Party Competition and Coalition Formation

Formal theory has often been criticized for shying away from empirical testing, which brought some to wonder about its empirical relevance altogether. Theorists, on their side, often responded by accusing much of the empirical work in political science as being devoid of any theoretical guidance. This paper argues that part of the problem is due to the problematic fit between traditional quantitative research and abstract theoretical models. Here, we illustrate how one could bridge the gap by connecting the ever puzzling realities of Italian parliamentary politics with a theoretical model of multiparty parliamentary systems. The empirics of Italian politics raise more questions than answers and the theoretical model we apply seems awfully complex and frustratingly abstract. With the use of relatively simple visual tools, we believe that we help make some sense of the complex realities of Italian politics and, in the process, demonstrate the empirical relevance of the theoretical model we chose to apply.