The Italian First Republic: ‘Degenerated Consociationalism’ in a Polarised Party System

Abstract

Italy's post-war political system has been analysed as a case of consociational democracy, albeit of a special kind. Not cultural segmentation, but ideological polarisation was the main source of division, giving rise to a distinct pattern of elite cooperation captured with such terms as ‘consociativismo’ and ‘degenerated consociationalism’. This paper examines the origins, dynamics, and outcomes of ‘consociationalism Italian style’ through a systematic comparison of consociational interpretations with the analysis of the Italian party system as a case of polarised pluralism. The aim is a better understanding of the challenges posed by segmentation and polarisation and of the reasons why they require different forms of political accommodation. The findings have relevance for the analysis of other cases of polarisation, including contemporary ones.

Acknowledgements

A previous version of this paper was presented at the Annual Conference of the Italian Political Science Association in Genoa, 2002. The author thanks the participants, the editor and two anonymous referees of this journal, and Stefano Bartolini for their useful comments. The usual disclaimer applies.

Notes

See the debate in Il Mulino, Vol. 20, 1971, various issues.

The notion of ‘progressive democracy’ goes back to the Communist leader Togliatti and the elaborate catalogue of social and economic rights, many of which were never transformed into policy, in the Italian constitution.

Powell (2000) qualifies the First Republic as a case of ‘proportional’ as opposed to ‘majoritarian’ influence design, but finds that the rules only facilitate some degree of opposition influence in the legislature, making Italy an intermediate case on this dimension. This suggests opposition influence depended less on formal rules than on informal patterns of behaviour.

The view that electoral competition in a segmented society is defensive and focused on a single dimension has been challenged for The Netherlands (Koole and Van Praag 1990).

Giuliani's (1997) analysis of legistlative behaviour reveals, however, that much cross-cleavage support was not limited to secret committee meetings but took place on the floor of parliament or was otherwise open and public.

For a game-theoretical treatment of the role of information in consociational democracy, see Tsebelis (1990).