Political Parties and Coalitional Behaviour in Italy

Geoffrey Pridham

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781135077754
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política

Coalitional behaviour is central to the Italian system of government but has been largely neglected by research. As a result, coalitions in post-war Italy have been viewed as simply unstable, short-lived and incohesive. In this book, the author corrects this one-sidedness by analysing Italian coalition politics as a continuous and dynamic process. His comprehensive, interpretative approach takes account of other new developments in coalition studies and relates his subject both to the literature on Italian politics and to the comparative study of party systems in liberal democracies. An introductory section places Italian coalitional behaviour in a theoretical and comparative context. This inductive framework is then used as a reference for examining the historical, institutional, motivational, internal, socio-political andenvironmental dimensions of the phenomenon.

Part One
Interpreting Italian Coalitional Behaviour: The Theory and the Practice

Chapter One
Coalition Theory and the Case of Italy

Italy has often been viewed as the country in Western Europe with the most elaborate form of coalition politics. However, this reputation has usually encouraged a picture of confusion, as epitomised by one journalistic source: 'Italian governmental politics are a bizarre and Byzantine game whose details are followed only by the immediate players, while the rest of the world finds it difficult even to pretend to take an interest' (1). The reason for this confusion is twofold. Despite its obvious and central importance for the functioning of Italy's political system, the question of that country's coalitional behaviour has been essentially neglected in the empirical literature, apart from some descriptive or monographic studies. Secondly, and more basically, the difficulty has been one of interpretation, of analysing the dynamics of what is commonly accepted but invariably dismissed as a complex affair. The assumption about the 'Byzantine' nature of Italian coalition politics has paradoxically encouraged simplistic views which do not assist its analysis. In overcoming this interpretative difficulty, the application of coalition theory is crucial for purely empirical or descriptive work is unlikely by itself to confront satisfactorily the complexity and range of the subject; but so far such an approach has not been attempted.

At the same time, the case of Italy has suffered at least as much as any other national example from general problems in coalition studies of relating theory to practice and vice versa. Despite a recent revival in coalition studies involving some re-thinking and extension of theoretical concerns (2), two fundamental problems have remained: a narrowness of focus in the theoretical literature, namely primarily on coalition formation and specifically the relative importance of portfolio payoffs and policy bargaining; and the lack of cross-fertilisation between such theoretical work, predominantly deductive and drawing on formal models and public choice approaches, and empirical research on West European coalition governments as such (3). Furthermore, coalition studies, whether theoretical or empirical, have in turn remained surprisingly detached from the comparative study of party systems. While systematic work on West European party systems and individual political parties has advanced significantly since the 1960s, coalition studies have not really kept pace with this development (4). Seeing that political parties have long been recognised as the principal actors in coalition politics, this is a conspicuous deficiency of approach. The analysis of party systems, concerned with the dynamics of party development and system stability and change as well as precise testing of typologies and insights from research findings on mass attitudes and other behavioural problems, offers profitable new directions for analysing coalitional behaviour. Above all, relating coalition studies to comparative work on party systems is obviously central to understanding the context in which political parties operate as coalition actors.

So far as Italy is concerned, these various conceptual and methodological problems have resulted in the study of coalitional behaviour there falling as it were between the two stools of theoretical elegance and political reality. That is, Italy has more often than not been included alongside a range of other (usually West European) states in testing increasingly sophisticated abstract models, but this has contributed little to understanding the Italian case as such. Equally, empirical work so far on the latter has whatever its value not approached this subject in any broad way. It is perhaps indicative that these particular aspects covered in the empirical literature on Italy — such as electoral politics, developments in legislative convergence between parliamentary parties, internal party factions and problems of party organisation — have not generally been catered for in coalition theory. Given that the formal theories, based on simple and direct applications of mathematical models of n-person game theory, have increasingly been found inadequate for handling the now more recognised complexities of coalitional behaviour, a new theoretical framework is required to draw together theoretical concerns, country-specific forms of coalitional behaviour and systemic determinants.

Since formal or deductive coalition theories have chosen to exclude certain relevant areas of coalitional behaviour, and have been conceptually static, the preference here is for an inductive methodological style. The obvious disadvantage of an inductive theoretical framework is that it must lack the scientific rigour of formal modelling, but on the other hand it offers more potential for comprehensiveness and depth that is certainly required for the case of Italy. The emphasis is on coalitional behaviour as a continuous and dynamic process in which different and sometimes separate phenomena, issues, forms of activity and behaviour as well constraints interact, find not just the special question of coalition formation at a given moment. By 'dynamic factors' we have in mind such variables in coalitional behaviour as: the very dynamics of coalition relations between partners as an ongoing concern within the life of a given cabinet (accumulated experience), and the impact of a coalition's policy decisions during the same time period; the need to differentiate more between distinct policy areas rather than talking blandly about 'policy distance'; changing issue priorities and, more broadly, changing party strategic goals during a legislative period; the effects of approaching elections on relations between parties in government and the collapse of existing coalitions; the dynamics of internal relationships within individual coalition parties, such as the changing positions of leaders and changing balance between factions; generally, the dynamics of party development, notably the rise and decline in the fortunes of individual parties within party systems and changes in their constituencies; and, finally, not to forget the external demands or environmental influences which invariably impinge on decision-makers in coalition politics.

The method adopted here and applied elsewhere in cross-national analysis of Western Europe (see Geoffrey Pridham (ed.), Coalitional Behaviour in Theory and Practice: An inductive model for Western Europe, Cambridge University Press, 1986) is an inductive theoretical framework based on political parties as the central dynamic agents in the coalitional process. They are viewed not merely as institution-bound actors, but also as the primary linkage between political structures and society and as subject to a variety of pressures. This framework consists of seven dimensions, as follows:

1. Historical Dimension: The time aspect of coalition politics, emphasising this as a continuous process with respect to traditions, patterns and conventions of coalitional behaviour. Political parties accumulate experience not merely during an ongoing coalitional relationship, but also from earlier experiences. The dynamics of coalitional behaviour may also be affected by such previous patterns of co-operation.

2. Institutional Dimension: The formal structure of the political system provides both constraints and opportunities for decision-makers in their initiation and pursuit of coalitional relationships, e.g. institutional regulations in liberal democracies include checks on executive power. More broadly, one may consider the relationship between the state and the political parties, in particular whether the latter dominate the functioning of the former and 'populate' it (e.g. how far coalition politics enters the area of patronage and bureaucracy). Most of all the focus here is on the dynamics of legislation and generally of the policy-making process. One may also take account of such national-specific matters as the nature of the parliamentary government/opposition divide and the form of electoral system (as important in determining the arithmetical strength of different parties in a given legislature).

3. Motivational Dimension: The traditional problem in coalition theory of the power-seeking or office-holding motive as against the policy-pursuit motive, and any trade-off between them. This involves several questions familiar in coalition studies such as policy closeness or distance in reference to the Left/Right continuum and parties being categorised as dominant or leading, pivotal or simply smaller. In general, this dimension comprises a complex mixture of forms of motivation which in practice usually interact, some of which are generalisable while others must be treated in an ad hoc manner. Interest should centre not only on ideology as the basis for compatibility or not (the existence of ideological poles and the estimated distance between them), but also on the intensity thereof (how parties actually interact ideologically); and, furthermore, on the extent to which ideological motivation relates to other forms of motivation. A point of departure here is how far the link between party strategies in general and actual coalitional behaviour is subject to intervening variables.

4. Horizontal/Vertical Dimension: Two interacting levels of activity, the 'horizontal' (national leadership) level and sub-national levels, and the importance here of 'vertical' linkages involving centre-periphery relations. 'Vertical' linkages concentrate on a two-way problem: how do national leaders or party strategists control through the state structure sub-national coalitional behaviour (vertical-downwards), and what effect have developments at the sub-national levels on the pursuit of party strategies (vertical-upwards)? The focus here is on the relationship between party and state with respect to the letter's structure (whether centralised, devolved or federal), and its impact on the application of party strategy in coalitional behaviour.

5. Internal Party Dimension: Parallel to this and focusing on power relations within internal party structures, the main hypothesis is of interaction between inter-party and intra-party relationships. Parties themselves may be centralised or federal in their structures, tightly or loosely organised, while in practice the dynamics of internal party processes including the evolving internal positions of leaders and the balance of party factions are often determinant. It cannot be assumed these are static over a period of time. This dimension is concerned with the problem of elite control, alternatively of constraints on elites, and contests the elementary assumption of the formal theories about parties as unitary actors in the coalition game. It goes without saying that their coalitional role (i.e. entering government, maintaining a coalition) may well affect the balance in the relationship between leaders and followers in party structures.

6. Socio-Political Dimension: A range of different variables, all bringing the discussion of coalitional behaviour into deeper areas of party systems. The most familiar theme is that of electoral politics involving pressures like the effects of oncoming elections on a given coalition, the changing demands and preferences of electorates and their effects on the relative popularity of coalition partners, not to mention the dynamics of overall party development including the changing fortunes of individual parties. This dimension also includes parties' links with interest groups and their own social bases, behind which may lie societal consensus as a determinant of coalition politics, and furthermore the intensity of cleavages and their influence on the stability of coalitional relationships.

7. Environmental/External Dimension: Involves a series of wider considerations in coalitional behaviour, notably the impact of developments often beyond the direct control of coalition leaders as well as the role of other possible actors which may indirectly influence coalition politics, notably the actions of foreign governments. If there is a leitmotiv to these different factors, it is that coalition actors operate in a world of uncertainty in which events occur that might constrain their behaviour or affect their own relationships in some unexpected way.

This inductive theoretical framework builds on what has already been achieved in coalition theory seeking then to investigate areas so far unexplored rather than starting completely anew. It is therefore relevant to look at what previous coalition theory has to offer the case of Italy before discussing this multi-dimensional framework. Lessons from the comparative analysis of party systems in applying this approach to Italy will be examined separately following this.

We begin by noting the general applicability of formal theory to the Italian case (5). This may be done by taking Laver's summary of the main a priori assumptions that have regularly characterised formal coalition theory, as elaborating a general assumption of rational decision-making (6). They are four:

i) The actors in the coalition game are unified parties, each of which can be treated as a single bargaining entity;

ii) Coalition governments must command majority support in the legislature;

iii) Parties are motivated by either or both of two objectives: the first to enter government, and the second to fulfil fundamental policy objectives;

iv) All winning combinations of parties represent possible coalition governments, with some perhaps being more probable than others.

i) The assumption about parties as unitary actors is very open to question, not least because of the prevalence of highly organised factions within the Italian parties. At the moment of a coalition formation, this assumption may be more correct than at other times, but it is not a safe hypothesis in any case. Judging by past experience, there has even been a tendency for factional behaviour to intensify as a direct result of government involvement, linked as this has been with intra-party rivalry for patronage. One study of Italian factionalism and cabinet coalitions has gone so far to argue that formal coalition theories 'have been of little value in analysing cabinet behaviour' since 'cabinets frequently dissolve without the rupture of the inter-party parliamentary alliances', specifically because of factional politics (7). It is perhaps inevitable in empirical work that this assumption has to be modified in the light of structural differentiation between parties. In the Italian case, there is a substantial difference between the bureaucratically organised PCI, the highly-factionalised DC and the loosely or informally organised smaller parties, with all the implications this has for political control by leaderships. Otherwise, it is important to note that in Italy the location of decision-making may be diffuse and not usually concentrated in the cabinet, insofar as the most important single actors are invariably the party secretaries who more often than not remain outside it.

ii) Given that the assumption about commanding majority support has increasingly been questioned in theoretical work of late, because of the common occurrence of minority governments in parliamentary democracies, it is no surprise that Italy should present problems in applying it. There are two reasons why, both relating to patterns of coalition politics in that country. One has been a tendency to over-sizedness with consensus-formation around the central position of the DC not merely for majority-building but also to maintain that party's control over the system, supported sometimes by the additional argument that national solidarity requires broad cross-party co-operation (e.g. in the face of terrorism, economic crisis). In fact, Italy has varied enormously with its 47 governments in over four decades since the Second World War between such large majorities of up tc five parties and simple minority administrations or those enjoying external or parliamentary support from extra parties. Linked to this is a tendency to articulate 'informal' versions of coalitions: some parties may remain outside the cabinet but make some form of commitment to support the government externally, ranging from the 'no non-confidence' formula (non-sfiducia), then a programmatic agreement or pact to agreeing to 'participate in the majority' (a full legislative coalition). All this challenges the assumption about needing to hold formal majority support, for those formal theories concerned with the size principle (Riker's minimal winning coalition theory, minimum size theory and Leiserson's 'bargaining proposition' about coalitions with the smallest possible number of parties) were too abstract to absorb such country-specific factors as those just mentioned. Nevertheless, recent arguments have been put forward for incorporating minority situations as something more than aberrations within a rational choice paradigm. Contrary to conventional explanations, minority governments may well be rational solutions under specified conditions (e.g. when opposition parties can influence parliamentary legislation, when government participation is likely to be a liability in a future election), involving an extension of rationalist explanations and so requiring some modification to theories of coalition formation (8). The question of support parties has surfaced in earlier literature, but it has not really been built into the body of coalition theory as such. De Swaan favoured viewing support parties as coalition members, and more recently Lijphart once more raised this problem in the context of defining the membership of coalitions (9). One usual answer has been to distinguish between 'executive coalitions' (i.e. formal ones) and 'legislative coalitions'. A refinement of this is Laver's identification of 'stable voting coalitions' as against 'unstable voting coalitions', reasoning that governments do not need to secure majorities solely on the basis of votes of members of government parties (10). This usefully draws attention to the quality of the informal arrangements in question. For instance, the role of support parties violates the assumption that parties are essentially interested in acquiring a share in cabinet power.

iii) The assumption about party motivation in coalition formation is more applicable than any of the others to the Italian case, but hardly straightforwardly so. This is because 'policy' and 'power', while conceptually neat, are in practice interrelated and not exclusive of other forms of motivation. This assumption is, however, broadly relevant because of the importa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• PART ONE: INTERPRETING ITALIAN COALITIONAL BEHAVIOUR: THE THEORY AND THE PRACTICE
• PART TWO: ITALIAN COALITIONAL BEHAVIOUR: MULTI-DIMENSIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON NATIONAL POLITICS
• PART THREE: ITALIAN COALITIONAL BEHAVIOUR: SUB-NATIONAL POLITICS AND VERTICAL LINKAGES
• PART FOUR: ITALIAN COALITIONAL BEHAVIOUR IN A DEEPER AND WIDER SETTING
• CONCLUSION
• NOTES
• LIST OF INTERVIEWS
• INDEX