Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-9nbrm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-04-19T12:59:33.161Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The ‘(party) politics of attention.’ Party competition and decentralist reforms: the Italian case

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 August 2018

Linda Basile
Linda Basile*
Affiliation:
Department of Social, Political, and Cognitive Sciences, University of Siena, Siena, SI, Italy
*
*Corresponding author. Email: basile7@unisi.it
Get access

Abstract

This paper sheds light on the role played by political parties in influencing policy change, by connecting literature on party competition and agenda-setting and focusing on a single-issue domain, namely decentralization in Italy from 1948 to 2013. The article argues that major decentralist reforms usually followed electoral campaigns in which most parties focused attention on the issue. Such shifts in attention are caused by, among other things, the issue entrepreneurship activity undertaken by individual parties that are trying to influence the party system agenda and obtain electoral, office, or policy advantage. Contrary to the expectations of the issue entrepreneurship model, however, the analyses reveal that the entrepreneurship role on decentralization in Italy was not played by those parties that can be classified as ‘political losers’ in the party system; rather, in the case of the policy of decentralization in Italy, issue entrepreneurship activity is mostly explained by strategic considerations other than purely electoral ones.

Keywords

party system agendadecentralizationsaliencepunctuated equilibriumissue entrepreneurs

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Italian Political Science Review / Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica , Volume 48 , Special Issue 3: Policy Agendas in Italy , November 2018 , pp. 345 - 363
Copyright
© Società Italiana di Scienza Politica 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Alonso, S (2012) Challenging the State: Devolution and the Battle for Partisan Credibility: A Comparison of Belgium, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, USA.Google Scholar
Baldi, B (2006) Regioni e federalismo: l’Italia e l’Europa. Bologna: Clueb.Google Scholar
Basile, L (2015) A Dwarf among giants? Party competition between ethno-regionalist and state-wide parties on the territorial dimension: the case of Italy (1963–2013). Party Politics 21(6): 887–899.Google Scholar
Basile, L (2016) Measuring party strategies on the territorial dimension: a method based on content analysis. Regional and Federal Studies 26(1): 1–23.Google Scholar
Baumgartner, FR Jones, BD (1993) Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Baumgartner, FR Jones, BD (2009) Agendas and Instability in American Politics, 2nd edn. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Baumgartner, FR, Green-Pedersen, C Jones, B (2006) Comparative studies of policy agendas. Journal of European Public Policy 13(7): 959–974.Google Scholar
Borghetto, E, Carammia, M Zucchini, F (2014) The impact of party policy priorities on Italian law-making from the First to the Second Republic (1983-2006), in C Green-Pedersen and S Walgrave (eds). Agenda Setting, Policies, and Political Systems: A Comparative Approach. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 164–182.Google Scholar
Budge, I Hofferbert, RI (1990) Mandates and policy outputs: U.S. party platforms and federal expenditures. The American Political Science Review 84(1): 111–131.Google Scholar
Budge, I, Robertson, D Hearl, D (1987) Ideology, Strategy and Party Change: Spatial Analyses of Post-War Election Programmes in 19 Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bull, M Pasquino, G (2007) A long quest in vain: Institutional reforms in Italy. West European Politics 30(4): 670–691.Google Scholar
Carammia, M, Bevan, S Borghetto, E (2018) Changing the transmission belt. The programme-to-policy link in Italy between the First and Second Republic. Italian Political Science Review doi:10.1017/ipo.2018.13.Google Scholar
Chaqués-Bonafont, L, Baumgartner, FR Palau, AM (2015) Agenda Dynamics in Spain. New York: Palgrave McMillan.Google Scholar
Fabbrini, S (2009) The transformation of Italian democracy. Bulletin of Italian Politics 1(1): 29–47.Google Scholar
Farinelli, A Massetti, E (2011) Eppur Non Si Muove? Prospects for Constitutional Reforms in Italy after the 2009 European and 2010 Regional Elections. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 16(5): 685–704.Google Scholar
Froio, C, Bevan, S Jennings, W (2016) Party mandates and the politics of attention: party platforms, public priorities and the policy agenda in Britain. Party Politics 23(6): 692–703.Google Scholar
Green-Pedersen, C (2007) The conflict of conflicts in comparative perspective. Euthanasia as a political issue in Denmark, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Comparative Politics 39(3): 273–291.Google Scholar
Green-Pedersen, C Krogstrup, J (2008) Immigration as a political issue in Denmark and Sweden. European Journal of Political Research 47(5): 610–634.Google Scholar
Green-Pedersen, C Mortensen, PB (2010) Who sets the agenda and who responds to it in the Danish Parliament? A new model of issue competition and agenda-setting. European Journal of Political Research 49(2): 257–281.Google Scholar
Green-Pedersen, C Walgrave, S (2014) Political agenda setting: an approach to studying political systems, in C Green-Pedersen and S Walgrave (eds). Agenda Setting, Policies, and Political Systems: A Comparative Approach. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 1–18.Google Scholar
Höbel, A (2004) Il Pci Di Longo E Il ‘68 Studentesco. Studi Storici 45(2): 419–459.Google Scholar
Hobolt, SB De Vries, C (2015) Issue entrepreneurship and multiparty competition. Comparative Political Studies 48(9): 1159–1185.Google Scholar
Hooghe, L, Marks, G Schakel, AH (2010) The Rise of Regional Authority: A Comparative Study of 42 Democracies. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jones, BD Baumgartner, FR (2005) The Politics of Attention: How Government Prioritizes Problems. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Jones, BD Baumgartner, FR (2012) From there to here: punctuated equilibrium to the general punctuation thesis to a theory of government information processing. Policy Studies Journal 40(1): 1–19.Google Scholar
Lipset, SM Rokkan, S (1967) Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Massetti, E (2012) La riforma federale: la fine dell’inizio o l’inizio della fine? in A Bosco and D McDonnell (eds). Politica in Italia: I Fatti dell’Anno e le Interpretazioni. Bologna: Il Mulino, pp. 141–160.Google Scholar
Massetti, E Toubeau, S (2013) Sailing with northern winds: party politics and federal reforms in Italy. West European Politics 36(2): 359–381.Google Scholar
Mazzoleni, M (2009) The Italian regionalisation: a story of partisan logics. Modern Italy 14(2): 135–150.Google Scholar
McDonnell, D Vampa, D (2016) The Italian Lega Nord, in R Heinisch and O Mazzoleni (eds). Understanding Populist Party Organisation: The Radical Right in Western Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 105–129.Google Scholar
Meguid, B (2005) Competition between unequals: the role of mainstream party strategy in niche party success. American Political Science Review 99(3): 347–359.Google Scholar
Meguid, B (2008) Party Competition Between Unequals: Strategies and Electoral Fortunes in Western Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Meyer, TM Miller, B (2015) The niche party concept and its measurement. Party Politics 21(2): 259–271.Google Scholar
Rhodes, RAW Wright, V (1987) Introduction. West European Politics 10(4): 1–20.Google Scholar
Rokkan, S Urwin, DW (1983) Economy, Territory, Identity: Politics of West European Peripheries. London/Beverly Hills: Sage.Google Scholar
Schakel, AH (2009) A postfunctionalist theory of regional government. An inquiry into regional authority and regional policy provision. PhD-thesis Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Veenendaal: Universal Press.Google Scholar
Shin, ME Agnew, JA (2008) Berlusconi’s Italy: Mapping Contemporary Italian Politics. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Steenbergen, MR Scott, DJ (2004) Contesting Europe? The salience of European integration as a party issue, in Marks G and Steenbergen M (eds). European Integration and Political Conflict. Themes in European Governance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
VVAA (2016) Compendio di diritto regionale e degli enti locali , 18 edn. Napoli: Edizioni Giuridiche Simone.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Basile supplementary material

Appendix

Download Basile supplementary material(File)
File 63.4 KB