Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-m42fx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-17T12:02:22.539Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Referendum and the Transformation of the Party System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Extract

Wholesale party system transformation is exceedingly rare. Indeed, in taking place within a broadly democratic framework and independently of constitutional change Italy's experience is probably unique. This paper argues that the referendums of 1991 and 1993, and the mobilization of the electorate from early 1990 associated with them, played a significant and not always well understood role in the transformation of the Italian party system.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See Daalder, H. and Mair, P. (eds), Western European Party Systems. Continuity and Change, Sage, London, 1985; Mair, P., ‘The Problem of Party System Change’, Journal of Theoretical Politics, 1, 3, 1989, pp. 251–276; Mair, P. and Smith, G. (eds), Understanding Party System Change in Western Europe, Sage, London, 1990.Google Scholar

2 Calise, M., ‘Remaking the Italian Party System. How Lijphart Got It Wrong By Saying it Right’, West European Politics, 16, 4, 1993, pp. 545560.Google Scholar

3 As a methodological approach ‘partisan identification’ has found little application in the Italian case: see Cartocci, Roberto, Capire il voto. Contributi per l'analisi del comportamento elettorale in Italia, Franco Angeli, Milan, 1989.Google Scholar

4 Morel, L., ‘Party Attitudes Towards Referendums in Western Europe’, West European Politics , 16, 3, 1993, pp. 225244; Smith, G., ‘The Functional Properties of the Referendum’, European Journal of Political Research, 4, 1976, pp. 1–23.Google Scholar

5 Morel, , ‘Party Attitudes’, p. 239.Google Scholar

6 Morel, , ‘Party Attitudes’, p. 237 (my emphasis).Google Scholar

7 Despite the ‘rise of the Leagues’, renewed Italian interest in the classic ‘anti-party’ theorist Ostrogorski has been at pains to stress the distinction between existing parties and political parties as such. See Orsina, G. (ed.), Contro i partiti. Saggi sul pensiero di Moisei Ostrogorski, Borla, Rome, 1993.Google Scholar

8 Bardi, L., ‘Anti-Party Sentiment and Party System Change in Italy’, paper presented to the Italian Society of Political Science (SISP), 1994, Forlì.Google Scholar

9 Salvati, M., ‘The Travail of Italian Communism’, New Left Review, 202, 1994, pp. 117124, pp.121–122. See too T. Abse, ‘The Triumph of the Leopard’, New Left Review, 199, 1993, pp. 3–28. to which Salvati is responding.Google Scholar

10 Rhodes, M., ‘Reinventare la sinistra: le origini dell'Alleanza progressista’, p. 103, in Mershon, C. and Pasquino, G. (eds), Politico in Italia, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1994, pp. 91–117.Google Scholar

11 Bogdanor, V., ‘Referendum and Initiative’, pp. 524526, in Blackwell's Encyclopedia of Political Institutions, Blackwell, Oxford, 1987.Google Scholar

12 Uleri, P. V., ‘The Referendum Phenomenon in Italy: from the Beginnings to the Crisis of a Democratic System (1946–93), paper presented at the European Consortium for Political Research, Madrid, 1994, pp. 49. Also in Caciagli, M. and Uleri, P. V. (eds), Democrazie e referendum, Laterza, Rome and Bari, 1994.Google Scholar

13 Tentoni, L., Gli strumenti per cambiare. Viaggio nei sistemi elettorali, Acropoli, Rome, 1991, pp. 261262.Google Scholar

14 Pasquino, G., ‘Conclusioni. La riforma elettorale in Italia: fatte le leggi, si cerca il rimedio’, p. 222, in Massari, O. and Pasquino, G. (eds), Rappresentare e governare, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1994.Google Scholar

15 Sartori, G., Correnti, frazioni e fazioni nei partiti politici italiani, II Mulino, Bologna, 1973; Fisichella, D., ‘The Italian Experience’, in Finer, S. (ed.), Adversary Politics and Electoral Reform, Anthony Wigram, London, 1975.Google Scholar

16 Messina, S., La Grande Riforma. Uomini e progetti per una nuova repubblica, Laterza, Rome, 1992, pp. 133136.Google Scholar

17 See too McCarthy, P., ‘The referendum of 9 June’, in Hellman, P. S. and Pasquino, G. (eds), Italian Politics. A Review. Vol. 7, Francis Pinter, London, 1992, pp. 1128, p. 17; and Pasquino, G., The electoral reform referendums’, in Italian Politics. A Review. Vol. 6, Leonardi, R. and Anderlini, F. (eds), Frances Pinter, London, 1992, pp. 9–24, pp. 12 and 17.Google Scholar

18 Segni, M., La rivoluzione interrotta. Diario di quattro anni che hanno cambiato l'Italia, Rizzoli, Milan, 1994, pp. 124–7.Google Scholar

19 Ruzza, C. and Schmidtke, O., ‘Roots of Success of the Lega Lombarda’, West European Politics, 16, 2, 1993, pp. 123.Google Scholar

20 Diamanti, I., La Lega. Geografia, storia e sociologia di un nuovo soggetto politico, Donzelli, Rome, 1993, p. 112.Google Scholar

21 McCarthy, P., ‘Conclusion. Inching Towards a New Regime’, in Pasquino, G. and McCarthy, P. (eds), The End of Post-War Politics in Italy. The Landmark 1992 Elections, Westview Press, Boulder and Oxford, 1993.Google Scholar

22 Mannheimer, R., ‘L'elettorato della Lega Nord’, Polis, Autumn 1992, pp. 253274.Google Scholar

23 Bull, A., ‘The Lega Lombarda. A new political sub-culture for Lombardy's localized industries’, The Italianist, 12, 1992, pp. 179183.Google Scholar

24 See Diamanti, , La Lega, pp. 120122.Google Scholar

25 Corbetta, P. ‘La Lega e lo sfaldamento del sistema’, Polis, August 1992, p. 250.Google Scholar

26 Corbetta, P. and Parisi, A., ‘Il referendum del 18 aprile: le sfumature del voto’, Il Mulino, 347, 1993, pp. 509, 515.Google Scholar

27 Corbetta, P. and Parisi, A., 1993, p. 510.Google Scholar

28 Corbetta, and Parisi, , Il referendum del 18 aprile, p. 512.Google Scholar

29 McCarthy, , The End of Post-war Politics in Italy, p. 163.Google Scholar

30 Cazzola, F., La corruzione. Il sistema politico italiano, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1988, especially pp. 86, 102–3; Rodotà, S., ‘The Judiciary and Politics’, Newsletter. Association for the Study of Modern Italy, 10, Autumn 1986, pp. 29–32.Google Scholar

31 See Donovan, M., ‘The Politics of Electoral Reform in Italy’, International Political Science Review, 16, 1, January 1995, pp. 4764.Google Scholar

32 Pasquino, G., Votare un solo candidato. Le consequenze politiche della preferenza unica, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1993; Buonadonna, S. and Ginex, R., Guida Alla Seconda Repubblica, Arbor, Palermo, 1994.Google Scholar

33 Gilbert, M., ‘The Great Reform?’, Italian Politics and Society, 39, Spring, 1993, p. 17.Google Scholar

34 Ricolfi, L., ‘Elezioni e mass media. Quanti voti ha spostato la Tv’, Il Mulino, 356, Nov–Dec. 1994, pp. 10311046.Google Scholar

35 Diamanti, I. and Mannheimer, R., ‘Introduzione’, in idem. (eds), Milano a Roma. Guida all'Italia elettorale del 1994, Donzelli, Rome, 1994, p. xxi.; Rodriguez, M., ‘La comunicazione politica’ in Diamanti, I. and Mannheimer, R. (eds), Milano a Roma .Google Scholar

36 Di Palma, G., ‘Is There a Legacy and is it Fascist?’, in Herz, J. H. (ed.), Coping with the Legacies of Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism, Greenwood, London, 1982.Google Scholar

37 See Bardi, L., ‘Anti-Party Sentiment’, for further references.Google Scholar

38 Salvadori, M., Storia d'Italia e Crisi di Régime. Alle radici della politica italiana, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1993; Putnam, R., Making Democracy Work. Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1993.Google Scholar

39 Salvati, , ‘The Travail of Italian Communism’, p. 120.Google Scholar

40 Rhodes, , ‘Reinventare la sinistra’, p. 104.Google Scholar

41 Pirani, M., ‘Chi vuole spaccare l'Italia in due’, La Repubblica, 26 August, 1994.Google Scholar