Political change without institutional transformation: What can we learn from the Italian crisis of the 1990s?

Since 1991 Italy has witnessed the crisis of its post-war consensual model of democracy. While in other democratic countries consensualism has been ju stified by ethnic or linguistic or religious cleavages, in Italy it is ideo logical cleavage that has justified the politics of accommodation among the leaders of the main parties. Consequently, as in the other consensual demo cracies, postwar Italy was unable to experience the alternation in governme nt between opposed political options. The formation of a power-sharing poli tical system at the governmental level was supported by the institutionaliz ation, at the level of policy-making structures, of a sort of oligarchic pl uralism, through which a network of organized minorities (in the public adm inistration and in the interest groups) ended up by controlling the huge re sources of the Italian stale. These institutional and policy-making structu res conflicted with the requirements imposed by the process of European int egration. Different social actors were activated to challenge the legitimac y of that power-sharing system. A political change followed, indicated by t he collapse of the postwar par ty system. But given the timing and the natu re of the crisis, and the ambiguity of the new electoral law introduced by the old parties before their final collapse, the new parties proved able to resist the pressure for institutional transformation, although they had to agree with important policy changes in order for Italy to meet the Maastri cht criteria for adopting the new European common currency. But these polic y changes continue to be jeopardized by the institutional inertia of the ol d governmental system.