Since the mid-1990s, Italy has made significant steps towards federalism, decentralizing political, fiscal and administrative powers, also by means of a major constitutional reform. Yet, 20 years after the beginning of this process, the country is experiencing problems in finalizing these reforms towards a stable federal architecture. This article examines Italy as a case of failed federalization. Adopting a long-term focus inspired by the 'gradual institutional change' approach, we argue that federalization has been trapped between a rather anomalous (and pathological) alliance between a persistent centralism, which prevailed when Italy was born as a state in 1861, and an ever-present strong tradition of localism. This approach allows us to show the very incremental nature of institutional change and to map changes and continuities along the 150 years of the Italian state, identifying both political and cultural factors that help to explain this unfulfilled journey towards federalism.
This article analyses the claims for national sovereignty made in the British Conservative and Labour parties. In Britain, national sovereignism has been embedded within an entrenched tradition of Euroscepticism, whereas populist claims have periodically punctuated the discourse of both main parties, before emerging with more vocal tones during the discussion on Brexit. While most sovereigntist claims share some degree of populism, we reserve the populist label for what we identify as explicitly populist claims (as opposed to four other categories of sovereignism). After presenting a historical recall of the main dynamics of sovereigntist claims in British politics, we hypothesise that different types of sovereigntist discourses feature in the major British parties. While 'nationalist-populist' sovereignism should prevail in the Conservative party, we expect 'economic' sovereignism to be the form mainly used by the Labour party. Systematically analysing the debates in the House of Commons on all divisions on the EU from the 2015 General Election to the end of October 2017, we show that significant differences on the use of sovereignist claims exist both within and across British parties. We find that national populist claims dominate among Tory MPs and civic sovereignism prevails over economic sovereignism among Labour members.
The 2013 parliamentary and presidential contests were both outstanding elections, even by Italian standards. In the former case, this was because of very high volatility and the breakthrough of the 5-Star Movement (M5S), which resulted in a hung parliament and a stalemate in the formation of a new government. In the latter, for the first time in Italian history, the incumbent President of the Republic was re-elected for a second seven-year term of office. The result of these two events was Italy's first grand coalition government, led by Enrico Letta and supported by President Napolitano. While the significance of these elections is better assessed in combination with new government's capacity to achieve economic growth and restore confidence in Italian politics, the Italian party system still remains in a state of flux.
This article provides a preliminary assessment of the impact of the Brexit process—from the June 2016 referendum to June 2018—on the British political system. Drawing on the classic work of Arend Lijphart and the ensuing scholarship applying the Westminster model to Britain, it seeks to understand whether and to what extent Brexit has impacted on the majoritarian features of the system. Adapting Lijphart's criteria, it focuses on the electoral‐party dimension, the executive–legislative relations and the territorial power‐sharing arrangements. It argues that Brexit has brought to light several intertwined tensions that had been brewing inside British politics over the course of a number of years, and which are likely to continue unfolding for several years to come. Even if emerging trends tend to be fragile, complex, even contradictory, and the current uncertainty makes any long(er)‐term assessment futile, recent developments appear to signal a possible strengthening of the executive over the legislature and of the central over the devolved administrations, thus consolidating the majoritarian traits of the British political system.
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