Italian Political Parties Most Americans' first exposure to Italian p

Most Americans' first exposure to Italian politics has come upon hearing news reports that "the Italian government has fallen." This alarmingsounding item is then followed by an explanation that it is the fortysomethingth postwar Italian govenment to "fall," and that the previous one "fell," unnoticed, a few months before.

This introduction can lead to a lasting impression of politics in Italy as comprising an outward facade of comicopera turmoil concealing a core of businessasusual stability. This impression is widespread, and both Italians and nonItalians share it. One recent American study of Italian political culture unashamedly adopts a comicopera title, Democracy, Italian Style (LaPalombara 1987). Italians themselves speak of their political system in terms of its outward show, spettacolo, "spectacle," and the interior process of transformismo by which the actual administration of government is at once linked to and cushioned from politics.

The following is a study of the major Italian political parties, their ideology, organization, and function within the Italian political process. They are best considered considered not in a vacuum, but instead by comparison to the Democratic and Republican parties in the United States. Such a comparison will highlight a basic point, that Italian parties function in a political environment so different from that of the American parties that they have developed into a quite different sort of ent

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elected to parliament with a nationwide following but no party behind him would have no bargaining position. To wield effective influence, he would need to command a bloc of votes, and he could do so only by running a slate of candidates that is, by establishing a party. As an aid in understanding the dynamics of a multiparty system, consider the following thought experiment. If American formal institutions were constructed like those of Italy, we might expect the broad coalitional Democratic and Republican parties to break into a number of groupings, roughly as follows (going from right to left). Christian Conservative Party: embodying the Religious Right; possibly divided into separate Catholic and Protestant conservative parties, but allied on most social issues. Libertarian Party: much larger than the existing Libertarian party, and incorporating many supplyside conservatives. Republican Party: roughly, the "moderate" wing of the existing Republican Party. Labor Party: traditional Democrats, including some "Reagan Democrats;" and fairly conservative on social issues. Progressive Party: the "New Politics" wing of the Democratic Party. Green Par

Category: Foreign - I