Arturo Bertero

Arturo Bertero

Computational Social Scientist at the University of Milan

Posts by Collection

portfolio

publications

Italy: Populist in the Mirror, (De)Politicizing the COVID-19 from Government and Opposition

Published in Populism and the Politicization of the COVID-19 Crisis in Europe, 2021

Examines how governing and opposition populists in Italy politicised or depoliticised the COVID-19 crisis.

Recommended citation: Bertero, A., & Seddone, A. (2021). Italy: Populist in the Mirror, (De)Politicizing the COVID-19 from Government and Opposition. In G. Bobba & N. Hubé (Eds.), Populism and the Politicization of the COVID-19 Crisis in Europe (pp. 45–58). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66011-6_4

The COVID-19 Related Communication of Italian Politicians and Its Success on Facebook

Published in Current Populism in Europe: Gender-Backlash and Counter-strategies, 2021

Studies how Italian politicians communicated about COVID-19 on Facebook and which forms of communication attracted audience engagement.

Recommended citation: Bertero, A. (2021). The COVID-19 Related Communication of Italian Politicians and Its Success on Facebook. In Current Populism in Europe: Gender-Backlash and Counter-strategies (pp. 79–94). Heinrich Böll Stiftung Prague. ISBN 978-80-88289-26-5. https://openarchive.tk.mta.hu/467/

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Political Communication During the Italian 2022 Electoral Campaign

Published in Italian Journal of Electoral Studies, 2023

Reconstructs the political and communication dynamics of Italy’s unusual 2022 summer election campaign across legacy and social media.

Recommended citation: Bertero, A., & Scaduto, G. (2023). A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Political Communication During the Italian 2022 Electoral Campaign. Italian Journal of Electoral Studies, 86(1), 13–28. https://doi.org/10.36253/qoe-14224

How Do People Understand Inequality in Chile? A Study Through Attitude Network Analysis

Published in AWARI, 2023

Applies attitude network analysis to Chilean ISSP data and examines how the organisation of inequality beliefs varies across socioeconomic groups.

Recommended citation: Franetovic, G., & Bertero, A. (2023). How Do People Understand Inequality in Chile? A Study Through Attitude Network Analysis. AWARI, 4, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.47909/awari.42

Inequality Belief Systems: What They Look Like, How to Study Them, and Why They Matter

Published in Social Indicators Research, 2024

Introduces inequality belief systems as networks of perceptions, explanations, and judgments, combining Correlational Class Analysis and Exploratory Graph Analysis on original US and Dutch survey data.

Recommended citation: Bertero, A., Franetovic, G., & Mijs, J. J. B. (2024). Inequality Belief Systems: What They Look Like, How to Study Them, and Why They Matter. Social Indicators Research, 174(2), 445–472. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-024-03352-5

Consolidation and Change: Exploring the Impact of Anger and Network Dynamics on Inequality Belief Systems

Published in Network Science, 2025

Uses network models and simulations on the 2019 ISSP Social Inequality module to show how anger strengthens and polarises US inequality belief systems and how changes in central attitudes can propagate through the system.

Recommended citation: Bertero, A., & Franetovic, G. (2025). Consolidation and Change: Exploring the Impact of Anger and Network Dynamics on Inequality Belief Systems. Network Science, 13, e9. https://doi.org/10.1017/nws.2025.10004

Beyond Constraint: Tightness and Consensus of Political Belief Systems

Published in Italian Political Science Review / Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica, 2025

Reconceptualises ideological organisation beyond constraint by distinguishing the tightness of relations among attitudes from consensus over the structure of those relations.

Recommended citation: Bertero, A. (2025). Beyond Constraint: Tightness and Consensus of Political Belief Systems. Italian Political Science Review / Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1017/ipo.2025.10080

SUSPECTS: Supply, Demand, and Communication of Conspiracy Theories in Comparative Perspective

Published in Italian Political Science, 2026

Presents the comparative SUSPECTS framework for studying the supply, demand, and communication of conspiracy theories across six European countries.

Recommended citation: Mancosu, M., Vassallo, S., Pedrazzani, A., Belluati, M., Ventura, S., Bertero, A., & Sumbul, U. (2026). SUSPECTS: Supply, Demand, and Communication of Conspiracy Theories in Comparative Perspective. Italian Political Science, 20(1), 99–112. https://doi.org/10.69101/IPS.2025.20.1.4

LONELY-EU WP3_1A: Database of Loneliness Datasets in Europe

Published in OSF, 2026

A documented inventory of datasets containing loneliness measures across Europe, developed for the Horizon Europe LONELY-EU project.

Recommended citation: Bertero, A., Growiec, K., Luhmann, M., Tang, Y., & Vezzoni, C. (2026). LONELY-EU WP3_1A: Database of Loneliness Datasets in Europe. OSF. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/3T9KG

Conspiracy Theories Are Central to the Complex System of Predictors of Italian Vaccine Hesitancy

Published in Italian Political Science, 2026

Models vaccine hesitancy as a network of interdependent attitudes, dispositions, and sociodemographic characteristics, identifying conspiracy endorsement as a central structuring element.

Recommended citation: Bertero, A. (2026). Conspiracy Theories Are Central to the Complex System of Predictors of Italian Vaccine Hesitancy. Italian Political Science, 20(3), 239–262. https://doi.org/10.69101/IPS.2025.20.3.3 https://italianpoliticalscience.com/index.php/ips/article/view/295

talks

1st ISSP User Conference on Social Inequality: Overcoming the structuralist/individualist dichotomy (Franetovic and Bertero)

Published:

In December 2022 Gonzalo Franetovic and I were pleased to present at the 1st ISSP User Conference on Social Inequality. We showed how Exploratory Graph Analysis can be leveraged to isolate at least three dimensions of inequality beliefs in the vast majority of the ISSP countries. This represents an important finding since most of the literature was anchored to the structuralist/individualist dichotomy. The pdf of the presentation can be found here.

Chilean Social Network Conference (CHISOCNET): How do people understand inequality in Chile? (Franetovic and Bertero)

Published:

In January 2023 Gonzalo Franetovic and I were pleased to present at CHISOCNET. We adopted network analysis on attitudes toward inequality to investigate how people understand this complex socio-political phenomenon in Chile. Results show that these attitudes are part of a single belief system and that people from lower social status positions have a more multidimensional understanding of inequality. You can find the slides here.

SISEC Conference: Modelling, estimating, simulating. Formalizing attitudes towards inequality as a complex network (Bertero and Franetovic)

Published:

At the beginning of 2023, we presented at the conference of the Italian Society of Economic Sociology (SISEC). We modeled attitudes toward inequality as a complex system. We further estimated structural differences in these attitudes across different social groups; Finally, we simulated attitudinal change to show how they are likely to develop over time. Here are the slides!

ECPR Conference: Modelling, estimating, simulating (II) (Bertero and Franetovic)

Published:

As a political scientist, ECPR is very important to me! In Toulouse, I presented a refined version of the work “Modelling, estimating, simulating”, which me and Gonzalo originally presented at SISEC. We were in the fantastic panel “Network of Political Beliefs”, chaired by Lorien Jasny and Claudia Zucca. It was an incredible pleasure to receive expert feedback and get in contact with extraordinary researchers from all over the world. Slides are available here!

CCA Days: Conspiracy theories are central to the complex system of predictors of Italian vaccine hesitancy

Published:

In June 2023 I presented at the CCA Days, a workshop jointly organized by NASP and Collegio Carlo Alberto. I had the pleasure of presenting research on Italian vaccine hesitancy. The literature on the topic usually conceives hesitancy as a dependent variable of regression models of limited sizes, adopting a reductionist approach. To mitigate this limitation, I try to study hesitancy as an emergent phenomenon whose state depends on the intricate relationships occurring between its predictors. In the results, I show that this behavior is strongly influenced by a restricted list of variables that I label empirical predictors. This can help design effective intervention strategies. Slides are available here

teaching

Political Science 2.0

Teaching assistant, University of Turin, 2020

Teaching activity in Giuliano Bobba’s BA course for the degree in Social Innovation, Communication, and New Technologies, 2020–2021.

Applied Statistics Lab

MA laboratory, Collegio Carlo Alberto, 2026

Applied-statistics laboratories for MA students: Stata in 2024 and R in 2025–2026.