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Gulliver unbound. Possible electoral reforms and the 2008 Italian election: Towards an end to ‘fragmented bipolarity’?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Antonio Floridia
Antonio Floridia*
Affiliation:
Electoral Observatory of the Tuscan Regional Government, Florence, Italy
*
∗Email: antonio.floridia@regione.toscana.it
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Abstract

This article considers the systemic effects of the electoral reform approved by the centre-right in December 2005, and the factors that led to the crisis of the Prodi government, highlighting the way in which the issue of electoral reform and the likelihood of an electoral referendum contributed decisively to the breakdown of the fragile coalition maintaining the Prodi government in office. The article then analyses the ‘game’ surrounding possible electoral reforms, examining the interweaving of the preferences and vetoes of the various political actors, showing how these were influenced by the strategic aims of each actor and by the process of re-structuring of the party system. Finally, the new configuration of the political supply as it took shape in the run up to the 2008 general election is analysed, showing how this new format derives from the actors’ strategic adaptation to the electoral rules in force, and how the election may signal the end of a period of Italian politics marked by ‘fragmented bipolarity’.

Keywords

Italian election 2008Italian electoral reformselectoral rulesactors' strategic coordination and adaptation
Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , August 2008 , pp. 317 - 332
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

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