James Newell – författare

In early 2020 Italy was a country whose political parties stood as significant obstacles in the way of resolution of its social and economic problems. The purpose of this book is to help the reader to understand how Italian politics had reached this point. It does this by tracing the most significant processes of political, economic and social change to have marked Italian history in recent years back to their roots in the Italian political system as it emerged at the end of the Second World War. Starting with the restoration of democracy, the volume discusses the post-war party system and how it came under increasing pressure from the mid-1970s. From there it discusses the political upheavals of the early 1990s and the transformations they led to, the rise and fall of Silvio Berlusconi, and the watershed election of 2018. In short, the book provides a narrative. Narratives tell us who we are, where we have come from, where we are now and where we are going. Without them, we cannot make sense of the world. At the end of this narrative, if it has done its job properly, Italian politics and current affairs should ‘make sense’ if before they seemed confusing.

In early 2020 Italy was a country whose political parties stood as significant obstacles in the way of resolution of its social and economic problems. The purpose of this book is to help the reader to understand how Italian politics had reached this point. It does this by tracing the most significant processes of political, economic and social change to have marked Italian history in recent years back to their roots in the Italian political system as it emerged at the end of the Second World War. Starting with the restoration of democracy, the volume discusses the post-war party system and how it came under increasing pressure from the mid-1970s. From there it discusses the political upheavals of the early 1990s and the transformations they led to, the rise and fall of Silvio Berlusconi, and the watershed election of 2018. In short, the book provides a narrative. Narratives tell us who we are, where we have come from, where we are now and where we are going. Without them, we cannot make sense of the world. At the end of this narrative, if it has done its job properly, Italian politics and current affairs should ‘make sense’ if before they seemed confusing.

This title was first published in 2000: A guide to the changing place of political parties within the Italian political system, seeking to shed light on how the parties operate and their role in the country's politics. Starting from a recognition of the traditional centrality of parties in Italian political life, the book's main focus is on the consequences and causes of the transformation in the party system which began to unfold from 1989 onwards. Arguing that the latter has its roots in the specific choices made by the traditional parties as they attempted to adapt to change in their electoral environment, the book then proceeds to examine what effects the changing party system is having on such traditional, "party-driven" features of Italian politics such as "sottogoverno" and "lotizzazione" and on the functioning of such institutions as parliament and the executive. The book concludes by attempting to assess whether parties are still central to political and civil society or whether their role has diminished in importance.