The Italian political system is like no other Western democracy. Over seventy parties campaign in national elections and some ten of them sit in parliament, yet one party has dominated the country for the entire period of its republican history. There were forty-five governments in the first forty years after the war, yet no other parliamentary democracy has had greater continuity in its leadership and policies. The government changes on an average every ten months, yet essentially the same group holds all the important political positions. Italians are contemptuous of their government, its leaders and functioning, yet politics dominate every aspect of the nation's life, the parties decide everything, and political patronage permeates society. A party representing a third of the electorate is excluded from government, yet a party with 3 percent of the vote has held the prime ministry of two administrations. There is a greater acceptance of political diversity than in any other Western state, yet Italy has been marred by one of the world's highest levels of social discord and physical violence. The population is nominally 97 percent Catholic and the papacy has for centuries played a central role in the country's life, yet today society is so secularized that the church has almost no political influence.

Such are a few of the paradoxes that bemuse and bewilder an observer of the Italian scene.