The Oxford Handbook of Italian Politics provides a comprehensive look at the political life of one of Europe's most exciting and turbulent democracies. Under the hegemonic influence of Christian Democracy in the early post-World War II decades, Italy went through a period of rapid growth and political transformation. In part this resulted in tumult and a crisis of governability; however, it also gave rise to innovation in the form of Eurocommunism and new forms of political accommodation. The great strength of Italy lay in its constitution; its great weakness lay in certain legacies of the past. Organized crime - popularly but not exclusively associated with the mafia - is one example. A self-contained and well entrenched 'caste' of political and economic elites is another. These weaknesses became apparent in the breakdown of political order in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This ushered in a combination of populist political mobilization and experimentation with electoral systems design, and the result has been more evolutionary than transformative. Italian politics today is different from what it was during the immediate post-World War II period, but it still shows many of the influences of the past.

In 1999, Italy experienced another year of political uncertainty. The centre-left coalition government was weakened by infighting throughout the year and paid a high electoral price for its failure to present a common front to the electorate. In June, Silvio Berlusconi's Liberty Pole coalition won substantial victories in local elections including a symbolic triumph in Bologna, a stronghold of the Italian left. In December, bickering inside his parliamentary majority forced Massimo D'Alema, the prime minister, to reshuffle his cabinet. This was the first government crisis to be handled by Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, who became the tenth President of the Republic in May 1999. In the autumn, Giulio Andreotti, a seven-times prime minister, was acquitted of having colluded with the Sicilian Mafia, and with having ordered the murder.

This important book explores the cultural conditions that favour political accountability. It examines the channels through which accountability can be secured and the role that accountability plays in ensuring good governance. In addition to problematizing the notion of accountability, the book suggests that it is the product of three different-albeit, related-processes: taking account of voters' preferences, keeping account of voters' preferences, and giving account of one's performance in office. It further explores the relationship between accountability and political culture by analyzing the relationship between accountability and religion, religious denomination, familism, civicness, secularism and postmaterialism, revealing that the level of accountability is influenced by the diffusion of post-material values and by the level of civicness in a given country. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students, and practitioners in governance, the political economy of institutions and development, democracy, and more broadly to political science, international relations, political theory, comparative politics, sociology, and cultural studies. Chapter 1 of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution- Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

The end of Italy's Communist Party and the decline of the Christian Democrats reflect profound changes taking place within Italy and in Europe as a whole. In this volume American and Italian scholars challenge the prevailing wisdom that Italy's politics will never change.

The decade commencing with the great crash of 2008 was a watershed period for Italian politics, involving fundamental and dramatic changes, many of which had not been anticipated and which are charted in this book. This comprehensive volume covers the impact of the Eurozone crisis on the Italian economy and its relationship with the European Union, the dramatic changes in the political parties (and particularly the rise of a new political force, the Five Star Movement, which became the largest political party in 2013), the changing role of the Trade Unions in the lives of Italian citizens, the Italian migration crisis, electoral reforms and their impact on the Italian party system (where trends towards bipolarisation appear to be exhausted), the rise of new forms of social protest, changes to political culture and social capital and, finally, amidst the crisis, reforms to the welfare state. Overall, the authors reveal a country, which many had assumed was in quiet transition towards a more stable democracy, that suffers an immense shock from the Eurozone crisis and bringing to the fore deep-rooted structural problems which have changed the dynamics of its politics, as confirmed in the outcome to the 2018 National Elections. This book was originally published as a special issue of South European Society and Politics.

The decade commencing with the great crash of 2008 was a watershed period for Italian politics, involving fundamental and dramatic changes, many of which had not been anticipated and which are charted in this book. This comprehensive volume covers the impact of the Eurozone crisis on the Italian economy and its relationship with the European Union, the dramatic changes in the political parties (and particularly the rise of a new political force, the Five Star Movement, which became the largest political party in 2013), the changing role of the Trade Unions in the lives of Italian citizens, the Italian migration crisis, electoral reforms and their impact on the Italian party system (where trends towards bipolarisation appear to be exhausted), the rise of new forms of social protest, changes to political culture and social capital and, finally, amidst the crisis, reforms to the welfare state. Overall, the authors reveal a country, which many had assumed was in quiet transition towards a more stable democracy, that suffers an immense shock from the Eurozone crisis and bringing to the fore deep-rooted structural problems which have changed the dynamics of its politics, as confirmed in the outcome to the 2018 National Elections. This book was originally published as a special issue of South European Society and Politics.

This textbook, from one of Italy's most eminent scholars, provides broad coverage and critique of Italian politics and society. Providing the readers with the knowledge necessary to understand the working of the Italian political system, it also offers answers to some of the most important challenges facing the country - and other contemporary democracies - today, such as populism, anti-politics and corruption. Critical but underpinned by thorough data and analysis, it presents alternative views alongside the author's interpretation. Crucially, the book uses a comparative framework to explain Italy's transformation and evaluate its performance. Comparing the rules, institutions, parties and actors at work in the most important European political systems - France, Germany, Great Britain - with those in Italy, the Italian context is better understood and assessed in contrast. This text will be essential reading for students and scholars of Italian politics and European politics, and more broadly for comparative politics and democracy.

This textbook, from one of Italy's most eminent scholars, provides broad coverage and critique of Italian politics and society. Providing the readers with the knowledge necessary to understand the working of the Italian political system, it also offers answers to some of the most important challenges facing the country - and other contemporary democracies - today, such as populism, anti-politics and corruption. Critical but underpinned by thorough data and analysis, it presents alternative views alongside the author's interpretation. Crucially, the book uses a comparative framework to explain Italy's transformation and evaluate its performance. Comparing the rules, institutions, parties and actors at work in the most important European political systems - France, Germany, Great Britain - with those in Italy, the Italian context is better understood and assessed in contrast. This text will be essential reading for students and scholars of Italian politics and European politics, and more broadly for comparative politics and democracy.

The Oxford Handbook of Italian Politics provides a comprehensive look at the political life of one of Europe's most exciting and turbulent democracies. Under the hegemonic influence of Christian Democracy in the early post-World War II decades, Italy went through a period of rapid growth and political transformation. In part this resulted in tumult and a crisis of governability; however, it also gave rise to innovation in the form of Eurocommunism and new forms of political accommodation. The great strength of Italy lay in its constitution; its great weakness lay in certain legacies of the past. Organized crime-popularly but not exclusively associated with the mafia-is one example. A self-contained and well entrenched 'caste' of political and economic elites is another. These weaknesses became apparent in the breakdown of political order in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This ushered in a combination of populist political mobilization and experimentation with electoral systems design, and the result has been more evolutionary than transformative. Italian politics today is different from what it was during the immediate post-World War II period, but it still shows many of the influences of the past.

This book continues the editors' work (started in the volume "Masters of Political Science") of highlighting and re-evaluating the contributions of the most important political scientists who have gone before. Its basis is the belief that the future development and sophistication of the discipline will benefit from a critical understanding of the works of early political "giants" whose contributions are presented and analysed: Gabriel A. Almond, Raymond Aron, Philip Converse, Maurice Duverger, Stanley Hoffmann, Paul Lazarsfeld, Arend Lijphart, Elinor Ostrom, William H. Riker, Stein Rokkan and Susan Strange. The editors review and consider the contributions of these maestri to the study of contemporary democracy, political culture, electoral systems, political communication, the transformation of capitalism and state formation in Europe. Maestri of Political Science is aimed not only at a new generation of political scientists but is a valuable opportunity for established scholars to see new light through old windows.

For a while now, political science as a discipline has been big enough (in terms of the number of academics) and analytically mature enough to justify reflections on and reviews of its achievements. In fact, there is no lack of general handbooks, dictionaries and 'state of the art' assessments (as well as 'reflective' journals such as the ECPR's own European Political Science), which are useful in helping us to understand and evaluate where we currently are and where we might still need to go. The focus of these texts, however, is on particular concepts, themes, research areas, institutions or behaviour. What they rarely do is indulge in a critical reflection on the political scientists themselves, especially those who are commonly accepted as having made the most significant contributions to the growth of their discipline. This book fills an important gap in the growing reflective literature on the political science discipline: it consists of a series of 'objective' profiles of the 'Masters of Political Science', written by political scientists who have read and studied their work and who are therefore in a position to evaluate the nature of their contributions.

The European Union celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2017, but celebrations were muted by Brexit and the growing sense of a crisis of identity. However, as this seminal work shows, the history and ambition of the European Union are considerable. Written by key stakeholders who, between them, acted as architects, adjudicators and arbitrators of the project, it presents the definitive history of the first two generations of the European Union. This book revisits the birth and consolidation of the great project of a united Europe and the political, institutional, judicial and economical frameworks of the European Union: from the process towards integration, to the advancements and the impasses in building a political union.