Il disegno della ricerca

This essay describe the research design of a study that explores the phenomenon of political indecision, with particular reference to the voting behaviour declared by left-wing voters in the Italian election campaign of 13 and 14 April. Different studies in Italy have looked at the phenomenon of voter indecision. They have tried in the first place to isolate the variables which influence electoral choice. Very often research into the behaviour of undecided voters is carried out by means of structured questionnaires. This research uses different instruments of analysis to understand the perception the subjects have of the election campaign and the elements individuals take into consideration to overcome indecision and reach a choice. The study was developed in three phases, each of which was distinct regarding the objectives and the instruments adopted. The undecided voters, who were identified initially by means of a structured questionnaire, were subsequently interviewed in depth and then re-contacted for a third time a few days before the election. The three phases of the research, considered in their entirety, make it possible to determine the changes in attitude (voting-not voting), to situate them in a specific phase of the election campaign (immediately prior to the elections or in the weeks preceding them), to isolate the specific indecision (between voting and abstaining, between coalitions, between parties of the same coalition) and to monitor “deviant” positions (for example, the movement from one political area to another or the differentiated vote for the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate). By means of this on-going approach to the sample group of voters it was therefore possible to “follow” the undecided voters and their decisional processes up until the moment of the vote. The use of a panel, in the tradition of the seminal studies dating from the 1940s of Katz, Lazarsfeld and Berelson and dedicated to the relationship between media exposure and electoral choice, made it possible to trace a map of the processes of change. Moreover, the use of non-standard instruments also made it possible to examine more thoroughly the motivational aspects and the evaluations of the undecided voters.