Party organization and intra-party democracy in Italy

Sandri, Giulia; Venturino, Fulvio

doi:10.1080/23248823.2020.1838867

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Indeed, some signs of change may be connected to new relevant actors of the Italian political system (namely, new party organizations and, above all, new party leaders). Moreover, some forms of a "contagion" or "domino" effect, as observed by the classical works on party elites and party organizations by Robert Michels and Maurice Duverger, should be considered as well (e.g., see above and Barnea and Rahat, 2007;Sandri and Venturino, 2020).…”

Section: Mutation or Systemic Adaptations? Interpretations Of Parliam...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impossible Stability? The Italian Lower House Parliamentary Elite After a “Decade of Crises”

Verzichelli

Marino²,

Marangoni³

et al. 2022

Front. Polit. Sci.

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The article explores recent changes in the Italian parliamentary elite thanks to a novel set of data on Italian MPs between 1946 and 2018. After a first discussion on some crucial long-term trends of Italian Lower House MPs (their turnover rate, seniority, gender balance, party-related or institutional experience), we focus on the possible explanations of the profound transformation that occurred in the past decade: the rise of new party actors, the realignment between citizens and the parliamentary elites, or the use of different electoral systems. Subsequently, we point at three MP categories, taken as the most relevant proxies of the innovations in the Italian parliamentary elite. These categories are based on the length of MPs' parliamentary career, their previous party or institutional experience, and their gender. We discuss the changing numerical relevance of these categories, their parliamentary career patterns, and some features related to the institutionalization of MPs belonging to such categories. Two implications clearly emerge from our analysis. First, the changes occurred in the so-called “decade of the crises” (after the 2013 and 2018 Italian general elections) are critical in terms of a new influx of political amateur, female, and young MPs. The magnitude of this renewal can hardly be compared to any other relevant turning point of the Italian republican age and might signal the existence of a pattern of “impossible stability” for the parliamentary elite. Second, and partly in contrast with the first implication, despite such changes, the perspectives of parliamentary career and parliamentary survival remain very much subordinated to belonging to strong parliamentary party groups. This signals that, despite broad discussions about the positive role exerted by new political actors and the demand for a stronger descriptive representation, what seems to matter in the Italian Lower House is the presence of powerful political parties.

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Section: Mutation or Systemic Adaptations? Interpretations Of Parliam...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impossible Stability? The Italian Lower House Parliamentary Elite After a “Decade of Crises”

Verzichelli

Marino²,

Marangoni³

et al. 2022

Front. Polit. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The PD is an interesting case, paradigmatic of changes in party organisation, intra-party democracy, party activism and membership, for two reasons (Ignazi 2020a, Ignazi 2020bSandri & Venturino 2020). First, the current PD has a longer history than its year of foundation ( 2007) suggests: it emerged from negotiations that led to the fusion of two previously existing parties, the DS and DL, linked to the Italian Communist Party (Partito comunista italiano, PCI) and Christian Democracy (Democrazia cristiana, DC), respectively.…”

Section: Case Study: the Italian Democratic Partymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Research shows that PD membership has been greatly penalised by the institution of open primaries(Sandri & Venturino 2020, Seddone, Venturino & Sandri 2021.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%