Centre-left Coalition Research Articles

Las elecciones presidenciales y parlamentarias de 2005 en Chile

During 2005 and 2006 eleven Latin American countries will held or had presidential elections, from Mexico in the north to Peru, Bolivia and Chile in the south. There was also or will be in Haiti, Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia and Brazil. This article analyzes the presidential election in Chile in which Michelle Bachelet was elected, the first woman in the history of Chile and in South America to become head of state through a popular election. This has generated international interest, due to its impact on the increase in the participation of women in public activity. The political and institutional factors that explain the fourth presidential triumph of the Coalition for Democracy, the center-left coalition that has maintained the leadership of the government since the return to democracy in 1990, are examined.

Le primarie: democratizzazione interna ai partiti, partecipazione dei cittadini e istanze plebiscitarie

The article aims at showing the difficulties faced in introducing primary elections in the Italian representative democracy. The theoretical content of this contribution is twofold. First some questions concerning primary elections as a device for the selection of parties’ candidates will be discussed; then the impact of the primary vote on citizens’ participation resources to party-politics arena will be analyzed. These topics are dealt by following two paths. The first is devoted to briefly reconstruct the political consequences of different types of primary elections in the USA. The second path focuses on the development of the theoretical and political debate on primary elections in Italy, in a context characterized by crisis and transformation of political parties. According to the literature, when primary elections are pursued by party coalitions, then it is highly probable that they may lead to harsh conflicts among, and inside, the involved parties. The last part of this essay reports in fact two striking examples: the primary elections to select the centre-left coalition’s mayoral candidate in Palermo and Aversa in 2006. The outcomes of this analysis show that political parties do not become open and transparent organizations as an immediate result of the introduction of primary elections. As well, they prove that it is not possible to consider primary elections as the only way to improve openness, transparency, responsiveness and accountability of organizations, such as political parties and institutions in liberal-representative democracies.

Le donne alle primarie: partecipazione politica e reti di attivazione

This contribution aims at analyzing voters’ characteristics and their preference motivations at the first Italian national primary elections in 2005 and the Sicilian regional primary elections in 2006. This analysis mainly focuses on gender differences and is based on a sample of face-to-face interviews. In 2005 the primary elections were called in order to select the centre-left coalition candidate for the following parliamentary elections, while the 2006 ones in order to choose the president of the Sicily region. Several differences between these two primary votes are to be detected, first of all the fact that the regional primaries were much more competitive. Both elections are analyzed by focusing on the voters’ propensity for political and civic involvement with a specific gender-oriented perspective. Political engagement’s mechanisms are reconstructed, allowing to single out different participatory profiles. Furthermore, voting motivation and priorities, cognitive dimensions as well as political communication tools employed by the candidates are considered in order to provide a more accurate explanation of voters’ behavior and attitudes.

Una "Cittŕ futura" in Calabria. Reportage

The review «Il Mulino», founded in Bologna in 1951 by a group of about ten young academics who met at the local University, aims to be an intellectual laboratory, not tied to any political party. The situation of the intellectuals, the condition of Italian schools and Universities are the first topics analysed and until the end of the ’50s are the group’s main interest. «Il Mulino» from cultural review becomes a militant one: the focus shifts towards political parties, tendencies and congresses; the aim is to favour a dialogue among those who are considered to be the positive forces in the Italian political life: Catholics, liberals and socialists. Only through the collaboration of these three forces Democracy can be developed. No dialogue, instead, with the Communists. Communism is considered outside the democratic spirit, it is an advocate of an absolute, centralized and bureaucratic State, where there is no space for Freedom. The advent of a centre-left coalition will be favourably greeted since it is seen as the most serious political attempt to subtract from communist influence the working class and the peasants, their biggest supporters, carrying out those reforms necessary to satisfy their needs and aimed to guarantee the Country’s democratic evolution.

Chile: Are the Parties Over?

For the first time since the fall of Pinochet, the Chilean right has come to power via free elections. The long-ruling center-left coalition leaves behind many achievements, but also disturbing signs of a weakened party system.

Politics and health in eight European countries: A comparative study of mortality decline under social democracies and right-wing governments

Recent publications have argued that the welfare state is an important determinant of population health, and that social democracy in office and higher levels of health expenditure promote health progress. In the period 1950-2000, Greece, Portugal, and Spain were the poorest market economies in Europe, with a fragmented system of welfare provision, and many years of military or authoritarian right-wing regimes. In contrast, the five Nordic countries were the richest market economies in Europe, governed mostly by center or center-left coalitions often including the social democratic parties, and having a generous and universal welfare state. In spite of the socioeconomic and political differences, and a large gap between the five Nordic and the three southern nations in levels of health in 1950, population health indicators converged among these eight countries. Mean decadal gains in longevity of Portugal and Spain between 1950 and 2000 were almost three times greater than gains in Denmark, and about twice as great as those in Iceland, Norway and Sweden during the same period. All this raises serious doubts regarding the hypothesis that the political regime, the political party in office, the level of health care spending, and the type of welfare state exert major influences on population health. Either these factors are not major determinants of mortality decline, or their impact on population health in Nordic countries was more than offset by other health-promoting factors present in Southern Europe.

Intellettuali italiani fra societŕ opulenta e democrazia del benessere: il caso de "Il Mulino" (1958-1968)

- By the 1950s the process of economic reconstruction in Italy was widely considered as accomplished with the welfare consumerist society starting to take hold, albeit not without its contradictions. Shifting the perspective of the analysis from the economic aspects to the socio-political ones of consumption, this essay seeks to reconstruct the debate that was developed by the group of intellectuals of the journal Il Mulino over the challenges posed by the transformation of lifestyles and culture as a consequence of the establishment of the so-called affluent society in the years spanning between the publication of John Kenneth Galbraith's work and 1968. By analysing political works and archival materials the article sheds light on the key issues of the debate as well as on the connection between, on the one hand, the issue of welfare and the consumer revolution, and space and political legitimation, on the other. It is focused on the analytical process that, starting from the reception of Anglo- American sociology and political science, would then conceptualise the standard of living and access to consumption and leisure time as an element of political legitimacy and a redefinition of the relations between citizens and government. The article then analyses the democratisation of affluence and what intellectuals like Giorgio Galli, Luigi Pedrazzi, Nicola Matteucci identified as the political formula capable of providing adequate answers to this new aspect of the modernisation process: the Centre-Left DCPsi alliance. In conclusion, the author deepens the hypothesis drafted by the Il Mulino group concerning the superseding of the "sclerosis of the Italian party system, that is the imperfect two-party system, interpreted as being the diagnosis of the Italian political stalemate and a solution to" the political issue of affluence. Key words: welfare society, affluent society, political issue of welfare, consumer society, the Sixties in Italy, intellectuals of the Il Mulino, DC-Psi Centre-Left coalition, imperfect two-party system DC-Pc

Revolutionary horizons: past and present in Bolivian politics

This is a comprehensive study of insurrection in Bolivia, from the late eighteenth century to the present day. In an age of military neoliberalism, social movements, and centre-Left coalition governments have advanced across South America, sparking hope for radical change in a period otherwise characterized by regressive imperial and anti-imperial politics. Nowhere do the limits and possibilities of popular advance stand out as they do in Bolivia, the most heavily indigenous country in the Americas. Revolutionary Horizons traces the rise to power of Evo Morales' new administration, whose announced goals are to end imperial domination and internal colonialism through nationalization of the country's oil and gas reserves, and to forge a new system of political representation. In doing so, Hylton and Thomson provide an anatomy of the popular insurgency that transformed state and society from below, and chart the history of Bolivia's struggle from the late-colonial period onwards. Revolutionary Horizons offers a unique and timely window onto the challenges faced by Morales' government and by the South American continent alike.

A glimpse into 30 years of struggle against prostitution by the women's liberation movement in Norway

The Women's Front of Norway has worked against prostitution for 30 years. In 2008 a law criminalizing the purchase of a sexual act was passed in Norway. This article describes the struggle and the main actors in lobbying for the law. In the 1980s, we raised awareness of prostitution and trafficking in women in a study of the pornography industry, and targeted sex tourist agencies organizing trips to the Philippines and Thailand. In the 1990s, our members in trade unions got their unions to take a stand against prostitution and against legalizing prostitution as “work”. In 2006, the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions Congress supported a law criminalizing the buyer of a sexual act; this had a strong impact on the centre-left coalition Government. We invited leaders of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women to Norway to meet parliamentarians and trade unionists, and kept up the pressure. From the start, the focus was on ensuring that the situation for women in prostitution was ameliorated. Our demands have been for better social services and job training. Street prostitution, especially in Oslo, has been curbed, and a growth in the indoor market has not been reported. Our next task is participating in the awareness campaign “Buying Sex is not a Sport” in connection with the Soccer World Cup, South Africa, 2010.

Rapa Nui

Rapa Nui Lorenz Gonschor (bio) Politics on Rapa Nui during the review period focused mainly on the organic law bill for the future special administrative status of the island. The bill was subject to continuous debates, until being finally introduced in Congress in a watered-down version. On the local political scene, the established politicians are clearing the way for a new generation of leadership, some very reluctantly, others more freely. The process of replacing the political elite started in early June 2007, when pro-independence opposition leaders Mario Tuki and Raúl Teao won the highest numbers of votes in the elections to the Easter Island Development Commission (Gonschor 2008, 242). This electoral success boosted the ambitions of the opposition leaders, and their next campaign aimed at unseating veteran community leader Alberto Hotus from the presidency of the Council of Elders. Hotus, who is politically affiliated with the Chilean ruling center-left coalition, claims to hold the presidency of the council for life, even though this claim has never been universally accepted and has been an issue dividing the community for the last two decades. The dissidents subsequently called for an election of the council's presidency, which was held in late August in semi-official fashion in a Hanga Roa school building. The three candidates were Mario Tuki, Leviante Araki, and Agterama Huki, all of whom are known for their pro-independence position and their bitter opposition to Hotus. The election was won by Tuki, but only a minority of about 200 voters participated. Alberto Hotus refused to participate or even acknowledge the election. When Chilean President Michelle Bachelet visited Rapa Nui for the annual ceremony commemorating the 1888 annexation of the island on 9 September, she was greeted by Hotus, presenting himself as the president of the Council of Elders. However, Tuki protested and tried to interrupt Hotus, arguing that it was he, Tuki, who was in fact the legitimate president following the election (TRN, undated article circa Sept 2007). Many observers questioned the purpose of the election. In fact, neither Hotus's nor Tuki's interpretations is in line with the original purpose of the Council of Elders, which was to consist of the eldest representative of each family name existing on the island. These family representatives would then elect one among them as president. There is no basis for claiming the presidency for life, nor does it make sense to elect the president by popular vote. Furthermore, the position of president should not be that important in relation to the whole council, which is supposed to be a collective organ, representing each family. Shifting the focus to the presidency is thus a manipulation for political purposes [End Page 169] poses and a distortion of the council's intended function. While factional political struggles continued with less intensity, the reform process of the island's political status was also slowly progressing. A constitutional reform to create the category of "special territories" outside the normal Chilean administrative system was passed on 5 June 2007 after being stalled in Congress for two years. President Bachelet signed the reform into law on 27 July, clearing the way for an organic law to specify a system of administration for the island (Gonschor 2008, 242). However, the process of drafting that bill was far from complete. Over a period of several months during 2006, community workshops had produced a draft bill that was presented to the public in January 2007. This draft bill, which was extensively analyzed in last year's review (Gonschor 2008), proposed an island administration headed by a Santiago-appointed governor and a locally elected council with strong powers of control. It reserved both governorship and council membership to ethnic Rapanui. It also created a commission appointed by the Council of Elders to take over the management of all public lands from Chilean government agencies (Government of Chile 2007a). At the time of my visit to the governor's office in July 2007, Governor Carolina Hotu still considered this draft to be the basis for the final bill (Hotu, pers comm, 17 July 2007). But earlier, in a 28 February letter to Claudia Serrano, the undersecretary for regional...

Why Berlusconi’s landslide return? A comment on the 2008 Italian general election

At the Italian parliamentary election of April 2008 the centre-right coalition, led by media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, prevailed with 3.3 million votes over the centre-left coalition, led by Walter Veltroni, former mayor of Rome. This commentary analyzes the electoral results by looking at three factors which affected the vote: the institutional context, the electoral campaigns of both coalitions, and the voters’ behaviour. The article claims that the electoral outcome originated from an asymmetrical abstention of centre-left voters who did not turn out, and from a high-level of swing-voting which favoured the centre-right. It is argued that this election hardly signals a political realignment. Rather than value changes, valence politics and government performance are at the basis of the centre-right victory.

The Politics of Telecommunications Regulation: State–Industry Alliance Favouring Foreign Investment in India

This paper explores the political economy of three significant policy decisions of the Congress–United Progressive Alliance government between November 2005 and February 2006. These decisions improved the regulatory incentives for the smaller and efficient firms in the Indian GSM industry, which were heavily dependent on foreign investment for their expansion. India's telecommunications sector became more attractive to foreign investors as a result of these regulatory changes. This was a notable departure from the past when government policy had favoured large domestic investors using CDMA technology who were not dependent on foreign capital. A globalisation friendly policy change occurred after a Centre-Left United Progressive Alliance coalition came to power. The paper argues that these decisions, which promoted both competition and foreign investment, occurred due to the increased sensitivity of the Department of Telecommunications towards the needs of the relatively smaller GSM service providers, driven by considerations of efficiency. They were not driven by a crisis of private investment, foreign pressure, or stealth. The shift occurred in normal times when the Department of Telecommunications under a persistent ministerial stewardship took on a regulator, which was less interested in engineering this shift. This globalisation-friendly strategy depended to a large extent on the particular industrial sub-sector that the ruling party or coalition supported for spreading telecommunications in India.

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

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.

Party Patronage in Poland

Patronage is central to Polish party politics. The power of a governing party to appoint its supporters to positions in public and semi-public spheres will be examined in this paper. The two governments under investigation are: the center—left coalition government of the Democratic Left Alliance, the Labour Union, and the Polish Peasant Party formed in October 2001 and the center—right minority government of the Law and Justice party formed in October 2005. A significant extent of party patronage was expected in the case of the Democratic Left Alliance, which confirmed a dominant party thesis. However, in the case of Law and Justice, party patronage was expected to be hindered by party competition. This has not been the case, which challenges two arguments put forward by Grzymała-Busse that the dispersion of parliamentary power constrains party patronage and that in Poland the general pattern is that of decreasing rent-seeking.

On political fragmentation: stay in or stay out? The role of small parties in the Italian centre–left

During its activity, the Centre–Left coalition that won the elections of 2006 showed clear signs of being a very diverse body of interests and political orientations. This paper aims to explore the nature and the role of small parties within this coalition. The organizational nature of these parties will be analysed – are they conventional parties, electoral parties, partiti personali or others? – and also how these parties fit the ‘cleavage’ structure of the Italian society. The analysis will then focus on their behaviour within the electoral institutions: are they office-seekers, policy maximizers or something different? Finally, recent developments in the centre–left and their potential impact on small parties will be discussed.

The challenges to democracy and citizenship surrounding the vote to Italians overseas

In 2003, a presidential decree enacted legislation guaranteeing Italian voters overseas the right to postal voting as well as parliamentary representation within their respective electoral constituency. The electoral weight of the overseas-based constituent had a remarkable effect on the 2006 election results. In the tightest vote in the Republic's history, the vote of overseas Italians, which was one of the decisive features of the election, helped provide the winning centre-left coalition with a slender majority in the Senate. Election results notwithstanding, the question of whether to grant the vote to Italians overseas has faced challenges of a procedural, normative and political nature. What may have been initially seen as a democratic right may well be cast aside as it poses challenges to overseas electoral relationships with the Italian national polity, Italian citizenship and multinational allegiances, diasporic identity, electoral participation and political representation in homeland political institutions. The overseas vote for Italians may be contested further in the near future, which could translate into a radical rethink of its validity and democratic global extension.

Accuracy of Pre-Election Polls for the 2006 Italian Parliamentary Election: Too Close to Call

In this article, we analyze the accuracy of over 70 published and 19 unpublished pre-election polls reporting results pertaining to the April 2006 election for the Chamber of Deputies in Italy and apply a new measure of predictive accuracy, A, recently introduced in the U.S. context. The center-left coalition won the election with a narrow margin of 0.1 percent of the votes, which came as a surprise: all published pre-election polls had attributed a 3 to 4 percentage point lead for the center-left. The failure of virtually all pollsters to predict the outcome is due to various factors: sampling error issues; a 15-day pre-election embargo on publishing results; high coverage error due to households having only mobile phones or no phone at all; a possible reluctance of Italian voters to declare their intention to vote for the center-right. The new measure of poll accuracy was easy to adapt and apply to the Italian context, due to a recent election reform. Information given by pollsters remains, however, too inadequate to engage in comprehensive evaluations of their polls.

Italy's Choice: Reform or Stagnation

Probably the best hope for Italy is … a reorientation of the political landscape, in which the center-right and center-left coalitions shed some of their more troublesome supporters and move toward the center, whether together or not.

The Social Policy of the Center-Left Government

The year 2007 was an important test bed for the social policy of the center-left government, the fundamental nature of which was revealed in the legislative activity related, either directly or indirectly, to the 2007 and 2008 budgets. In this chapter, we review the principal measures taken and seek to assess both their significance and the coherence of the general policy design that they embody. A number of criteria (e.g., housing, pensions, measures related to unemployment, the status of families, health care, and social benefits) can be employed to evaluate social or welfare policies. The first criterion, however, is whether the government’s actions are consistent with the objectives that it set itself at the beginning of its mandate. In this context, it is particularly important to assess the factors that conditioned welfare reform, among which the constraint of public finances is generally significant. In this sense, it is important to try to distinguish the objective factors from those attributable to contrasting viewpoints that existed within the different strands of the center-left coalition.

Neoliberal Economics, Democratic Transition, and Mapuche Demands for Rights in Chile

Neoliberal Economics, Democratic Transition, and Mapuche Demands for Rights in Chile. By Diane Haughney. Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 2006. 310p. $59.95. This book examines an aspect of Chilean politics and history that most specialists tend to ignore. Relying largely on two case studies—hydroelectric and forestry projects in land occupied by the Mapuche people—Diane Haughney sets out to investigate whether the current democratic regime has kept its promise to recognize their demands and aspirations. Her findings are, unsurprisingly, negative. The leaders of Concertacion —the center-left coalition that has ruled the country since 1990—have sacrificed the interests of the Mapuche people because of their commitment to neoliberalism.