As Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni travels to the United States to meet with President Joe Biden this week, Italians hold largely positive opinions of Meloni’s leadership. They also have generally favorable views of the U.S. and its president, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted Feb. 20-April 30, 2023.
Ahead of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s first official visit to the United States in July 2023, Pew Research Center analyzed Italian attitudes toward Meloni by party. We also explored how views of Italian right-wing populist parties have changed over time and how Italians currently view U.S. President Joe Biden and the U.S. in general.
The data used in this analysis is from a nationally representative survey of 1,012 Italian adults. The survey was conducted over the phone from Feb. 20 to April 30, 2023.
We used three measures to classify populist parties: anti-elite ratings from the 2019 Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES), Norris’ Global Party Survey (GPS) and The PopuList. We defined a party as populist if at least two of these three measures classified it as such. For more information, read the appendix to our recent report “Large Shares See Russia and Putin in Negative Light, While Views of Zelenskyy More Mixed.”
Here are the questions used for the analysis, along with responses, and the survey methodology.
Italians’ views of Meloni by party
Nearly six-in-ten Italians (57%) have a favorable opinion of Meloni, while 41% have a negative one.
Meloni, a member of the conservative Brothers of Italy party, is much more popular among Italians who support right-wing populist parties than among those who do not support these parties. These parties include three that make up the governing right-wing coalition: Brothers of Italy, Lega and Forza Italia.
Nearly nine-in-ten or more Italians who have a positive opinion of these parties also hold a favorable opinion of Meloni. In comparison, around 40% or fewer of those who have unfavorable views of these parties support Meloni.
(For more information on how we classify populist parties, read the appendix to our recent report “Large Shares See Russia and Putin in Negative Light, While Views of Zelenskyy More Mixed.”)
In contrast, supporters of the centrist, populist Five Star Movement and the center-left Democratic Party are less likely than those who do not support these parties to have positive views of Meloni.
Favorability of Italian populist parties over time
The share of Italians who have a favorable view of right-wing populist parties in the country has risen over the past year. Some 44% of Italians currently have a positive opinion of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, up from 32% in 2022. (The 2022 survey was conducted before Meloni took office in October.)
Favorable views of Forza Italia have also increased by 12 percentage points in the past year. Currently, 42% of Italians have a positive opinion of the party – the highest share since we first asked about Forza Italia in 2016.
Italians are also more likely to support Lega than they were in 2022: 30% now view the party favorably. However, that share is notably lower than the 44% who expressed support for the party in 2019. Between 2019 and 2020, support for Lega dropped by 15 points.
Overall, this increasing positive sentiment toward right-wing populist parties in Italy aligns with a wider European trend. Populists, particularly on the right, have won higher vote shares in recent legislative elections than in the past. In the Netherlands, for example, right-leaning populist parties garnered around 16% of the vote in 2021 – a high not seen in nearly a decade of parliamentary elections. In the most recent Italian general elections in September 2022, about four-in-ten votes went to Brothers of Italy, Forza Italia or Lega. About a third voted for these parties in 2018, and three-in-ten did so in 2013.
(For more information on rising vote shares for populist parties, read “Populists in Europe – especially those on the right – have increased their vote shares in recent elections.”)
Italians’ views of Biden and the U.S.
Six-in-ten Italians view the U.S. favorably. This largely aligns with views of the U.S. in the nine other European countries included in the Center survey. Supporters of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, as well as those of Forza Italia, are more likely than those who do not support these parties to hold favorable views of the U.S.
However, compared with their European counterparts, Italians are among the least confident in Biden to do the right thing regarding world affairs. Some 57% of Italians have no confidence in him, while 42% have at least some confidence. Only Hungarians express lower confidence in Biden across the European countries surveyed.
Italians who support the Brothers of Italy or Forza Italia are more likely than those who do not support each party to have confidence in Biden. For example, 48% of those who favor Brothers of Italy also have confidence in Biden, compared with only 39% of those who do not support the party.
Note: Here are the questions used for the analysis, along with responses, and the survey methodology.
