Party-group disentanglement in the Italian case: an introduction

Abstract

This symposium is focused on the recent changes in party-group relationships in Italy. The analysis looks at the disentanglement of interest groups from parties and the autonomous role of the former in policy making. As in other European countries, since the 1980s, in Italy an accelerating decline of parties has been observed, along with a growing empowerment of interest groups. Furthermore, in the first part of the 1990s, the Italian party system collapsed giving rise to a ‘political transition’ which represented a window of opportunity for substantial turn-over in the political elite, a majoritarian electoral reform, devolution, privatization, and policy reforms in a range of important sectors. The articles in the symposium start from a policy studies perspective and analyse the expected changes in party-group relationships in three different policy areas: agriculture, pensions and transport. On the basis of a brief literature review, this introductory essay presents some general considerations on the issue of party-group relations. It then looks at their evolution and features in the Italian case, focusing on the disentanglement of parties and groups in recent years. Afterwards it outlines the common analytical framework for the subsequent contributions on different policy areas. An interesting but varied picture comes to light about the effective dynamics of party-group relations in the fragmented process of Italian policy making. Firstly we observe specific arrangements related to the number of interest organisations operating within different policy areas. Secondly, common dynamics are registered with regard to the privileged and routine relationships between groups and ministerial bureaucracies. Thirdly, the parties are no longer the gatekeepers for interest groups’ access to decision making; they no longer control the policy-making process. Within the different policy areas the authors have looked at variable configurations of factors (the salience and politicisation of issues, external inputs and Europeanization, the policy legacy) and policy-making actors in order to understand the changing relationships between new political parties and more numerous interest groups.