Ballots and battlefields: Assessing the impact of the war in Ukraine on voting in the 2022 Italian general election

Research on the electoral impact of foreign policy has largely focused on the United States. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine offers an opportunity to reassess this question in a European context. This article examines the role the war in Ukraine played in shaping electoral behaviour in Italy during the September 2022 general elections. Relying on the ITANES pre- and post-electoral survey, we assess whether attitudes toward supporting Ukraine contributed to explaining Italian voter choices. The results indicate that orientations toward the Ukraine war, operationalised as support for both economic sanctions against Russia and military assistance to Ukraine, were associated with voter choice, even though domestic issues, such as immigration, remained more influential in structuring electoral preferences. We argue that this pattern reflects the strategic behaviour of parties in addressing a politically sensitive and potentially divisive issue. The article contributes to the ongoing debate on the electoral relevance of foreign policy by providing new evidence from a critical moment for the European continent.