New wine in old bottles? Italy's divided political culture

Abstract

Italians and politics, edited by Marco MaraffiBologna, Il Mulino, 2007332 pp., €26.00 (paperback), ISBN-978-88-15-11491-4Where is the victory? Voting in 2006, described by Italians, edited by ITANESBologna, Il Mulino, 2006241 pp., €13.00 (paperback), ISBN-88-15-11486-6Left and right: Psychological roots of political differences, edited by ITANESBologna, Il Mulino, 2006182 pp., €12.00 (paperback), ISBN-88-15-10911-0‘Incomplete’ is the adjective usually used to qualify the Italian political transition that started in the early 1990s. Fifteen years is a long time in politics: as has been noted (Calise 2006, 3), political episodes that have left an indelible mark on history, such as the Nazi regime or the Napoleonic campaigns, had a similar duration. The political elections held in Spring 2006, however, showed that Italy was still not out of the woods, with a centre-left coalition prevailing over the centre-right by less than 30,000 votes in the Chamber of Deputies, while the centre-right won the larger number of Senate votes, but gained fewer seats because of the bizarre electoral system, which was forcibly introduced three months before the election. The division of seats faithfully echoed the division of the electorate into two equal parts – a division that had existed since 2001, but had been obscured by the electoral system and the mechanics of coalition formation (D'Alimonte and Vassallo 2006, p. 28). The election gave rise to two broad coalitions, both very diverse internally, and a government paralysed by the narrowness of its majority in the Senate. If it is true that Italy can now consider itself a solidly bipolar system – in fact more so than the United Kingdom, which is frequently quoted as an ideal model – it is also true that the best description of our party system is that of “fragmented bipolarism” (D'Alimonte & Vassallo 2006, 19). This is eloquently illustrated by the fall of the Prodi Government in January 2008 and the resulting record brevity of the XVth legislature, which lasted less than two years. Some 15 years on from restructuring the party system, Italian politics has not moved from the starting line, condemned to highly fragmented politics and party systems that result in instability, ungovernability and inability to reach decisions.