Italian politics has changed course yet again. Thanks to the outcome of the 2022 general election, a coalition dominated, for the first time, by a party of the far right has taken office under Giorgia Meloni, the first woman to serve as prime minister in Italys republican history. Italy has always been a kind of political laboratory for Western democracies one in which new political phenomena have developed with considerable potency. Consequently, the electoral analyses presented in this book make it possible for the reader to understand the challenges and related consequences that established democracies are currently facing, beyond Italy.

Fabio Bordignon is Associate Professor at the University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Italy

Luigi Ceccarini is Professor at the University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Italy

James L. Newell is Adjunct Professor at the University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Italy

Chapter. 1. Introduction. -Italian Voters: Where They Have Come and Where They Are Going.- Chapter. 2. The Outcome: Electoral Trends and The Geopolitics of Voting.-Chapter 3. Grappling With a Difficult Decision: How Voters Made Their Choices.- Chapter 4. Citizens Engagement With the 'Seaside Campaign' on Instagram and Facebook.- Chapter 5. New and Old (Global) Cleavages, Crises and Wars.- Chapter 6. Outside the Box: Who Is the Italian Abstainer?.