Italy - Politics

A standard interpretation of political development in Italy since the early 1990s crisis saw the First Republic as built upon a tripolar party system while the "Second Republic" saw a shift towards a Republic built on a bipolar party system. By 2001, there was fairly wide agreement that the party system was fundamentally bipolar. Fragmentation remained the second defining feature of the party system and subsequent developments led to the 2008 election being fought on a multipolar basis.

Major political parties, beset by scandal and loss of voter confidence, underwent far-reaching changes in the 1990s. New political forces and new alignments of power emerged in March 1994 national elections. The election saw a major turnover in the new parliament, with 452 out of 630 deputies and 213 out of 315 senators elected for the first time. The 1994 elections also swept media magnate Silvio Berlusconi -- and his Freedom Pole coalition--into office as Prime Minister. Berlusconi, however, was forced to step down in January 1995 when one member of his coalition withdrew support. The Berlusconi government was succeeded by a technical government headed by Prime Minister Lamberto Dini, which fell in early 1996. New elections in 1996 brought a center-left coalition to government for the first time after World War II.

Berlusconi was often criticised for exercising indirect control of state television while also being the owner of a vast private media empire. However, argued Veltri, in Italy there have never been editori puri (pure proprietors), entrepreneurs whose exclusive business is that of publishing and who have no interests elsewhere. Media proprietors have always used their publishing activities as a means of exercising the political leverage required to enable them to advance other business interests. A more important issue concerns the way the media inform the Italian public: broadcasters in particular have always been subject to considerable political interference. RAI, the publicly-owned television network, had always been subject to lottizzazione (‘sharing out’), each channel operating under the influence of one of the main parties. Guaranteeing plurality led to the abandonment of objective, balanced reporting.

The situation as of 2011 seemed to be one of multipolarity, perhaps even of a predominant party system, in which one relatively unified block of parties faced "the rest." The novelty in Italian politics is that the landscape is more fragmented, but for the most part, it's the same old faces. Although the faces are the same, the names used to describe their groupings are new, and almost all point to a common idea: Italy is in trouble and must somehow return to the essence of Italian-ness to save herself. Italy is a populist and 'leader-led' population. Italian politics had lost the capacity to produce ideas and produce visions. It had become a laboratory, perhaps unique in the world, of political communication, a laboratory of leadership, but it doesn't really produce political thoughts. Until recently, there had been frequent government turnovers (more than 60 and counting) since 1945. The dominance of the Christian Democratic (DC) party during much of the postwar period lent continuity and comparative stability to Italy's political situation.

Italian Prime Minister-designate Mario Monti, a former top EU commissioner, was asked 12 November 2011 by the country's president to form a new government. The move came a day after Berlusconi's resignation. Monti performed really badly. The center-left coalition led by Pier Luigi Bersani took the most votes in the lower house in the elections of 24 February 2013 - about 125,000, or 29.55 percent - but that was just barely more than the 29.18 percent won by the party led by right-leaning Silvio Berlusconi. The movement led by comedian Beppe Grillo known as the Five-Star Movement took the third-largest share of votes in the lower house.

Voting in the election showed no clear winner, creating a hung parliament and diminishing prospects for a reform-minded government coalition. The vote was the latest example of populations in the eurozone lashing out at budget-balancing measures within their governments. On 25 April 2013 former Christian Democrats (i Popolari) Enrico Letta was designated as the new Prime Minister. He announced his decision 13 February 2014 after his center-left Democratic Party overwhelmingly backed a proposal by leader Matteo Renzi to withdraw support from Letta and form a new government.

After receiving the mandate from President Giorgio Napolitano on 17 February 2014, the 39-year-old Matteo Renzi moved to form a new government, to deliver on his promise to lead Italy "out of the quagmire." Paddy Agnew writing for the Irish Times observed in February 2016 that "The Renzi style of government, at times, seems based more on the photo-op, the clever soundbite, the apt tweet and the monologue news conference rather than a substantial analysis of complex government issues.... senior figures in Brussels as well as elsewhere have concluded that, whatever the shortcomings of Renzi, the alternative would be much more worrying."

Italy headed for its 64th government since the end of World War II, and soon thereafter the 66th. After a period of stability, Italy had returned to the political fragility that was its defining characteristic during the Cold War. Italy appeared to be trapped in a vicious circle in which people expect to be disappointed by their governments, and watch them play right into these expectations. This prompts one more government to collapse and a new one to be elected, and the cycle begins again.

Renzi became Italian premier in 2014 after he manoeuvered the governing Democratic Party to oust Enrico Letta. Renzi, though, lost a political gamble two years later when he staked his premiership on a constitutional referendum that failed, forcing him to resign. He later broke with his fellow Democrats and formed the Italia Viva party, which, while small, had enough support in the Senate to make his voice count in the government.