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1 VERY FIRST DRAFT: PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE Political or economic crisis: quid prius? Continuity and change in the Italian party system and party organizations Eugenio Pizzimenti (Univerity of Pisa), Luciano Bardi (Univerity of Pisa) Abstract In November 2011 the Italian government lead by a centre-right majority resigned, opening the door to a new technical executive headed by the economist Mario Monti. The collapse of the IV Berlusconi s government was the result of a mix of both endogenous and exogenous pressures. On the internal side, the overwhelming parliamentary majority won in 2008 by PDL, LN and MPA had lost a significant portion of MPs; in addition, an impressive number of judicial and personal scandals involved the Prime Minister and relevant personalities who were close to his party and its allies. Exogenous pressures came mainly from EU institutions and were centred on the alarming conditions of the Italian public finance: the European Commission and the ECB showed an uncommon attitude to intervene in the Italian affairs, by explicitly providing the guidelines for an immediate financial recovery. More than one year later and after the general elections held on February 2013, the Italian political scenario shows both patterns of changes and continuity. The aim of this paper is to analyse macro-variations in the Italian party system through a diachronic analysis of the results of 2006, 2008 and 2013 general elections. In addition, what we seek to verify empirically is whether parties have modified, in time, their organizational profile, in line with changes in the party system. * The paper relies on concepts, data and methods presented in Pizzimenti, Ignazi 2011; Calossi, Pizzimenti 2012; Ignazi, Pizzimenti (forthcoming) 1

2 Section 1 Electoral results and party system evolution in times of crisis ( ) 1.1 From the end of the II Prodi s government to the electoral triumph of the centre-right In April 2008 a centre-right coalition formed by Popolo della Libertà (PdL) the brand new party founded by Silvio Berlusconi and Gianfranco Fini, after the merge between Forza Italia and Alleanza Nazionale Lega Nord (LN) and Movimento per l Autonomia (MpA) won the national elections, held after the premature ending of the XVI Legislature. The two months of electoral campaigning which followed the resignation of the II Romano Prodi s government (in charge from May 2006 to January 2008) opened a process of political realignment, which seems to last to present days. New political parties entered the scene, while established ones merged or disappeared. TAB. 1 Electoral results : principal coalitions and lists 2006 ELECTIONS Principal Coalitions Parties Votes % Seats L Ulivo , Rifondazione Comunista ,84 41 La Rosa nel Pugno ,60 18 Comunisti Italiani ,32 16 Italia dei Valori ,30 16 Federazione dei Verdi ,06 15 Centre-left UDEUR ,40 10 Partito Pensionati ,87 - SVP ,48 4 I Socialisti ,30 - Lista Consumatori ,19 - Alleanza Lombarda ,12 - Liga Fronte Veneto ,06 - Total , Forza Italia , Alleanza Nazionale ,34 71 Unione di Centro ,76 39 Lega Nord ,58 26 De. Crist. Nuovo PSI ,75 4 Alternativa Sociale ,67 - Centre-right Fiamma Tricolore ,60 - No Euro ,15 - Pensionati Uniti ,07 - Ambienta-Lista ,04 - PLI ,03 - S.O.S. Italia ,02 - Total , ELECTIONS Principal Coalitions Parties Votes % Seats Popolo della Libertà , Centre-right Lega Nord ,30 60 Movimento per l Autonomia ,13 8 Total , Partito Democratico , Centre-left Italia dei Valori ,37 28 Total , The above mentioned PdL was Berlusconi s response to the challenge represented by the foundation (in Autumn 2007) of the Partito Democratico (PD), the party which had finally gathered the post-communist and post Christian-democratic traditions, after the positive electoral performance of the unitary list Uniti nell Ulivo, in Both the PdL and the PD embodied the ambitions of their political leadership (or, at least, of party dominant factions) of transforming the peculiar Italian bipolar party system based on opposing coalitions in a more defined bi-party system. However, as the tensions between the Secretariat of the PD and its political allies in supporting the government lead by Romano Prodi made it suddenly clear, this vocation toward a two-party system would have brought to backlashes on inter-party (as well as on intra-party) relations, either in the centre-left and in the centre-right field. Unsurprisingly, then, in view of the 2

3 2008 April elections, significant changes in the strategies of coalition-building occurred, if compared to Albeit an identical electoral system which incentivizes coalitional inclusiveness as it grants to the nationwide winning coalition a majority bonus in the Lower Chamber in 2008 on the left side of the political spectrum a two-party coalition formed by PD and Italia dei Valori (IdV) replaced the over-sized L Unione alliance (13 parties), which had won the ballots two years before but had proved too politically weak once entered the government 1. Rifondazione Comunista, Comunisti Italiani and Verdi (that were part of the 2006 coalition) merged into an electoral cartel named La Sinistra l Arcobaleno, which did not join any broader coalition; other minor formations disappeared (UDEUR) or ran by their own (the SVP). The same occurred in the centre-right camp. If in 2006 the coalition was formed by 12 parties, in 2008 only PdL, LN and MpA ran jointly: the most significant loss in terms of votes was represented by the centrist Unione di Centro (UDC), which had been part of the coalition for 13 years since 1994 (Tab. 1). TAB. 2 Vote concentration on the principal coalitions ( ) Elections A 1 B 2 C 3 D (A+B) D (A-B) ,81 (Centre-left) 49,74 (Centre-right) 0,45 99,55 0, ,81 (Centre-right) 37,55 (Centre-left) 15,64 84,36 9,26 1 % of votes cast by the winning coalition; 2 % of votes cast by the main opposition coalition; 3 % of votes cast by other coalitions/lists. As data show, in 2008 the gap between the centre-right and its strongest political opponent in terms of electoral percentages was conspicuous (+ 9,3%), especially if compared to the almost imperceptible margin registered in 2006 (+ 0,07% in favour of the centre-left). The Italian bipolar system founded on opposing coalitions resulted weakened. While in 2006 the Italian voters had almost completely concentrated their preferences on the two biggest (and politically heterogeneous) electoral cartels (99,55%), two years later both of them suffered electoral losses, in particular the centre-left camp (Tab. 2). In 2008 the PdL was the most voted party: it casted a better electoral percentage than those of FI and AN in 2006 (37,4 % vs 36,1%), albeit a reduction in the absolute number of votes ( ). It is interesting to note that also the PD obtained a higher electoral consensus than its 2006 direct predecessor (L Ulivo): however, it must be considered that in 2008 also the representatives of the RNP ran within the list of the PD, as a consequence of an electoral agreement that did not contemplate any subsequent organizational nor parliamentary merge. 1 It must be considered, however, that the electoral system for the Senate grants majority bonus on regional basis: in purely numerical terms, in 2006 the centre-left coalition could count on a single senator more than the centre-right, a situation that hindered the law-making process. 3

4 TAB. 3 Vote concentration on the major parties ( ) Year Party N votes % 2008 PD , L'Ulivo + RnP , , IdV , IdV , , SEL , RC+PdCI-Fed. Verdi , , UDC , UDC , , PdL , FI+AN , , LN , LN , ,72 By comparing 2006 and 2008 electoral results it seems reasonable to argue that the efforts to lay the foundations of a two-party system made by the PdL and the PD have been only partially rewarded. It is more plausible to sustain that the institutionalized logic of a bipolar dynamic based on opposing coalitions induced the Italian voters to punish those formations previously part of the alliances and no more included in the two major alliances. In fact, while both the coalitional partners of the PdL and the PD the LN and the IdV respectively almost doubled their electoral performance compared to 2006, the solitary choice of the so called radical leftist parties heavily penalized their electoral cartel, which lost more than 2,7 millions of votes; similarly, also the UDC paid a cost in pursuing its centrist alternative in 2008 (Tab. 3). Those millions of valid votes that, in 2008, were directed to none of the two major coalitions were dispersed among 25 electoral lists: however, as a consequence of the 4% threshold set by the electoral system, only one of them (the post Christian-democrats UDC) obtained parliamentary representation (Tab. 4) 2. In 2006 list fragmentation was higher as well as the number of parties which obtained seats albeit they did not pass the 4% threshold. In fact, the electoral system grants seats also to those parties that reach 2% of votes nationwide and which are part of a coalition that gains at least 10% of votes: in addition, also the s.c. best loser (a party that obtains less than 2%) of such a coalition enters the Parliament. Elections N of Lists (Tot) TAB. 4 List fragmentation ( ) Lists part of the Lists winning 2 Lists > 4% seats biggest winning seats (Tot) coalitions Lists < 4% winning seats Consider also that the Italian Constitution grants parliamentary seats to those parties which represent the recognized ethnic minorities. In 2006 the SVP the party representing the German-speaking community of the Alto Adige province ran within the centre-left coalition. 4

5 By comparing the two elections, then, it is interesting to note that intra-coalitional fragmentation reduced to 1/5 in 2008: this turn into a halving in the total number of lists which obtained parliamentary representation (from 13 to 7) and to a drastic reduction (from 7 to 2) of the smallest formations. As a consequence of this overall re-alignment, in 2008 the two biggest alliances summed up to 579 parliamentary seats out of 617, while in 2006 they won the 100% of seats 3 (Tab. 5). Variance in seats between the winning coalition and the main opposition coalition increased of 37,7% (from ). TAB. 5 - Distribution of parliamentary seats ( ) Elections A 1 B 2 C 3 D (A+B) E (A-B) (Centre-left) 277 (Centre-right) (Centre-right) 239 (Centre-left) N of seats won by the winning coalition; 2 N of seats won by the main opposition coalition; 3 N of seats won by other coalitions/lists. 1.2 The political crisis of the majority: the worsening of the Italian economy and the technical government ( ) The overwhelming parliamentary majority won by the centre-right coalition in 2008 looked monolithic only at the first glance. The organizational convergence of FI and AN proved more complicated than it was expected to be by their leaderships. Internal conflicts arose concerning the agreement on the quota of their respective representatives within the new party organs reproducing the electoral strength of FI (70%) and AN (30%) and intertwined with the judicial scandals surrounding Silvio Berlusconi and an increasing number of members of the party staff. In addition, the mounting disputes on the levels of intra-party democracy between Berlusconi and Gianfranco Fini, the co-founder of the PdL (at the time President of the Chamber of Deputies), brought to a deep leadership crisis which lasted until Fini abandoned the party in September 2010, to adhere to the new political actor Futuro e Libertà (FLI). Notwithstanding its organizational tumultuousness, the PdL reaffirmed as the strongest Italian party in the 2010 Regional Elections: the governmental majority seemed even reinforced after the electoral success of the LN in the Northern Regions (Passarelli, Tuorto 2012), although this unexpected result would have lead to new intra-coalitional equilibrium. Outside the centre-right camp, either the centrist party UDC and the centre-leftist parties were still suffering for the lack of any clear political strategy to contrast the governmental majority. The new leadership of the PD under the secretary of Pierluigi Bersani was working to broaden the 2008 coalition to Sinistra Ecologia e Libertà (SEL), the leftist party born in December 2009 and centred on the figure of Nichi Vendola (the regional governor of Apulia). However, harsh intraparty disputes immediately arose over the supposed slip to the left of the PD, which was considered a ruinous strategy by both pro-centrist and pro-self sufficiency party fractions. In particular, the alliance with the IdV was progressively called into question as a consequence of the criticisms that Antonio Di Pietro (the leader of that party) addressed to the President of the Republic and because of the proximity of the IdV to the extreme positions of the Movimento 5 Stelle, the movement lead by the comic actor Beppe Grillo, at the time still in its infancy. Failing any plausible governmental alternative and notwithstanding the relevant parliamentary split suffered by the PdL in July 2010 (33 members left the group), the government was able to survive to a crucial (and contested) vote of confidence in December 2010 promoted by FLI, UDC, ApL, LibDEM, MpA (allied to the PdL in 2008) and supported by PD and IdV which would have brought to its subsequent compulsory resignation. In the eyes of Berlusconi s coalition, however, the internal political challenges were not as worrying as pressures coming from Brussels were. The increasing and apparently relentless worsening of the Italian economy was considered a primary concern by the EU institutions. Italy, 3 Here we do not include the seats apportioned to the Valle d Aosta region and the electoral districts abroad. 5

6 like most of the Western economies, had been heavily hit by the dramatic crisis suffered by the world economy since mid-2008, which had suddenly turned into recession at the beginning of The crisis arose from financial markets and soon affected the real economy of UEM 17 area, as well as the US and emerging countries. Within this general framework, the Italian economy was among one of the most affected, in Europe. As reported by the OECD 4 : The global crisis has highlighted Italy s long-standing weaknesses. Its economy is currently suffering from a combination of intertwined difficulties that are fuelling each other: a poor underlying growth rate, high public debt, and limited lending power of its financial institutions. [ ] The GDP rate rapidly halved with respect to data registered in : by observing comparatively to the other 3 biggest UEM economies the dynamics of three basic indexes of the Italian economy during the analysed period, it is possible to frame how serious the situation had become in a few years (Tab. 6). TAB. 6 The dynamics of Italian economy ( ) Country Germany France Index GDP rate 1,0-4,7 4,2 Unemployment rate 7,5 7,8 7,1 Consumer price 2,8 0,2 1,2 GDP rate 0,2-2,6 1,7 Unemployment rate 7,8 9,5 9,7 Consumer price 3,2 0,1 1,7 GDP rate -1,3-5,2 1,7 Italy Unemployment rate 6,7 7,8 8,4 Consumer price 3,5 0,7 1,6 GDP rate 0,9-3,7-0,3 Spain Unemployment rate 11,3 18,0 20,1 Consumer price 4,1-0,2 2,0 Source: ISTAT 2011; 2013 As far as the crisis affected public finance and national debts during , the EU institutions fastened their pressing on the Italian government to adopt severe measures for deficit containing (in 2010, 119% with respect to the GDP) and economic restructuring. At the beginning of August 2011, the ECB sent a strictly confidential letter to the Italian government in order to set the general guidelines that the Executive was expected to promote in the following months to face State financial crisis 5. In spite of the reassurances and formal commitments of the government in a letter directed to the Presidents of the EU Council and the EU Commission (October 2011), Berlusconi illustrated whether the economic policies already adopted were bringing Italy out of recession, while new measures would have guaranteed the public balance breakeven in the variance between the Italian Btp and the German Bund government bonds (the s.c. spread ) reached the quota of 575, as a consequence of Standard and Poor s decision to downgrade the Italian credit rating. The subsequent fall down of the Milan stock exchange and the contextual dramatic increase of the interest rates on the public debt brought, on November the 12 th, Berlusconi to resign as Prime Minister. The very next day, President Giorgio Napolitano assigned to the economist and former EU Commissioner Mario Monti (recently nominated senator for life), the 4 See OECD (2012), Italy. Reviving growth and productivity, p. 6. Available at 5 The letter was published by the Italian news papers at the end of September. 6 To consult the full text of the letter, in Italian, see: 6

7 mandate to form a technical government i.e. an Executive of policy experts, academics and recognized personalities. Rather than political domestic challenges, then, the end of the IV Berlusconi s government seems more likely to be explained by external factors, namely the effects of the financial crisis on the Italian economy and the coercive pressures coming from the EU institutions. Even before facing the economic emergency, the primary goal of the technical government was to recover Italian international credibility, which had been supposedly undermined by the figure of Silvio Berlusconi and the politico-economic failure of his governmental action. During the very first months of its mandate, the technical government decidedly addressed financial and economic matters. In December 2011 a 30 Billions manoeuvre was approved as well as the constitutionalisation of the balance breakeven as a fundamental principle of the State. Contemporarily, at the EU level, Monti re-affirmed the historical Italian pro-europeanism, partially faded during the years of the centre-right government and the deterioration of the relationships with Germany and France. At the beginning of 2012, the popularity of the new Italian Prime Minister was at the top, both at domestic and international level 7. In the opinion of many observers, the technicians most of whom were admittedly scarcely interested in a future as politicians would have been able to adopt unpopular measures with the hidden complicity of the political parties. Monti s government was supported by a strange majority formed by PdL, PD, UDC, FLI and other minor parliamentary groups. The LN decided to oppose to the new Executive, in this joining the IdV and the SVP. However, in a few months, the honey moon 8 between the technical government and the Italians came to an end. The prospected reform of the market labour, the controversies emerged over the pension policy and the new financial crisis of the Italian public debt in August the spread rate was at the same levels as in November 2011 intertwined with the getting closer of the end of the Legislature. In view of the 2013 national elections, the PdL opened a political crisis that lead to Monti s resignation, on December 21 st. 1.3 The 2013 elections: no winners, many losers The elections of the XVII Republican Legislature took place on February the 24 th -25 th The electoral supply was noticeably renewed compared to The well-established bipolar scheme based on two main opposing coalitions was challenged by the presence of at least two other political actors (the M5S and Scelta Civica), which were potentially able to draw votes from both the centreright and the centre-left alliances. In particular, political observers were interested in the performance of the M5S, the heterogeneous and heterodox movement founded and (charismatically) leaded by the comic actor Beppe Grillo (Corbetta, Gualmini 2013). In fact, the M5S that presented itself not in terms of a traditional party 9 had carried out an anti- party and rather innovative electoral campaigning 10, based on Grillo s successful (and evocative) Tsunami Tour, city by city, from the North to the South of the country. Scelta Civica (SC) was the centrist party founded by Mario Monti, whose primary goal was to proceed along the pathway traced by the technical government: SC was allied with UDC and FLI, within an electoral cartel which was expected to become, in time, a new political party. Also the two major coalitions showed innovative aspects in their respective format. The centreleft alliance which was considered by almost all the pre-electoral polls the winner in pectore 7 As an example, the prestigious magazine Time, in February, dedicated its cover to Mario Monti with the telling title Can This Man Save Europe?. 8 That of the honey moon was a recurrent image in the Italian press of the period. 9 The art. 1 of its Non-Statute states that: The Movimento 5 Stelle is a non-association. It represents a platform and a vehicle for confronting and consulting and originates from the blog MoVimento5stelle@beppegrillo.it. 10 Neither the leader nor the candidates of the M5S participated to television debates, by breaking the consolidated habits of the Italian electoral campaigning since Berlusconi entered politics in The campaigning of the M5S was based on either a vis-à-vis strategy centred on Beppe Grillo s charisma in public meetings and the role of the internet blog. 7

8 included PD, SEL, SVP and the Centro Democratico (CD). The coalition candidate to the premiership, the leader of the PD, Bersani, had been chosen through highly participated primary elections, after an intra-party struggle against the young mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi 11. The former partner IdV joined the leftist coalition Rivoluzione Civile, together with PRC, PdCI, Verdi and other minor formations. The centre-right coalition still supporting the candidacy of Berlusconi as Prime Minister, in spite of the results presented by most political analysts, who had been predicting the electoral decline of the 76 years old tycoon was centred on the established PdL-LN axis, although, although the internal split suffered by his PdL (and the foundation of Fratelli d Italia) and the LN intra-party crisis which had brought to the end of the 20 years-undisputed leadership of Umberto Bossi and to the election of Roberto Maroni as party secretary. The coalition was also formed by minor formations, included the neo-fascist La Destra. TAB. 7 Electoral results 2013: principal coalitions and lists 2013 ELECTIONS Principal Coalitions Parties Votes % Seats Partito Democratico , Sinistra Ecologia e Libertà ,20 37 Centre-left Centro Democratico ,49 6 SVP ,43 5 Total , Popolo della Libertà ,56 97 Lega Nord ,08 18 Fratelli d Italia ,95 9 La Destra ,64 - Centre-right Grande Sud-MPA ,43 - Moderati in Rivoluzione ,24 - Partito Pensionati ,16 - Intesa Popolare ,07 - Liberi per un Italia equa ,00 - Total , M5S Movimento 5 Stelle , Total , Scelta Civica-Con Monti per l Italia ,30 37 Unione di Centro ,78 8 Futuro e Libertà ,56 - Total ,56 45 The 2013 electoral results (Tab. 7) reproduced a situation similar but only in part to The majority bonus set for the Chamber of Deputies was awarded by the centre-left coalition, with a minimum variance of 0,37% compared to the centre-right; however, while in 2006 the bipolar dynamic was evident, in 2013 the unexpected success of the M5S the Italian most voted party (25,55%) altered significantly the format of the party system. In addition, albeit its deluding performance, the coalition supporting Mario Monti raised more than 10%, contributing to weaken the established two-coalition system. The concentration of votes on the two principal coalitions decreased dramatically (-25,62%), compared to 2008 (Tab. 8). As already mentioned, this result was due primarily to the electoral performances of M5S and SC, while the other competing coalitions/lists obtained only 5,16%. TAB. 8 Vote concentration on the principal coalitions ( ) Elections A 1 B 2 C 3 D (A+B) D (A-B) ,81 (Centre-right) 37,55 (Centre-left) 15,64 84,36 9, ,55 (Centre-left) 29,18 (Centre-right) 41,27 58,73 0,37 1 % of votes cast by the winning coalition; 2 % of votes cast by the main opposition coalition; 3 % of votes cast by other coalitions/lists. 11 The candidates to the premiership were: Bersani (PD), Renzi (PD), Vendola (SEL), Puppato (PD), Tabacci (CD). The total number of voters at the first ballot was In the second round (bersani vs Renzi) voters decreased to and Bersani won the election with 60,9%. 8

9 All the established parties suffered significant losses in terms of votes and electoral percentages (Tab. 9). In particular, the PdL-LN axis lost more than 8 millions votes; the UDC paid the choice of running with its own list in coalition with SC, thus reducing its electorate of 75%; the PD was not able to confirm its 2008 result, losing more than 3 Mln votes. The 2013 elections set forth the relentless electoral decline of leftist parties: SEL obtained a result well below the expectations of its national leadership (3,2%); the performance of the electoral cartel Rivoluzione Civile was even worse (2,25%). TAB. 9 Votes obtained by the established parties ( ) Year Party N votes % 2013 PD , PD , , PdL , PdL , , LN , LN , , UDC , UDC , ,84 The total number of lists increased (+17) as well as the coalitional inclusiveness of the two major alliances (+2 for the centre-left, +6 for the centre right compared to 2008): as a consequence, the total number of lists that won parliamentary seats passed from 7 to 10, in particular those with an electoral percentage < 4% (Tab. 10). Elections N of Lists (Tot) TAB. 10 List fragmentation ( ) Lists part of the Lists winning Lists > 4% 2 seats winning seats biggest (Tot) (Tot) coalitions Lists < 4% winning seats (Tot) The electoral system granted to the winning centre-left coalition the 340 seats majority in the Chamber of Deputies: in addition, the electoral hemorrhage suffered by the centre-right widened the seat variance between majority and opposition and the overall concentration decreased (-115). Of the 153 seats won by other lists, 108 were assigned to M5S and 45 to SC and UDC (Tab. 11). TAB. 11 Distribution of parliamentary seats ( ) Elections A 1 B 2 C 3 D (A+B) E (A-B) (Centre-right) 239 (Centre-left) (Centre-left) 124 (Centre-right) N of seats won by the winning coalition; 2 N of seats won by the main opposition coalition; 3 N of seats won by other coalitions/lists. 9

10 Section 2: party organizational change 2.1 Purpose and method This section deals with the distribution of power within the organizations of the Italian parties (Bardi et al. 2007; Ignazi et al. 2010). The Italian case is particularly interesting as the Italian party system has been continuously reshuffled since None of those parties (but the Northern League) which had a parliamentary representation in 1992 election survived in the following 1994 turnout, when new political actors entered the electoral arena. More interestingly, none of the latter (but the Northern League) is currently on the scene. What we seek to verify empirically, then, is whether party organizational profiles have been changing as far as the Italia party system has shown high levels of fluidity; or, on the contrary, whether organizational concerns have followed established patterns. In particular, we are interested in determining to what extent party national structures are still in control of as it occurred in the past (Bardi, Morlino 1994) key organizational functions; or, in time, the organizational power has significantly or, at least, partially shifted to the sub-national levels, thus confirming a general tendency observed by recent literature on party organization (Bardi et al. 2007). We focus on 2 crucial dimensions: organizational profile and selection procedures. For each dimension we analyze 3 variables (see Appendix, Fig. 1). We compare party organizations through a specific coding scheme, drawn primarily on Harmel et al. Party Change Project (Harmel et al. 2004; Thorlakson 2009; Fabre 2010; Pizzimenti, Ignazi 2011). For each variable parties receive a score between 1 and 5 (see Table 1). The values reflect different levels of party national structures control over party organizational functions: the lowest level of control is scored 1, while the highest receives 5. We would point out that the values assigned to each modality are ordinal, not real numbers. Even if we can order them from lowest to highest, the spacing between the values may not be the same across the levels of the variables (King, Kehoane, Verba 1994). In this sense neither arithmetic nor statistics computations fit with this kind of operationalization. Therefore no statistical analysis will be presented. In the following paragraphs we proceed to a diachronic analysis variable by variable. We will proceed to a cross-comparison of the statutes and regulations adopted by 6 parties: PDS/DS; PPI/DL; PD; AN; FI; PdL. The research covers the 18 years of s.c. Italian Second Republic ( ). This time-period will consent to trace patterns of continuity and change in the organizational profile of PD and PdL with regard to their respective founders (PDS/DS-PPI/DL and FI-AN). We will focus on the official story of the analysed parties: as Katz and Mair (1992) maintained, party statutes reflect the formal organizational structures and rules as well as the «internal conceptions of organizational power, authority and legitimacy» (p. 7). Although we recognize that the real story of parties develops primarily outside the formalised settings, from a comparative perspective we consider party statutes a valuable source of information about the ways different parties conceive and regulate the distribution of powers among their different faces (Smith, Gauja 2010). 2.2 Organizational Autonomy (ORGAUT) The variable ORGAUT aims at observing the degree of autonomy of sub-national party units in self-regulating their structure and activities. Figure 2 shows the values assigned to the analysed parties (see Appendix). Over time, the PDS-DS shows an increase in the ORGAUT of the subnational level. While in its first statute the organizational structuring of sub-national party branches is regulated in great detail by the national centre 12, after the party modifies further and take the name of DS (Baccetti 1997) this high level of control declines. The organizational setting relies on a 12 Displaying in this top-down format the legacy of the communist organizational tradition, as the PDS born after the transformation of the Italian Communist Party (Ignazi 1992). However, art. 14 bestowed to Regional Unions the right to submit to the National Executive a different territorial articulation. 10

11 federal network whose fundamental junction 13 are represented by the Regional Unions, which have the power to define (according to the national guidelines) the organization of the party at the sub-national level. Both the PPI (the heir of the former Christian Democrats) and its later organizational evolution, DL, present a lower variance around the intermediate value of 3, as the national statutory framework set the guidelines for the regional charts. The art. 2 of the statutes of DL maintains that «DL is a national party organized in federal form on a regional territorial basis»: the Federal Committee (a national party organ) is entitled to verify the conformity of regional statutes with the national norms. In 2007, the DS and the DL merge into a new party, the PD, which aspires to represent a brand new political actor on the Italian scene, not only in political-ideological terms but also in organizational terms. The claimed federal structure of the party is only partially reflected in the organizational autonomy granted to regional and provincial units, because the national rules set that the regional statutes must include specific organs (i.e., a secretary, an assembly, a probing commission); in addition, in case of statutory disputes between the national and the regional level, the centre wields the power to reject the lower level position. On the right side of the political spectrum, both AN and FI are clearly characterized by a topdown approach in regulating their sub-national articulation. AN, the post-fascist party born in , shows a vertical organizational profile in line with its predecessor, the MSI. The organizational autonomy left to sub-national branches is very limited: the statutes regulate in detail the articulation, the composition and the functioning of regional and local organs. The case of FI has been widely analysed 15, as the party founded and dominated by Silvio Berlusconi represents a clear breaking point in both ideological and organizational terms with the Italian mass parties (re)born after World War II. Berlusconi s undisputed control over the party, based on a plebiscitary legitimacy, constitutes a unique feature on the Italian party scene. The very first statute of FI was little more than a notary deed. Art. 11 maintains that the national organization of the movement could structure its articulation on regional basis, without further indication. No sub-national articulation had yet been implemented until the organizational consolidation of the party, in the second half of the Nineties: unsurprisingly, in line with its personalized and top-down imprinting, the following statutes discipline in great detail the sub-national articulation. The launch of the PDL (a merge of FI and AN) was announced by Silvio Berlusconi in autumn 2007, but was completed only in March However, the two parties competed together under the label of the PDL in the 2008 general elections 16. The organizational legacies of the two founding parties emerge in the PDL profile: in fact, similarly to FI and AN, the PDL statutes define in great detail the articulation of sub-national branches from regional to city levels. 2.3 Members recruitment (REGPRO) The variable REGPRO is intended to observe the degree of autonomy left to sub-national party units in managing the procedures for members recruitment (see Appendix, Fig. 3). The 1991 national statute of the PDS provides the general guidelines to be followed by the aspiring members, whose registration form has to be presented at the local level. This provision is temporarily amended in the following statute as regional statutes are entitled to regulate this activity but it is re-introduced in the national statutes of the DS. Also in the case of the PPI-DL the autonomy of the sub-national units in regulating the registration procedures is limited by the guidelines set at the national level, as the centre keeps an eye on the procedures at the local level. The PD let to its sub- 13 See Statuto dei Democratici di Sinistra (2000), artt. 6-8; and Democratici di Sinistra Le regole (2005), artt See Ignazi 1994,1998; Tarchi See Hopkin, Paolucci 1999; Poli 2001; Paolucci When FI and AN finally merged they reached an agreement on the respective quota of their representatives in the party organs reproducing the respective electoral force : 70% for FI and 30% for AN. When at the end of 2010 a rift occurred between the two leaders (Silvio Berlusconi and Gianfranco Fini) and the latter abandoned the party, the PDL suffered a relevant parliamentary split which weakened the whole party organization. 11

12 national branches the main responsibilities in organizing and managing the membership campaigns: the lists of members are maintained at the sub-national level. In contrast with its top-down approach in regulating the sub-national articulation of the party, in AN the party on the ground is the face mainly involved in the membership campaigns, as aspiring members must apply to the territorial (municipal and provincial) party branches. Conversely, the predominance of the national structures which characterizes FI affects also the procedures for the registration of party members: the aspiring members have to send their registration form and the monetary contribution to the National Membership Bureau (controlled by the National Organizational Responsible), which is also in charge of maintaining the general list of members. The PDL inherits this organizational legacy, as party membership is primarily managed at the national level. In fact, aspiring members have to submit their registration form and a copy of the deposit slip of the paid fee to the national Registration Sector. 2.4 National Executive (NATEXEC) The NATEXEC variable seeks to determine the relative weight of sub-national party representatives in the national executive organ (see Appendix, Fig. 4). In the case of the PDS-DS, if we compare NATEXEC to AUTORG a contrasting pattern emerges between the two variables. In fact, the subnational party units gains more autonomy in periphery, but their representatives in the national executive are under-represented. Differently said, autonomy is paid with less inclusiveness: the higher autonomy conceded to the sub-national level means that the centre does not care so much of the internal life of that party stratum. But this autonomy is granted at the condition that the subnational stratum has less voice in the centre. On the contrary, in the PPI-DL one can observe a sizeable involvement of sub-national party officers in the party top executive organ, provided with voting right: this applies also for the PD, since the National Executive is integrated by all Regional Secretaries and a variable quota of public officers elected in sub-national institutions. A clearly national-centred approach characterizes the composition of AN party executive organ, which does not include any representative of the sub-national units. Regional officers could participate, ex officio, in the national executive, but they only wield freedom of speech, not of voting. On the contrary, with regards to this variable FI shows patterns of lower centralization. However these values should be looked at cum grano salis: although regional coordinators are present at the national level, these sub-national representatives are all directly nominated by the party leader. More controversial is instead to determine precisely which is the most relevant executive organ of the PDL, due to the political and statutory powers exerted by the National President (still, Silvio Berlusconi). In the first statute the Coordinators Committee could perhaps be considered the right-hand organ of the President, but in the following statute its role is limited by the presence of the National Secretary. We decide then to focus on the assisting organ of the President, the Presidency Bureau, within which neither delegates nor officers from the sub-national level are present ex officio. 2.5 National Leader selection (NATLEAD) NATLEAD is the first variable concerning the inner procedures of selection, in particular those related to the selection of the National Party Leader: also in this case the focus rests on the inclusiveness of the procedures, because the higher the number of sub-national party officers/delegates represented in the nomination body, the more open the selection process. As Fig. 5 (see Appendix) shows, most statutes are coded 2, with the relevant exceptions of the DS and the PD. While the nomination process of the National Secretary of the PDS is moderately centralized in the first years, starting from 2000 the leader s election is conferred directly to the membership through primaries. For the first time in Italian party politics, the principle of delegatory democracy is abandoned. In this way the intra-party power of the sub-national unit has withered away in favour of the membership. The openness in terms of members involvement is counterbalanced by the marginalization of the intermediate collective organ. Thus, following Katz 12

13 and Mair suggestion, we consider the direct appeal to the membership fostered by the introduction of the primaries a factor increasing the power of the central structures. The role of national party structures remains constant and quite limited in the case of the PPI-DL: the sub-national officers are granted with a sizeable ex officio presence (empowered with voting right) in the national organ in charge of the selection of the national party leader 17. As noticed above, the profile of the PD is closer to that of the DS 18. The reason why the leader selection is scored 5 derives by the logics expressed in art. 1 of the first statute: «The PD is a federal party based on voters and members [ ]». Such reference to voters means that they are entitled to participate either to the elections of the secretary and the collective organs at the national and regional level, and to the nomination of candidates to the main public offices. For what concerns the right-wing parties analysed, NATLEAD represents an exception if compared to most of the other variables. In the statutes of AN the sub-national delegates constitute the absolute majority of the participants (with voting rights) in the assembly which appoints the national leader. A low level of national structures involvement apparently emerges also in the rules set by the statutes of FI. However, as we have already noticed about NATEXEC, given the charismatic nature of the party the leadership election has never been contested: an informal plebiscitary style prevails. Even in the case of the PDL the process for the national leader election in in apparent contrast to the top-down profile of the party. The party leader is elected even by a mere show of hands (art.15) by the congress, formed mainly by sub-national delegates. In this case, however, a plebiscitary tendency prevails as far as Silvio Berlusconi still holds the Presidential office. 2.6 Candidate Selection (CANDSEL) The methods of candidate selection to national elections reflect and affect the power struggle within parties: consequently an analysis of these procedures could raise interesting indications about party s organizational attitudes as well as party s electoral strategies (see Appendix, Fig. 6). With the exception of the 1997 statute, in the PDS-DS CANDSEL involves both the regional and the national level, in so far placing the party in the middle level of national structures involvement. While in the PDS the Regional Directions supervise the process and the National Direction (jointly with the Regional Secretaries) has the right to approve or reject the proposals coming from the subnational level, in DS statutes the National Direction adopts a national regulation to be followed by the regional Selection Committees. The PPI demands to its Regional Directions the task to select the candidates and to form the electoral rolls, which have to be approved by the National Direction. The federal statutes of DL are less clear about this point. The Federal Assembly set the general criteria for the constitution of specific organs entitled to form the electoral lists, at the sub-national level: however, the Federal Direction has the power to evaluate the reputation and the political affordability of the candidates 19. In the case of the PD, although CANDSEL involves the subnational party level, a relevant number of candidates are proposed by the National Secretary: candidacies are adopted, for each region, by the Regional Secretary, in accordance with an ad hoc national organ The case of the DL is peculiar, as the statute set a minimum threshold (30%) to be reserved to candidates and elected personnel, at any electoral level, in the Federal Congress. 18 The process for the selection of the national leader is quite complicated, as it develops in two different stages. During the first one, party members vote for provincial delegates associated to each candidate to the National Secretariat: the elected delegates entered Provincial Conventions, where the lists of candidates to the National Convention are presented and voted. The National Convention is formed by1000 provincial delegates and a limited number of ex officio party officers. The Convention determines the number of the eligible candidates (max 3) to the post of National Secretary and their lists of candidates to the National Assembly. Finally, during the second stage, party members and registered voters vote for the National Secretary and his/her associated list(s). 19 See the statutes of DL (2002, 2004, 2006), art. 27, par The electoral lists are integrated with candidates nominated at the sub-national level and approved by the National Conference. In view of the 2013 elections, as far as criticisms towards the PR closed lists electoral system reached the 13

14 On the whole, the right-wing parties show a more national level-centered profile in the process of candidate selection. In AN the Regional Directions are primarily responsible to draw up the electoral rolls: however their proposals must be approved by the National Direction. Also in FI CANDSEL is primarily coordinated at the national level by the Presidency Committee, the highest executive organ of the party. However, Regional Coordinators have to be consulted before the final electoral rolls are defined. In the case of the PDL the process is mainly coordinated by the National President. He/she has the power to choose nominees to both the national parliament and the European parliament, accordingly with the Presidency Office: in the first statute, candidacies are formalized by the National Coordinators (nominated by the President), while in the second statute this task is attributed to the National Secretary (the new monocratic organ introduced: also the Secretary is nominated by the President). 2.7 Regional Leader selection (REGLEAD) The third variable of the second dimension concerns the degree of autonomy of sub-national party units in selecting the regional party leader. In this respect, a highly centralized party organization would consent to the national level to intervene directly in the nomination process: on the contrary, if the sub-national level is free to manage this task, centralization is limited. As Fig. 7 shows (see Appendix), clear differences emerge between left-wing and right-wing parties in the values registered for this variable. In the PDS-DS the procedures for REGLEAD follows patterns of decentralisation. While the 1991 statute regulates specific aspects of the procedure and the National Direction is empowered with the possibility to propose its own candidates, the following statute establishes that the Regional Secretary are elected by the Regional Congress. The DS accords to the regional level full statutory autonomy. No significant variance between the statutes of PPI and DL is associated to this variable: in almost all cases 21 the score assigned is 2, which stands for a situation where a sub-national party organ (the Regional Assembly) is in charge of selecting the regional leader, within the general framework of regulations and procedures set at the national level. In the PD the selection of the sub-national party leaders could be open to members as well as to voters. It could because this decision is left in the hands of the regional assembly. In this case the local organ enjoys real autonomy of decision 22. Therefore, we rather valued the autonomy element in spite of the plebiscitary option included in the statue. In AN the traditional nomination by the national party leader has been relaxed and replaced by a bottom-up approach, centred on the regional assembly (composed mainly by delegates and ex officio representatives of the sub-regional levels, integrated with the national and European MPs elected in the respective regions). On the contrary, the vertical approach adopted by FI for the appointment of the Regional Coordinators is clear in that they are directly nominated by the National President. In line with FI and the first statute of AN, in the case of the PDL the selection of sub-national leaders is demanded directly to the National President, in accordance with the Presidency Bureau. Conclusions The goal of this paper was twofold. On the one hand, we wanted to highlight the main trajectories followed by the Italian party system, with respect to the past three national elections which coincided with the beginning and the worsening of the financial and economic crisis of the country. On the other hand, by comparing the organizational evolution of their co-founders, we analysed the profiles of the PD and the PdL, by focusing on the level of involvement of their national structures in controlling fundamental party functions and activities. peak, the PD introduced open primaries to the selection of 90% of candidates, by granting to the National Direction the remaining 10% of nominees. 21 The national statute of the PPI, in 1999, did not provide any specific indication. 22 Even if the national statute provides the general guidelines about candidacies, electoral procedures, terms of offices, ineligibilities, etc. 14