Government survival the Italian way: The core and the advantages of policy immobilism during the First Republic

Abstract

During its nearly fifty years of history, the First Italian Republic has been characterised by the highest rate of cabinet turnover in Western Europe. There are several convincing explanations for this exceptional feature; nevertheless, merely looking at the average figure risks overlooking the variety in the Italian government experience. Focusing on the spatial determinants of Italian cabinet duration shows that the presence of a core party has a positive, albeit conditional, impact on government duration, largely depending on the degree of intra‐cabinet conflict. Moreover, whenever the core is absent, the inability of cabinets to change the status quo appears to lengthen, rather than shorten, their duration. This outcome appears in line with works stressing the substantial policy immobilism of Italian governments throughout most of the postwar period. The analysis relies on a new dataset based on a coding of the investiture debates of all the Italian cabinets. This allows one to track the evolution of parties’ preferences in a policy space that can change between (rather than only across) elections. The results show the importance of in‐depth case studies to better analyse some puzzles within the cabinet duration literature that might otherwise be averaged out in large‐N comparative analysis.

Parties' Influence during Government Policy Negotiations: Parliamentary Dynamics and Spatial Advantages in the First Italian Republic

“…Moreover, both coefficients display a magnitude comparable to CABINET PARTY and FORMATEUR. This finding confirms conclusions reached by previous works that showed the relevance of spatial factors during the First Italian Republic, either to predict cabinet partisan composition (Curini & Pinto, 2011) or rates of cabinet survival (Curini, 2011).…”

“…During its nearly 50 years of history, the First Italian Republic has been characterised not only by the highest rate of cabinet turnover in Western Europe, at more than twice the regional average (Curini, 2011), but also by exceptionally long periods of party bargaining. Indeed, Italy has spent more time in transitions from one cabinet to the next than any other European country (Verzichelli & Cotta, 2000).…”

“…This recently introduced dataset has been shown to present a remarkably high level of face and convergent validity in terms of estimated party positions (see Curini, 2011;Curini & Martelli, 2010;Curini and Pinto, 2011).…”

“…We will analyse in particular a new dataset that codifies all the investiture debates preceding the vote of confidence in the Italian Chamber of Deputies (Curini, 2011). This allows us to map the policy preferences of parties, as well as those expressed by cabinets during their official declarations in Parliament, within the same policy space.…”

“…DC ¼ Christian Democracy Party; MSI ¼ Italian Social Movement; PCI ¼ Communist Party; FUQ ¼ Front of the Ordinary Man; PLI ¼ Liberal Party; PMP ¼ Popular Monarchist Party; PNM ¼ National Monarchist Party; PR ¼ Radical Party; PRI ¼ Republican Party; PSDI ¼ Social-Democratic Party; PSI ¼ Socialist Party; PSU ¼ Unified Socialist Party.Regarding the content of the policy space, the Economic dimension contrasts pro-state with pro-market attitudes; the social dimension contrasts a progressive with a traditional approach to issues such as divorce, abortion, as well as a position anti-or pro-clerical; the Foreign dimension contrasts pro-Western with anti-Western attitudes; the Democracy dimension contrasts parties favouring a consensual vision of democracy, based on the deliberative role of the parliament, with parties favouring a majoritarian vision of democracy, based on an increasing power of the government (seeCurini 2011).…”