A journey through the labyrinth of Italian politics ends as it began – with a deep sense of the uniqueness, subtlety, tension, paradoxes, confusion, vitality, and resilience of the Italian mode of self-government. Ultimately the question always asked is how a political system so beset by problems has survived and whether it can go on without a fundamental change in its institutions and style of politics. Any answer to this – perhaps unanswerable – question lies in diagnosing the key structural problems of the system and then in trying to discover how these defects have been counterbalanced by the Italian genius for survival.

Government instability

The most obvious symptom of political dysfunction is the acute instability of government. Statistics sum up the situation dramatically. Between 1945 and 1985 there were forty-five governments and seventeen different prime ministers. Governments lasted on an average less than ten months. Parliament itself had on four successive occasions to be dissolved ahead of its full term because incompatible party interests made impossible the formation of any type of governing coalition. In the second half of the life of the republic, twice as much time was required to form a regime as during the first half. In arithmetic terms, Italy was without government during these four decades for periods that totaled nearly three years.