ABSTRACT
The article aims at investigating the relationships between political communication and monocratic trends in politics and public decision-making. After having framed the studywithin the theories about monocratization of democratic regimes, the paper introduces atypology of institutional personalization, which is then employed for a comparative analysisof the official Facebook page of the Presidency of the Council of the Ministers. The analysiscompares the use of that page over four months and covers the last sixty days of the secondgovernment led by Giuseppe Conte and the first sixty of Mario Draghi’s government.What are the communication styles of the Italian Presidents? What connections can betraced with the paradigm of personalization and monocratization of government functions?Findings suggest that different communication styles (Conte’s emotional and massive communication,and Draghi’s informative and discreet style of communication) are both compatiblewith a progressive centralization of government functions, and depend on differentinstitutional and political contexts © 2021, Comunicazione Politica. All Rights Reserved.
ABSTRACT
This article aims to explore the expansion of power of monocratic figures during the Covid-19 crisis. In particular, it compares the Italian and Spanish cases, at both national and sub-national levels, during the pandemic. First, we explore the dynamics of personalization through an empirical analysis of emergency decrees at the state level. Second, we examine personalization as evidence of centre-periphery conflict by taking into consideration regional rules (decrees, orders, regulations, resolutions) and their relation to the state level. The comparison shows a similar path of institutional personalization of politics in Italy and Spain, with both countries displaying the features of an unstable regional framework.