Impact of the New Italian Regional Governments on the Structure of Power within the Parties

Abstract

Introduction The conceptual underpinnings of this article relate to the long-standing, continuing argument among political scientists over the weight and attention to be given to the influence of the formal, legal institutions of government on political behavior. The study in recent years of sociocultural origins of values and comportment, of informal and nonlegal processes, and of unofficial groups and private interests has served to downgrade the earlier concentration on institutions, constitutions, laws, and jurisdictions. In the suspicion that institutions and jurisdictions have perhaps been undervalued, and that in one crucial area of political concern-the distribution of power within a party system-formal institutions could have important effects, this research on the new Italian regional governments was undertaken. Italy provides a useful test case. In 1970, twenty-two years after the Republican Constitution of 1948 provided for them,1 fifteen new regional governments of an nature were established. These were in addition to five regional governments that had been created in earlier years,2 because of the presence of ethnic and linguistic minorities or of postwar separatist movements. They include Trentino-Alto Adige, Valle d'Aosta, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Sicily, and Sardinia. The fifteen ordinary regions are: Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy, Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, Marches, Umbria, Latium, Abruzzi, Molise, Campania, Puglie, Basilicata, and Calabria. The Constitution originally listed Abruzzi and Molise as one region, but they were separated into two by an amendment of 1964. My research was limited to a sample of the ordinary regions, since the conditions that made the others special might bias the results. My hypothesis was that the fifteen new regional governments