edited books, His most recent works include: Political Institutions in Italy, 2007.

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