Personal leaders and party change: Italy in comparative perspective

Abstract

IntroduzioneParty leaders have become more powerful and autonomous actors in recent years by developing a direct and personal relationship with citizens. As anticipated in the United States (Lowi, 1985), the rise of the ‘personal leader’ seems to have occurred in many European democracies, both in old parties and in more recently formed parties, with a widespread tendency for them to be promoted and controlled by individual leaders. Nevertheless, party leadership remains quite a neglected theme in political science. Through a data set including ~500 party presidents in 13 democracies, this article focusses on the personalization of party leadership by comparing Italy with other Western countries. More particularly, new procedures for the selection of party chairs, the centralization of power in political parties, and the new role of party leaders in the legislative/governmental arena are analysed, given their importance to such a process. The article summarizes new data on the party leaders’ characteristics, with regards to their political backgrounds, how they are elected, how long they stay in office, and whether they become prime minister or enter the executive. In this way, we are able to see how some new parties are created from the outset as highly personalized and centralized parties (Forza Italia being the paradigmatic case), whereas other older parties have also evolved in a personalized direction.

Transformational party events and legislative turnover in West European democracies, 1945–2015

“…While the estimate for Post 1989 shows that legislative turnover for the average sample party increased markedly after 1989, the marginal effect of New Leader is only somewhat higher (4.56%) than in the pre-1989 period (4.33%), and this difference is not statistically significant. In consonance with the "iron law of leadership" (Musella, 2015), these findings highlight the substantive and stable influence of leaders on the renewal of parties' legislative delegations since the end of the Second World War.…”

The personal party: an analytical framework

“…In most cases, this certainly still holds true, the more so if the chief executive's party has a strong control over his leader's decision-making activity. However, especially when the Premier or President enjoys strong autonomy over his or her political supporters, the institutional leverage of the chief executive office can be transformed into a powerful instrument for accumulating personal influence (Musella, 2015b). One that can, in turn, be used to createor reinforcea personal party.…”

“…One important step towards bridging the gap between the institutional, the electoral and the party faces of personalization is offered by Poguntke and Webb's (2005) seminal study on the presidentialization of democratic regimes. The RISP present issue offers an unprecedented contribution to understanding how party leadership has deeply affected the transformation of political parties (Musella, 2015a;Poguntke and Webb, 2015). In this article, I shall try to go one step further, by presenting a systematic overview of the most extreme case of party personalization, consisting in the full control by an individual leader of a party he has himself created.…”

Spatial analysis of economic and social determinants of vote: the case of the European Parliament and constitutional referendum votes in Italy

“…The comparison of the outcomes for the European elections and the referendum shows that the former was a vote 'without' the oppositions' participation, while the latter saw political opponents make their voices (and votes) heard. The European vote in 2014 was characterized by a new political actor (Matteo Renzi) and of consequence by a new personalization of the political debate (Musella, 2015); this round of elections was dominated by the 'benign neglect' of the right wing, by an attendant attitude of public opinion and by the enthusiastic support of PD militants. The referendum vote came after a couple of years of the Renzi government and low-economic growth.…”

“…Renzi saw the referendum campaign as a further legitimation of his leadership and as a test of the popularity of his government's political and economic actions. The resulting campaign was strongly focused on Renzi's political personality (Musella, 2015). The opposition took the opportunity to attack him with the aim of weakening and dissolving his government.…”