Governments, Policy Space and Party Positions in the Italian Parliament (1996–2001): An Inductive Approach to Parliamentary Debate and Votes of Investiture*

Abstract

Through a content analysis of parliamentary debates on the votes of investiture of four governments (1996–2001), a survey is provided of the political themes tackled by the Italian parliamentary leaders and by the government incumbents. Both left-to-right policy distances and inter-coalition policy distances are still relatively high, notwithstanding some recent novelties of Italian politics (party system change and realignment, electoral reform, bipolarization of the party system). In addition, the data cast light on the peculiar Italian version of bipolar politics, labelled ‘polarized bipolarism’ and featuring confrontation between opposing coalitions in the electoral arena with multiparty dynamics in the parliamentary arena.