Improta Italian Government Instability

Roots, Drivers, and Remedies
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-3-11-132978-9
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 5, 113 Seiten

Reihe: De Gruyter DisruptionsISSN

This book investigates why government instability is particularly evident in Italy compared to other European political systems. It focuses on three main dimensions. Firstly, it examines the historical, institutional, and social roots of instability by providing insights into the sources of instability, from the country’s constitutional architecture to the lack of social and political cohesion produced by a difficult unification process. Secondly, leveraging an original multilevel dataset, the book performs an in-depth analysis of the nexus between instability and policymaking accountability, and a quantitative empirical analysis to identify factors increasing the risk of cabinet termination. Finally, the book provides scholars and pundits with empirically-based policy recommendations on how to solve the instability issue.

Zielgruppe

Scholars and students of Political Science, European Politics, It

Autoren/Hrsg.

Improta, Marco

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein

Leseproben

Chapter 1 Rationale, objectives, and strategies

This chapter explains the rationale behind the investigation of government instability in Italy and abroad, why we should care about this topic, and the scientific debate around this issue. The chapter continues by explaining the objectives of the book and the strategies envisaged to properly examine government instability.

1 Government instability as a democratic problem

Modern democracies are getting harder and harder to govern. In many countries, the proportion of administrations that fall short of their constitutionally mandated term limits is rising (Improta, 2023). Regardless of the type of government or democratic model (Lijphart, 1999), this phenomenon has impacted many national settings. For instance, in Israel’s recent political developments – a consensus democracy – government instability has been a defining feature. This has led to a political impasse in which three government heads – Netanyahu, Bennett, and Lapid – were sworn in and served for an average of just over a year (Rahat & Hazan, 2022). In just under four years, Israeli citizens were asked to cast ballots five times (Shamir & Rahat, 2022).

Consensus democracies have not been the only ones to experience problems with government instability. In fact, the recent, frenetic turnover of governments in the United Kingdom – the quintessential majoritarian democratic model (“Westminster”) – has sparked unprecedented government crises, such as those resulting from the resignation of Boris Johnson and the formation of the Truss cabinet during the interelection period. But after just 44 days in power, Truss was compelled to step down due to growing unrest in the political and financial arenas, making her the British prime minister with the shortest tenure ever. Following the termination of this administration, Rishi Sunak, another Conservative Party member, took the oath of office as prime minister (Improta & Mannoni, 2024).

Italy has historically been thought of as a country with frequent cabinet changes and high levels of political instability (Mershon, 1996; Cotta & Marangoni, 2015). The importance of the instability issue in Italy has been further reaffirmed by recent political events: three distinct cabinets (Conte I, Conte II, and Draghi) were formed within the 2018–2022 parliamentary period. Italy has had three political crises since 2019. In particular, League and Italy Alive – junior partners with important blackmail potential (Sartori, 1976) – withdrew their support from Conte I and Conte II, respectively, leading to the termination of both Conte governments. Ultimately, the national unity government led by Mario Draghi, the former president of the European Central Bank, collapsed due to internal tensions that mostly derived from Conte’s doubts about the government’s military support for Ukraine to counter the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Leaders and governments in democratic systems face a variety of difficulties in addition to “simple” lawmaking in an environment of heightened pressure and unrest from both domestic and international arenas. Prime ministers and cabinet members deal with several challenges during a democratic cabinet’s life cycle, including shifts in public opinion preferences, media and opposition scrutiny of governmental performance, and external shocks and events like international and health crises and military conflicts. As Italy contributes to the European integration process as a founding member of the European Union (EU), policy and reform-making in Italy must be coordinated with European institutions under an interconnected, cooperative framework (Fabbrini & Piattoni, 2008). This task is not simple. Governments may face a “responsibility vs. responsiveness” conundrum, as Mair (2009) pointed out, which may alter the effectiveness of policymaking. This is because, on the one hand, leaders who focus on the responsive side deal with the risk of not meeting the standards of responsible governance (informally) set by globalized markets and supranational organizations like the EU. However, focusing on responsibility might increase risks regarding satisfying citizens’ demands and needs.

The deeply ingrained crises that political parties in European democracies are going through are made worse by all this complexity. Political science literature, for instance, has documented the persistent decline in party membership (e.g., Van Biezen et al., 2012), the increasing distrust of political parties and other actors and institutions (e.g., Bertsou, 2019), the growing reliance on non-elected representatives in national governments (e.g., Emanuele et al., 2023), the decline in voter turnout, particularly among youth (e.g., Angelucci et al., 2024), and the unstable nature of party interactions in various contexts (e.g., Chiaramonte & Emanuele, 2022). These occurrences collectively constitute a few “red flags” signaling the poor health of modern democracies (Improta, 2022b).

Furthermore, the task of governing becomes more complex when macro- and micro-trends are combined. How can Italian governments handle all this complexity if their average duration is only one year? How can long-term planning and implementation of policies be accomplished with such a short time horizon? If the main priority of ruling parties running for reelection is short-termism, how can the needs and demands of both current and future generations be considered? Time is needed for effective governance. Governments require time to formulate effective policies and manage pressing issues. Put differently, governments require stability in their life cycle, ideally reaching the end term stipulated by the constitution.

Unstable administrations typically record subpar performance, as Huber (1998) contended. According to some scholars, unstable cabinets can jeopardize a democracy’s ability to function (Warwick, 1994). Lijphart (1999) asserts that short-lived governments lead to systemic performance problems because they are unable to communicate and collaborate with the legislative branch in an efficient manner. Some other scholars, on the other hand, are less convinced about the effect of instability on democratic and governmental performance. For example, Sartori (1982) argued that the duration of government in office can only be regarded as an empirical referent as cabinets might remain in office for an extended period without enacting impactful policies and even acting irresponsibly. Sartori (1982) contended that stable governments may still face circumstances of “ruling immobility” about policymaking. However, recent research has documented that the likelihood of cabinet termination increases when political constraints limit the room for government-based policy change (Improta, 2024). In this book, I share the conclusion of D’Alimonte and Mammarella (2022) regarding the issue: stability alone does not guarantee effective governance, but it is a prerequisite for creating the conditions for it.

Several examples of the detrimental effects of unstable governments may be seen in the recent political developments in Italy – a country that is a prime example in this respect. As previously said, a peculiarity of the Italian political system is its tendency towards government instability. The effectiveness and reliability of the Italian government have suffered many consequences because of this “pathology.” What Romano Prodi – former Italian prime minister – recalled a few years ago1 serves as a telling illustration. Specifically, Prodi related a story about his first encounter as the leader of Italy’s government with German chancellor Helmut Kohl. After the conclusion of their meeting, Kohl asked Prodi, “who is coming next time?” In this light, government reliability in international affairs is impacted by the short endurance of Italian governments, undermining the country’s effectiveness in defending its interests and positions in the global scenario. Additionally, leaders in a supranational and globalized environment need to cooperatively imagine future goals, but Italian leaders must seek to impose themselves internationally considering their potentially limited time horizon in office. Therefore, there is little doubt that instability has an impact on global cooperation and ties. After Prodi and Kohl’s meeting, some time has passed. Nonetheless, it is still clear how unstable Italian governments are.

More generally, political scientists throughout the world have been focused on issues regarding the reasons behind the varying durations that democratic governments record (e.g., King et al., 1990). As a result, political instability quickly rose to the top of the comparative politics agenda. The first contributions on this matter date back to Lowell (1896). Though Italy has some of the lowest levels of government duration, there are still few systematic studies that are solely focused on examining government instability in this country (a notable exception, albeit not focusing on stability alone, is Curini & Pinto, 2017). Scholars usually focus on the early phases of the democratic life cycle, such as government formation. Despite a sizable amount of literature, current research on the topic has several drawbacks. Most importantly, researchers are still reflecting on which variables...

Über Autor(innen)

Marco Improta is a postdoctoral researcher in political science at the Department of Social, Political, and Cognitive Sciences of the University of Siena. His research interests include governments in a comparative perspective, coalition governance, political representation, and technocracy.

Marco Improta is a postdoctoral researcher in political science at the Department of Social, Political, and Cognitive Sciences of the University of Siena. His research interests include governments in a comparative perspective, coalition governance, political representation, and technocracy.