Regulating prostitution and same-sex marriage in Italy and Spain: the interplay of political and societal veto players in two catholic societies

Abstract

This contribution adds to the scholarship on morality politics. It addresses the conditions of morality policy change by comparing the decision-making dynamics in the regulation of prostitution and same-sex partnerships in Italy and Spain over two decades. We seek to explain why and under what circumstances some political actors are successful in reforming morality policies. For this purpose, we develop a four-fold typology of morality policy change. Our findings highlight that the different regulatory dynamics in both Catholic nation-states depend on the balance of power among the change and blocking coalitions and their degree of congruence. We show that governments succeed in realizing their morality policy goals only if they are able to form a coalition with the relevant political and societal actors. Furthermore, the Catholic Church, not least owing to its historical ties with both nation-states (Italy and Spain), plays a particular but context-specific role.

Keywords:

• Change coalition
• congruence
• morality policy change
• prostitution
• same-sex marriage
• veto players

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This article is based on the project MORAPOL (ERC Advanced Grant). Generous funding by the European Research Council is gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

Owing to the focus on voluntary prostitution, we do not include the Immigration Act of 2000 and the Penal Code reform of 1999.

See ‘Unioni di fatto, Dl divisi Poi passa la linea Bindi’, La Repubblica, 7 February 2007: 1.

See ‘Il Polo litiga anche sulla prostituzione’, L'Unità, 4 August 2002: 7.

The Catholic Church campaigned yet in the mid-1990s against homosexuals and argued in its Episcopal Conference that homosexuality is a result of bad habits, bad companies and negative early experiences. It even intensified its activity from the 2000s onwards (i.e., publishing several officials press statements, presenting a pastoral directory for the family in 2003).