The Italian Transition that Never Was

Martin J. Bull

University of Salford

The recent argument that the notion of „transition‟ should be set aside in attempting to
explain the trajectory of Italian politics in the past two decades is to be welcomed, but
does not go far enough in explaining why we, as Italianists, got our case wrong and
how exactly we might get our case right today. The transitional „myth‟ was born and
maintained despite growing evidence of its inherently problematic nature, both in
conceptual and empirical terms. The concept of „transition‟ needs more serious
conceptual treatment and empirical application, but even with this work it is unlikely
to be concluded that Italy is in transition. Freeing Italy and Italianists from this
conventional wisdom, while, at the same time, not abandoning the idea that something
exceptional happened to Italian politics in the early 1990s, will help enrich the debate
on the nature of the political change that Italy has experienced in the past seventeen
years.

Keywords

Transition; Italy; Political Change; Italian Politics; Italian Democracy

Introduction

In a recent article James Newell (2009), evaluating the implications of the Italian

2008 general election for the Italian transition, argues that the concept of „transition‟

should no longer be used to try and explain the changes in Italian politics since the

early 1990s, for several reasons: the length of the transition (at 17 years) is too long to

be adequately captured as a transition; it remains uncertain what it is the Italian

regime is supposedly in transition towards; one can not tell whether a country is in

transition until it is completed; ongoing discussion about fundamental rules of the

constitutional game does not necessarily betoken a transition; and, finally, the

outcome of the 2008 elections does not (contrary to the views of some authors)

suggest that initial expectations about system performance created by changes to the
party system following the elections have been fulfilled. He concludes therefore that

„as conventionally understood the term is now best abandoned in analyses of Italian

politics‟, implying, further more, that the Italian transition was, in fact, the „man who

never was‟ (Newell, 2009, 410).

This position may be controversial with, and contested by, some Italianists. It

is a position, however, with which this author, who has made analogous points (e.g.

Bull 2006a, 2006b; Bull and Rhodes 2009b), agrees.1 It is an important argument

which raises several issues in need of further elaboration, if there is to be a wider

debate on whether or not the notion of the „Italian transition‟ should be discarded.2

The purpose of this article is to explore these issues and hopefully stimulate such a

debate. Four such issues arise.

First, if we abandon transition as a useful concept for the analysis of Italian

politics, the question arises as to how we regard the wealth of research that has been

conducted on Italy since the early 1990s in this vein. The issue is not just whether the

concept has applicability today (which is Newell‟s point) but whether or not it had or

has had applicability at any point in time since the early 1990s, and if not why not.

Second, if, the answer is that it has not had useful applicability at any point in time

since the early 1990s, then it surely behoves us as Italianists to explain why it was

adopted, why we got it wrong, and even why it took 17 years for us to discover this.

Third, the „Italian transition‟ made Italy something of an anomalous case. If we are

now suggesting that it was not, in fact, anomalous, are there nonetheless any lessons

which we might draw from its apparent anomaly during this period? Fourth, if the

concept is not an applicable category to analyse Italy, how are we to categorise the

Italian case today? Can we, in other words, ditch transition without losing entirely the

„special‟ or „watershed‟ nature of the 1990s?

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 This article, in short, attempts to build on Newell‟s argument through a

reflection on the academic treatment of the Italian transition during the 1990s, why it

was problematic, and what might be done both to improve our understanding of the

concept and its relevance (or not) to the Italian case. The first section summarises the

dramatic changes of the early 1990s and the development of the notion of the Italian

transition. The second section analyses more closely the maintenance of this idea

despite its problematic nature. The third section outlines how the concept of transition

needs to be taken more seriously, and what this might involve, and the fourth section

makes a prima facie case against using transition to understand the Italian case since

the early 1990s, and suggests an alternative approach. The conclusion returns to the

four questions raised in this introduction, and argues that, while the concept of

transition should be set aside to understand the Italian case, we should not, at the same

time, lose sight of the exceptional nature of the developments of the early 1990s. The

article provides a springboard for further research on the Italian case as well as on the

possibility and nature of second (or „secondary‟) transitions occurring in advanced

democracies.

The Italian Transition: Birth of a ‘Myth’

It is not necessary (for a publication in an Italianist journal) to dwell long on the

events of the early 1990s.3 Unexpected and unpredicted, Italian politics underwent a

dramatic and unprecedented upheaval. The ruling parties electorally and

organisationally disintegrated, the two main parties of opposition (communists and

neo-fascists) transformed themselves into different parties by shedding their

ideological identities, the party system underwent a meltdown and transformation, the

electoral system was reformed from a pure PR system to one based on a mix between

3
proportional and majoritarian elements. New political parties and alliances emerged,

as the party system underwent bipolarisation into two broad and unwieldy coalitions,

of the centre left and centre right. A decade of political change followed, involving, in

some shape or other, all aspects of the Republic: institutions, parties, voting

behaviour, policies, state regulation and the political class.

Most importantly, a revision of the constitutional settlement came firmly onto

the agenda, and in 1997, the Bicamerale, a commission on constitutional reform,

began its work. True, the following year the Bicamerale failed, its project for a new

constitution being sunk in parliament by Berlusconi announcing his party‟s

withdrawal of support, but this did not end the season of constitutional reform. In

1999-2000, the centre left government carried through a change to Title V of the

constitution (relating to regional devolution), and, following this, Berlusconi, as Prime

Minister after 2001, began his own attempt to achieve constitutional reform with a

project that was passed by parliament in 2005 but subsequently defeated by

referendum in June 2006. Despite these setbacks constitutional reform has remained,

since the referendum, firmly on the agenda of Italian politics.

More important than the events themselves, from the perspective of this

article, were the reactions to them of Italianists. It could be argued that we were ill-

prepared for this dramatic turn of events, for, even though the conventional wisdom

about Italian democracy was that it was an anomalous case, the bulk of the literature

until the early 1990s had been focused on explaining why, amidst the instabilities, so

little changed, and was likely to change, in Italian politics. Even on the cusp of the

dramatic downfall of the Christian Democrat (DC) „party regime‟, publications

appeared explaining the persistence of this party and, by implication, its continuing

dominance (e.g Leonardi and Wertman 1989; Tarrow 1990; Hine 1993), if not lauding

4
the state of Italian democracy itself (LaPalombara 1988). It is not surprising,

therefore, that the dramatic changes of the 1990s took us off our guard.4

The immediate response was an inevitable curiosity in revisiting the DC

„party-regime‟ and reflecting on why Italianists had failed to predict what would

suddenly occur, not that criticism of this failure was widespread (Bull 1996). Yet, as

the apparent scale of the political changes became apparent, Italianists became

quickly absorbed by the trajectory of change: how it could be captured and explained

and where it might be leading. It seemed evident that, after fifty years of stagnation

under DC rule, the polity was not only undergoing the most dramatic crisis since its

founding but was on the verge of a veritable regime change, and for this reason

„transition‟ appeared to be the best concept to capture what was going on. Pasquino‟s

(1997, 34) view captured the mood:

„There is no doubt that the Italian political system has been undergoing a

transition for some time…It is a peculiar transition from a democratic

regime, correctly identified as partitocrazia (one dominated by political

parties), to another regime, more or less equally democratic‟.

Whatever the continuities with the past, the general consensus was that what

was happening in Italy constituted the most dramatic break with the past since the fall

of Fascism and the birth of the Republic. In the heady political atmosphere of the

early 1990s, when everything seemed possible (and so much was desirable), maybe it

seemed logical to transpose the notion of „transition‟ to the Italian case. At a general

level it conjured up notions of the transitions from authoritarian rule (e.g. Feltrin

1996; Massari 1996), except this would be a transition between two democratic

regimes, the new which was expected to be an improvement on the old. It was

captured in both journalism and academe by the notion of a transition occurring

5
between a „First Republic‟ and „Second Republic‟. Once this assumption (of a

transition) took hold, it logically followed that political developments tended to be

seen through the prism of an expected „end-point‟. Italy was, in short, going

somewhere. It just needed to „arrive‟…..which it subsequently failed to do.

A (Very) Long Transition: Maintenance of the ‘Myth’

This problem of non-arrival was not, for the transitional approach, a problem in the

short-term, but became more difficult as time went on. Indeed, the failure of the

Bicamerale suggested that, if this were a transition, it might be long and messy rather

than short and neat, for, if the transition began in the early 1990s5, it meant that, by

the early Millennium, Italy had already been „in transition‟ for nearly a decade. If a

transition was „the interval between one political regime and another‟ (O‟Donnell and

Schmitter 1986, 6), was it still feasible to describe Italy as being „in transition‟? Were

transitions not meant to be extraordinary and intense phases in the development of

political systems, as confirmed in the political science characterisation of transitions

from authoritarian rule? Morlino (1994, 573-5), for example, defined a democratic

transition as „that fluid and confused period when new democratic structures are about

to emerge‟, followed by installation which „is characterized by the formation of new

institutions and procedures, as well as by the presence of all the other features

intrinsic to a democratic regime.‟

This extraordinary nature is reinforced in looking at the phase which follows

that of (a first, or „prime‟, democratic) transition: democratic consolidation, which is a

much longer and more protracted affair than transition. The process is not inevitably

progressive and linear, and the most common time frame (supported by empirical

analysis) is 10-12 years, although some authors speak of a generation. Was it feasible,

6
therefore, to continue to speak of a transition that would be as long as, if not longer

than, the process of democratic consolidation? Pasquino (1994, 45), in reference to

the Italian transition, argued that, „the length of the [transition] is highly variable…it

should not exceed a decade. No political system can remain in a state of flux for such

a long period of time.‟6

Perhaps for this reason, after the failure of the Bicamerale and especially with

the turn of the Millennium, one can detect, over the subsequent decade, a divide in the

approach to the transition. Some authors (wittingly or unwittingly) solved the problem

of the length of the transition by effectively hastening it along. We had either already

arrived at the „Second Republic‟, or the transition itself was the Second Republic, or,

for others, the „Second Republic‟ had, in fact, been and gone, and we were now in a

so-called „Third Republic‟ (see, for example, Calise 2006; Massetti 2009).

Meanwhile, for those still wedded to the notion of the continuing transition, a litany of

adjectives crept into the literature, which seemed to „qualify‟ or „make special‟ the

particular Italian transitional experience: „long‟, „never-ending‟, „infinite‟, „faltering‟,

„stalled‟ and so on.7

Finally, there were those authors who attempted to use political science

concepts and comparative politics to develop more rigorously the transitional

approach in relation to Italy.8 The best examples of these efforts are the work of

Allum and Newell, Fabbrini and Pasquino. Allum and Newell (2003, 188), drawing

partly on Juan Linz, located the transition as being in a sixth phase, „the stalled

transition‟ (and one that „remains incomplete‟). This occurred when the fifth phase (in

Linz‟s words, „breakthrough…[when]…non-incumbent contenders succeed in

piercing or bypassing structures of accountability in order to capture the prize of

incumbency‟ – Berlusconi in this case) failed to produce „institutional change

7
allowing for a resynchronization of the system…‟. Fabbrini (2000, 17 & 234-6; and

see also 2006), redefined „transition‟ as a process which may or may not result in

regime change, and then explained why the Italian case had failed to do so, at the

same time as speculating on the possible „institutionalisation‟ of a hybrid regime

(neither „consensual‟ nor „majoritarian‟). Pasquino (2001, 316-7) argued, on the basis

of a systems approach derived from David Easton, for the idea of an „infinite

transition‟ in the Italian case, an adjective he preferred to „incomplete‟, since the latter

would give a false sense of „knowing in advance the point of arrival, of completion‟,

although he remained clear that it was „incomplete‟ and what made it so: „The

incompleteness of the transition lies precisely in the non-achievement of the

reformers‟ objective [„the construction of a different regime‟], in the contradictory

nature of many proposals, in the conflicting nature of many solutions‟ (Pasquino

2001, 318).

These authors appeared to have been influenced by two factors. The first was

comparison, and specifically that of the French case of the transition between the

Fourth and Fifth Republics of 1958-62. Allum and Newell (2003, 186-7) argued that

the Italian case should be considered in this category, Fabbrini (2000, 210) described

it as „the only occurrence that is comparable with the Italian experience‟, and

Pasquino (2007, 283) noted that „From the very beginning of the Italian transition, my

analytical and political suggestion has been to look at the French transition from the

Fourth to the Fifth Republic.‟9 The second was the need for an element of theoretical

or conceptual novelty because of the unusual nature of the Italian case. Pasquino

(2000, 203), in fact, argued that „the Italian transition presents so many peculiarities

that it must be treated as a fundamentally anomalous case.‟10 Yet, both these sources

of influence were potentially problematic.

8
 On the one hand, the comparison with the French case was evidently tempting,

especially as the core substance of the „transitions‟ could be said to have been similar:

the shift from political systems which had not until then enjoyed alternation in

governments to systems which did. Indeed, Allum and Newell (2003, 186-7) used as

an example Juan Linz‟s (1978, 87-8) concept of „requilibration‟ which the author had

developed as an example of transitional change „within the genus democratic‟, using

the French transition from the 4th to the 5th republics (1958-62). Yet, applying it to the

Italian case of the 1990s was not unproblematic, since „requilibration‟ was a concept

that referred to change in a democratic regime which was threatened by collapse:

„Requilibration of a democracy is a political process that, after a crisis that has

seriously threatened the continuity and stability of the basic democratic political

mechanisms, results in their continued existence at the same or higher levels of

democratic legitimacy, efficacy and effectiveness‟ (Linz 1978, 87). There are

variations in this process but all occur during the breakdown process, during which

„reequilibration‟ is a means of saving democracy. In the Italian case of the 1990s, the

continued existence of the Republic as a democracy was never at stake (and on this

there was widespread consensus).

On the other hand, the dangers of treating the Italian case as an anomaly were

potentially to grant Italy a form of „special status‟, divorcing it from the mainstream

of comparative political analysis (i.e. comparison with other countries).11 This might

be feasible for a short intense interlude in a country‟s political development, but to

use it to frame an extensive time-frame could be problematic. Of course, this would

not rule out using a potentially anomalous empirical case to improve or refine

concepts or theories, as long as the dangers of generating confusion through such an

exercise could be avoided. For example, there was an evident problem in the idea of a

9
country having been „in transition‟ but not producing a regime change when the

accepted definition of a „transition‟ is the interval between two regimes. Did not re-

defining „transition‟ to make the Italian experience fit stretch the concept too far to be

credible or useful to political science? An analogous argument might be made about

the concept of a „stalled transition‟: if it appeared to be unending, what did it signify

for a political system in terms of its nature and potential for comparison with other

systems? And if the grounds of „incompleteness‟ of the transition were to be the

continued existence of intentions of reformers to achieve a constitutional revision, but

their failure to do so, the problem was that reformers had been attempting to do this

since as long ago as 1983 (when Bettino Craxi launched the idea of the so-called

„Great Reform‟). One might also think of other countries which, on the basis of

unfulfilled reformist intentions and the debate surrounding them, might therefore

qualify, according to this reasoning, for „transitional‟ status.

If these approaches had one thing in common, it was that they did not question

the assumption that Italy was in transition; on the contrary, they appeared to start with

this assumption, developing the interpretative range of the concept so ensuring it still

applied to the Italian case.12 The transitional approach, then, was successfully

maintained throughout the first decade of the Millennium. Indeed, in many respects it

became pervasive insofar as the persistence with the notion often made it a starting

point or paradigm for the analysis of various specific aspects of the political system

(elections, parties, leadership, institutions, events) or even the political system itself

(for a few examples: Ceccanti and Vassallo 2003; Paolucci 2006; Carbone and Newell

2008; Massetti 2009; Edwards 2009; Pasquino 2002).13

Yet, at the same time, as evident from above, this was pervasiveness through

diversity rather than unity. Indeed, it is more accurate to speak of transitional

10
approaches rather than an approach. This diversity stemmed from the sheer

difficulties presented by the Italian case, which were neatly summed up by Allum and

Newell (2003 188-9). Accepting the classical definition of „transition‟ and concluding

that in the Italian case there had been „no clear break with the essentials of the 1948

constitution‟, they argued nevertheless that, „judged according to less exacting

criteria, focusing less on formal constitutional change than on the distribution of

institutional power among contenders and on the political system‟s mode of

functioning broadly defined, a case can be made that a transition of sorts has taken

place‟.14 To quote Newell (2000 185), „the “Second Republic” may yet be unborn; the

“First Republic” is, equally obviously, dead‟ (which has echoes of the

institutionalisation of Fabbrini‟s hybrid).

In other words, if the Italian case appeared to be difficult to classify it was

because it had all the hallmarks of a transition but apparently without the (regime)

outcome necessary to define it as having been completed, and with the prospect of its

completion apparently having receded.15 In short, as Pasquino (2000, 204) noted, in

the Italian case it remained unclear „how much and what kind of transition‟ had been

taking place. Perhaps none at all? Should Italy be freed from the transition, and if so

how?

Taking Transition Seriously

Perhaps it is less a matter of freeing Italy from the transition than of developing the

concept of a „second (or secondary) transition‟ and then seeing whether it can or can

not be applied to the Italian case. This is essential because, as Pasquino (2001, 313)

has noted, transition is an explanatory category of a transition from authoritarian rule

to liberal democracy: there is no theory to account for transitions inside democratic

11
regimes. Transitions, in political science, refer to inter-regime and not intra-regime

changes. Yet, this has not prevented Italianists adopting the word for an expected

intra-regime change, and they are not alone. The French experience of 1958-1962 has

already been noted, and Spain has been subject to similar debate (e.g. Field, 2009).16

This suggests that there may be examples of change inside democracies that either

are, or appear to be, or have the potential to be, so wide-ranging that they may

constitute a change from one type of democratic regime to another, resulting in the

use by political scientists of a term which seems best able to capture this sense of

change. If so, what are the sort of issues that need to be addressed in order to advance

such a theory?17

First, the question arises as to whether or not such levels of political change

are possible in advanced democracies, when much of the political science literature on

the consolidation of democracies is predicated on declining levels of fundamental

change over time? Research by Morlino (1998), however, suggests that such levels of

political change are possible. He argues that the origins of profound crises and

changes lie in the particular manner in which a democracy is consolidated. He

conceives democratic consolidation as a two-way process, bottom-up („legitimation‟)

and top-down („anchoring‟), and it is the particular combination of these two that will

shape both the consolidation process and its outcome i.e. the particular type of

consolidated democracy that results. He argues that in countries where civil society is,

in the initial stages of democratic consolidation, weakly developed and where

legitimacy of the system remains low or limited (or, in his words, „exclusive‟),

political parties can fill a key role in „anchoring‟ society to the political system.

However, this process of top-down anchoring can build in the potential for later crisis

and change because it can impose rigidities, distortions, resistance of vested interests

12
and lower capabilities of adaptation. Consequently, when civil society matures and

the anchors of control are undermined, the magnitude of political crisis and change

can be much greater than that expected or predicted in much of the literature on

democratic consolidation. He refers to this as „the paradox of consolidation: as a

tendency, in the longer run a stronger consolidation (with low legitimation) may be at

the origins of a deeper crisis‟ (Morlino 1998, 273).

Second, if, therefore, changes of this sort are possible, then, we need to be able

to identify at what point a change of a transitional nature may, in fact, have

occurred.18 This requires a clear definition of regime and classification of

(democratic) regimes, because, if we accept that a transition is „the interval that

elapses between one regime and another‟ (Pasquino 2000, 202), then, in cases of

„second transitions‟ the definition of „regime‟ and classification of democratic

regimes becomes all the more important. In „first‟ transitions, this may not be so

important because the difference is between an authoritarian and a democratic or

hybrid regime, and the transition is judged accordingly. But in the case of „second

transitions‟ between two democratic regimes, the definition of regime and

classification of democratic regimes becomes essential for anyone faced with the

empirical task of assessing whether or not a democratic regime has undergone a

transition from one type to another. Democratic regimes may be classified according

to their institutional arrangements or their broad mode of functioning (or a mix of

both), and it is essential, in order to test transitional change, that changes in the

political system or the sub-systems of a political system are evaluated against a

classification of (democratic) regimes.19 This is obviously a difficult task in view of

the fact that political change is a complex, multi-faceted and cumulative process, and

13
that sub-system changes may or may not contribute to broader systemic or regime-

level change.20

Third, if we can identify when a transition has occurred between two

democratic regimes, it may allow us to identify the defining characteristics of „second

transitions‟ and therefore assess whether or not they can be defined in such a way as

to make it easier to compare them. „First‟ transitions have been characterised in

relation to the transition‟s origins/starting point, character, duration and the conditions

of completion (e.g. Morlino 1994, 573-5; Linz et al. 1995, 78), and the task would be

to see whether a similar exercise could be conducted for „second transitions.‟

In short, more work is needed to define and characterise „second transitions‟.

When completed, a more rigorous empirical application to the Italian case (as well as

others) could then be made. However, it is worth, in the last part of this article,

returning to the Italian case to anticipate the likely outcome of such an empirical

exercise.

Freeing Italy from the Transition

We might pose and attempt to answer tentatively three questions in order to assess

whether or not Italy has been or is in transition. We will then consider an alternative

interpretation of the period since the early 1990s.

First, if a „second transition‟ constitutes the interval between two democratic

regimes, was there a passing of the Italian „First Republic‟ which thus marked the

beginning of a transition? On the one hand, there was clearly a crisis of the old regime

in the early 1990s, a calling into question of the existing constitutional arrangements

and the emergence of a consensus that saw constitutional and transition to a Second

Republic as essential. On the other hand, „there was not a true collapse of the

14
preceding regime...of its norms and institutions. A clear break with the past did not

occur…and there was no politico-constitutional trauma that rendered indispensable

the construction of a new regime‟ (Pasquino 2000, 203; and see Allum and Newell

2003, 188-9). Moreover, the calling into question of the existing constitutional

arrangements, although very prominent, was in keeping with a long tradition of

attempts to reform the constitution. This can surely be regarded as a necessary but not

sufficient condition for a transition to occur. Indeed, the prominence and protraction

of that sort of debate may make the politics of a country distinctive, almost

anomalous, but that is a different matter to a country actually being in transition (Bull

and Newell 2009). In short, while this is not in anyway conclusive (because „regimes‟

can „pass‟ in different ways), there is considerable doubt as to whether or not the

conditions for the commencement of a transition were in place in the early 1990s.

Second, if a transition is the interval between two regimes, and a transition‟s

most important defining characteristic is therefore a „point of arrival‟, has Italy

arrived at a new regime? Answering this question will, of course, depend on one‟s

definition of „regime‟, the characterisation of the existing Italian regime and an

assessment of whether or not a new regime has emerged. As noted above, there are

those who argue that a change in regime (if not two) has occurred, although one might

question to what extent these authors base (or even claim to base) their arguments

rigorously on „regime change‟, rather than being used for effect to reinforce the

argument about how much change the Republic has experienced.21 The broader

consensus, however, is that, even assuming one can identify a „point of departure‟,

Italy has not yet reached a „point of arrival‟.

Third, assuming that a „departing‟ point could be identified in the early 1990s

but not an „arrival‟ point, would it be possible argue that Italy is currently in

15
transition? With the political upheaval that has occurred and ongoing attempts at

constitutional and institutional reform, a prima facie case might be made that this is

evidence of a transition underway. However, it is difficult to see how this would be

feasible, even if the characteristics of „second transitions‟ were to be fairly clearly

defined, simply because the existence of a transition would be dependent upon a

„regime‟ change (however that is defined) having occurred. In other words, a

transition could only be definitively identified once it had taken place, and this means

that it is inherently problematic, if not a misnomer, to speak of a country being „in

transition‟. Anything short of the „point of arrival‟ as a defining characteristic would

risk the obvious: that a transition identified by other characteristics might then fail to

produce a regime change and could effectively go on forever, which is precisely the

risk in assessing the Italian case today.22

Fourth, if constitutional reform and a clear „regime‟ change were to occur in

the future, would this indicate that, all along, the „myth‟ was not, in fact, a myth, that

a transition had been underway and was now completed? Depending, of course, on

how the characteristics of „second transitions‟ were to be defined, it remains

questionable as to whether it would help an understanding of contemporary Italian

politics to dub an entire twenty (or more) year period in its post-war political history

as a „transition‟. It would make more sense to an understanding of Italy‟s political

development to date any transition from the date that the successful effort began in

earnest, rather than dating it back through an entire season of political development

(which would become an historical context for the transition).

Fifth, if all of this is the case, what has been happening in Italy since the early

1990s, and is there anything at all „exceptional‟ in the political change it has

experienced? Put another way, if much of the literature of the past decade has

16
implicitly assumed or explicitly argued that Italy has been in transition (and therefore

has a distinct „status‟), is there a danger, in now questioning this, of throwing out the

baby with the bathwater i.e. failing to capture those elements or aspects that might

well need emphasis as exceptional in nature? Perhaps the answer to this question lies

in the temporal unit used to analyse the Italian case, which can provide the focus for

the development of an alternative approach.23

An approach which begins with a presumed „point of departure‟ in the early

1990s and then analyses today‟s situation as the current „end-point‟ (since there has

not yet been a „point of arrival‟) becomes more difficult as time goes on: the temporal

unit of analysis becomes ever longer, and maintaining an argument that something

exceptional is occurring becomes increasingly difficult. An alternative would be to

focus on the early 1990s as a watershed moment but not necessarily in terms of

setting in motion an entire period of political change. In fact, the main changes of the

early 1990s concerned the political parties, whose role is fundamental to

understanding this argument (Bull and Newell 2005, ch. 1).

The important point to note is that the political parties were the victims rather

than the vehicles of the dramatic changes of the early 1990s, the sources of which

were various, but notably in pressures emanating from two „fault lines‟ running

through the Italian system: the ramifications of the end of the Cold War and the

demands of European and international economic integration. In this context, the

exposure of systemic political corruption by Italian magistrates acted as the trigger for

a crisis which was profound and protracted largely because the existing parties

organisationally and electorally disintegrated, and the party system underwent a form

of meltdown and transformation. This meant that parties, essential everywhere to the

functioning of advanced liberal democracies, temporarily were unable to fulfil their

17
roles: indeed, at the height of the crisis the parties were unable to sustain party

government and the Italian President had to resort to appointing „technocratic‟

governments. However, once the „party political sphere‟ began to reformulate and

reassert itself, it began inevitably to claw back its control over reform and the

management of change. Many expected, with the dramatic turnover in parties and the

political class, and with public pressure for change, that a comprehensive reform of

the political system would follow. Yet, those expectations overestimated the

capacities and the will of so-called new parties and politicians to secure such reform.

Four factors played a role in reversing expectations.

First, the party political arena itself remained in turmoil for many years (and is

still evolving), thus failing to provide the levels of stabilisation that might provide a

strong foundation for a radical programme of institutional reform. Second, at the same

time, the party system quickly established its own new dynamic in which party

strategies, interests and vetoes became dominant, especially as the pressures created

by the sense of crisis and urgency to achieve reform declined. Third, the party-

political sphere was not independent from broader social and economic interests,

many of which offered stiff resistance to political-economic reforms which might

accompany institutional reform. Finally, the turmoil in party politics threw up a new

party (Forza Italia) and politician (Silvio Berlusconi), whose dominance in politics

and whose monopoly over the media had a significant (negative) influence on the

reform debate in two interrelated ways: first, by causing fierce opposition to several

reforms, because perceived to be shoring up Berlusconi‟s personal interests; and

second, by causing other parties to hesitate in their quest to strengthen party

government and the power of the executive while Berlusconi and his party remained

the dominant force in Italian politics. In short, the turmoil in party politics that

18
occurred in the 1990s generated high expectations that comprehensive reform of the

political system would be achieved, but those expectations were not subsequently

met.

This type of approach to the Italian case fits with an historical institutional

perspective which views change in complex political systems usually occurring either

by way of a „punctuated equilibrium‟ (long periods of stability interrupted by sudden,

often dramatic, shifts, before path-dependent development resumes) or via multiple

processes that modify the nature of the existing order but rarely overturn it (see, for

example, Thelen 2003 and Streeck and Thelen 2005). As Bull and Rhodes (2009b, 6)

argue, „The equilibrium of Italy‟s post-war system was clearly “punctuated” by the

political and economic upheavals of the early and mid-1990s. But what followed has

been less of a “transition” to something new, and more of a post-crisis process of

institutional (re-) stabilisation and negotiated change in which the “new” (or at least

substantial parts of it) looks remarkably similar to the “old”‟.

This can be characterised as a catalogue of different processes of institutional

change: institutional „drift‟ (gradual and sometimes unplanned adaptation of

institutions and policies); institutional „layering‟ (the creation of new policies or

institutions without eliminating the „old‟); institutional „revision‟ (formal reform,

replacement or elimination of an existing policy or institution); and institutional

„exhaustion‟ (the perverse persistence of an institution whose raison d‟être has been

lost but which cannot, for political reasons, be reformed). In short, the Italian case can

be understood in the context of „multiple forms of institutional and negotiated change

… [in which „institutional layering‟ has probably been dominant] characterised by

path-dependent evolution, with no assumption that an end-point is in sight‟ (Bull and

Rhodes 2009b, 12).

19
 This argument, while not necessarily comprehensive in its explanatory power,

is presented here as an example of how an alternative to the transitional approach can

be developed. In brief, and picking up on popular words used to describe this period,

it states: there was a crisis (and changes that went with it), but there was no transition.

Conclusion: Freeing Italianists from the Transition

This article has aimed to stimulate a wider debate on the manner in which the Italian

case has been treated since the early 1990s, and to conclude this task we may usefully

turn to answer the four questions posed in the Introduction.

First, regarding the value of having used „transition‟ as an explanatory

category of change since the early 1990s, it might be argued that its use over the past

17 years has taken on the characteristics of a „homonym‟ – a single term expressing

multiple distinct concepts and causing „collective ambiguity‟ (Sartori 1984). This is

not just an issue of terminological difference but rather the transposition of an

important political science concept into a context for which it was not designed. It

could be argued that the manner in which the term has been used has not helped us to

understand what has been happening in Italian politics since the early 1990s, and does

little or nothing to illuminate the situation today. Moreover, even if a regime change

were to occur in the future, it would not be a useful concept in order to understand the

politics of the last two decades. This is not to question the value of the research into

political change in Italy in this period. On the contrary, much of it has been of

fundamental importance, especially the use of the idea of „transition‟ to analyse sub-

system elements such as individual political parties, the party system, the electoral

system etc. These sub-system analyses are, however, best not located within a

teleological framework which assumes that Italy is in transition towards a new

20
„regime‟ which will be completed at some point in the future. Indeed, if we remove

any assumption of an „end-point‟ and effectively free Italianists from the transition, it

will surely enrich our quest to evaluate the political change that Italy has experienced

in the period since the early 1990s.

Second, in terms of explaining why „transition‟ was (in this author‟s view,

mistakenly) adopted, it could be argued that the events of the early 1990s in Italian

politics and the interpretative demands they posed dealt a form of „double blow‟ to

Italianists. In the first place, we failed to predict the dramatic changes that occurred in

the early 1990s (indeed, most analyses were predicated on the opposite assumption).

We were then content (with journalists and politicians) to sail on what looked to be a

promising sea, only subsequently to find the tide going out and our analyses

„beached‟. Left by comparativists to deal with our own case, we became too hitched

either to novelty or to the historical model provided by Italy‟s neighbour: it all looked

so French….yet, not for the first time, the Italian case flattered to deceive. And while

it is true that serious lines of enquiry were carried out, the persistence with a basic,

increasingly problematic assumption bred a rising degree of novelty or inventiveness

in approaching the Italian case, with perhaps insufficient attention to the need for a

more detailed conceptual and theoretical exercise before empirical analysis.24

Third, such an exercise might, of course, involve extrapolating from the

apparently anomalous case in front of us. Indeed, to argue that Italy is or is not in

transition today, we need to do more than engage in just an empirical argument about

the case, for fear that any new position might also turn out to be problematic or

ephemeral, if not supported by a clear conceptual idea of a „second transition‟. The

work required for this might, in fact, conclude that the notion of a „second transition‟

is not, in fact, a useful conceptual tool for understanding high levels of political

21
change in advanced democracies, and should not be developed. However, the key

point here is that the concept of a „second transition‟ should either be treated

seriously as a concept and then applied empirically, or be dispensed with as a term of

use for describing cases such as the Italian one.

Fourth, since the outcome of such an exercise (even if it were to produce a

useful concept called a „second transition‟) is likely (in this author‟s view) to exclude

the Italian case, it is important to engage with the debate on Italy and cast doubt on

what appears to have become a conventional wisdom that Italy is in transition. At the

same time, it is important not to dispense entirely with the idea that something

„special‟ happened in Italian politics in the early 1990s. This can be done by a greater

focus on that specific period, without linking it to an entire temporal unit of change

stretching over seventeen years. If not, there is a danger of us throwing out the baby

with the bathwater before we are ready to do so: political historians fifty years hence

might see the 1990s either as a significant watershed in the country‟s political history,

or, alternatively, as little more than a „blip‟ in the country‟s political development. For

Italianists today it is too early to tell, but most remain convinced that something

exceptional occurred in Italian politics during the 1990s and it is therefore important

that, in rejecting transition as an explanatory category of change, the watershed

moment is not thereby lost from view…at least yet.

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Acknowledgements

I thank two of the journal‟s anonymous referees for their suggestions and the Collegio
Carlo Alberto, Turin, where a Research Fellowship in 2010 allowed the completion of
the article.

Notes
1
Indeed, it would be tempting to argue that Newell‟s „man that never was‟ never had been for some of
us. However, a trawl through my own work would reveal its inconsistencies on this front. My modest
claim would be that I was an early skeptic (see Bull 1997, Bull 1998).
2
Newell‟s argument, in fact, is made in the context of the 2008 elections, so it is not intended to be
developed in a wider manner.
3
There is now a vast literature on the political changes since the early 1990s. For a flavour, see
Caciagli et al. (1994), Bull and Rhodes (1997), and Bull and Rhodes (2009).
4
And comparative political scientists (i.e. non-Italian specialists) were relatively quiet in commenting
on the Italian case.
5
„As is well known, though often neglected and underestimated in its concrete consequences, the
Italian regime has been in transition since 1993.‟ (Pasquino 2007, 277). See also Grilli di Cortona
2007). The exact date, however, was always open to question (see Pasquino 1997, 34 and note 2, 51-2).
6
Historians, of course, use „transition‟ without concern for the time span, but the word has not been
developed conceptually as it has in political science (see note 7 below).
7
Symptomatic of the persistence of this debate was the inclusion of „Second Republic‟ in the 3rd
edition of David Robertson‟s Dictionary of Modern Politics, where he notes that „the phrase [“Second
Republic”] has entered the terminology of political science. The idea that Italy is now living under a
second constitution arises from the sense that the changes were so extreme as to amount to a peaceful
revolution...‟, even though „Technically there is no Second Republic‟ (Robertson 2002, 254-5).
8
Of course, by implication, this suggests that much of the literature was a lot more casual in its use of
transition. Indeed, „transition‟ was often used quite loosely by political scientists (besides its use in
other disciplines such as history) and echoed a tradition dating back to the 1970s (e.g. Lange and
Tarrow 1979). Evidently, however, this would be no defence for those political scientists who have
used the words to advance an argument that Italy is undergoing a transition to, or arrival at, a Second or
Third Republic, without exploring the meaning of concepts such as „transition‟ and „regime‟.
9
Although he was also at pains to point out the differences and difficulties, arguing that other countries
such as Spain and Central East Europe should also be considered, and that „the Italian transition
deserves to be treated in a comparative perspective in a very flexible way‟ (Pasquino 1994: 2-5 & 8;
and Pasquino 2007).
10
See also Allum and Newell (2003, 181), where the title of first section of their article is „Italy‟s
“uniqueness”; and Fabbrini‟s „transition without transformation‟ (2000) appears to have been
constructed to capture the Italian case.

26
11
Which is not to say that viewing the Italian case on its own terms is always necessarily wrong (see
Newell 2004) or that the Italian case might be seen as still „anomalous‟ in other (related) terms (see, for
example, Bull and Newell 2009).
12
On the difficulties arising from the profusion of concepts with qualifying adjectives see, for example,
Armony and Schamis (2005) and Collier and Levitsky (1997).
13
This is not to question the value of much of this detailed research, only its implicit or explicit
framing by an overall transitional paradigm. For a discussion of the problem, and an attempt to
overcome it in relation to writing about the political system as a whole, see Bull and Newell (2005, 1-3
and ch. 1).
14
This is not to imply criticism of the way this sentence attempts to capture the Italian case (indeed,
Newell and I used it in our book to help shape our approach – Bull and Newell 2005), nor even of the
phrase „of sorts‟, which quite neatly captures the essential dilemma confronting Italianists in this period
(for analogous use see Bull and Newell 1997).
15
This may explain why more recent attempts to capture the political change Italy has undergone since
the early 1990s have focused as much on the „point of arrival‟ as the „point of departure‟ e.g. Morlino
(2009) and Fabbrini (2009). On the one hand, these approaches give a clear sense of the type of
„regime‟ change to be expected; on the other hand, they run the risk of being (wittingly or unwittingly)
associated with the logic of the „transitional‟ approach i.e. by using an „end-point‟ to evaluate the
change that has thus far occurred, there is an implicit assumption that future developments are likely to
be in the same direction until that end-point is reached. Fabbrini (2009, 44) is fairly clear on this
expectation, Morlino (2009, 24) argues that it is, in fact, impossible.
16
Some British specialists might even cite their own case based on the process underway following
devolution.
17
Space only permits the introduction of these issues, not their development, which is for future work.
18
Pasquino‟s distinction between „challenges to the regime‟ and „challenges to the performance of a
regime‟ and the outcomes they can produce (2001) provides a basis for exploring some of the issues
outlined here.
19
For attempts in this direction see, for example, Morlino (2009) and Fabbrini (2009), which are based
on „models of democracy‟ (à la Lijphart).
20
For an excellent example which shows an awareness of the complexities at the sub-system level, see
Bardi (2009).
21
For example, Calise (2006, 3 & 12), besides arguing for the existence of a Third Republic, notes, at
the same time, that Italy remains in transition.
22
The contrast with science is useful here to illuminate the argument. A biologist, for example, knows
– from scientific analysis and repeated observation of the same process – that, once a chrysalis is
formed, a butterfly will emerge. He or she also knows roughly how long this process will take and what
are its chief characteristics. It is therefore entirely legitimate to describe a chrysalis as a „transitional‟
state. Political scientists are not in a position to predict regime changes and outcomes with such
certainty (I am grateful to one of the anonymous referees for drawing my attention to this comparison).
23
Inevitably, what follows is only an outline of the argument.
24
Moreover, while at one level all of this might appear to be a rather „closed‟ and not very useful
debate between Italianists about „transition‟, it might also be suggested that this debate, in fact,
exercised an influence on the high expectations generated about Italian politics in the 1990s,
expectations which help explain the pessimism of the subsequent decade, when they were widely felt to
have been dashed.

27