Government and Politics of Italy by Robert Leonardi

Author:Robert Leonardi [Leonardi, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: European, Comparative Politics, Political Science, World, General
ISBN: 9781350311398
Google: 4_pGEAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 34913382
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2017-09-12T09:43:19+00:00

Political Campaigning and Voter Turnout

As was already discussed above, the nature of the political campaigns during the early part of the First Republic represented heated ideological clashes between the governing parties on one hand and the leftist opposition on the other. The virulence of the ideological clash that took place during the 1948 campaign (Vantresca, 2004; Brogi, 2011) was illustrated by the DC slogan “For God Versus Communism” and other slogans that reflected the counter-position of the Western camp to which Italy belonged versus the Eastern one to which the PCI adhered that was dominated by the Soviet Union. This form of ideological conflict continued over the following three parliamentary elections (1953, 1958 and 1963) as the Cold War intensified with the Hungarian Revolt in 1956 and the building of the Berlin Wall in 1960. The intensity of the ideological clash gradually cooled down as the economy grew and as social mobility began to change the structure of Italian society. In addition, the left began to demonstrate its capacity to govern at the local level with provisions that were to the benefit of large strata of the population. In this manner the ideological clash was not transferred to the streets or neighbourhoods of Italian cities, thereby avoiding the Weimar Republic scenario.

In 1968 the tone of the campaign shifted towards the debate on the social and economic demands made by the student and workers movement and the rise of terrorist groups on both the left and the right. This development served to significantly tone down the clash between the Christian Democrats and the Communists and helped the two parties to search for a compromise that was achieved informally during the first half of the 1970s and more formally after the 1976 parliamentary elections in the form of the Historic Compromise that advocated a combined management of economic and social policies in response to the political demands originating from the workers and student movements. The political programme associated with the Historic Compromise served to bring the two parties together on the basis of a common programme of social and economic reforms, response to budding terrorist groups, and managing the transition between the trend in de-industrialization and the emergence of industrial districts.

After 1979 the political debate once again pitted the Communist Party against the ruling centre-left coalition (DC and PSI), but now the tone of the ideological clash was moderated by the need to modernize the state apparatus given the transfer of significant policy sectors to regional governments and the measures necessary to reaffirm gender equality in the workplace and in the exercise of civil rights. In this manner the Italian political spectrum underwent a significant ideological depolarization (Leonardi, 1978) and a turn towards a more practical and reasoned discussion of political issues and alternative policies to be pursued. Table 6.1 Turnout in Italian Parliamentary Elections, 1946–2013

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