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Abstract
What factors drive the evolution of party regulation? And do political and societal changes have an impact on how legislators shape policy reforms? This article answers these questions by observing the evolution of the regulation of political parties in Italy from 1948 to 2012. Through an in-depth analysis of the major sources of party law of the country, the author shows that corruption scandals and societal pressure, alone, may be insufficient to influence the parties' legislative behaviour. Responsive reforms instead appear to take place when a broader number of factors are involved, most importantly the emergence of a new – truly challenging – political competitor.
Addendum
Early 2014, yet another political finance law was established. Italy becomes the first country in Europe to repeal direct public funding to political parties.
Notes
1. Global Corruption Barometer, Transparency International (waves 2004–10/11).
2. Among the proposals discussed in the Constitutional Assembly for the drafting of what later became article 49, two included provisions attributing to political parties a legal status and prescribed their internal democratic functioning. However, the fear of providing the executive with the power to control party activity, especially perceived by the Italian Communist Party, which feared being outlawed, caused those proposals to be rejected (for a detailed overview of the promulgation process of article 49, see Pasquino Citation1992; Merlini Citation2009).
3. Art. 49 has been defined as ‘inadequate’ (Pasquino Citation1992, p. 4), ‘incomplete, weak and contradictory’ (Merlini Citation2009, p. 10), and as a ‘norm with no prescriptive significance’ (Del Pennino & Compagna Citation2005, p. 59).
4. Chamber of Deputies, Act no. 2860, 20 March 1974.
5. Regulation (EU) 2004/2003.
6. Commission of Constitutional Affairs and EU Affairs of the Chamber of Deputies, and Commission of Constitutional Affairs of the Senate, cited in Grasso (Citation2010, p. 625).
7. Under law 195/1974 parliamentary groups were obliged to devolve 90 per cent of the received funds to the political parties. This figure was later increased to 95 per cent.
8. This was the second referendum that took place in Italy for a (partial) abrogation of public funding to political parties. The first one, in 1978, failed by a small margin of votes (as 56.6 per cent of the voters chose to maintain direct public funding).
9. Until 1993, the reimbursement of expenditure for national parliamentary elections was drawn from a single fund (Pacini Citation2009, p. 200).
10. In law 515/1993 the payoff thresholds for political parties to benefit from the reimbursement of election expenses were set as follows: three per cent of the votes for elections to the Chamber of Deputies; five per cent for elections to the Senate (or one representative elected); one representative elected for the elections to the Regional Councils and the European Parliament.
11. The lowering of the thresholds determining access to public funding in 1999 gave as a result the gradual proliferation of beneficiaries. The number of political formations benefiting from at least one of the four funds covering election expenditures rose from 30 in 2001, to 94 in 2008, and to 98 in 2010 (Pacini Citation2009; Pacini & Piccio Citation2012).
12. Corte dei Conti, Collegio di controllo sulle spese elettorali (2008): ‘Referto ai presidenti delle Camere sui consuntivi delle spese e sui relativi finanziamenti riguardanti le formazioni politiche che hanno sostenuto la campagna per le elezioni della Camera dei Deputati e del Senato della Repubblica del 13–14 aprile 2008.’
13. Corte dei Conti, Collegio di controllo sulle spese elettorali (2012): ‘Referto ai presidenti dei consigli regionali sui consuntivi delle spese e dei finanziamenti delle formazioni politiche presenti alla campagna elettorale del 28 e 29 marzo 2010 per il rinnovo dei consigli delle regioni a statuto ordinario’; ‘Evaluation Report on Italy. Transparency of Party Funding’, 23 March 2013.
14. Law 515/1993 explicitly refers to the controls being ‘limited to verify conformity of the actual spending to the legal limitations imposed by law’ (article 12).
15. Calculated as €0.50 for each euro received as yearly subscriptions and donations from natural or legal persons, within a# maximum limit of €10,000 per year (law 96/2012, article 2).
16. For a comparative analysis of the legal regulation of internal party organisations in Europe, see van Biezen and Piccio (Citation2013).
17. Chamber of Deputies, XVI legislature, Dossier no. 469/0 (2011).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Daniela R. Piccio
Daniela R. Piccio holds a PhD in Political Science from the European University Institute of Florence. Since 2010 she has been a member of the European Research Council funded research project ‘Re-conceptualising party democracy’ at Leiden University, conducting research and writing extensively on party regulation and comparative political finance in Europe. Additionally, she provided political finance policy assessments, and has assisted the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) in the development of the 2012 Political Finance Database.