Replication Data for: Competing Principals 2.0? The impact of Facebook in the 2013 selection of the Italian Head of State

Motivated by the literature on ‘competing principals’, this article studies the effect of interactive social networking sites on the behavior of politicians. For this purpose, 12,455 comments posted on the Facebook walls of 423 Italian MPs have been analyzed to assess whether Facebook played a role in the selection of the Italian Head of State in 2013, enhancing responsiveness. The statistical analysis reveals that the pressure exerted through social media did not affect MPs’ propensity to express public dissent over the party line, which is instead affected by more traditional ‘principals’ and factors: seniority, primary elections and factional membership.

受‘竞争性委托人’相关研究文献的启发，本文研究交互式社交网站对政客行为的影响。为此，本文分析了423名意大利议员（Member of Parliament，MP）的Facebook主页留言墙发布的12455条评论，以评估Facebook在2013年意大利国家元首选举中是否发挥了提升回应性的作用。统计分析结果显示，社交媒体施加的压力并未影响议员就政党路线发表公开异议的倾向；此类倾向反而受更传统的‘委托人’及以下因素影响：任职资历、初选及派系隶属关系。