Italy: Multiparty Parliamentary Democracy

In heaven, the cooks are French, the police are British, the lovers are Italian and the government is run by the Swiss.

…In hell, the cooks are British, the police are French, the lovers are Swiss, and the government is run by Italians.

Italy: Wealthy, Democratic, Not Ethnically Divided

• Per Capita GDP: $20,800

• 67% urban• 99% Literate• ≈ 90% Roman

Catholic• ELF: .114

But The Sick Man OF Europe?• Ideological Polarization (at least until 1992)

• Government instability

• Regionalism: a poor South versus a rich North (and an uncivic versus civic political culture?)

• Political corruption. The most perverse patronage system in Western democracies

• Recently, sluggish economic performance

The Italian Constitution

• Set up post WWII

– Scrapped previous monarchical institutions– Election of assembly to draft the constitution

yielded no single majority. Ideologically polarized – from Communists to Fascists and Monarchists.

– Desire to prevent the rise of another dictator (Mussolini)

The Italian Constitution

• Orthodox parliamentary democracy (fusion of origin and survival, supremacy of parliament) was altered to provide some checks and balances

– Devolution of central authority to 19 regions (weak powers, though, and implemented only from 1970)

– Referenda to repeal laws– Independent judiciary – Constitution difficult to amend

The Italian Constitution

• PR electoral formula (until reforms in the 1990’s)– District magnitude: 1– Effective number of parties: ≈ 3.34

• Dual Executive– President (weak powers, but greater than the

Queen in Britain)– Prime Minister

The Italian President• Elected by an electoral college of both

parliamentary chambers (Chamber of Deputies and the Senate), and regional delegates, for a term of seven years.

• Nominates the PM. With no party winning a majority, the Pres. has some power over the choice, but it must pass a vote of confidence.

• Suspensive veto. Can refuse to sign new laws. Parliament can override, but its use has changed the policy-making process.

• Formally dissolves parliament. The Pres. has dissolved parliament when the PM didn’t want it.

The Italian PM

• Article 95: “The prime minister directs the general policy of the government and bears responsibility for it. He maintains the unity of political and administrative policy by promoting and coordinating the activities of the ministers”

Weak constitutional powers. In practice, with coalition governments, the PM has little authority over his cabinet

The Italian PM• High turnover rate (average life of a government

is approx. 10 months). But many PMs serve many times (governments change, politicians do not)

• The PM is often not the leader of his party. Further weakens his authority.

• Short-term thinker. Most of the PMs activity is concerned with keeping his coalition together. – Distribution of patronage (jobs in state-owned

companies) to the parties and the party factions in the cabinet.

– Little focus on long-term policy

A Polarized Party System

PCI (Communists); PSI (Socialists); PSDI (Social Democrats); DC (Christian Democrats); PRI (Republicans); PLI (Liberals); MSI (Neo-Fascists)

L R

PCI PSI PSDI DC MSIPRI PLI

A Polarized Party System

L R

PCI PSI PSDI DC MSIPRI PLI

The Coalition Arc Only Spans So Far

Party PCI PSI PSDI DC PRI PLI MSI Other

Mean Vote Share

26.1 13.2 4.5 38.2 3.0 3.8 5.5 8.6

Mean Vote Share, 1946 to 1992

Coalition Formation

• Until 1992, the Communists and Neo-Fascists were permanently excluded from the cabinet

– Cold War = No Commies!

– Anti-Mussolini = No Neo-Fascists!

– ≈ 32% of parliament/electorate!

Coalition Formation

• This left the DC as the dominant party (≈ 38.2%)!

• From 1945 to 1992, the DC was always in government, sometimes solo, sometimes in coalition with other parties (See Hine and Finocchi, Table 1).

Coalition Formation

• But the DC is a factionalized party

– Ideological breadth: clerical conservatives, progressive social Catholics

– Electoral system: preference list voting, where the voter can choose between candidates on a party’s list. This leads to factions within the party

– Patronage system

Coalition Formation

• As the dominant, factionalized party, which is always in government, the PM is weak, and politics is about patronage, rather than policy

– The PM is not the leader of the DC. Little authority over the whole party

– Factions of the DC, and other parties in the coalition fight over what cabinet positions they will get (patronage), not over policy

The Cabinet

“The size is dictated by the need to satisfy party and factional demands; if all the competing interests cannot be accommodated by appointments to the standard ministries, ministers-without-portfolio are added, even if the portfolio is all but empty. The typical government comprises at least twenty ministers and six or seven ministers-without-portfolio. Each minister is “balanced” by several under secretaries who as a rule are from another faction or party than the minister. A government thus numbers close to a hundred appointees, meticulously selected according to party and faction” (Spotts and Wieser, p. 117).

Implementing Public Policy

“Countless examples could be cited where an acute need for reforms, guidelines, or new legislation has been ignored. By and large parliament has been able to act on tough issues only when there is massive social pressure and a correspondingly broad parliamentary majority” (Spotts and Wieser, p. 110).

Corruption: Tangentopoli

• “Bribesville”

• Began in Milan in 1992 when a businessman complained about having money extorted from a PSI (Socialist) party member

• Uncovered a network of corruption and kickbacks to coalition partners which was used to finance parties and pay off the magistrates who investigated corruption

Corruption: Tangentopoli

• All parties that were not permanently excluded from coalitions (PCI and MSI) were implicated.

• The entire party system collapsed, virtually overnight.

Corruption: Tangentopoli

• A popular reform movement formed which implemented, through a referenda, electoral change.

– 75% of the legislature would be elected through SMD

– 25% through PR with a 4% threshold.