The 2015 Regional Election in Italy: Fragmentation and Crisis of Subnational Representative Democracy

Abstract

Abstract. In May 2015, voters in seven Italian regions went to the polls to elect new regional councils and governments. The final election result was apparently similar to that of 2010:centre-left coalitions won in five out of seven regions, like in the previous election, leaving the remaining two to the centre-right. Yet behind this picture of stability, dramatic changes have occurred in the internal composition of regional coalitions, cross-party equilibriums and levels of participation. Generally, regional party-based democracy seems to be experiencing increasing fragmentation and a crisis of representation and legitimacy.

The 2020 regional elections in Italy: sub-national politics in the year of the pandemic

“…This regular pattern of interactions between national ruling and opposition parties, which may be linked to the 'second order' nature of regional elections (Schakel and Jeffery 2013), no longer seemed to hold in 2015. This turned out to be the culmination of a 'critical' election cycle (Bolgherini and Grimaldi 2017) in which regional party systems had become more fragmented and volatile than in the past (Vampa 2015). To be sure, this was partly due to the fact that regional political competition had become more 'region-centred' (Bolgherini and Grimaldi 2017, 487), less dominated by national parties and leaders and more subject to region-specific factors than in the 1990s and early 2000s.…”

“…The rising number of non-partisan or local lists competing at the regional level is a clear sign of the increasing centrality of regional candidates and the simultaneous decline of state-wide parties in the sub-national electoral arena (Vampa 2015(Vampa , 2016. This used to be a rather marginal phenomenon in regional elections.…”

Quand la compétition électorale détermine la disproportionnalité : bonus majoritaire et élections régionales en France et en Italie

“…Finalement, il est très clair que c'est le troisième pôle, ici le M5S, qui a été le plus sévèrement pénalisé par le système électoral en termes absolus, surtout si on le compare avec des petites formations politiques qui avaient choisi d'intégrer les coalitions de centre-droit et de centre-gauche (Conti et Memoli 2015, 530). Il est aussi important de rappeler que le système partisan italien est caractérisé par un processus de désinstitutionnalisation et de dé-nationalisation (Vampa 2015(Vampa , 2016, une tendance que les très récentes scissions du Parti Démocrate en mars 2017 ne font que confirmer. Ces deux dynamiques sont particulièrement prononcées dans les élections régionales qui se caractérisent par des systèmes partisans régionaux de plus en plus différenciés (Tronconi et Roux 2009).…”

Visions of Europe: emerging challenges for the European project in the aftermath of the 2014 European Parliament elections

“…The way the EU responded to the Ukraine–Russia conflict presents another telling example of the difficulty in providing EU-wide responses. The second anniversary of the annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol by Russia was marked by a declaration published on politico.eu by the Foreign Ministers of the Baltic and Nordic States, restating the need to ‘remain vigilant’ and constantly monitor the non-recognition policy and EU sanctions already in place (Wallström et al ., 2016). More incisive, EU-wide political action was clearly seen as out of question.…”