How personal parties change: party organisation and (in)discipline in Italy (1994–2013)

Abstract

The rise of personal parties is one of the most relevant and innovative political phenomena to emerge from the Italian Second Republic. During the 1990s, Forza Italia presented a new type of party political organisation where personalisation, professionalisation and centralisation represented the keys to success that led Silvio Berlusconi to three general election victories, and that were soon variously taken up by both the centre–right and centre–left coalitions. Yet, two decades after Berlusconi entered politics, the personalisation of politics is showing another face, being no longer confined to party leadership, but affecting the party at all levels. Italian political parties seem to be split into a large number of components headed by sub-leaders. With the complicity of the new electoral system, a process of personalistic atomisation has threatened the cohesiveness – and sometimes the very survival – of Italy’s most consolidated political organisations. In this article, after an analysis of the evolution of personal parties in the Italian context, attention will be paid to some indicators of intra-party individualism, such as the proliferation of parliamentary groups, frequent party switching and indiscipline in carrying out legislative activities. The analysis of leadership-driven transformations occurring in party structures (the so-called party in central office) will be combined with an investigation of what is happening in representative institutions (the party in public office).