Why do italian politicians make little use of statistics?

Why doitalian politiciansmake little use of statistics ?

Lack of database culture, anti-politics,obsolete legislation:the love story that never was

by Dino AmenduniPersonal Democracy Forum ItaliaData-driven campaigns in Europe: what went wrong after Obama?Rome, 29 September 2014

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Why do italian politicians make little use of statistics?

Who I am

My name’s Dino AmenduniTwitter @doonie

Facebook facebook.com/amenduni

e-mail [email protected]

all the rest about.me/dinoamenduni

I’m Head of New Media and Political communication consultant at Proforma (www.proformaweb.it) I’m also a contributor and blogger for Finegil-Espresso Group, La Repubblica Bari.I also teach (political communication and social media marketing).

All my slide presentations – including this one – are available for free (for reference and download) at the following address:www.slideshare.net/doonie

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Why do italian politicians make little use of statistics?

Preliminary statement

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts”.

Arthur Conan Doyle

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Why do italian politicians make little use of statistics?

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Why do italian politicians make little use of statistics?

Two reasons(and two case histories) why Italian politicians don’t use statistics

1. Lack of database culture2. Anti-politics and false data reading

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Why do italian politicians make little use of statistics?

Lackof databaseculture

Case history: Democratic Party(Primary elections 2012and General Elections 2013)

I run for the Primary Elections,I have the data but I don’t use them

1.

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Why do italian politicians make little use of statistics?

Lack of database culture

Differences between USA and Italy- in Italy, to vote no pre-registration is necessary

→ no public database of voters

- donations from individuals to politicians are less traceable → it’s much more difficult to make donations publicly known and to turn them into usable data

- stronger privacy policy in Italy (for the time being)

For the above reasons an electoral campaign “Obama style” is nearly impossible in Italy. This doesn’t mean, however, hat nothing can be done.

There exist public data (i.e. turnout and vote indications polling station by polling station): why not use them?

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Why do italian politicians make little use of statistics?

Centre-left primary elections, 2012

1.7 million centre-left voters DID NOT vote for the Premier candidate at the Primary Elections.

Are we sure that they did then go on to vote for him at the General Elections?

Results of Primary elections first round Results of second ballot

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Why do italian politicians make little use of statistics?

General elections 2013

Bersani doesn’t win the elections, nobody wins the elections, and this is partly because of the electoral law, which is different between the Senate and the House.

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Why do italian politicians make little use of statistics?

Would Bersani have won the general elections if he had used a database? Maybe yesThe centre-left coalition was the only one to have a self-generated database, created on a voluntary basis by those who voted in the Primary Elections; it was made up of three million names, surnames, phone numbers, email addresses and places of residence. During the electoral campaign this database was only used for sending (very few) non-specific emails.

Lack of database culture

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Why do italian politicians make little use of statistics?

What can be done with these data (some possible uses)?

1. Door-to-door campaigning in the municipalities where consensus for Renzi and Vendola was higher so as to strengthen the support for the centre-left coalition;

2. The Primary election candidates could then have addressed their electors with a targeted “call-to-action”;

3. Capillary fund-raising actions (an average of 1 € per head would have meant 3 million €)

4. Crowdfunding actions (policies set up jointly with the electors, local events)

Lack of database culture

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Why do italian politicians make little use of statistics?

Mistrust in politics and false readingof data

Case history: European General Elections 2014

National polls are too often wrong.

2.

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Why do italian politicians make little use of statistics?

European Elections 2014

Estimate of the distance between the Democratic Party and the 5 Star Movement: 8 points. Real distance after the Elections: 19 points.

If scientific data are so wrong, how can we trust them?

Average of polls on the European Elections (25 May 2014)

Fiinal results of European Elections (25 maggio 2014)

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Why do italian politicians make little use of statistics?

Inaccurate polls = growing distrust towards pre-electoral dataIt had already happened in the General Elections of 2013, it happened again in the European Elections of 2014: the polls did not predict the final election result. Elsewhere (US elections, Scottish referendum) things went differently.

Lack of trust in data

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Why do italian politicians make little use of statistics?

Inaccurate polls = growing distrust towards pre-electoral dataWhat happens in Italy?

1. General Elections 2013: 6.5% of citizens only made their final voting decision once actually inside the ballot box and 15% in the last 2 weeks

2. The publication of polls is illegal in the fortnight leading up to the vote

3. Trust rate in the Party and in Parliament permanently under 10%: people are unwilling to reveal their vote

4. At the same time, the polls for the Local Elections were much more reliable

Lack of trust in data

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Why do italian politicians make little use of statistics?

Data-driven campaigns in Italy: how can we save the polls?A working hypothesis: abolition of the ban on publishing polls in the last two weeks before the vote.

For two reasons:

a. In Italy, vote shifts in the last two weeks are considerable: the last available polls given the current law will always be imperfect, thus increasing the level of mistrust.

b. In other countries (US, UK) polls are published even when polling stations are still open and this doesn’t seem to influence the vote outcome in any significant way.

Lack of trust in data

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Why do italian politicians make little use of statistics?

Data-driven campaigns in Italy: how can we save the polls?Two pieces of advice:

1. Never trust a single poll, but rather monitor the trends on a weekly and monthly basis.

2. Read carefully the poll questions: they can often influence the final result more than one would expect.

Sfiducia nei dati

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Why do italian politicians make little use of statistics?

1. Poor communication between Institutions, little data sharing between Public Administrations, lack of transparency, corruption, waste of public money → Open Data are seen more as a threat than as an opportunity.

2. Politics are rarely data-driven, as indeed is political journalism: opinions are stronger than facts.

3. Mistrust in politics + lack of transparency in certifying donations to parties and candidates + progressive reduction of public financing to politics = low budgets for data collecting and processing.

4. There is little political communication: besides data, too often there’s a lack of campaign managers, spin doctors, trainers for TV appearances. Italy is not House of Cards…

Data-driven campaigns:further difficulties

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Why do italian politicians make little use of statistics?

Conclusion

“Politicians use statisticslike drunkards use lampposts:not for illumination,but for support”.

Benjamin Disraeli

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Why do italian politicians make little use of statistics?

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