Parties and Electoral Behaviour in Italy: From Stability to Competition

This chapter illustrates the evolution of the Italian party system from 1946 to 2013. Firstly, it depicts the peculiarity of Italy’s ‘First Republic’ (1946–1992) and it explains why solid voting stability had characterized that period despite of the transformations of Italian social and economic structures throughout the post war decades. The chapter furthermore describes the circumstances that led to the Italian political crisis of early 1990s and later to the birth of the ‘Second Republic’—characterized by a new political landscape, increased voting volatility and the polarising figure of Silvio Berlusconi. Finally, this chapter addresses the topic of the 2013 Italian electoral earthquake marked by the success of the Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement. In particular, the final part of this chapter investigates the reasons of the repeated success of anti-party and populist parties in Italy and it reflects upon the possible electoral characteristics of a ‘Third Republic’.