Le système de partis Italien

Thèmes abordés

Italie système politique parti

Résumé du document

"If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change." This sentence from the movie The Leopard was written by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. It is representative of the Italian political system which has been in place since the post-1945. In fact, Italy is characterized by a multi-party system with two largest parties. During the 90's the party system experienced a change of the "party landscape" and a new electoral system. I will try to show that despite these changes, the party system has not really been modified.

Extraits

[...] The Italian parties have shown their great capacity of adaptation. Political actors have remained the same but with different political labels, and election reform has not changed a multiparty parliamentary system. To use the idea of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, in the 90's political parties have totally changed in appearance but have remained the same in the background. However if one takes Sartori view, some criteria of "multi-party polarilized" are no more respected. For example, former anti-system parties in Italy have disappeared. [...]

[...] I will try to show that despite these changes, the party system has not really been modified. According to Sartori , the Italian model that was adopted until the 90's can be understood as a « polarilized pluralism » . Indeed there were anti-system parties (the Italian Communist Party –PCI- and the Italian Social Movement-MSI-), a high number of parties and an ideological distance between these parties on a spectrum, and finally the occupation of the metric centre by one party (Christian Democracy –DC-). [...]

[...] Thus almost all parties have been remodelled. But these modifications cannot be considered as profound changes. Firstly, most « new parties » came from the divisions or formations of former parties. Consequently, the political class and ideas were not really renewed. For example, extreme right-wing parties have tried to reduce their “pro-Mussolini” image, but nevertheless there were still fascist sympathizers. Secondly the few new political actors, such as Forcia Italia which is headed by Silvio Berlusconi, have just regained some of the political and electoral areas they previously had (in the case of FI it was the center) . [...]

[...] Since the 90's Italy has been divided in three parts: the North, the South and the Centre. However, it does not really change the functioning of the parties. It reflects only the social conflicts in the society (such as regional claims). Another way to examine the health of political parties is to look at the volatility of the electorate. Since 1945 Italian voters were reluctant to be disciplined in their votes. In the early 90's, there was a significant increase in volatility showing a problem in the system. [...]