Italy between Europeanization and Domestic Politics

Abstract

There has been a continuous discussion since the second half of the 1980s on the transformation of the most important political, institutional, and social structures within states, especially European states. If a polity is defined as the various spheres—political, institutional and social—that constitute states, then it may be argued that changes on a European and global scale, along with transformations that affect the sub-national level of government, have given rise to a series of structural constraints and factors that shape political and social life well beyond the borders of the national state. It is a discussion that has not spared Italy, especially given the scale of change experienced in the 1990s. This is not to say that internal factors no longer exert an element of agency. Rather, endogenous forces need to be placed within a broader context. The links between exogenous influences and endogenous dynamics might help explain the continuity and change of the structures of various national polities. The events of 2003, presented in the chapters that follow, provide ample material in this respect.