Non-partisan governments Italian-style: decision-making and accountability

Abstract

Three non-partisan governments in less than 20 years, Italy reveals once more her deviance from European parliamentary democracies. This article explores the reasons why and how non partisan governments have been formed. It evaluates their contributions in terms of problem-solving and decision-making capabilities. It identifies their major democratic inconvenient in their almost total lack of accountability. Non-partisan governments are the consequence of the failure of political parties. The institutional circuit: ‘Parliament-Government-Presidency of the Republic’ has shown an unexpected resilience and flexibility. Hence, the reappearance and reassertion of ‘party government’ fully depends on the ability of Italian parties to reform themselves and to shape a new party system. Both tasks seem to be daunting for all of them caught in a serious leadership succession crisis and not organizationally consolidated. Nobody can tell what will occur when Mario Monti’s non-partisan government arrives at the end of his trajectory.

Keywords:

• Non-partisan government
• accountability
• decision-making
• institutions
• party system

Notes

1 Marangoni (especially 2010 and 2011), has usefully monitored the declining legislative activities of Berlusconi’s fourth government.

2 The Index of partyness of government is calculated as the ratio between the number of non-partisan ministers and the total number of ministers included in a single cabinet. A cabinet where all the ministers are independent or non-partisan obtains the value ‘0’. On the contrary, when a cabinet includes only party politicians the Index reaches its maximum value (i.e. ‘1’).