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Abstract
This paper explores the faltering and disorganized implementation of primary elections in Italy, mainly, but not only, for public office at the municipal level. It provides a preliminary assessment of their ‘functions’ and consequences. The author tries to answer the question of what kind of institutional change the primaries ‘Italian-style’ really are. Their impact has been limited and distorted both by the Italian institutional arrangement and especially by the existing electoral law. The overall lesson is that, to be successful, both institutional imitations and innovations require an appropriate institutional environment.
Acknowledgements
This paper was written in Spring 2010 while I was Associate Research Scholar of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies at Columbia University, whose hospitality I gratefully acknowledge. Several useful comments and criticisms made by Marco Valbruzzi have considerably improved the final product.
Notes
For an excellent review of the different methods used to choose the leader of the party, hence a potential candidate to the office of head of government, see Kenig (Citation2009).
All the necessary information can be found in the Quaderni dell'Osservatorio Elettorale Citation2006).