Chapter 3 Italy

1
Chapter 3Italy

• David Hine

2
Italy

• The peculiarities of Italian democracy
• The end of the first Republic
• The institutional framework
• The party system and coalition building
• Falling out of the European mainstream

3
Introduction

• Italy unified relatively late
• Divide between North and South Italy has existed
  since the initial unification
• Fascism under Mussolini lasted 1922-1945
• Polarised society has made parliamentary
  democracy unstable
• Party system has become more stable, and
  alternating, since the early 1990s

4
The peculiarities of Italian democracy

• Post-WW2 fears that either communism or a
  resurgent fascism would undermine Italian
  democracy
• Post-war governments lasted on average less than
  a year
• PR electoral system invariably resulted in
  coalition governments
• Christian Democrats were the main party in every
  post-war government
• The Italian Communist Party were routinely
  excluded from government

5
Problems in Italian democracy

• Unstable coalition governments
• Public disaffection from the political class
• Non-aligned electorate
• Weak executive unable to provide fair and
  efficient welfare provisions
• Clientelism and corruption

6
The end of the first Republic

• From late 1970s voter dissatisfaction with a
  lack of alternation between parties in office
  sparked discussions on constitutional change
• Popular disaffection and elite-level corruption
  result in the Second Republic, created 1992-4

7
The institutional framework

• Strong parliament
• Constitution seeks to keep power of executive in
  check
• Weak executive
• Executive unable to control spending - budget
  deficit doubles, 1980-92
• Central political authority strengthened under
  second Republic
• Shift from unitary state to devolved powers since
  1990s

8
The party system and coalition-building

• Post-war to 1970s polarized pluralism
• From 1970s moderation of extremist parties leads
  to de-polarization
• Tangentopoli prompts dissolution of first
  Republic parties
• Second Republic party system built around two
  broad coalitions
• New party system fragmented bi-polarity

9
Falling out of the European mainstream

• Italy more of an outlier over last 15 years
• Massive public debt
• Low level of multinational corporations
• Continued political corruption deters investors
• 1996-2005 c.1 GDP growth p.a.
• Creeping Euroscepticism on right

10
Summary

• Post-war period saw Italian recovery through its
  association with democratic and free-market
  Europe
• Main problem now is the cost of the Italian
  welfare state and the legacy of debt built up to
  pay for it