The 2018 Italian general election: a ‘new Italy’ or a ‘dead end’?

To what extent can the 2018 Italian general election be considered as critical? This article examines how the contributors of six volumes published in the aftermath of the election answer this question by focusing on three major dimensions of change in comparison with the 2013 election: changes in the patterns of party competition; changing patterns of voting behaviour in terms of socio-economic characteristics of the electorate; changes in the salience of issue cleavages and in the way new issues affected the electoral outcomes. The picture originating from the volumes under review is not so sharp as that emerging from the literature that flourished after the 2013 election, whereas several contributions stressed the revolutionary traits of that electoral contest. Despite the important changes observed in comparison to 2013, defining the 2018 general election as critical is adequate only to a certain extent.