Mercato del voto e influenze sociali. Un'analisi sperimentale

The proposed study is rooted in a deliberate reductio ad absurdum. To explore the mechanisms of the electoral ecosystem from an analytical perspective, and assuming that the metaphor "politics as a market" is now a widely accepted concept, the study sets out to test the hypothesis that the two terms are essentially equivalent. In Western democracies, candidates, political parties, governments, and interest groups have increasingly adopted techniques and tools from the private sector in their efforts to achieve strategic goals, such as securing votes, shaping public opinion, and influencing legislative processes. It is widely held that this is the era of political marketing and that politics has become increasingly professionalized. Drawing on a sociological perspective, the study focuses on the concept of “social influence”, defined as the force or pressure that can be exerted on the individual's ego. To understand how a candidate becomes the most voted, we need to look at the micro-level of action. People's individual decisions regarding voting are often influenced by the choices of others, and as sociologists, we are interested in exploring this phenomenon. We want to know how macro-level events and activities impact micro-level decision-making. In other words, how do the big-picture factors shape the choices that individuals make when they step into the voting booth? The study has three primary research questions to address. Firstly, it aims to determine the legitimacy of describing political and electoral competition using the terminology commonly used to describe the exchange of goods and services in a capitalist economic system. Secondly, the research intends to evaluate the extent to which social influence plays a role in shaping political preferences. Finally, it seeks to explore the underlying mechanisms and dynamics of choice in the political market and how social influences may impact electoral preferences. The experiment employed a technique that replicated a pre-existing experimental design to examine the effects of social influence within a cultural market. The hypothesis is that if the experimental outcomes are consistent with the results of the original study, the initial metaphor can be deemed valid. To create an artificial political market, a website was designed from scratch where university students could listen to the election speeches of six fictitious political candidates and monitor the behavior of other participants. The framework lacked many characteristics of real electoral competition, but the goal was to observe the effects of social influence under controlled conditions. The study recruited university students online and presented the website as a youth political contest to mitigate the potential for a "guinea pig" effect. An initial algorithm ensured a homogeneous and random distribution of subjects within the groups to the variables considered as intervening. Four experimental groups and one control group were formed. In the experimental groups, the social influence variable was manipulated. Non-professional actors performed the fictitious election speeches, and a political communication specialist collaborated to write the texts that covered the spectrum of positions of major Italian political parties. At the end of the experiment, the subjects filled out a short survey through which a wide range of information was obtained concerning their sociographic status and, in particular, their political orientations, to better understand their behavior throughout the experiment. Data analysis was performed using IBM SPSS and Microsoft Excel software. The total number of cases is N=211. The results of the survey indicate that around 65% of the participants identify as left-leaning along the right-left political spectrum. The distribution of this modality is homogeneous both within and among groups. Regarding the experimental findings, in groups where social influence was manipulated to varying degrees, the left-wing candidate emerged as the winner of the simulated competition. In the control group, the right-wing candidate was victorious. The inequalities of preference distributions do not increase with increasing social influence; rather, they regress. Voting recommendations and suggestions do not automatically translate into expressed preferences, as they do in the cultural market used as a benchmark. Founded on our results, we will illustrate how the tangible analogies contained within the market metaphor, while presenting superficial similarities, possess intrinsic specificities that generate clear contrasts in the logic of their functioning and the behavior of their respective systems. The methodological basis for the study of politics cannot be reduced solely to that used for the study of economic processes. Based on the information obtained, the expression of the vote reflects the political self-placement of individuals, remaining substantially immune to social influence stimuli. However, it would be an error to assume that there is no relationship between preference expression and social influence. Such a relationship exists but at a deeper and more insidious level. Since the control group expresses a qualitatively opposite result compared to what is observed within the four experimental groups and given that the distribution of the "political orientation" variable is homogeneous in all the groups constituted, we have wondered what happens at the micro level. The idea is that social influence acts as a trigger for action, pushing individuals to select the candidate considered most socially acceptable. The bias of “social desirability” is identified as the cause that drives individuals to vote left only when they perceive the presence of others. Since the sample that participated in the experiment is predominantly composed of individuals who self-place on the left, social desirability was examined regarding this specific political area. The observed outcome (the center-right candidate winning in the control group, and the left/center-left candidates winning in the experimental groups) can be explained by the underlying concepts that give meaning to the right/left dichotomy.