PurposeThe article investigates how the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated and deepened the presidentialization of politics in Italy. It examines how a series of innovative rules and procedures adopted by the Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to face the extraordinary event are part of a permanent presidentialization dynamic.Design/methodology/approachThis study analyzes the role of prime minister in coping with the pandemic in Italy within the analytical framework of the personalization of politics. Section 1 investigates how the prime minister has resorted to autonomous normative power through intensive use of the Decree of the President of the Council of Ministers (DPCM). Section 2 observes the establishment of a more direct relationship with citizens through extensive use of digital communication and high engagement. Section 3 analyzes the “personal task force” appointed by the prime minister and highlights a new balance between technocratic/private roles and politics undermining democratic accountability.FindingsBy examining three main aspects of the personalization of politics, the article observes that the COVID-19 pandemic has facilitated the movement to presidentialization of power in Italy. It argues that the COVID-19 pandemic has strengthened political and institutional trends already in place before the crisis.Originality/valueThe article expands the comparative research on the presidentialization of politics. The Italian case clearly underlines how the pandemic crisis represented a further step of progressive dominance of the “executive” over the other branches of government. The article suggests an agenda for future cross-institutional and cross-national analysis.

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Since government is one of the most central actors providing political directions to the society, the analysis of its challenges concerns the core of contemporary democracies and their institutional pillars. This is increasingly relevant in the light of the recent developments of the Italian politics with the rise of power from new populist parties. The book 'Il governo in Italia. Profili costituzionali e dinamiche politiche', edited by Fortunato Musella, Professor of Political Science at the University of Naples Federico II, is a rather timely publication. Besides, it represents one of the first attempts to merge constitutional law scholarship and political science becoming also a stimulating cultural operation. As underlined (p. 30) in the book, 'constitutionalists and political scientists lose contact with one of the dimensions whose consideration is necessary to understand the fundamental features of the political organization of the State: the former lose contact with the party dimension; the latter lose contact with the legal-regulatory dimension'. Indeed, thanks to contributions from leading scholars from political science and constitutional law, the book provides a comprehensive study of the Italian government by focusing on the institutional framework and political dynamics. It investigates the structure and mechanisms of legitimization of the Italian executive by highlighting the challenges of the Italian form of government from the beginning of the Republic until today. Moreover, the book identifies and explores the reasons that led the government to become the driving force of Italian politics and the impact of the personalization of politics on the Italian political regime. This workrich in useful data and interpretationsis divided into 11 chapters and it is structured in three sections: structure of government, current events, and challenges. First, by adopting a realist approach, the book bypasses the classical distinction between parliamentarism and presidentialism by including the Italian party system among the institutional variables. Then, it analyses the influence of the evolution of the relationship between political forces in shaping the Italian form of government. At the same time, it focuses on the role of Constitutional court case law and jurisprudence by highlighting the increased opportunity for the Constitutional Court to influence policymaking and to address the Italian political regime. Yet, in a phase of personalized politics and less structured parties, the Constitutional court adopts a 'quasi constitutive' role (p. 161). This phenomenon becomes clear when considering the recent judgements (1/2014 and 35/2017) which have struck down two electoral laws (p. 114). Moreover, several decisions of the Constitutional court have regulated the relationship between central government and regions with the reform of the Title V of the Italian Constitutional charter. Second, the book focuses also on executive law-making, which represents a useful tool to measure the relationship between governm...