The disentanglement of interest politics: Business associability, the parties and policy in Italy and Greece

The article explores changes in the politics of business associability in I taly and Greece, focusing in particular on a set of comparable domestic and European developments that have played the roles of stimuli for the slow b ut unmistakable transformation of interest politics. Against a background o f intense politicization, changes that are taking place since the 1980s sug gest that organized interests become disentangled from the linkages which s ustained party colonization and state dominance. Changes in interest politi cs were facilitated by the transition to a majoritarian system (in Italy) a nd party alternation (in Greece). The disentanglement we refer to would be difficult under conditions of sharing-out government; conversely, alternati ng governments facilitate changes in the relationships between interests, p arties and policy-making. Apart from the domestic sources of change, the ar ticle argues that shifts in interest politics are the combined outcome of w ider challenges and of the impact of Europeanization. On the basis of this analysis, we speculate that the disentanglement of interest politics may be conducive to national policy adjustment in two possible scenarios. Either by enabling intersectoral agreements over policy issues or by freeing natio nal policy-making from the burden of oligopolistic coalitions - a social de mocratic and a neoliberal scenario respectively.