Max Weber meets Silvio Berlusconi’s charismatic parties. The history of a spectacular failure

ABSTRACT

Silvio Berlusconi emerged as a central figure in Italian politics following the collapse of the mass-based party system in the early 1990s. As a political leader, he introduced significant innovations in various fields of politics: new campaign methods; a unique leadership style and language; novel coalition strategies, and fresh ideological content. This article focuses on one key innovation: the creation of a genuinely new political party with an original organizational model. Despite the electoral success of Silvio Berlusconi’s political parties (Forza Italia and later Popolo della Libertà), there has been little theoretical and especially empirical work devoted to studying them. This paper aims to fill that gap by examining the entire trajectory of Forza Italia from its inception to the present, highlighting its quintessentially charismatic nature in Weberian terms. The first section of the article discusses how scholars have variously perceived Forza Italia – as a personalized/charismatic party, a catch-all party, a franchise party, or a business-firm party. The article then considers the factors that have hindered its institutionalization. In the final section, the paper critically analyses the legacy of Berlusconi’s parties for the stability of the Italian party system and, more broadly, for the quality of democracy in Italy.

KEYWORDS:

• Silvio Berlusconi
• political party
• charismatic leadership
• party system

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. In this article, I will consider only those contributions primarily interested in capturing the organizational nature of the party, setting aside other potential (behavioural, sociological or ideological) dimensions.

2. Fininvest is the business and finance company founded by Berlusconi in 1975.

3. Given the perfect overlap between the leader, his financial empire, and the party, the significance of external legitimacy for FI is not entirely clear. However, the role of the external sponsoring organization, especially regarding party financing, has returned to centre stage since Berlusconi’s passing.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marco Valbruzzi

Marco Valbruzzi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Naples Federico II. His research interests lie primarily in the fields of comparative politics and political behaviour.