The presidential ‘accordion’ plays for us all

ABSTRACT

More than any other president of a contemporary parliamentary democracy, the Italian head of state has played a significant political role. Indeed, since the transformation of the Italian party system in 1992–3 and especially in times of economic crisis or political turmoil, Italian presidents have actively intervened in a significant way to safeguard the Constitution and improve the working of the Italian political system. In this context, the ‘extended presidency’ of Sergio Mattarella, originally elected in 2015 and then re-elected for a second, exceptional term in 2022, is no exception to the rule. As a matter of fact, the re-election of Mattarella (after the – at the time unprecedented – re-election of Giorgio Napolitano in 2013) has not only strengthened the role of the head of state vis-à-vis other political institutions and even more so the political parties, but it has even raised a number of questions concerning the very nature of Italy’s parliamentary regime. Against this backdrop, this article analyses, from different analytical perspectives, the evolving role of the president of the Republic within the changing Italian political system by taking into consideration presidents’ relationships – not always smooth – with the political parties, their atypical style of political communication (both online and offline), their exercise of executive power and, finally, their peculiar contribution to that process of more or less covert presidentialisation that has characterized Italian politics since the early 1990s.

KEYWORDS:

• President
• head of state
• parliamentary regime
• presidential election
• presidential power

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. As is well known, former Prime Minister, Giuliano Amato, once compared the powers of Italy’s president to an accordion. Just as the box-shaped musical instrument can expand and contract, the same is true of the influence exercised by Italy’s head of state: what the president can or cannot do depends on the strength of the political parties.

Additional information

Funding

The research leading to these results was realized within the framework of the Research Project of National Interest (PRIN) 2020-2023, ”Monocratic Government. The Impact of Personalisation on Contemporary Political Regimes (CUP E68D17000230001). Principal Investigator: Fortunato Musella.

Notes on contributors

Fortunato Musella

Fortunato Musella, Full Professor of Political Science at the Department of Social Sciences of the University of Naples Federico II. He has been a visiting scholar at Cornell University, at the Sussex European Institute and Leuphana Universität. He is currently Director of Federica WebLearning, Center for Innovation and Dissemination of Distance Learning. His main research interests include the study of government, presidential politics, political parties, concept analysis and digital politics.

Marco Valbruzzi

Marco Valbruzzi, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Department of Social Sciences of the University of Naples Federico II. He has been a visiting scholar at the University of California-San Diego and the University of Sydney. His main research interests include political theory, political parties, voting behavior and digital politics.