Italy and the European Union: the discontinuity of the Conte government

Fabbrini, Sergio; Zgaga, Tiziano

doi:10.1080/23248823.2019.1642657

Cited by 26 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Italy's domestic vulnerability to heightened tensions on the financial markets was a consideration in the government's decision to adopt a more prudent fiscal position. In this regard, threats from other countries in the Eurozone in support of the European Commission's determination to take legal action for deviation from the SGP's deficit rules induced the Conte government to adopt a more prudent fiscal position (Fabbrini & Zgaga, 2019).…”

Section: The Influence Of the Shift In Eu Economic Governance On Publ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

How the European Union responded to populism and its implications for public sector reforms

Ongaro

Mascio

Natalini

2022

GPPG

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A major shift occurred in the European Union (EU) approach to tackle the apparently unstoppable rise of populist parties across European countries and to preserve the integrity of the EU polity. EU economic governance seems to have shifted from a logic of conditionality to a logic of solidarity underpinned by a pan-European strategic view allowing EU governance to support and enable public sector reforms at the national level. By investigating the case of Italy as an EU member state, we find that the European governance shift occurring in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic was largely mediated by the mutating character of Italian populism. A logic of conditionality which was largely centered around EU governance was largely shifted to a logic of solidarity taking into account political conditions in the member countries.

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Section: The Influence Of the Shift In Eu Economic Governance On Publ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

How the European Union responded to populism and its implications for public sector reforms

Ongaro

Mascio

Natalini

2022

GPPG

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“…Then, the formation of the government was delayed by the refusal of President Mattarella to approve the nomination of Paolo Savonaan anti-euro economistas the new economy and finance minister. The most significant constraints, however, came from the supervision of the European Commission (Codogno and Merler 2019;Fabbrini and Zgaga 2019). Technocracy therefore did not take the form the M5S had intended (i.e.…”

Section: The First Conte Government: Constraints and Policiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The strident nature of the debate was itself influenced profoundly by the competition between the two coalition partners in asserting their populist bona fides. Arguably, even on these redistributive and material topics the importance of establishing a confrontational stance trumped the actual final bargaining outcome in the eyes of the M5S and League leadership (Fabbrini and Zgaga 2019). The final point of equilibrium thus was significantly closer to the EU's initial bargaining position than to Italy's stated budgetary goals, though with a considerable amount of deferring of hard choices (Codogno and Merler 2019), e.g.…”

Section: Economic Policiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bread or Circuses? Repoliticization in the Italian Populist Government Experience

Baldini

Giglioli

2020

Gov. & oppos.

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The majority view within political science is that populism is best understood as a (thin) ideology. We problematize the ideational approach by broadening the scope of analysis, linking populism to the rise of long-term generalized anti-political sentiments, against interpretations that tend to tie the populist wave to conjunctural factors related to recent crises. We argue that the essence of populism lies at the intersection of the ‘material constitution’ of advanced industrial democracies (that is, how macroeconomic governance relates to democratic decision-making) and the feelings of societal alienation that are at the heart of anti-political sentiments. We show the peculiar coexistence of economic turbulence, heralded by the crisis of the cartel party and of the neoliberal economic consensus, and an appeal to a post-democratic ‘virtual politics’ of performed but ineffectual popular sovereignty. The policies of the populist coalition governing Italy in 2018–19 provide a key case to test the relevance of our arguments.

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“…To paraphrase Maggini and Chiaramonte (2019), if the question is whether euroscepticism lay behind the victory of eurosceptical parties, then the answer is 'not exactly'. Europe was certainly talked abouteven more so in the 2019 contest than in 2014and yet the tone of the conversation was measured (Cremonesi et al, 2019) and the baseline attitudes of most Italians towards Europe were surprisingly positive despite their many frustrations (Fabbrini and Zgaga, 2019). As a result, the political debate during the campaign for the EP elections in 2019 was largely dominated by Italian domestic politics (Newell, 2019).…”

Section: Versus 2019: the Puzzling Tale Of The Two Matteosmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Third, both Salvini and Di Maio were forced to make concessions to EU institutions as part of the wider procedures for European macroeconomic policy coordination. They may have started their governing coalition with bold plans to blow up the budget with a bang, but they ended fiscal negotiations with a whimper by compromising with Brussels (Fabbrini and Zgaga, 2019). This pattern could have been worse – and would have been worse if the French government were not also in violation of European norms for fiscal consolidation.…”

Section: Italian Political Elitesmentioning

confidence: 99%