Abstract

In the contemporary age, communication plays a central role in the political process and, hence, in historical analysis. Thanks to an interdisciplinary approach inspired by anthropology, philosophy, and political science, historians have become aware of the different forms of political language (verbal, iconographic, etc.). This essay aims at surveying how historians have been researching and interpreting electoral campaigns in contemporary Italy. Italian historians have identified electoral campaigns as a privileged field to observe the evolution and genealogy of several political phenomena: ideologies and symbols, different conceptions of political participation, the evolution of militancy, the organization of political movements and parties, the affirmation of leadership, and the mediation of consensus.