Parties and Democracy in Italy by James L Newell

Author:James L Newell [Newell, James L]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781855218635
Goodreads: 14920145
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing
Published: 2000-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Notes

1

This tradition has roots which extend back to the end of the last century when Italian politicians looked to the British example in order ‘to assess the extent to which it was possible to remain faithful to the liberal tradition of the Risorgimento without being overwhelmed by the processes of democratisation’ (Cammarano, 1992: 310).

2

The Acerbo law, passed in 1924, had helped the fascists come to power by stipulating that 65 per cent of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies were to be assigned to the electoral list which obtained a simple (but not necessarily an absolute) majority of the vote. The so-called legge truffa (or ‘swindle law’) was passed in 1953 and stipulated that two-thirds of the seats were to be assigned to whichever coalition of parties succeeded in obtaining at least 50 per cent of the votes. Designed to consolidate the hold on power of the Christian Democrats and their allies, the law was repealed in 1954 after the Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats, the Republicans and the Liberals had failed by the very narrow margin of 57 000 votes to reach the magic 50 per cent at the general election held a year earlier.

3

With a Socialist President, Pertini, occupying the Quirinale (the President’s official residence) it is possible, as Galli argues, that DC opposition to Craxi as premier would have resulted in the office being conferred on the PCI as the largest of a group of left-wing parties (the other being the Radicals and Proletarian Democracy) which had more seats than the DC. Assuming the failure of a Communist prime minister-designate to construct the necessary majority, the likely alternative – a dissolution and fresh elections – would have seen the DC having to confront the electorate from a position of considerable weakness. It therefore had little choice but to accede to the PSI’s demand for the premiership (see Galli, 1991: 230–33).

4

Craxi was reasonably successful in this endeavour. His first government (August 1983–June 1986) was, at 1060 days, by far the longest-lasting in the history of the Republic to that point; the improving health of the economy during his premiership was widely hailed as a ‘second economic miracle’; and he pushed important measures through parliament by using decree powers or by attaching votes of confidence to bills. On the other hand, there has, as Daniels (1988: 266) points out, been a tendency to eulogize Craxi’s record. Craxi’s unusually long incumbency had more to do with the lack of any feasible alternative to the pentapartito (five-party) coalition than to any real change in the nature or style of Italian government; it is difficult to say how much improvement in the health of the economy was due to the government and in areas like unemployment and the public debt, the record was not a success; Craxi’s assertive use of decree powers and parliamentary procedures was by no means a new phenomenon and was not, in any case, based on a coherent long-term strategy.

5

The term ‘lay parties’ was traditionally used to

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