La Percezione dell’Ipocrisia Politica nel Governo dei Sistemi Territoriali Locali

Objectives: This study has the objective to analyze and develop a scale of measurement of the perceived political hypocrisy – the inconsistency between a behaviour and explicitly or tacitly stated values – of actors governing Local Territorial Systems (LTSs). Methodology: To develop the scale, a procedure described by the psychometric literature was carried out, which is structured in six main phases: construct definition, item generation, content validity, internal reliability, criterion validity and construct validity, through a series of multivariate statistical analysis. Findings: Perceived hypocrisy of political actors is characterized by the same dimension of Hypocrisy for the young people segment, by the sub-dimensions of Ambiguity, Personal cult and Multiple Offices for adult people and by Ambiguity; Political patronage, Astuteness, Deception and Personal cult. Research limits: The study contains limits concerning surveys based on questionnaire, and, furthermore, could be extended to a larger sample of voters. Practical implications: Implications concern the contribution to the definition of the political hypocrisy construct and the development of a synthetic scale which can be used to measure perceived hypocrisy of local political actors. Originality of the study: This study investigated an under-researched topic and contributes to the literature on perceived image of LTSs on the perspective of the transparency of their local government: political hypocrisy of local actors could have a consequence on the attractiveness of both domestic and foreign investments and may generate a process of renovation and encourage its economic development.