West European Politics

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Electoral change and its impact on the party

system in Italy

Luciano Bardi

To cite this article: Luciano Bardi (2007) Electoral change and its impact on the party system in
Italy, West European Politics, 30:4, 711-732, DOI: 10.1080/01402380701500256

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West European Politics,
Vol. 30, No. 4, 711 – 732, September 2007

Electoral Change and its Impact on

the Party System in Italy
LUCIANO BARDI

The importance of electoral change as a factor of party system transformation in post-

1992 Italy is evaluated by observing two distinct components of electoral change:
changes in electoral behaviour and changes in the electoral law, and their impact in the
different arenas (electoral, parliamentary, etc.) in which parties compete as individual
independent actors or as components of more or less organic coalitions. The analysis of
numerous party system indicators shows that electoral factors are not only responsible
for most of the changes which occurred in the party system after the effects of
Tangentopoli were exhausted, but also for the creation of a structural divergence
between the electoral and the parliamentary party systems.

Party and party system changes are arguably the most visible manifestations
of the transition between the so-called First and Second Italian Republics.
In the first half of the 1990s, Italy experienced a massive party realignment;
at the same time major changes occurred, at least apparently, in important
structural aspects of the party system. Such transformations were the
consequence of a number of different factors. The exposure of Italy’s wide-
spread system of political corruption, the collapse of international com-
munism, and electoral change were all considered to be relevant by most
commentators and analysts. The first two were produced by coincidental
and to a certain extent incidental events, whose effects were de facto
exhausted by the mid-1990s. The third factor, electoral change, also had
some immediate direct effects, such as causing the near-disappearance of the
Partito Popolare Italiano (PPI) – the direct heir of the once mighty DC –
that permitted observers to appreciate the actual extent of party and party
system change.
Electoral change, however, has also had a more lasting quality, one which
has allowed it to continue to have an impact on a still evolving situation.

Correspondence Address: bardi@sp.unipi.it

ISSN 0140-2382 Print/1743-9655 Online ª 2007 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/01402380701500256
712 L. Bardi

I have discussed elsewhere the more or less enduring relevance of party

system change factors in Italy (Bardi 2006), concluding that only electoral
change appears to have had an ongoing impact over the last 10–12 years.
For this reason alone, we can say that electoral change represents an ideal
focus for an analysis of party and party system change in Italy and of the
overall transition the country’s political system is still undergoing. Therefore
this article will attempt to assess the impact of electoral change on the
Italian party system. As we shall see, this is a rather complex endeavour,
entailing a consideration of the different types of party actors, individual
parties and coalitions that operate in the Italian political system, and of the
different arenas in which such actors compete.

Electoral Change: Arenas, Parties and Coalitions

The study of electoral change in Italy over the course of the last two
decades1 requires the observation of two distinct major components:
changes in electoral behaviour (dealignment) and changes in the electoral
law. Sizeable electoral dealignment in Italy is a relatively recent pheno-
menon, whose beginning barely preceded the huge transformations of
the 1990s. At the same time, the electoral law has undergone two
radical reforms and a few minor adjustments.2 These two aspects are, in a
way, connected, but they are very different in nature and in the type of
effects they produce. Changes in electoral behaviour can certainly
account for the gradual dealignment the Italian party system exhibited
from 1987. But it is only by considering the effects of the new electoral law
that we can understand the massive realignment of the 1990s. This was due,
at least partially, to changes in voters’ electoral preferences, which the new
electoral law undoubtedly enhanced, and, to a much greater extent, by
changes in the range of choices voters were offered by Italy’s political
parties.
These latter changes were at least partially produced by the adjustment of
party strategies to the new electoral law. Besides being itself a factor of party
system transformation, the reform produced changes in election competition
rules. The 1993 electoral law assigned three-quarters of the seats in single-
member plurality districts, the remaining quarter still being decided on the
basis of proportional representation (PR) with a 4 per cent national-level
threshold.3 The prevalence of the plurality principle in the new law induced
parties to form alliances that were progressively transformed into relatively
cohesive and permanent coalitions, in order to obtain the necessary strength
to contest elections nationwide. The subsequent electoral reform of 2005,
although ostensibly marking a return to PR, did not change this state of
affairs. In fact, some authors consider it to be even more majoritarian than
the predominantly plurality law it replaced, as it guarantees the winning
coalition at least a 55 per cent majority of the seats in the Chamber of
Deputies.4 The direction of competition has thus been reversed as a
 Electoral Change and the Party System 713

consequence of these reforms. Electoral competition is now predominantly

centripetal where it used be centrifugal.
Having identified the elements of the chosen independent variables in this
work, it is appropriate to better define the contours of the dependent
variable – party system change. As is well known, the most evident mani-
festation of change was the almost complete disappearance of most pre-1992
parties and their replacement by new actors which were radically different
from their predecessors in both identity and organisation (Morlino and
Tarchi 2006; Bardi et al. 2007). Moreover, the few surviving parties from the
old system all underwent very visible transformations. These changes are
well known and need not be discussed in detail here. Moreover, they
concerned the party system’s basic units and they might not have been
sufficient in themselves to determine significant change in the system’s
structure if we accept Giovanni Sartori’s (1976) view of the relationship
between the system’s format and mechanics, i.e., its properties and
functioning. It is necessary, therefore, to investigate whether the undeniable
changes experienced by Italian parties have also had a structural impact on
the system: in other words, again on the basis of Sartori’s criteria, whether
there have been changes in the number of relevant parties and in the
ideological distance between the two extreme poles in the system.5
Some authors, Peter Mair (1997; 2006) above all, have suggested that this
kind of study has lost some relevance during the current phase of the
development of Western democracies. Party system structural data in fact
do not present sufficient variance to help us understand trends in other
important party system characteristics, such as, for example, the propensity
to favour governmental coalition alternation. Accepting this view would
imply in the Italian case that it is not so important to determine whether
Italy has moved from polarised pluralism, as Sartori’s analysis had shown,
to more moderate party system forms, but rather to establish whether there
have been changes in the functioning (i.e., governmental coalition stability,
opening to new parties, etc.) of the system itself.6 Although I share this view
to an extent (it is certainly valid for comparative analyses such as those
undertaken by Mair), I feel that an in-depth analysis of structural elements
is a necessary pre-requisite for a single-country study7 particularly in view of
the fact, as we shall see, that the current transformation has had diverging
effects in the different arenas (electoral, parliamentary, etc.) in which parties
compete. Parties act in turn, depending on circumstances and arenas, as
individual independent actors or as more or less organic components of
coalitions that in some cases behave as unitary actors. This demands a
distinction between the structures of systems made up of the two different
types of units (single parties and coalitions).
Party coalitions in the current Italian political landscape differ con-
siderably from those of the past. This is due to the direct effects of the new
electoral laws but also to the partially consequent transformation of
Italian parties. Coalitions are now of two different types: electoral and
714 L. Bardi

governmental. Practically all parties now belong to coalitions irrespective of

their being part of the government or of the opposition. As is well known, in
Italy up until 1992 governmental coalitions were formed after elections. The
PR electoral law permitted the existence of up to eight relevant parties
whose contractual power rested on often marginal changes in electoral
strength. Parties whose electoral prospects appeared to be better than those
of their potential partners had no interest in negotiating coalition terms until
after the vote. Coalitions thus responded to the need to create majorities on
the basis of impromptu programmes vaguely reminiscent of the also vague
manifestos of the individual parties involved. Such coalitions disappeared
each time governments, for whatever reasons, where forced to resign, only
to be formed again with similar characteristics several times in the course of
each legislature.
Since 1992, following the first electoral reform, but also in response to
contemporaneous party changes, coalitions have to be formed before
elections. Parties must belong to a coalition in order to be competitive due
to the centripetal character of electoral competition induced by the majori-
tarian logic that inspired the two post-1992 electoral laws. In the past,
negotiations concerned the attribution of positions in the cabinet or in state
agencies or state-owned companies; now they concern parliamentary seats.
These negotiations involve almost all parties, and not only, as in the past,
those that were potentially part of a governmental majority. However, even
if they are formed during the electoral phase of the competition, they also
present themselves as governmental coalitions. The names of the prime-
ministerial candidates and even governmental programmes are immediately
made known. This gives contemporary party coalitions a lasting quality that
makes them permanent actors in Italian party politics.
Two elements, however, seem to indicate that electoral and governmental
coalitions are actually distinct: a) MPs elected under the aegis of coalitions
go on and form separate parliamentary parties right after the elections; and
b) so far, so-called ‘elected’ governments (those of Berlusconi and Prodi)
have not managed to survive a full term and the governments that replaced
them were often supported by other majorities than those produced by the
elections.8 This article will argue that this is due to the fact that what we
have termed a two-level party system is in reality two different party
systems – which we will call electoral and parliamentary – that operate
respectively at election time and during the parliamentary term and as such
respond to different competition rules and logics: predominantly centripetal
for the electoral system, still centrifugal for the parliamentary one. The
sweeping changes that have affected the Italian party system’s basic units
have thus been of two kinds: a) they have concerned the identities of the
parties in the systems, with the disappearance or radical transformation of
most pre-1992 parties; and b) they have resulted in the creation of a new
type of party actor with the creation of electoral – with a view to becoming
governmental – coalitions.
 Electoral Change and the Party System 715

Electoral Change in Italy: First Came Dealignment

Pre-1992 electoral trends reveal that Italy experienced considerable electoral
stability for the first 30 years of its post-war history, revealed by rather
constant and high levels of electoral turnout coupled with volatility values
within or below the norm.9 Moreover, of the two major parties, the DC main-
tained rather constant levels of electoral support (often around 38/39 per
cent) and the PCI exhibited a steady but slow growing trend (see Table 1).
Such stability was explained, in line with Parisi and Pasquino’s (1979)
well-known typology, by the high incidence of the ‘vote of appartenenza’
(belonging), the modest impact of the ‘vote of opinion’ and a rather
constant and one-sided (pro-DC and its allies) ‘vote of exchange’. Two
factors gave the illusion of possible alternation in government between the
two major parties and were considered to be responsible for the fluctuations
in electoral volatility of the 1970s: a partial re-direction of the vote of
exchange, following the PCI’s acquisition of a governmental role in the red
belt’s regional and major city administrations, and what was seen as a sharp
increase in the vote of opinion, stemming from increasing levels of
education.10 Total volatility (TV) was higher than average in the two
1980s elections whereas bloc volatility (BV) remained characteristically
rather low. All of this changed in the early 1990s, which saw the first major
signs of dealignment when in the 1992 election the Northern League (LN)
polled more than 8 per cent of the vote nationwide, and the DC, for the first
time in its history, fell below the 30 per cent threshold. To complete
the picture, the combined strength of the two post-PCI parties, the PDS
and Rifondazione Comunista (RC), retreated to the PCI’s 1950s levels (see
Table 2).
The 1992 elections marked the first steps in the irreversible erosion of
Italy’s political sub-cultures, and of related components of the vote of
appartenenza, as well as of some of the ‘incidental’ factors mentioned above.
Voter turnout data, however, indicates that the first signs of the changes to
come in electoral behaviour could be detected as early as 1979 with a drop in
that election of about 3 per cent, a very high figure by Italian standards.
The realignment of the 1990s was accompanied by a very visible further
drop in the number of valid votes (an indicator that combines all three
forms of non-participatory behaviour), between 1994 and 2001, when about
25 per cent of all Italian voters did not cast valid votes. The 2006 elections
marked a reversal of this trend for the first time in 30 years due to a sharp
drop in the number of spoiled and, above all, blank ballots. The decline in
turnout continued, however, if only by a modest 0.2 per cent.11 Longer
polling station opening hours in 2006 may have helped limit the decline in
turnout. But we are unlikely to see a return to the high levels that were
typical of Italy until the 1970s.
Other forms of invalid voting require more in-depth discussion. Blank
ballots are usually considered to be protest votes (Nuvoli and Spreafico
 T ABL E 1
NAT I ON AL E LE C TI ON RES UL TS (C HA M BE R OF DE P UT I ES)

Psiup
Pdup Pci Pr/Rosa Italia Ccd
Dp Pds Psi Nel Dc dei Cdu Msi
Rca Verdi Pdci Ds/Ulivoc Sdi Psdi Pri Pugno Ppi Valori Udc Fi Pli An Ln Other Total
1963 % 25.3 13.8 6.1 1.4 38.3 7.0 5.1 3.0 630
s 166 87 33 6 260 39 27 12
1968 % 4.4 26.9 14.5e 2.0 39.1 5.8 4.5 2.8 630
s 23 177 91 9 266 31 24 9
1972 % 1.9 27.1 9.6 5.1 2.9 38.7 3.9 8.7 2.1 630
s 0 179 61 29 15 266 20 56 4
1976 % 1.5 34.4 9.6 3.4 3.1 1.1 38.7 1.3 6.1 0.8 630
s 6 227 57 15 14 4 263 5 35 4
1979 % 1.4 30.4 9.8 3.8 3.0 3.5 38.3 1.9 5.3 2.6 630
s 6 201 62 20 16 18 262 9 30 6
1983 % 1.5 29.9 11.4 4.1 5.1 2.2 32.9 2.9 6.8 0.3 2.9 630
s 7 198 73 23 29 11 225 16 42 1j 5
1987 % 1.7 2.5 26.6 14.3 2.9 3.7 2.6 34.3 2.1 5.9 1.3 1.9 630
s 8 13 177 94 17 21 13 234 11 35 1k 6
1992 % 5.6 2.8 16.1 13.6 2.7 4.4 1.2 29.7 2.9 5.4 8.6 7.0 630
s 35 16 107 92 16 27 7 206 17 34 55 18
1994 % 6.0 2.7 20.4 2.2 3.5 11.1g – 21.0 13.5 8.4 6.6 630
s 39 0 164d 14 6 33 27i 113 109 117 15
(continued )
 TABLE 1
(Continued )

Psiup
Pdup Pci Pr/Rosa Italia Ccd
Dp Pds Psi Nel Dc dei Cdu Msi
Rca Verdi Pdci Ds/Ulivoc Sdi Psdi Pri Pugno Ppi Valori Udc Fi Pli An Ln Other Total
1996 % 8.6 2.5 21.1 0.4 1.9 6.8 5.8 20.6 15.7 10.1 6.5 630
s 35 14 167 – – 80 30 123 93 59 2
2001 % 5.0 2.2b 1.7 16.6 – 2.3 14.5h 3.9 3.2 29.4 12.0 3.9 5.3 619
s 11 8 10 137 9f – 80 – 40 178 99 30 26
2006 % 5.8 2.1b 2.3 31.3 – 2.6 1.4h 2.3 6.8 23.7 12.3 4.6 4.8 617
s 41 15 16 220 –f 18 10 16 39 137 71 26 8
Notes:
a
PSIUP: 1968, 1972; PDUP: 1979; DP: 1976, 1983, 1987; RC: 1992, 1994, 1996, 2001.
b
‘Il Girasole’ alliance included Verdi and various socialist candidates.
c
PCI: 1963–1987; PDS 1992, 1994; DS 1996; DC & PdCI 2001.
d
Includes seats assigned to La Rete, Verdi, and PSI candidates endorsed by the Progressisti, the PDS-led electoral alliance.
e
PSU (Partito Socialista Unificato).
f
In 2001 SDI candidates only won seats in single-member plurality contests, so vote percentages are not available. In 2006 they were part of the ‘Rosa nel
Pugno’.
g
PPI þ Patto Segni.
h
2001: ‘La Margherita’ alliance (includes PPI, Democratici, RI and UDEUR). 2006: UDEUR only.
i
The CCD did not present its own candidate lists in the PR part of the election and consequently CCD vote percentages are not available for 1994. 27 CCD
deputies were however elected in either the PR or the plurality parts of the election as FI candidates and went on to form a separate parliamentary group.
j
Liga Veneta/Venetian League.
k
Lega Lombarda/Lombard League.
718 L. Bardi

T ABL E 2
C H A M B E R OF D E P U T I E S 1 9 6 8– 2 0 0 6 : E L E C TO R S , T U R N O U T , V A L I D V O T E S ,
S PO IL ED , A N D B LAN K BAL LO TS: N ’S (I N T H O U SAN DS ) A N D PE R C EN T A G ES O F
T OT A L EL EC T O R A T E

Turnout Spoiled ballots Blank ballots Valid votes

Voters N % N % N % N %
1968 35,567 33,014 92.8 560 1.6 640 1.8 31,814 89.6
1972 37,050 34,524 93.2 508 1.4 601 1.6 33,415 90.2
1976 40,423 37,761 93.4 436 1.1 597 1.5 36,727 90.8
1979 42,203 38,253 90.6 744 1.7 838 2.0 36,797 86.9
1983 44,047 39,188 89.0 1,340 3.1 942 2.1 36,906 83.8
1987 45,690 40,599 88.9 1,232 2.7 775 1.7 38,592 84.5
1992 47,436 41,439 87.3 1,319 2.8 876 1.8 39,244 82.7
1994a 48,225 41,554 86.2 1,411 2.9 1,422 2.9 38,721 80.3
1996a 48,846 40,402 82,9 1,660 3.4 1,242 2.6 37,500 76.9
2001a 49,257 40,100 81.4 1363 2.8 1,514 3.1 37,101 75.3
2006 49,784 40,436 81.2 815 1.6 494 1.0 39,127 78.6
a
PR part of the election.
Sources: 1968–87, Nuvoli and Spreafico (1990); 1992–2006, author’s calculations on official
Electoral Service data.

1990), while spoiled ballots can sometimes be ascribed to technical causes:

ignorance of new electoral rules, coupled with disorienting party symbols
and their inconsistencies across the three ballots (two for the Chamber of
Deputies, one for the Senate) were blamed in the first two post-1993 reform
elections.12 But the extremely high increase in the number of blank ballots
demands a different explanation. Traditional protest voters – i.e., citizens
who accepted ballot-box democracy but were unhappy with the established
parties – had an unprecedented range of choices in 1994 and 1996. While it is
possible that they found the new options to be also unsatisfactory, it is
unlikely that their numbers increased in 1994 and 1996. It would seem
plausible, therefore, that voters who were happy with the pre-1992 options
and unhappy with the new range of choices were responsible for the increase
in blank ballots.
However, the decreased visibility of individual parties caused by the low
salience of the proportional part of the election could be responsible for the
increase in invalid votes, probably a better explanation for the continuing
dealignment from the 1990s onwards. Very partial corroboration for this
argument could be found in the number of blank ballots cast in 2006, for the
return to PR coincided with a sharp drop in blank and spoiled ballots to
1972–76 levels – the object of much speculation. The defeated centre-right
coalition even alleged that many blank ballots were ‘filled’ in the polling
stations with votes for centre-left parties, the plausibility of which, as the
centre-left quickly retorted, was reduced by the fact that the elections were
organised and monitored by the governing centre-right’s own Ministry for
Interior Affairs. In any case, ballot tampering could only account for
 Electoral Change and the Party System 719

isolated episodes, and a recount on a randomly selected sample indicated an

insignificant number of counting ‘errors’.
Nevertheless, the reversal of the trend cannot be imputed exclusively to a
return to PR. Electoral reforms may have been a contributing factor to the
ups and downs in blank ballots over the last 30 years, but they cannot
account for the constantly high levels of spoiled ballots (always around 3 per
cent) between 1983 and 2001. The sharp turn revealed for both types of
non-valid votes by the 2006 results, especially if confirmed in future
elections, might indicate a return to normalcy in Italian electoral behaviour.
The number of protest voters was certainly reduced and the elimination of
the plurality part of the election has deprived parties of an important tactical
alternative – the possibility of presenting, for whatever reasons, different
symbols and names in the two parallel elections. This has probably
reduced voter disorientation and may have contributed to a reduction in the
numbers of blank and spoiled ballots.
Similar trends can be observed in other aggregate measures of electoral
behaviour change: TV, BV, and electoral mobility (EM), a measure that
compensates for some of the limits of the standard TV and BV indices. It is
well known that these do not completely reveal variations in electoral
behaviour; in fact they are calculated on the basis of net differences in party
vote between two consecutive elections. They do not take into account, for
example, the effects of identical numbers of voters switching allegiances from
one party to another and vice versa. EM, by contrast, is based on estimated
electoral flows, and reveals how many voters switch electoral allegiances,
including abstention flows. Nevertheless, because the effects of electoral
behaviour changes on party systems are determined by net differences in
electoral flows – i.e., those revealed by volatility indices – TV and BV can be
used to obtain a first, albeit rough impression of the system’s stability.
TV can also be considered a synthetic measure of the combined effects of
all direct factors on party system change. The relevant factors to consider in
the five elections since the first signs of change fall into three categories:
changes in voters’ behaviour, the effects of tangentopoli on parties’ electoral
supply and the effects of electoral reforms. As argued elsewhere (Bardi
2006), changes in voters’ party choices produced the changes in the 1992
elections; all three sets of factors were most likely at work in 1994, the first
elections held under the new electoral rules and after the beginning of the
tangentopoli investigations; by 1996 the impact of tangentopoli on electoral
supply was probably exhausted. For the last three elections, change can be
attributed to attempts by parties and voters alike to adapt to changing
electoral competition rules and to the electorate’s natural propensity to
modify its orientations. This means that the Italian party system could be
close to a new equilibrium, especially if the country should acquire a
definitive electoral law – one of the items on the centre-left’s current agenda.
These conclusions are partially confirmed by our data. For the first
four of the last five elections TV scores were much higher than in the past
720 L. Bardi

(see Table 3). The 1992 score, the only one likely to have been caused by
changes in voters’ orientations, is particularly important. At 14.2 it was the
highest observed up to that point between two parliamentary elections and
almost double the average (7.2) of all preceding elections. The BV score (7.5)
is even more impressive considering the 1953–87 average of 2.1 (Bardi 1996).
The EM score is almost 50 per cent higher than all of those estimated or
calculated up to that point and confirms, naturally with greater amplitude,
the trend revealed by the other indicators. In 1994 the BV value is only
slightly higher than the 1992 one, but that election’s 36.2 was perhaps the
highest TV score ever observed in non-exceptional democratic elections
(Bartolini and Mair 1990: 69) giving a dramatic impression of change.
Similarly, the 1994 EM score, at almost double the 1992 level, was probably
even underestimated due to difficulties in identifying all electoral flows in a
radically changed party system. But this time the change cannot be entirely
imputed to increases in voter availability: a significant portion of the
electorate was forced to alter its habitual electoral choices because of
differences in electoral supply. Some of the latter, such as those caused by
the DC’s split and the dissolution or transformation into the PPI of its
constituent parts and partial regroupings of the four secular parties (PSI,
PSDI, PRI, PLI), were clearly caused by the tangentopoli-induced legitimacy
crisis. In the final analysis, the 1994 TV and EM values accurately describe
the degree of change, but cannot be considered as exclusively the result of
changes in citizens’ attitudes and in the potential mobility of voters. It is
possible that without changes in electoral supply, the 1994 values would
have been much closer to the 1992 ones.
The 1996 TV and EM scores (at 18.2 and 41 respectively) were the second
highest ever observed between two post-war parliamentary elections. They
are closer again to 1992 levels and reveal a diminished importance of
changes in electoral supply. The effects of tangentopoli had been absorbed.
But at least one important change between the 1994 and 1996 elections – the

T ABL E 3
M EA S U R E S O F E L E C T O R A L C H A NG E I N I T A L Y , 1 9 76 – 2 0 0 6

TV – Total volatility BV – Block volatility EM – Electoral mobility

1976 9.1 4.0 NA
1979 5.3 2.6 20
1983 8.5 1.6 20
1987 8.4 1.3 21
1992 14.2 7.5 30
1994 36.2 8.9 58
1996 18.2 8.9 39
2001 22.0 2.6 40
2006 9.2 2.8 18
Sources: 1963–83 TV and BV scores from Bartolini and Mair (1990); EM: electoral flow data
kindly provided by Paolo Natale; all other data calculated by the author on the basis of official
electoral and parliamentary records.
 Electoral Change and the Party System 721

CDU’s exit from the PPI, with the two parties joining the centre-right and
the centre-left camps respectively – was a response to the new majoritarian
logic of electoral competition.13 In 1994, the plurality-oriented electoral law
severely penalised the centre parties – the PPI and the Patto Segni – that ran
independently, outside the two coalitions. Although potentially the natural
heir to the DC’s electoral support – still almost 30 per cent in 1992 – the PPI
only received 11.1 per cent of the vote and 5.2 per cent of the seats, and the
Patto Segni 4.6 and 2.1 per cent respectively. Only 4 of the 46 seats obtained
by the two parties were won in plurality competitions. The seat/elector
percentage ratio was a meagre .43, a clear indication of the two parties’
combined under-representation. Beyond its diminished capacity for attract-
ing voters, the centre was wiped out by the logic of electoral competition.
Responses to electoral competition pressures were among the most
important factors in party system change until the 2005 reform, as
demonstrated by the numerous moves by parties or party factions between
the two camps and coalition redefinition, especially on the centre-left. The
Margherita is the most revealing example of this phenomenon: now the
second largest component of the centre-left after the DS, it was originally
formed by the numerous secular and Catholic splinters and parties (the
largest of which was the PPI) from the centrist galaxy in the post-1992
Italian party systems. Some of these groups or their leaders, such as
Lamberto Dini, had experience with the centre-right before joining the
opposite camp. All of this was reflected in new increases in TV (22.0) and, to
a more limited extent, EM (40) in 2001, probably due to changes in the
internal compositions of the two opposing coalitions as they were
accompanied by a noteworthy return of BV (2.6) to pre-1992 values. This
apparently incongruent fact was seen as indicative of a possible return to
greater electoral stability, at least as far as the general political-ideological
orientation of voters was concerned.
That reorientation involved a diminution of centrist voters and a growing
system polarisation, as revealed by Ilvo Diamanti’s analysis of voters’ left/
right self-placement data (Diamanti 2004). Ex-centrist voters have been
forced to choose between left and right by the electoral law but are still
finding it difficult to establish stable and definitive allegiances to individual
parties within the coalitions.14 The 2006 election data mark a further step
towards a stabilisation of the system – which is remarkable given the
potential of the new PR electoral law to introduce new elements of change.
But, owing to the seat bonus it potentially gives the winning pre-defined
electoral coalition, the 2005 law has favoured the acceptance by parties and
voters alike of the rules of majoritarian electoral competition. Besides
reducing invalid voting, the elimination of the plurality part of the election
may have contributed to the reduction of the TV and EM scores as well.
Summing up, the massive realignment since the 1994 election has been in
part the result of changes in electoral rules and the almost complete supply-
side restructuring of the Italian electoral market. But the 2001 and 2006
722 L. Bardi

election results suggest that this cause of party system change is now losing
most of its importance. Only a new reform that changed once again the logic
of electoral competition could bolster the role of electoral supply-side
factors in party system change, and this was not the case with the 2005
proportional electoral law.

The Two-Party Systems and their Structures: Change and Stabilisation

Although a thorough assessment of party system change would require
analysis of a vast amount of information, including a country’s cleavage
structure, institutional architecture, party government and opposition
alternation models, ideological polarisation, and the impact of electoral
results on parliament and its individual party groups, in the following I
consider systematically only the last two types of data – the most important
for understanding the structure of the system.
Four elections have passed since the first electoral reform was applied and
some of the effects produced by the combined PR and plurality induced
pressures are visible. Many parties have been forced by the new laws to join
forces in electoral cartels, but post-electoral dynamics, tied as they are to
parliamentary party group formation, have shown that at least some of
them engage in electoral alliances as a means to obtain more seats rather
than steps towards the formation of permanent structures. This had been
anticipated by the critics of the 1993 reform (Giovanni Sartori in primis)
even before the 1994 elections but cannot be blamed entirely on the electoral
law: such tactics are also related to the failure to introduce parallel changes
in the procedures and organisation of parliament, and in the rules for
forming governments (Pasquino 2004).
Although the leader of the winning coalition is now automatically
nominated Prime Minister and his supporting coalition is based on pre-
electoral alliances, cabinet positions are distributed among the majority
parties by subsequent negotiation. In the event of mid-term government
crises, new cabinets are formed through procedures identical to those of the
‘first republic’. Consequently, parties behave and the party system is
structured very much as in the past. Even if the rules of electoral com-
petition would appear to favour a reduction in the number of parties in the
electoral party system, another set of rules regulates inter-party relations in
the parliamentary party system: while the first responds to majoritarian
competitive pressures and is consequently structured around two main
coalitions, the Casa delle libertà and the Unione, the second is regulated by
other political system characteristics and displays very high levels of
fragmentation.15
Table 4 presents a number of party system indicators. The first four
elections in the table, 1976–87, register rather homogenous scores that
reflect the continuity in the system since at least 1958.16 Some changes
occurred as early as 1992; others did so only in 1994. These developments
 Electoral Change and the Party System 723

T ABL E 4
M EA S U R E S O F P A R T Y SY ST E M C H A N G E I N I T A L Y , 1 9 7 6– 2 0 0 6

EE – EP –
Effective Effective PGC PGS
number of number of Party Party
DP – F F electoral parliamentary groups groups
Disproportionality PR Plurality parties parties PwS Chamber Senate
1976 4.9 .72 3.5 3.1 10 10 7
1979 4.6 .74 3.9 3.4 11 10 8
1983 4.5 .78 4.5 4.0 13 11 9
1987 5.1 .78 4.6 4.1 14 12 9
1992 5.1 .85 6.4 5.7 16 13 10
1994 21.7 .87 .78 7.5/2.8 5.7/3.6 20 8 10
1996 12.2 .86 .67 7.2/3.0 6.2/2.7 14 9 11
2001 14.4 .84 .60 5.9/3.9 5.3/2.1 19 9 9
2006 7.0 .82 5.6 4.9 13 13 10
Notes: DP: Aggregate disproportionality, Bartolini and Mair (1990).
F: Rae’s (1967) fractionalisation index.
EE and EP scores are calculated (according to the Laakso and Taagepera index, 1979) on vote/
seat distributions of all individual parties; 1994–2001: the second measure in each cell is based
on total votes/seats obtained in the election by coalitions (e.g., Casa delle Libertà versus Unione
in 2006) and individual parties not included in coalitions.
Sources: 1963–83 volatility data from Bartolini and Mair (1990); all other scores calculated by
the author on the basis of official electoral and parliamentary records.

allow an assessment of the impact of changes in electoral behaviour and

those due to electoral reform.
Dis-proportionality (DP) data is the easiest to read and interpret. DP
scores show little variation for all pure PR elections and shoot up in 1994
when plurality was introduced. Once the parties adjusted their strategies to
the new rules, in 1996, it looks as though they managed collectively to cut
their losses, as the DP decline suggests. Had a new reform not occurred in
2005, DP values would have probably stabilised around 13–15. In any event,
DP fluctuations can be entirely attributed to the direct effects of electoral
laws and party strategy adjustments to them. Understanding the other
indices is a more complicated task, however.
For the first time in 1992, the F PR index presents significantly higher
scores than in the past, displaying only minor fluctuations in all following
elections. Initially, not even the F plurality index showed a dramatic
reduction of fractionalisation. In 1994 the index was .78, the same as in
1987! It was not until 2001 that the index (.60) revealed a tendency towards
bipartism, if only at the coalition level. This was probably entirely due to the
electoral law, given that the F PR score, which more accurately reflects voter
behaviour trends, is still a high .84. With the return to pure PR in 2006, F
PR was only marginally lower (.82) than in 2001.
The remaining four indices in Table 4, PwS, EP, PGC, and PGS directly
concern the parliamentary party system; their values permit an in-depth
724 L. Bardi

assessment of the extent of overall change in the Italian party system, and in
comparison with the other indices, some consideration as well of the
differences between its electoral and parliamentary characteristics. The four
indices confirm that an increase in parliamentary party system fragmenta-
tion also began in 1992. EP values summarise the overall situation: cal-
culated on the number of seats rather than percentages of the vote, they
reveal much better than F scores the direct and indirect effects of electoral
reform. Post-war EP scores were about 3.7 on average until 1997 but
jumped to 5.7 in 1992, and reached a peak for the PR part of the election in
1996. The election values for 2001 and 2006 indicate a reversal in this trend,
but they still remain much higher than the pre-1992 average. Contrary to
what was expected, electoral reform did not effectively limit party system
fragmentation.17 The decline of EP scores in the last two elections is sug-
gestive but not yet decisive.
This impression is confirmed by the other indicators. The number of
parties that obtained seats (PwS) in the Chamber of Deputies grew con-
stantly from 1976, reaching very high levels in 1992 and peaking at an
astounding 20 parties in 1994. In the three subsequent elections PwS scores
see-sawed rather dramatically, indicating the low likelihood of stabilisation.
Party group trends in the Chamber (PGC) and in the Senate (PGS) present a
different pattern, even if they also reveal, in the most recent election, an even
more extreme tendency to party system fragmentation. The drop in the PGC
index in 1994, 1996, and 2001 can be ascribed to the introduction of more
rigid norms for party group formation (Bartolini and D’Alimonte 1995:
432) and not, given the indications coming from PwS scores, to an effective
reduction in the number of parties obtaining seats.18 This is confirmed by
the 2006 score of 13. Moreover in the Senate, where the norms are much
more flexible, PGS reveals very little variation across elections. Thus, the
parliamentary party system became more fragmented between 1987 and
1992 and electoral reforms failed to reverse this trend. This is clearly due to
the fact that after each election, once the plurality or bonus seats are
assigned, parties resume their identities and continue to form their custo-
mary autonomous party groups in the two houses.
The coalition EP scores, however, clearly reflect the 1993 reform’s majo-
ritarian effects with a sharp decline from 3.6 in 1994 (a higher score than in
the two fully proportional elections of 1976 and 1979) to a very low 2.0 in
2001. This latter value is below the average of the UK, the prototypical two-
party yardstick, and only higher, among European democracies, than that
of Malta (Lijphart 1999). It would seem that the higher fragmentation
produced by increased electoral mobility between 1987 and 1992 was only
incompletely counterbalanced by the direct effects of the 1993 electoral
reform. The 2005 electoral law and the relaxation of party group formation
rules, at least in the Chamber of Deputies, have reduced the divergence
between the electoral and parliamentary party systems by allowing a still
higher fragmentation of both.
 Electoral Change and the Party System 725

Sartori (1976: 315 et passim) considers numerical indicators very

important but clearly prefers what he calls ‘nominal’ criteria for counting
the number of parties. In the 1994–2001 elections this was complicated by
the different party-actors involved in the two parallel, plurality and PR,
electoral competitions. But both campaigning and party visibility, including
that of the system’s two extreme poles, were strongly conditioned by the
centripetal logic of the plurality part of electoral competition. The
disastrous centrist experiment of the PPI and the Patto Segni in 1994,
coupled with the strategic mistakes of the Lega Nord and the Movimento
Sociale Italiano-Fiamma Tricolore (MSI-FT) in 1996, and of RC in 2001 in
not joining one of the two dominant coalitions, increased the number of
parties to three or even four. Just as it began to look as if all parties had
learned their lesson and the electoral party system was on its way towards a
two-party configuration according to Sartori’s nominal criteria, the 2005
law once again changed the rules of the game. The extremely close results of
the 2006 elections, with a little more than 25,000 votes and .06 per cent of
the total separating the two coalitions, increased the number of significant
parties in the electoral party system to a massive 25. Even if the 2006
election is considered an exception, the current law is conducive to a very
high number of parties. A very limited number of votes going one way or the
other can determine the attribution of the bonus and completely change the
outcome of the election. This objectively makes all parties potentially
indispensable for a coalition’s overall success, even if holding only modest
numbers of votes.
The situation is quite different in the parliamentary party system because
of the different effects that electoral norms and results tend to have on the
composition of the two houses. In 1994, for example, the Chamber’s strong
centre-right majority (366 out of 630) made irrelevant, in Sartorian terms,
every other party-actor except the 213 seat strong centre-left opposition; the
much closer results in the Senate gave the federated DC and Patto Segni (31
seats) and even the Südtiroler Volkspartei (SVP) with three senators the
ability to condition governmental coalition dynamics, allowing them to meet
Sartori’s relevance criteria.19 The situation was reversed in 1996, when the
Chamber’s composition gave the centre-left a much weaker majority than in
the Senate, making the government a hostage, and eventually a victim, of
RC, the most recalcitrant coalition partner. The sweeping success of the
centre-right in 2001 resulted in similar configurations in the two houses. In
this case, only Forza Italia and Alleanza Nazionale among the winning
coalition’s component parties, and the defeated centre-left coalition as a
whole, met Sartori’s relevance criteria.
The 2005 electoral reform produced much more diverging, albeit
apparently similar, electoral laws for the two chambers. In the Senate,
bonus seats are attributed to winning coalitions in each of Italy’s 20 electoral
regions. Depending on the territorial distribution of the vote for the two
coalitions this can produce diverging effects between the two chambers. This
726 L. Bardi

is not likely to happen in one-sided elections, as the winning coalition would

probably obtain victories and bonuses in most regions. But in close elections
there are potentially three different types of outcome: a) the coalition with a
nationwide majority could still obtain a strong majority of the seats if its
advantage is evenly distributed across most of the country’s regions; b) a less
even distribution of the vote could instead result in the regional bonuses of
two coalitions cancelling each other out and a substantial equilibrium
between them in the overall assignment of seats; and c) a particularly
disadvantageous regional distribution of votes could penalise the coalition
with a vote majority and contribute to its defeat in terms of seats. This latter
possibility occurred in 2006 when the centre-left was defeated in terms of
votes but obtained a slim majority of seats (by a margin of two) owing to
regional bonuses and an extremely beneficial votes/seats ratio stemming
from the vote by Italians living abroad. Even in this case most parties in the
competition can be considered relevant as marginal differences can translate
into diametrically opposed outcomes for the coalitions. As for party system
differences, the separation between the electoral and the parliamentary ones
are clear even if nominal counting criteria are used.
Any conclusion and forecast regarding the eventual reshaping of the
Italian party system requires an analysis of the second structural variable:
ideological distance. The two authors who have attempted to measure
ideological distance in the post-1994 party system – Leonardo Morlino
(1996) and Adriano Pappalardo (1996) – have come to rather divergent
conclusions, probably because of the different indicators they used.
Moreover, Pappalardo’s indicators have different implications depending
on the level (type of system) chosen for analysis. According to Morlino,
after 1994 the party system exhibited a shift from stability to high volatility,
uncertainty about the rules of the game, low degree of institutionalisation
and weak social roots among the new parties. Ideological distance was at
similar, or even higher levels than in the old polarised system. According to
Morlino these trends are visible in the electoral data, which show an increase
of the vote for both the left and the right and a decline of support for the
centre, amidst an intensification of political conflict, as revealed by the
acrimonious nature of political debate.
Using different indicators, Pappalardo (1996) gives priority to left–right
polarisation. This index is based on left–right self-placement survey data
and calculated as differences between the respective averages of 1–10 scores
indicated by respondents who identify with the two parties situated at the
extreme right and left of the spectrum. His analysis of 1975–95 polarisation
scores (see Table 5) shows a modest decline in ideological distance (MID),
from 5.8 to 5.4, even if over this period the two extreme parties, the PCI and
the MSI, were replaced by RC and AN, neither of which exhibited the anti-
system characteristics of their predecessors (Morlino 1996). The correspond-
ing polarisation index (P) declines from .64 to .60, a value that keeps Italy in
the category of highly polarised systems.20 This would seem to confirm
 Electoral Change and the Party System 727

T ABL E 5
I D E O L O G I CA L D I S T A N C E AN D P O L A R I S A T I O N S C O R E S , 1 9 75 – 9 5

Voters MPs
Coalitions Parties Coalitions Parties
MID P MID P MID P MID P
1995 4.2 .47 5.4 .6
1996 3.9 .43 5.7 .63
2001 3.9 .43 5.9 .65 3.7 .4 5.4 .6
2004 5.7 .64 7.4 .82
Sources: 1995 ISPO survey in Pappalardo (1996); 1996, 2001 ITANES surveys; 2004 Demos and
Pt-Coop – Osservatorio sul capitale sociale, 5a rilevazione 6–12 October 2004.
MID: Maximum distance between left/right self-placement averages.
P: Polarisation index: MID 9, where 9 is the maximum theoretical distance.
1995: indices from Pappalardo (1996); 1996, 2001, and 2004: all indices calculated by the author
on the basis of original data.

Morlino’s conclusions. But according to Pappalardo, the system’s ‘poles’ no

longer coincide with the two extreme parties, but with the two centre-left
and centre-right blocs. The system’s relevant ideological distance would then
be the difference between electoral coalitions rather than party averages.
This makes the 1995 MID score 4.2, the lowest value registered in Italy until
that point. The corresponding P-score, .47, situates Italy along with Spain in
an intermediate category, closer to the least polarised democracies such as
Germany and the UK, whose respective P-scores were .28 and .33 in 1993
(Pappalardo 1996: 128–9). Especially in view of the 2005 reform, which may
have the effect of widening Italy’s ideological space once again, it may be
premature to accept in full Pappalardo’s view that the poles of parlia-
mentary competition have permanently shifted like those of its electoral
counterpart. However, his analysis confirms that there are differences
between the two party systems: his centre-left and centre-right have become
the basic units of the new electoral party systems, whereas those of the
parliamentary party system are still individual parties.
Most analyses seem to agree on this point. Although indicating higher
MID values than previous surveys, Ilvo Diamanti (2004) confirms the
existence of differences between the two party systems. The same data
respectively yields .82 and .64 P-scores for individual parties and coalitions.
These values are the highest in our series and also present the highest
divergence between party systems (.18 as opposed to .13 in 1995). Other
data, closer to that used by Pappalardo, suggest that system polarisation did
not change dramatically, at least until 2001. In 1996 and 2001 we notice
slight increases in MID scores for individual parties and also slight declines
for the coalitions. In this case as well, the most significant outcome is the
difference between the two: .2 in 1996 and .23 in 2001. Finally, Table 5
reveals that a similar difference between parties and coalitions exists for
MPs as well. In 2001, the only year for which we have such data, the
difference (.2) is in line with the mass data.
728 L. Bardi

Coalitions and Party System Change

As we have argued, the extensive realignment of the Italian party system in
the 1990s was mostly the consequence of contingent events and only in part
of greater voter mobility. But the latter also provided both old and new
parties with new electoral marketing opportunities. Party responses were
conditioned by the new political importance of the media and by the
creation of a two-level party system. The most important such response by
far was the resort to electoral coalitions. Governments are no longer formed
as in the past in post-election negotiations that were often only marginally
influenced by election outcomes. Prime ministers, if not whole governments
are now directly produced by elections and because no party can hope to
run alone and win, pre-electoral coalitions have to be formed. Over the years
such coalitions have become more than simple electoral alliances: even if
they do not have organisations of their own, separate from those of their
component parties, they survive between elections as well.
However, maintaining the political cohesion of coalitions is no easy
task. At least two important parties, DS and AN, still count on the
support of relatively ideological voters. This in itself makes it difficult to
maintain the moderate policy positions required by centripetal electoral
competition. Electoral victory does not depend only on attracting the
middle electorate, but above all, according to Diamanti’s previously cited
research, on the parties’ ability to retain a share of hardcore and faithful
voters. This is also true of other ideological, although less traditional,
parties like the Greens or value-oriented ones like Centro Cristiano
Democratico (CCD) or the Northern League. For these reasons, parties
often try to articulate strong or even extreme positions on policies that are
central to their specific interests, while simultaneously accepting the
‘responsible’ positions officially adopted by the coalitions to which they
belong, especially on general fiscal and economic policies.
The coalition strategies of centre parties respond to a different logic. We
have seen how in 1994 they were penalised by the pressures of plurality
competition. This convinced them that joining one of the coalitions was the
only strategy possible at the time. But the definitive consolidation of the two
coalitions has been delayed and contested by some centrist parties that have
never abandoned hopes of rebuilding a united centre – an objective that
is clearly incompatible with the new two coalition system. The ‘DC’s
re-foundation’, as it is called by its less hypocritical supporters, is the
objective of those who believe that moderate voters are still available and
are potentially happy to vote for a sufficiently strong centre party. This goal
clashes with the strategic advantage that centre parties, even if very small,
are afforded by the potential ability to switch coalitions. As electoral
competition still revolves around the centre, both alliances are convinced
that the best strategy for attracting such voters is to include among their
ranks as many centre groups and parties as possible.
 Electoral Change and the Party System 729

Moderate leaders thus see their contractual powers greatly increased by

their ability to control even minimal numbers of strategically placed voters,
which makes a consolidation of the centre very difficult. They would enjoy
fewer personal advantages if united in a new centre party. But electoral
strategies are also delaying the consolidation of coalitions. Italy’s electoral
market is very wide and moving towards the centre is not sufficient to win
elections. The centre must be won without losing the extremes. Hence the
need to form large multi-party coalitions that include centre parties and
groups rather than simply attracting individual moderate voters. Different
strategies, aimed at making the overall positions of the coalitions or their
most important parties more moderate could be dangerous. For example,
AN’s move towards the centre alienated some extreme-right voters, whose
decision to vote MSI-FT in 1996 was most likely the ultimate cause of the
centre-right’s defeat. Similarly, the difficult relationship of the DS with its
left-wing electorate could explain the periodic weakening of the centre-left
coalition.

Conclusion
The Italian party system’s transformation, 15 years after its beginning, is
still underway. Electoral factors are largely responsible for this uncertainty.
Some of the still ongoing changes can be considered natural features of any
party system’s evolution, but others indicate the particular difficulties of
the Italian system’s consolidation. In particular the separation between the
party system’s electoral and parliamentary dimensions is so visible that
there is more than analytical utility to viewing them as fully distinct party
systems. The values of structural variable indicators for the two systems
diverge to an extent that vindicates those who lament the persistence of
some of the features of the old polarised pluralism as well as those who
celebrate the advent of bipolarism. It is the divergence in rules that
determines the intensity and direction of party competition in the two
systems. If the electoral system facilitates a degree of centripetal competition
that is certainly more moderate than in the past, at the same time
parliamentary and governmental dynamics induce centrifugal and highly
polarised behaviour similar to that of the pre-1992 era.
These tendencies appear less acute at present than in the first legislatures
of the post-1992 transition due to decreased electoral mobility and, after
2005, the moderating effects of a nominally PR electoral law. But if the
existence of two coalitions indicates a propensity towards a two-party
system there has not been a reduction of fragmentation in all arenas. The
connection between the two party systems is due to the need of parties to
maintain their individual identities and positions between elections so that
they can negotiate candidatures for the next elections with coalition partners
and, if need be, with the other side – producing individual party behaviour
that can be very damaging for coalition unity and, in the case of majority
730 L. Bardi

parties, for government stability. Such behaviour is very difficult to

eradicate as it can give strategically well-placed parties a dual advantage:
a bonus in terms of seats in the electoral party system and another in the
form of committee and cabinet positions in the parliamentary/governmental
system. Although the incidence of the former has been reduced by the new
PR law, which limits the bonus to parties that form joint party lists, the
effects of the latter are still very strong, as even the smallest parties can be
decisive for winning the bonus seats and as such they can exact a very high
post-election price for their support. Therefore, reforms that are limited to
the electoral sphere, such as those carried out to date, seem unable to effect a
final consolidation of the Italian party system.

Notes
1. The 1987 Italian election was the last to exhibit ‘normal’ volatility values and is an ideal
starting point.
2. The two reforms were approved in 1993 and 2005 and became effective respectively in 1994
and 2006. They were preceded by a minor reform of preference voting (1992). Reforms of
the regional and municipal electoral laws had an indirect impact on the Italian party system
at the national level as well.
3. The reform resulted from a rather complex process that began in 1992 with a popular
referendum. Because of the cumbersome and somewhat haphazard procedure under which
it was written and approved, the law is very complicated (Katz 1994). Here a consideration
of its dominant characteristics is sufficient.
4. Chiaramonte and Di Virgilio (2006) are clearly of this opinion. The law guarantees the
coalition with the highest number of votes at least 340 of the 617 seats assigned in the
national distribution. This means that unless a coalition obtains at least 55 per cent of
the vote, the amount theoretically necessary to obtain 340 seats, the winners obtain a seat
bonus the size of which varies according to the actual amount of votes they obtain. The
losing coalition and/or independent lists get the remaining 277 seats. Within the two
coalitions seats are distributed by PR amongst their respective party components that have
obtained at least 2 per cent of the vote nationwide or 20 per cent at regional level.
5. Of the several characteristics identified by Giovanni Sartori (1976) in his discussion of party
systems, these two are implicitly acknowledged as constituting the system’s structure. This
choice, which we will follow here for obvious reasons of space and practicality, privileges
economic left-right dimension and overlooks other relevant dimensions in Italy’s political
space, such as church–state or centre–periphery.
6. As important and dramatic as they may appear, changes that occurred in the nature of the
basic units of the system, that is in the parties themselves, did not concern the structural
variables of Sartori’s model – the number of parties and polarisation. Only if these two
variables undergo significant change (i.e. if the number of relevant parties drops below six
or left–right self-placement differences drop to values close to four points), can we say that
the party system has changed (Sartori 1982). Polarisation also reflects and is a consequence
of the direction of competition. If the direction of competition remains centrifugal the
system is still polarised.
7. Many authors have argued that Italy’s polarised pluralism is a thing of the past and have
attempted to provide their own definitions of the new system (see for example: Morlino
1996; Pappalardo 1996). Here I will not define the new system on the basis of Sartori’s
classic categories, but rather observe possible variations in its structural variables.
8. The Berlusconi II government exhibited exceptional stability; but this happened at the
expense of numerous substitutions of ministers and a sizeable increase in the number of
 Electoral Change and the Party System 731

vice-ministers in the course of its term. Notwithstanding these attempts to preempt some of
its coalition parties’ potentially destabilising tactics, the Berlusconi’s second government
also came to a premature end and was replaced by Berlusconi III in 2005.
9. Italy’s mean TV between 1953 and 1992 was 7.9, a value very close to the norm (7.7) for
systems with 6 to 10 parties (Bartolini and Mair 1990: 158). Mean BV for the same period
was 2.6, a value near the bottom of the country distribution.
10. Total volatility was 5.3 in 1972, 9.1 in 1976 and again 5.3 in 1979. Block volatility was a low
1.3 in 1972, a very high (by Italy’s standards) 4.0 in 1976, and an average 2.6 in 1979
(Bartolini and Mair 1990: Appendix 2).
11. Newspaper accounts of the 2006 elections the day after indicated an increase in turnout at
83.6 per cent. This figure, however, excludes Italians abroad, who were always included in the
statistics of previous elections. Turnout for this category of voters was about 39 per cent and
contributed significantly to lowering the overall percentage to 81.2, as reported in Table 2.
12. The greater incidence of spoiled ballots in 1996 than in 1994, when the new electoral rules
where introduced and voters should have been, logically, even more unprepared, can be
blamed on the fact that some post-DC voters were disoriented by the DC’s successor parties
having presented separate lists in opposing coalitions, after having kept their unity under
the PPI’s banner in 1994.
13. The PPI’s split forced us to revise our BV calculation criteria and to include the Popolari
per Prodi in the centre-left bloc. This accounts for the still high 1996 BV value. The same
criterion was used in 2001 and 2006 for the Margherita.
14. Such data however does not justify in my opinion the further conclusion of the near
irrelevance of centre party groupings and moderate voters in determining electoral
outcomes. In the UK, for example, alternation in government is decided by presumably
centrist voters’ lateral moves whose size is smaller than those observed in Italy (Bartolini
and Mair 1990: 111).
15. The Casa delle libertà has so far managed to secure an undisputed leader, Silvio Berlusconi,
even when in opposition, something with which the Unione seems to have constant
problems. The parliamentary political game, however, is still dominated by individual
party, or even faction, leaders.
16. An analysis of such continuity and pre-1976 values for most of the Table 4 indices can be
found in Morlino (1996).
17. It should be noted that the 1993 and 2005 laws introduced thresholds (respectively 4 and 2
per cent) which made them in theory more capable of curbing fragmentation.
18. It is worth noting that high PwS scores in 1994, 1996, and 2001 are determined by the
distribution of plurality seats among the parties making up the electoral coalitions, as few
parties managed to obtain seats in the PR part of all three elections: 7 in 1994, 8 in 1996,
and only 5 in 2001. In 2006, 11 parties passed the national or regional thresholds and
obtained seats.
19. Even individual non-attached senators were relevant in the election of the President of the
Senate that was decided in favour of the centre-right’s candidate, Carlo Scognamiglio, by
one single vote.
20. Polarisation is calculated by dividing ideological distance values by 9, its maximum
(10 7 1 ¼ 9) theoretical value (see Sartori 1982, especially fig. 10.1).

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