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Party system change and electoral platforms: A study of the 1996 Italian election

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 May 2016

Donatella Campus
Donatella Campus*
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Politia, Istituzioni e Storia, Strada Maggiore 45, 40125, Bologna, Italy
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Summary

Comparative research suggests that parties regularly campaign by emphasizing issues on which they are advantaged and by ignoring topics that are traditionally associated with other parties. Focusing on the 1996 Italian elections, this article discusses whether such a generalization holds when the party system is affected by radical changes such as those that occurred in Italy in the mid-1990s. Moreover, the analysis of the party electoral platforms highlights some basic features of the new parties, and identifies either innovations or continuities with the past. I present evidence that in 1996 the Italian parties mostly competed on a similar range of issues. Especially regarding economic policy, there was not a polarized ideological debate: also the centre-left parties converged on a moderate position by playing down typical socialist themes such as state intervention and the expansion of social services. I also analyse the degree of internal programmatic cohesion of the two main coalitions, the Ulivo (Olive Tree) and the Polo delle Libertà (Freedom Pole) and relate it to the stability of the Italian political system.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , May 2001 , pp. 5 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

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References

Notes

∗ I am grateful to the Manifesto Research Project and to the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung for having provided the data set of the 1996 Italian electoral programmes. I am especially indebted to Ian Budge who encouraged my interest in the analysis of party platforms and offered me inestimable intellectual advice and guidance. I wish to thank Roberto Cartocci, Gianfranco Pasquino and the four anonymous referees of Modern Italy for their helpful comments. The article was written when I was a fellow in residence at the Italian Academy at Columbia University, to which I express my gratitude.Google Scholar

1. Bull, Martin and Rhodes, Martin (eds), Crisis and Transition in Italian Politics, Frank Cass, London, 1997 is an interesting review of the Italian political transition in the 1990s. On party system change, see: Luciano Bardi and Leonardo Morlino, ‘Italy: tracing the roots of the great transformation’, in Katz, Richard and Mair, Peter (eds), How Parties Organize Change and Adaptation in Party Organizations in Western Democracies, Sage, London and Beverly Hills, 1994, pp. 242–77; Morlino, Leonardo, ‘Crisis of the parties and change of party system in Italy’, Party Politics, 1996, pp. 5–31; D'Alimonte, Roberto and Bartolini, Stefano (eds), Maggioritario per caso, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1997.Google Scholar

2. Although the new electoral rules exerted a remarkable pressure towards bipolarism, the outcome was far from expectations in both 1994 and in 1996. In 1994, a centre alliance contested the election, flanked on its left by a broad coalition which included Rifondazione Comunista and on its right by an electoral cartel comprising the sum of two separate alliances (between Forza Italia and Alleanza Nazionale on the one hand and between Forza Italia and the Lega Nord on the other). See Bartolini, Stefano and D'Alimonte, Roberto (eds), Maggioritario, ma non troppo, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1995; Pasquino, Gianfranco (ed.), L'alternanza inattesa. Le elezioni del 27 Marzo 1994 e le loro conseguenze, Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, 1996. The 1996 election marked a step forward: the two main coalitions shifted toward the centre and excluded the two extremes, Rifondazione Comunista and the MSI–Fiamma Tricolore, from their alliances. Notwithstanding this, the achievement of a more complete bipolarism was prevented by the Lega Nord which broke its previous association with the centre-right and competed alone.Google Scholar

3. See D'Alimonte and Bartolini, Maggioritario per caso ; Corbetta, Piergiorgio and Parisi, Arturo, (eds), A domanda risponde. Il cambiamento del voto degli italiani nelle elezioni del 1994 a del 1996, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1997.Google Scholar

4. Verzichelli, Luca, ‘La classe politica della transizione’, in D'Alimonte, and Bartolini, , Maggioritario per caso, pp. 309–51; Corbetta, Piergiorgio and Parisi, Arturo (eds), Cavalieri e Fanti, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1997; Newell, James and Bull, Martin, ‘Party organisation and alliances in Italy in the 1990s’, in Bull and Rhodes, Crisis and Transition, pp. 81–109.Google Scholar

5. A valuable exception is the study by Sani, Giacomo and Segatti, Paolo, ‘Programmi, media e opinione pubblica’, in D'Alimonte, and Bartolini, , Maggioritario per caso, pp. 11–34.Google Scholar

6. See the detailed description of the Manifesto Research Group's work in any of several reports that have been published: Budge, Ian, Robertson, David and Hearl, Derek (eds), Ideology, Strategy and Party Change: Spatial Analysis of Post War Election Programmes in 19 Democracies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987; Klingemann, Hans-Dieter, Hofferbert, Richard and Budge, Ian, Parties, Policies, and Democracy, Westview, Boulder, CO, 1994; Budge, Ian, Klingemann, Hans-Dieter, Volkens, Andrea and Bara, Judith, Mapping Policy Preferences: Estimates for Parties, Electorates and Governments, 1945–1998, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. The Manifesto Research Group data set collects party programmes and therefore does not include the coding of the two coalitions' programmatic summaries. To operate a useful comparison, see Sani, and Segatti, , ‘Programmi, media e opinione pubblica’, which consists of an exploration of the 1996 campaign agenda through the analysis of four leading newspapers and of the two general programmatic summaries presented by the Polo delle Libertà and the Ulivo.Google Scholar

8. The salience v. confrontation debate is extensively discussed in Budge, Robertson and Hearl, Ideology, Strategy and Party Change. It should be stressed that empirical research has shown that the saliency theory perspective better describes the largest number of cases. On this point, see Budge, Ian and Farlie, Dennis, Explaining and Predicting Elections: Issue Effects and Party Strategies in Twenty-three Democracies, Allen & Unwin, London, 1983.Google Scholar

9. See Laver, Michael and Budge, Ian (eds), Party Policy and Government Coalitions, Macmillan, London, 1992, pp. 15ff. for a detailed account of the empirical analysis underlying the classification of rightist and leftist items and a description of the construction of a left–right scale common to all countries under analysis.Google Scholar

10. Such an opinion is also clearly confirmed by the predominance of references to government stability in Rifondazione's manifesto which is undoubtedly the closest to the leftist ideology.Google Scholar

11. See Laver, and Budge, , Party Policy and Government Coalitions ; Budge, Ian, ‘A new spatial theory of party competition: uncertainty, ideology, and policy equilibria viewed comparatively and temporally’, British Journal of Political Science, 1994, pp. 145–65; Budge, Ian, ‘Party policy and ideology: reversing the fifties?’, in Evans, Geoffrey and Norris, Pippa (eds), Critical Elections, Sage, London, 1999.Google Scholar

12. Such a procedure has been the basis for several analyses: Laver, and Budge, (eds), Party Policy and Government Coalitions; Budge, , ‘A new spatial theory of party competition’.Google Scholar

13. Entries are the party's left–right scores or, in the case of the two coalitions, the average of the coalition parties' scores.Google Scholar

14. As claimed by Sani, and Segatti, , ‘Programmi, media e opinione pubblica’, pp. 16–19.Google Scholar

15. Environmentalism has been regarded as a key component of the ‘new politics’ or ‘post-materialistic politics’ (Inglehart, Ronald, ‘Value priorities and socio-economic change’, in Barnes, Samuel and Kaase, Max (eds), Political Action, Sage, Beverly Hills, 1979, pp. 343–80; Savage, John, ‘Postmaterialism of the Left and Right: political conflict in post-industrial society’, Comparative Political Studies, 1985, pp. 431–51). The debate on how the Green or ecological parties relate their own political views to the established left–right dimension of the contemporary political discourse is still open. However, empirical research on Green parties' militants and voters supports the opinion that environmentalis m is actually a new dimension of the leftist ideology (Kitschelt, H. and Hellemans, S., ‘The Left–Right semantics and the new politics cleavage’, Comparative Political Studies, 1990, pp. 210–13).Google Scholar

16. According to the agreement, Rifondazione had a safe run in 27 seats in the Chamber and 17 in the Senate. In turn, Rifondazione Comunista did not put up candidates that would have competed with Ulivo ones in all the other constituencies.Google Scholar

17. A better coalition performance occurs when the coalition candidates received more votes in the plurality competition than the sum of votes gained by the coalition parties in the proportional competition. Of course, many factors may condition such a performance: leadership effectiveness, the choice of candidates and, in general, coalition image See: D'Alimonte, and Bartolini, , Maggioritario per caso ; Vassallo, Salvatore, ‘Struttura della competizione e risultato elettorale’, in Corbetta, and Parisi, , A domanda risponde, pp. 21–80; on the growing importance of leaders' and premiers' personal characteristics in particular, see also: Donatella Campus, ‘La conoscenza politica dell'elettore italiano: una mappa cognitiva’, Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica, 1, 2000, pp. 89–125.Google Scholar

18. Sani, and Segatti, , ‘Programmi, media e opinione pubblica’, p. 16.Google Scholar

19. Mastropaolo, Alfio and Slater, Martin, ‘Italy 1946–1979: ideological distances and party movements’ in Budge, , Robertson, and Hearl, , Ideology, Strategy and Party Change, pp. 345–68.Google Scholar

20. Downs, Anthony, An Economic Theory of Democracy, Harper & Row, New York, 1957. It is worth noting that until the early 1990s the Italian political system was scarcely characterized by centripetal tendencies. Owing to the particular features of the party system, centrifugal forces predominated, as Giovanni Sartori argued in Teoria dei partiti e caso italiano, Sugarco, Milan, 1982. As a matter of fact, Mastropaolo and Slater, ‘Italy 1946–1979’ shows that there was a certain convergence, especially on economic matters, starting from the 1970s; however, centripetal tendencies never prevailed.Google Scholar

21. On this point, I am in partial disagreement with Sani and Segatti, ‘Programmi, media e opinione pubblica’, according to whom the Polo delle Libertà and the Ulivo diverged on fiscal and welfare policies. Segatti, Paolo, ‘I programmi elettorali e il ruolo dei mass media’, in Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica, 3, 1994, pp. 465–91 advanced a similar argument for the 1994 election as well.Google Scholar

22. See Biorcio, Roberto, ‘La Lega Nord e la transizione italiana’, in Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica, 1999, pp. 55–87.Google Scholar