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Parties and Electoral Behaviour in Italy: From Stability to Competition

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Italy and Japan: How Similar Are They?

Part of the book series: Perspectives in Business Culture ((PEPIBC))

Abstract

This chapter illustrates the evolution of the Italian party system from 1946 to 2013. Firstly, it depicts the peculiarity of Italy’s ‘First Republic’ (1946–1992) and it explains why solid voting stability had characterized that period despite of the transformations of Italian social and economic structures throughout the post war decades. The chapter furthermore describes the circumstances that led to the Italian political crisis of early 1990s and later to the birth of the ‘Second Republic’—characterized by a new political landscape, increased voting volatility and the polarising figure of Silvio Berlusconi. Finally, this chapter addresses the topic of the 2013 Italian electoral earthquake marked by the success of the Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement. In particular, the final part of this chapter investigates the reasons of the repeated success of anti-party and populist parties in Italy and it reflects upon the possible electoral characteristics of a ‘Third Republic’.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Socialists and communists.

  2. 2.

    (Poguntke 1996, p. 324). In the same way, Mete has observed that the concept of “antipolitics” at the mass level may be “passive”—i.e. a global opposition to politics per se, as an autonomous realm, perceived as the supreme evil for the common man—or “active”, i.e. a narrower opposition to existing political parties and practices, which often raises the need for a “new” way of making politics (Mete 2010).

  3. 3.

    See, among the others (Koole 1996; Detterbeck 2005); and, partly (Poguntke 2006). For a recent review of the literature on party organizations, including different theoretical positions, see Bardi (2006), pp. 33–141.

  4. 4.

    These “appeal to a broader social coalition. In programmatic terms, populist parties are mostly concerned with the public economy and the incestuous linkages between politicians, business, interest associations, and their societal constituencies” (Kitschelt 2002, pp. 180–181).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy

    Flavio Chiapponi, Cristina Cremonesi & Guido Legnante

Authors
  1. Flavio Chiapponi
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  2. Cristina Cremonesi
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  3. Guido Legnante
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Correspondence to Flavio Chiapponi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy

    Silvio Beretta

  2. Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy

    Axel Berkofsky

  3. Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy

    Fabio Rugge

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Chiapponi, F., Cremonesi, C., Legnante, G. (2014). Parties and Electoral Behaviour in Italy: From Stability to Competition. In: Beretta, S., Berkofsky, A., Rugge, F. (eds) Italy and Japan: How Similar Are They?. Perspectives in Business Culture. Springer, Milano. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-2568-4_7

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