Description
What determines members of parliaments’ (MPs) decision to vote against military missions abroad? Scholars of comparative politics have explored the factors influencing MPs’ propensity to rebellion from the party line. However, the specific attention devoted to rebel behaviours regarding foreign and defence policy remains limited. While the role of parties and cabinets has been extensively studied in the Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) literature, the attitudes of individual MPs have been largely overlooked. Yet, it is crucial to comprehend MPs’ stances toward troops’ deployment, explaining the drivers of their choices. This understanding not only enriches our comprehension of votes on missions abroad but also provides deeper insights into parties’ inner dynamics on military operations, underscoring the significant role of MPs in shaping foreign and defence policy.
The manuscript focuses on Italian MPs’ roll-call votes from 1994 to 2020. Italy provides a fascinating case study: since the end of the Cold War, national participation in military missions has dramatically increased; nevertheless, not all missions encountered the favour of all MPs. Moreover, the case of Italy offers a stunning variation in terms of electoral laws, governments, and parties. Through a series of logit analyses, the paper examines the sociological and institutional causes leading MPs to adopt rebellious behaviours. A brand-new dataset on the Italian MPs’ peculiar characteristics (gender, age, background, number of mandates, and expertise) allows for identifying recurring patterns and assessing the impact of individual, partisan, and systemic determinants. Therefore, this study contributes to the current FPA (and parliamentary affairs) literature, providing among the first quantitative studies on MPs’ attitudes towards military missions.
