The Democratic Party between change and settlement. Chronicle of a particular year

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe year 2017 represents a key moment in the political life of the PD. The party celebrated 10 years of existence and did so by electing a new leader via open primaries, following the same symbolic process of its founding moment in 2007. However, the party has radically changed in the last decade and in the last year in particular. Not only has a dynamic of personalization started (and continued) to characterize the functioning of the party’s central organs (thanks to the centralized leadership imposed by Renzi, especially during his tenure as PM), but in 2017 the party has also experienced the most relevant organizational split since its creation. Party unity has wavered, in particular, since the results of the constitutional referendum in December 2016, and in the first half of 2017 the PD underwent a significant process of organizational change. While the PD grassroots continue to shrink, both in terms of participation in internal elections and of membership figures, its intermediate bodies are increasingly weakened and struggle to mobilize activists and voters at local level. If the PD remains one of the largest parties in Italy, organizationally speaking, its nature and functioning have changed.