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Giovanni Amerigo Giuliani, PhD Candidate,

Scuola Normale Superiore, Istituto di Scienze Umane (SNS),

XXIX cycle giovanniamerigo.giuliani@sns.it

Call for Papers XXIX Convegno SISP

Università della Calabria, Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali - Arcavacata di Rende (Cosenza), 10 - 12 settembre 2015.

(Working Paper)

Welfare State and Political Parties in Italy: New Changes in the Italian Party System?

1. Introduction

Party system change has always been a topic extensively examined and discussed in the literature. Indeed, while there is wide consensus in the academic community that western European party systems are experiencing a process of change (Mair and Smith 1990), the scope and the consequences of these changes are still being debated. On the one hand, a body of research has concluded that western European party systems on the whole have remained remarkably stable (Mair 1997; 2004). These works profoundly support the stability hypothesis, i.e., they state that Lipset and Rokkan’s freezing hypothesis (1967) still remains valid as the party alternatives identified by the two scholars are still present. On the other hand, other studies have emphasized discontinuities in the development of national party systems, arguing that they have undertaken a defrost path (Kriesi, 2008; 2012).

Within this debate, the Italian party system has been reported as an interesting case of party system change, in particular since the crisis of the Prima Repubblica and the resulting political earthquake (Morlino 1996; D’Alimonte and Bartolini, 2002). From representing a clear example of polarized pluralism (Sartori, 1976), with the emergence of the Seconda Repubblica, the Italian party system changed its configuration drastically, even though labelling it as a moderate pluralism is still controversial (Morlino and Tarchi, 2006). Different factors have been taken into consideration as possible explanans of such a change, including such institutional arrangements as electoral laws, the emergence of new parties models, the turnover of parliamentary leadership and the appearance of new political competitors (Morlino, 1996; Pappalardo 1996). These studies have undoubtedly given a comprehensive view of the topic, highlighting the dynamics leading to party system change and providing theoretical tools for the study of the Italian party system. Nonetheless, a narrower, in-depth, focus on the qualitative dimension of the party system i.e., its polarization - defined by Sartori (1976) as the ideological distances between the parties - and in particular on the polarization or depolarization over the welfare issues, in the light of the exogenous and endogenous factors pressuring the Italian welfare state, could offer some new interesting insights in the study of the Italian party system and of its alteration. Taking into consideration the political legacy acquired from the First Repubblica as well as the role played by different ideological paradigms in shaping party competition, in particular in the economic and social field- from the old social-democratic consensus to the neoliberal paradigm, with a specific focus on the gradual emergence of the liberal neo-welfarism (Ferrera, 2014)- this paper aims at exploring the extent to which the internal and external pressures on the welfare state – i.e. economic globalization, the process of the European

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integration, social structure change and domestic economic change due to de-industrialization - have contributed to polarizing or de-polarizing the Italian party system during the Seconda Republica. In other words, the research question is: to what extent has the ideological distance on Welfare state issues that characterized the immediate post-war decades been reduced, eliminated or reframed in the light of the exogenous and endogenous pressures affecting the Italian welfare state?

Before proceeding, two important qualifications are required. The first is that the article is only a preliminary study of what will constitute a broader and more careful research, and thus aims only at giving a partial view of the topic analysed. Therefore, theory, data as well as the method employed are mainly intended as starting points and will be successively reinforced. The second qualification concerns the theoretical grounding of my argument. Clearly, the change of the Italian party system cannot be ascribable merely to the internal and external pressures on the welfare state. A complex set of different factors contributes to the general polarization - or de-polarization - and the fragmentation of the party system. Therefore, I do not claim there is only one casual mechanism that explains the party system change. Indeed, my point is that such a casual mechanism linking Italian party system change with the pressures on the welfare state deserves to be taken into consideration as one among many.

The paper is organised as follows. In the first section I will provide a concise theoretical ground of my argument, then I will provide a brief overview of those external and internal factors, which in the literature have been counted as pressuring the European welfare state in general and the Italian Welfare State in particular. In the third section I will discuss the method employed. In the following section, mixing a quantitative and qualitative analysis of Italian party manifestos, and placing them in the historical context, I will try to provide a general overview concerning the extent to which the Italian party system has been polarized or de-polarized as far as welfare issues are concerned. The last section will be devoted to the conclusion. 2. Party Competition, Polarization and the Neo-Liberal Welfarism Paradigm.

Scholars have investigated in depth to explain how in the last several decades party system,

and in particular party competition, has been structured around the social divisions existing within a polity. Rokkan and Lipset’s work (1967) has shown how ideological and partisan divisions derived from the social cleavages in a nation and how differences between competing social groups have been the basis for political conflict. Such cleavages seem to persist over the time; indeed, in the wake of some critical historical junctures, they became crystallized or frozen, i.e., they became embedded in, and supported by a particularly dense network of organizations, especially partisan organizations, whose main effect is to reproduce the structures themselves (Rokkan and Lipset, 1967; Ferrera, 2005). To be more precise, it seems fair to say that party competition in Western Europe has been mainly developed around the class cleavage, i.e., owners vs. workers. The classic Left-Right dimension of party competition has represented such social clash for a long time. As Dalton (2002) has pointed out, the theoretical and empirical strength of this class cleavage derives from the fact that it properly reflects different ideologies on the nature of politics and economics, and the ideal relationship between these two social systems. On the right of the left-right continuum, economic conservatives advocate individual initiative, paying less attention to social and economic inequality, and supporting a limited role for government. On the left, socialists and social democrats favour a more egalitarian society and support government larger role in finding political solutions for the inequalities produced by the social and economic systems. These social conflicts have defined the primary ideological bases of politics in Western democracies and therefore have provided the framework for party competition.

Therefore it appears clear that ideological differences on the Left-Right continuum represent a crucial element in the study of party systems and of its change. In a broader perspective,  when analysing party system, Dalton (2008) highlighted that one of the more examined properties is the counting of the number of parties, focusing, for instance, on the merits of a two-party system versus

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a multiparty system (or a range of parties). On the contrary, the scholar argues that instead of counting the quantity of parties, a more important property is often the quality of party competition, i.e., the degree of polarization in a party system. Two distinct approaches can be counted in developing this concept of polarization. First, Downs’s spatial model (1957) provides an early framework for party competition. Such a framework conceptualizes political competition as position-taking along an ideological spectrum, that is, political parties as well as voters are aligned along a Left-Right continuum. In Downs’s analyses (1957), there was already a concern for the degree of polarization in a party system, but, as Dalton (2008) has highlighted, it was expressed more in terms of the number of parties.

A second approach was developed in Giovanni Sartori’s (1976; see also Evans, 2002) seminal works concerning political parties. Sartori claims that the established structure of the party system may be described not only by the effective number of parties, which defines its format, but also by the degree of polarization, or ideological distance, between the parties, which defines its mechanics. In other words, party system polarization reflects the degree of ideological differentiation among political parties in a system. In setting up his typology of party systems, Satori therefore takes into consideration both the qualitative and quantitative aspect of the party system, and he distinguishes between systems with centripetal dynamics and systems with centrifugal dynamics. On the one hand, the two-party and moderate multiparty types are mostly associated with centripetal trends, showing minimal ideological distance, bipolar mechanics and a convergence towards the centre of the ideological continuum. On the other hand, the polarized pluralist category is communally associated with a centrifugal trend, manifesting a greater ideological distance, with extremist anti-system parties forming a bilateral opposition to the governing parties that positions themselves in the centre space in an effort to win centre-located voters.

Both Downs and Sartori’s spatial models thus converge on a common framework for studying party systems as they conceptualize party and party system as aligned along a single ideological continuum (Dalton, 2008). Nevertheless, the uni-dimensionality of political conflict has been harshly questioned (Stoke, 1963). Kitschelt (2004) indeed claimed that competitive space in post- industrial Western European societies during the 1970s and the1980s, was essentially one-dimensional, the Socialism-Capitalism dimension, which concerns the allocation of resources – Redistributive political allocation vs income allocation in accordance with the market. In the 1990s a rotation of voter distribution occurred and this has led to a centripetal trend, as all parties have converged in the centre of the Socialism-Capitalism dimension, while they have continued to hold different positions on the Libertarian-Authoritarian dimension - the cultural dimension which deals with topics related to processes that bring about collective outcomes, i.e., sensitive cultural issues. Kitschel’s two-dimensionality character of party competition does not weaken the theoretical framework provided by Dowan and Sartori. On the contrary, it allows a more comprehensive perspective of the competition as well as isolating the two dimensions, assessing which of the two mostly contribute to polarizing the party system. In other words, ideological distances among the parties could be more or less pronounced depending on the dimension analysed and this point needs to be considered when assessing the polarization of a party system.

The polarization or depolarization of the European party systems has always raised passionate debates. A trend in the literature has indeed stressed how ideological differences on the economic dimension have drastically narrowed as the class cleavage has lost its strength. This interpretation is linked to the earlier “end of ideology” literature, (Kirchheimer, 1966; Dalton 2006), which claim that the advanced industrial democracies - starting from the 1960s and more intensely in the 1980s and in 1990s - have detached themselves from ideological politics. Indeed, in the light of social modernization and exogenous forces, scholars have shown how political parties have tended to adopt moderate programs in order to attract centrist voters. To be more precise, the Socialist parties have moved away from their original Marxist programs and adopted more moderate domestic policy goals in order to capture votes from new middle class, while the

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Conservative parties have toned down their views and accepted the basic social programs proposed by the left in order not to alienate the working class (Kitschelt, 2001). Focusing more in depth on the polarization or de-polarization of the party system concerning the welfare issues – which have always played a crucial role in shaping party competition, as they have constituted one of the basic ideological clash points on the left-right continuum - several studies have cited convergence pressures operating on both the left and the right. As Allan and Scruggs (2004) have pointed out, on the right, the existence of the welfare state is said to check retrenchment designs (via vested interests or constituents who now benefit from its programs). On the left, various structural factors (including the idea of “growth to limits” and globalization) are said to explain pressures for retraction or stasis. Nonetheless, the debate is open and there is no a complete agreement in the academic community. On the one hand, scholars like Huber and Stephens (2001) and Castles (1998, 2001) state that differences between left and right have narrowed. On the other hand, other scholars such as Iversen (2001) provides a stylized model of changing demand for welfare protection that allows for a constant level of differentiation between left and right parties. In this model, while the level of welfare generosity may change due to institutional and structural constraints, there is no reason that the differences between the parties are narrowed. Kitschelt (2001) also suggests a model in which a left party’s desire for a larger welfare state may be masked by strategic considerations that lead the left to make preemptive cuts or the right to resist cuts. Nevertheless, bot Iversen and Kitschelt agree that partisan differences over the nature of the welfare state remain. More broadly, Iversen and Wren (1998) argue that partisan differences remain important for understanding divergent national responses to rising unemployment, inequality, and the need for fiscal restraint. Additionally, case studies presented in Scharpf and Schmidt’s (2000) assessment of changes in welfare and employment relations in Western Europe suggest persistent partisan differences. Furthermore as Allan and Scruggs (2004) has highlighted the fact that left governments are not clearly associated with expansion does not necessarily imply that right governments are not associated with retrenchment.

Given these theoretical considerations, it seems correct to pay attention to the evolution of the ideology that has affected European social politics, with a direct impact on the way in which European parties have positioned themselves along the classic Socialism-Capitalism dimension, where the welfare issues have a salient position.

Indeed, in one of his seminal work, Ferrera (2014) has shown how after the end of the Trentes Glorieuses - characterised by a social democratic consensus around the expansion of the Keynesian welfare state - and a phase of neoliberal hegemony in the 1980s and early 1990s, European social politics has been witnessing the emergence of a new ideological consensus called liberal neo-welfarism (LNW). Such a new ideological paradigm is shared by most mainstream centre-left and centre-right parties and can be summarised in two complementary theses: “the changed socio-economic context calls for a ‘new welfare state’, capable of providing more effective responses to people’s needs and risks, in a framework of fiscal sustainability and market efficiency; social justice objectives must remain the driving force of welfare state arrangements, but they must be brought back in line with changed social and economic conditions and be designed in a growth- and employment-friendly way” Ferrera (2014). It seems fair to say that such a new ideology affecting European social politics could be translated into a reshaping of the ideological distances of the Socialism-Capitalism dimension, at least as far as mainstream right-wing and left-wing parties are concerned. Indeed, as LNW wishes for the re-embedding of markets and the attention to social and political legitimacy in allocative and distributive reforms, it can be potentially transposed into a decrease in polarization of the party system. Such a new ideology needs to be contextualized within of the broader historical context in order to trace the evolution of the Welfare State and its reforms, and in particular it needs to be linked to those external and internal factors which pressure the Welfare State and which, to a certain

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extent, have contributed to the emergence of such a new ideology. 3. External and Internal Pressures on the Welfare State. The Usual Suspects?

With the first oil shock in the1970s, the European Welfare State started to be pressured by new challenges, which undermined its original architecture. Compared to the previous Golden Age - when the high economic growth had contributed to broaden the coverage of social insurance as well as to increase the generosity of transfer payments and the scope and quality of services (Esping-Andersen, 1990; Flora, 1986; Ferrera, 2006) – the economic background was considerably changed. National economies in Europe had to tackle the serious problem of stagflation - that is, the contemporaneous rise of inflation and unemployment - and, in particular in concomitance with the second oil crisis in 1979, the restrictive international economic environment, characterized by extremely high real interest rates, contributed to a dramatic rise of the unemployment rates. Economic growth experienced a severe slowdown while social expenditures continued to increase, leading many European countries to face with serious fiscal crisis. Finally, the intensification of the process of European integration in the 1980s and in the 1990s – in particular the creation of a single European market which involved the liberalization and deregulation of capital and product markets – limited the national room for manoeuvring national fiscal and monetary policy, prompting austerity policies in the social field (Ferrera et al, 2009).

Like all European countries, Italy also had to address these new challenges. Indeed, after an impressive economic growth supported also by a Keynesian economic policy oriented towards industrial planning and moderate nationalisation, the Italian economy, beginning in the 1970s, started to quickly worsen. The Italian welfare state - promoted by a solid Christian-Democrat government moderately disposed to extending social entitlements, and allied with the Socialist Party since the 1960s (I will return to this argument in the following paragraph) - began to show its weaknesses and distortions. The status quo seemed to be always more difficult to sustain in the light of the new economic as well as social conditions. At the same time, with the intensification of economic and social change, the original welfare state apparatus appeared increasingly out-of-date and ill-suited to meeting the great challenges ahead (Esping-Andersen, 1993; 2002). As a consequence, since the end of the 1970s and in the1980s, but more specifically in the1990s, political parties as well as governments have gradually started to undertake a reform path in the light of the new exogenous and endogenous challenges.

The crucial question is to properly identify such external and internal challenges to the European Welfare State and to assess if they are suitable to the Italian case. An in-depth review of all the possible factors that are conceived in the literature as sources of pressure to the welfare state is beyond the scope of this paper. Nevertheless I will try to provide a general overview of four strictly inter-connected issues that deserve to be taken into consideration. The first two can be considered exogenous – economic globalization and the European integration process – while the others are intended as endogenous – social structure change and domestic economic structure change due to de-industrialization. Hereinafter I will analyse such factors, contextualizing them within the Italian scenario.

Economic Globalization

Economic globalization, i.e., an increasing internalization of western economies, has been largely considered one of the main source of pressure to the European welfare state. As Stephens and Huber claimed (2001), economic internalization is assumed to strongly favour market solutions and therefore to be particularly unfavourable to the generous social policies supported by left-wing parties and trade unions. The main argument is that increased trade and financial mobility at the global level correlate with rising income inequality and unemployment (Martin, 1996). To be more

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precise, several studies have supported the low-wage southern competition thesis, which explains the dramatic rise in foreign investment flows to the newly industrializing economies (NIEs) after 1970 as a search for relatively cheap and literate workers and links this to declining demand for relatively expensive unskilled labour in the OECD countries (Wood, 1994; 1995). The process of economic globalization has therefore led to the formation of a new structural conflict in western countries, opposing those who benefit from this process –i.e., the winners of globalization, entrepreneurs and high-skilled employees in sectors open to international competition – and those who tend to feel threatened by this drastic structural change – i.e., the losers of globalization, entrepreneurs and high-skilled employees in traditionally protected sectors, all low-skilled workers, in both exposed and sheltered sectors (Swank, 2002; Swank and Betz 2003; Kriesi et al. 2008; 2011). Nevertheless, the causal mechanism tying economic globalization and welfare retrenchment has hardly been questioned. Even though a possible relationship between international competition, technological change and the declining demand for unskilled workers is more than obvious, the impact of globalization seems to have been exaggerated. Specifically, the globalization thesis for the Italian case appears not to be a proper fit. Two economic studies (Barba Navaretti, 1999; Barba Navaretti et al., 2002) already highlighted by Ferrera and Gualmini (2004), and one more recent work (Barba Navaretti et al., 2010) have demonstrated that the market growing openness has not strongly affected Italian employment rates. The studies have proved that for the Italian case there is no empirical evidence of those trends typically associated with internationalisation in other industrial countries, such as increasing unemployment among low-skilled and uneducated workers and/or a wage shift in favour of skilled employees (Ferrera and Gualmini, 2004). Furthermore, such studies have assessed that Italy has so far had a relatively low exposition to import penetration from low wage countries, which could threaten the unskilled labour forces, and that the growing internationalisation of Italian firms cannot be adduced as the main causes of unemployment in the manufacturing sector. Even the more recent work by Barba Navaretti et al. (2010) corroborates such previous findings. The work indeed has examined how outward (vertical and horizontal) investments to developing (DCs) and less developed countries (LDCs) have affected the domestic activities of Italian firms that become multinationals in the period analysed. The main result is that there is no evidence of a negative effect of outward investments in cheap labour countries. On the contrary, in Italy, they enhance the efficiency of domestic activities, with also positive long-term effect on value added and employment growth.

In conclusion, economic globalization should be analysed as intertwined with the domestic factors, as per se, at least for the Italian case, it could not to be taken as a real pressure of the Welfare State.

Process of European Integration Several works have been devoted to scrutinizing the impact of the European Union on the Welfare State (Liebrfied, 2010). Such an impact has been developed in a twofold way. On the expenditure side, the opening of the borders and the broadening of the social security systems for citizens of other EU states has meant that social transfers are no longer restricted to a country’s own citizens and no longer used within the state territory. On the other hand, and perhaps most importantly, Europeanization has affected the budgetary resources of the member states: the creation of EMU has imposed strict convergence criteria, which, in turn, limit the deficit spending of the member states (Scharpf, 2000). The impact of EMU on the welfare state is still debated, but as noted by Esping-Anderson (2002), it is quite clear that the new macroeconomic environment, by imposing strict constraints, has played a crucial role in triggering structural reforms in labour markets, collective bargaining systems, social protection programmes, and welfare financing. The introduction of a single currency stimulated important direct and indirect aftermaths regarding social policy as well as wage bargaining. Concerning the Italian case, literature has demonstrated how since the 1980s and especially in the 1990s the vincolo esterno (that is, the economic

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constraints derived from EU membership) has become a serious challenge for the Italian welfare state. Political parties - pressured by the difficult effort of reconciling responsiveness and responsibility (Bardi et al, 2014) - have increasingly been expected to learn how to become more European, forcing themselves to introduce in their electoral campaigns the promise of undertaking welfare policies reform. Indeed, to be more precise, European decisions on fiscal and monetary, rather than social, policy had a major impact on the Italian welfare state. First of all, the entry of the Italian currency into the European monetary system (EMS) at the end of the 1970s represented a strong constraint on national monetary policy, limiting the room for manoeuvre of the policy-makers. Second, in 1991 the Italian government asked the European Commission for multilateral surveillance on its financial and economic policy to enter into European monetary union (EMU). The Commission in May 1992 adopted a formal document criticizing the Italian government for the huge difference between the provisional budget deficit and concrete figures for the current year (Natali 2002; 2011). The convergence towards the financial parameters included in the Maastricht Treaty signed in February 1992 for the creation of EMU thus represented, as already said, a new challenge for the Italian governments. Indeed, since that moment, the need to join EMU was at the top of the government’s agenda and the government then adopted a first series of measures for their convergence (Natali 2011).

Social Structure Change

As Esping-Andersen (2002) claimed, European countries are undergoing a revolution in demographic and family behaviour, represented by the ageing population and by women's embrace of personal independence and lifelong careers.

The evolving interaction between demography and mature social programmes has been resulted as a true challenge to the status quo of the Italian welfare state. The Italian population have been dramatically ageing, due both to the decline in birth rates as well as the increase in life expectancy. As a consequence, the related fiscal pressures have been dramatically increasing. Pension expenditure as well as health expenditure have been mounted and the need for adjustment measure, in particular since the199os, has increased. At the same time, the increase in women's labour force participation rates, though still below the European average, has obliged the unprepared Italian welfare state to address new social risks– such as income interruption due to maternity and participation in caregiving activities - which need to be insured against. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, the fact that women working outside the home implies an increased requests for help with those social tasks previously carried out within the household, including care for children, the elderly, and the disabled. If such care services are provided publicly, there will be direct and substantial budgetary consequences. In effect, the state is now paying for many services which used to be provided ‘for free’ within the context of ‘male breadwinner’ households or broader kinship networks. At the same time, not providing such services could discourage women from participating in the labour market, with negative consequences for the national economy. Domestic Economic Structure Change (de-industrialization)

As explained above, economic globalization pressures on the welfare state have to be analysed in a strict connection with the domestic economic structure. Indeed, as Ferrera and Gualmini (2004) have highlighted, the most important challenges to the European welfare state occur precisely at the intersection of the international and domestic economies in the area of employment. In accordance to this current of literature, unemployment problems and the need for the modernisation of social protection systems should be attributed mainly to the ‘post-industrialization’ of advanced economies. Indeed, Freeman and Soete (1994) have argued that the advanced economies are experiencing a shift from an older Fordist ‘techno-economic paradigm’ - based on energy-intensive production systems and services - to a new techno-economic paradigm based on information-intensive production systems and services. The consequence is a new clash

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between skilled vs. unskilled workers in both the sheltered and exposed sectors. Two new challenges for the modern welfare state have thus arisen: to improve and increase skills among the low-skilled groups, undertaking lifelong learning policies (extended schooling, vocational training and education) and, second, increase job opportunities for low-skilled groups who continue to lack marketable skills.

The segmented and distorted Italian welfare state has found itself unprepared to meet such new challenges. Indeed social legislation has strongly contributed to a segmented labour market as it has increased the gap between the core and the more peripheral labour sectors, offering high social security levels to the former and reserving totally inadequate and marginal measures to the latter. Significant disparities have occurred also on the side of the risks covered: as already mentioned, while the Italian welfare state developed a hypertrophied pension system that absorb over 60% of social spending (against a European average of just over 40%), problems linked to unemployment and family support have been largely ignored (Fargion, 2004). With such a distorted apparatus, it has not been an easy task to undertake modern policies that tackle these new social risks and challenges due to the new labour market structure originated by the de-industrialization process.

This overview is clearly very general and does not aim at being exhaustive. More precise works have already provided an in-depth review of the main pressures on the European – and Italian- welfare state. Nonetheless, it helps to better frame the research question of this study. It appears obvious that such endogenous and exogenous factors pressuring the Italian Welfare state necessarily enter within the parties’ political agenda, presumably affecting their electoral strategies. The point to be assessed is the extent to which such factors have affected polarization in the Italian party system. Graphic 2 summarizes a preliminary theoretical framework, which tries to encapsulate the causal mechanism which link the external and the internal pressures on the welfare state to the polarization or depolarization of the Italian party system over the welfare issues. First of all, following the same line of reasoning of Natali (2011), within the framework I have made a differentiation between independent, intervening and condition variables, employing for such terms the definition proposed by Van Evera (1997). Independent variables frame the causal phenomenon; they directly influence the dependent variable. Intervening variables are caused by independent factors and in turn cause dependent variables, while condition variables (not caused by independent variables) have a direct and/or an interactive effect on dependent variables (Graphic 1). Graphic 1. Variables interactions

First, I have considered the social structure change and the domestic economic structure (plus a more weak effect of economic globalization) and the process of European integration as independent variables. Indeed they directly pressure the Italian welfare state both from the within

INDEPENDENT  VARIABLES  

Intervening    variables

DEPENDENT  VARIABLES  

CONDITION  VARIABLES  

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and the outside. I have identified such pressure to the status quo of the Italian welfare state as an intervening variable which directly affect the way in which Right and Left parties position themselves on the welfare issues and thus triggering a polarization or a depolarization of the party system over the welfare state. I also include in the model two other variables, strictly linked to each other, which I have labelled condition variables. The first variable is the economic and financial crises erupted in 2008, which has displayed the weakness of the Italian economy and has prompted a new reform path in the social policies in order to correct the distortion of the Italian welfare state. Such a variable clearly affects the intervening variable. The second variables are the policies legacies of the Italian technocratic governments (Ciampi, Dini, D’Amato and Monti), which have undertaken a reform path, which could not, and still cannot, easily reversed and therefore can potentially affect the room for manoeuvre of the parties when presenting their social platform. Graphic 2. Theoretical framework

The theoretical framework clearly is still untreated and needs of revision and improvement. Nonetheless it could be a starting point to investigate whether the Italian party system has been polarized or depolarized over the welfare issues in the light of the new challenges on the welfare state.

Domestic  economic  structure  change  (plus  economic  globalization)  

Pressure  on  the  status  quo  of  the  Italian  welfare  

state  

Social  structure  change  

Process  of  European  integration    

Party  System  Polarization/  Depolarization  over  the  Welfare  

State    

Economic  crisis  

Policy  Legacies  of  the  

Technocratic  governments  

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4. Method In order to answer my research question, I will employ a mixed-method research, combining

quantitative and qualitative strategies of analysis. As far as the quantitative part is concerned, to measure Italian party policy positions over

time, I have employed data from Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP). Indeed, Budge et al. (2001) claimed that the advantages of using CMP are : 1) it generates a rich time series covering the 50-year post-war period for many democracies; 2) its measures directly reflect what the parties have stated as their positions; and 3) their own validity and reliability have been extensively examined. To be more precise, Elias Dinas and Kostas Gemenis (2009) have pointed out that data from party manifestos provides a greater degree of impartiality as compared to the Expert surveys and opinion poll data, which give us a picture of the party as perceived by political analysts and voters, respectively. Party Manifestos, on the other hand, provide a more accurate and representative picture of where the parties stand in the policy space, without requiring any further knowledge of their policy record. Secondly, the Manifesto Research Group has produced a rich time series of data unrivalled by any other method. Furthermore, the choice to select election programs to measure party competition is supported by the fact that the manifestos are either issued by councils of elected party elites or legally ratified at party conventions. Therefore, they are authoritative statements of party preferences and represent the entire party, not just one faction or politician. Finally, election programs are issued at regular intervals and, in all electoral democracies, program changes can be observed over a party’s lifetime. Election programs cover a wide range of concerns. Therefore, party preferences on these issues can be measured and compared to the preferences of their competitors within party systems (Volkens, Bara and Budge, 2009). I also have to underscore that the use of party manifestos seems perfectly adapted to the historical comparative method. Indeed, the CMP dataset provides more sensitive measures of party changes at important political junctures than are otherwise available (Dinas and Gemenis, 2009).

In order to analysis the polarization of the Italian party system, I have relied on Dalton’s (2008) index of polarization. This conceptual measure of party polarization includes two elements: (a) the relative position of each party along the Left–Right scale and (b) the party’s position weighted by party size (as a large party at the extreme would signify greater polarization than a splinter party in the same position). The Polarization index is measured as the following:

PI = SQRT{∑(party vote sharei)* [(party L/R scorei – party system average L/R score) /5]2}, (1)

where i represents individual parties. This index is comparable to a measure of the standard deviation of a distribution and is similar to the statistics used by other scholars. It has a value of 0 when all parties occupy the same position on the Left–Right scale and 10 when all the parties are split between the two extremes of the scale.

Notwithstanding that I have employed the same Polarization Index, the Left-Right scale is constructed in a different way, also due to the fact that Dalton’s Left-Right scale, based on CSES database is not available for Italy. Indeed, I employ the RILE scale provided by CMP (Volkens et al., 2014), which has been adjusted for the PI index. The new Polarization Index will therefore measure:

PI = SQRT{∑(party vote sharei)* [(party RILEscorei –wmean)/100]2}, (2) Where wmean is mean left-right position weighted by the parties’ vote share (also known as the ideological center of gravity Gross and Sigelman 1984). It is calculated according to the following formula:

Wmean= ∑[(party vote sharei / Sum of vote share at the election)* party RILEscorei], (3)

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Notwithstanding that the RILE scale is a valid and useful index, it does not distinguish the economic and the cultural dimensions, as the indicators employed in its construction encompass both dimensions. As this study focuses on the polarization of the party system on the economic dimension, I will construct another index, which isolates the economic component of the L-R scale. The Socialism-Capitalism scale is constructed using the same method employed by CMP for the RILE scale :

S/C scale: (Re – Le),

where R represents Right categories, and L the Left categories and e indicates that they belong only to the economic dimension. Clearly, I have re-calculated the total number of the sentences, taking into consideration only those linked to the indicators chosen. The scale varies from -100 to +100, with -100 meaning extreme Left and +100 meaning Extreme Right.

In table 1, I show the Left-Right partition of the issues analysed in for the Socialism-Capitalism scale. Table 1. Right and Left CMP indicator employed for constructing the Socialism-Capitalism scale

Right emphases: sum of % for

Left Emphases: sum of %s for

Free Enterprise

Market regulation

Economic Incentives Protectionism: positive,

Protectionism: Negative Keynesian Demand Management: Positive,

Economic Orthodoxy

Controlled Economy

Welfare State Limitation

Welfare State Expansion

Labour Groups: Negative Labour Group: Positive

Nationalisation

Controlled Economy

Equality

Source: Ian Budge, 2013. Data realaborated by the author.

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The CMP also allows me to better operationalize how parties position themselves on welfare issues1, and therefore to provide a more in-depth look at how Italian parties have positioned themselves on welfare issues over time.

As far as the qualitative part of the work is concerned, given that it is not still possible at this stage of the research to employ a rigorous method, I will try to place the quantitative data into the broader historical context of the Nineties and of the first decades of the new century – providing a first brief historical synopsis of the dynamics linking party system and welfare state in the Prima Repubblica - in order to provide an historical overview, though preliminary, of those causal mechanisms linking the polarization of the party system and the external and internal factors pressuring the welfare state. The party manifestos will also be examined through a qualitative content analysis (even though not structured), in order to delve into an analysis of the policy goals pursued by Italian parties in the last elections.

5. Findings from the qualitative and quantitative historical analysis of party manifestos

Historical Background: The political legacy on the Welfare State during the First Repubblica2.

The inquiry of the polarization or de-polarization of Italian party system around the welfare state in the Seconda Repubblica is not able to leave the analysis of the political legacy on the welfare state out of consideration. Even though a careful reconstruction of the relation between Italian political parties and the welfare state is far beyond the scope of this article, it seems appropriate to provide a general historical frame of how political parties ideologically placed themselves on welfare issues in the Prima Repubblica.

After the end of the Second World War and the birth of the new Italian Republic, a constitutional debate emerged regarding the most appropriate approach for the social security system. In such a circumstance, the ideological differences among the parties were clear: the Left, in particular the Communist Party (PCI), pressed for workers’ and union self-management and control and for radical reforms, while the Christian Democracy (DC), also worried by a possible electoral success of the PCI, opposed a dismantling or secularization of the Church’s traditional social assistance network. At the same time, the liberal-democratic party was concerned with the economic and financial national situation, and thus was sceptical to support the widening and deepening of a solid welfare state. The change in the international background, with the beginning of the cold war and the exclusion of the PCI from the government, led the centrist coalition guided by the DC to impose its idea of welfare model, opting therefore for a restoring of the pre-war institutional framework, preventing radical changes for several years. Social policy remained for two decades a fragmented area of marginal adjustment, additive expansion and clientelistic exchange. Therefore, ideological differences on welfare state become to crystallize.

Taking a more in-depth look to the party system, during all the Prima Repubblica Italy had a multi-party system, characterized by a high degree of fragmentation, i.e., multiplicity of parties, and polarization, i.e., high ideological distances between parties. The centre was occupied by the DC, traditionally close the Catholic Church and characterized by moderate orientation towards on economy and social policy. In particular, concerning the welfare state, it shows a twofold profile: on the one hand it systematically discouraged the expansion of the welfare, especially if it implied a drastic change of the status quo. On the other hand, it promoted a sectoral solidarity on Catholic charity grounds, favouring the development of a public assistance network, and the survival of church and private charitable institutions. The left pole of the political spectrum was occupied, in primis, by the PCI which displayed a strong pro-welfare attitude. Nonetheless, only in Seventies, having toned down its Marxist orthodoxy, it adopted a concrete strategy that gave priority to social                                                                                                                1  The two indicators chosen are: “Welfare State Expansion” and “Welfare State Limitation”. 2  For this paragraph, I relied on the Ferrera’s chapter on Italy of “Growth to limits” edited by Flora, (1983).  

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reforms and to the consolidation of the Italian welfare state. Still placed on the left pole, the PSI – and in a similar way the PSDI - pursued a strategy of social reformism, which aimed at modernizing and rationalizing the welfare state. The goal was to creating a real social security system, guaranteed by the State, on the model of United Kingdom and the Scandinavian countries. Finally, the main allies of the DC, the Republican party (PRI) and the Liberal Party (PLI), shared by and large the same vision of the welfare state: social policy was a tool to achieve both social equity and capitalist efficiency, even though traditionally the PLI opposed more firmly welfare expansion, defending free-market and individual freedom. Therefore, the ideological differences concerning both the quality and the quantity of the welfare state characterized not only the political debate around the social policies and the development of a national social security system but also contributed to the polarization of the Italian party system. Nonetheless, already before the collapse of the Prima Repubblica, Italian party systems underwent significant changes, as ideological polarization decreased and the traditional class bases of the Italian parties were progressively eroded. Italian parties therefore were turning in catch-all parties, competing to each other in order to broaden their constituency. The starting challenges to the welfare state at the end of the Seventies and in the Eighties, due in particular to fiscal crisis, pressured the parties to take a stand on welfare issues and more precisely on welfare state, elaborating strategies which had to be successful at satisfied at the same time the need of welfare austerity, the need to defend the interest of traditional party electorates and the goal of capturing new electoral groups. The result was a series of ambiguous programmes characterized by inconsistent welfare packages. Nevertheless, this did not lead to a levelling of ideological differences on the welfare state. Indeed, in the Eighties, the more centrist parties (DC-PSDI and PRI-PLI) hold different stances on welfare issues and shaped the electoral competition around such issues. Therefore, during the last years of the Prima Repubblica, welfare issues remained a divisive issue and had a growing impact on party behaviour, especially for the centre of the political spectrum. The polarization of the party system on the welfare state was still remarkable.

The first phase (1994-1996 elections): The European Pressures.

The 1994 and 1996 elections can be undoubtedly seen as a turning point in Italian Party system. In particular the 1994 elections have represented the first national election after the scandal of Tangentopoli and the resulting political earthquake.

Three main blocs compete in the elections: the centre-right-wing coalition, Popolo delle Libertà guided by the outsider Silvio Berlusconi, consisting mainly of three different parties (Berlusconi’s party Forza Italia, Alleanza Nazionale, and the Lega Nord), the centre- left-wing coalition leaded by Achille Occhetto, consisting in the moderate branch of the former Italian communist party, the Partito Democratico della Sinistra, and other new parties such as Rifondazione Comunista, Federazione dei Verdi and Partito Socialista Italiano. It was still present a third centre coalition, guided by Mariotto Segni, composed of the Italian People's Party (PPI, the successor to Christian Democracy) and Segni Pact.

The elections occurred after two technical executives run by Giuliano Amato and Carlo Azelio Ciampi, which undertook serious financial adjustment in order to regain new international credibility. Ciampi Government in particular succeeded in negotiating with trade unions important structural reforms, first of all the abolition of the the scala mobile, that is, the automatic system of wage indexation, which, though it represented an institutional tool against the erosion of lower wages due to the rising of inflation, encouraged the spiral wages-prices-wages and the resulting inflation. Therefore, it was clear that in the electoral campaign welfare and economic issues had a strong salience, also in the light of the pressures on the Welfare State, first of all the vincolo esterno represented by the Maastricht Treaty signed in 1992 - and, more precisely, by the strict convergence economic criteria which had to be complied.

A first look to the 1994 electoral campaign confirm that the economic and welfare issues

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were the first concern for the PDS (more than 45% of its manifesto devoted to such issues), as well as for the centrist party Patto per l’Italia (37%). Forza Italia showed to tackle equally more issues, but anyway the salience put on welfare and economic issues remained high (29%). More interesting, is to note that within the two coalitions, the parties had different ideological positions concerning the welfare issues.

A first idea of party’s ideological differences on the welfare state is provided by the salience given into their manifesto to the support or opposition to the welfare state. As table 2 shows, the party most inclined to support Welfare State expansion seemed to be Rifondazione Comunista (4.4%), while PDS seemed to hold more moderate positions (2,56%). On the other hand, Forza Italia showed to advocate for a limitation of the Welfare State (5,11%), together with the Northern League (4, 32%). The moderate positions of the PDS, which was the major party in the centre-left coalition, can be explained as the will of the new party to continue the reformist path already undertaken in the previous years when supporting the technical governs of Ciampi and D’Amato.

Table 2. 1994 Elections: Party’s salience on Welfare State.

Welfare

State Expansion

Welfare

State Limitation

Green Federation 1,84 0

Communist Refoundation Party 4,46 0

Democratic Party of the

Left

2,56 0,64

Italian Socialist Party 0,79 1,45

Italian Popular Party 3,1 0

Pact for Italy 1,43 2,58

Democratic Alliance 5,17 0

Go Italy 0 5,11

National Alliance 1,27 1,02

Northern League 0 4,32

The Network 5,71 0

Source: Party Manifesto Project.

The party had accepted the free market economy as the only possible alternative and its programme focused on the importance of a rationalization of the social policies, carrying on the social reforms of the pervious governments and recalibrating the Italian welfare state, also in order to respect the European commitment. Nevertheless, the centre-left coalition remained rather heterogeneous, in particular, as already mentioned, due to the presence of Rifondazione Comunista, a party which keept on holding radical leftist position on the economic issues and whose had a strong blackmail power. The ideological distances between the two parties was remarkable. Indeed, in the Left-Right scale - which takes into consideration issue both from the economic and cultural dimension (hereinafter, the LR scale) and in the Socialism Capitalism scale – which encapsulates only parties’ positions on the economic issues (hereinafter, the SC scale) PDS have shifted towards more centrist positions - as table 3 shows - or even to the moderate right pole of economic (LR scale score: +7; SC scale score: +22), while RC continued to have more leftist stances (LR scale score: -24; SC scale score: -42).

On the other pole of political spectrum, as already seen, Forza Italia enthusiastically espoused the neoliberal critique against the tax–welfare state: the rightist position of the party on

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the Socialism-Capitalism scale (+73) confirmed Berlusconi’ attraction for the neo-liberal-ideology in vogue in those years. The electoral programme of the party highlighted the problem of ageing population, and therefore of the burden of the pension system, as wells as the fiscal imbalances. Privatization measures in the pension and health sphere were encouraged, and at the same time FI aimed at deregulating the labour market. The other allies of FI, the Lega Nord and Alleanza Nazionale, gave less salience to the free market (their Socialism-Capitalism scale score respectively were: +10 and -17) and in particular Allenza Nazionale did not advocate for a strong retrenchment of the welfare state.

The differences on economic positions were crystallized after the Berlusconi’s government victory. Indeed, the new government undertook drastic pension and health reforms, colliding both with the Left and the Trade Union. The government was brought down by the Lega Nord, which refused to vote a pension reform that could damage its constituency. Table 3. 1994 elections Left-Right scale and Socialism-Capitalism scale.

L-R scale S-C scale

Green Federation -11,52 -3,03

Communist Refoundation Party -24,23 -42,15

Democratic Party of the Left 7,05 22,24

Italian Socialist Party 8,02 -3,16

Italian Popular Party 47,35 25,05

Pact for Italy 10,89 14,10

Democratic Alliance 6,03 29,19

Go Italy 37,92 73,69

National Alliance 6,62 -17,75

Northern League 8,64 10,43

The Network/Movement for Democracy 0 -50

The same intra-coalition polarization on the welfare issues can be noted in the following 1996 elections, when a centre-right coalition, Polo per le Libertà, again guided by Berlusconi – without the Lega Nord which run by itself- compete against a centre-left coalition leaded by Romano Prodi, the Ulivo.

Table 4. 1996 Elections: Party’s salience on Welfare State.

Welfare

State

Expansion

Welfare

State

Limitation

Green Federation 1,84 0

Communist Refoundation Party 9,2 0

Democratic Party of the Left 2,8 0

Italian Renewal 0 5,88

Italian Popular Party 3,28 1,64

Christian Democratic Centre 0 1,85

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Democratic Alliance 4,33 5,67

Go Italy 0 3,7

National Alliance 0 0

Northern League 0,93 3,53

The ideological differences concerning the welfare issues between the two centre-right and

centre-left parties persisted, as shown in table 4. Forza Italia continued to support welfare state limitation (3,7%) while PDS moderately support welfare state expansion (2,8%). Boradly speaking, while Forza Italia and the Right coalition continued to embrace neo-liberal rhetoric, the PDS remained on the reforming path. Indeed, in this occasion, the role of the Europe in shaping the attitude of the Centre Left coalition guided by Romano Prodi was evident. In general, the Ulivo programme was centred on the economy recovering. It was thus inclined to seriously face the enormous public debt in order to enter the economy monetary union. Such a goal become the flagship of the Ulivo coalition and implied a strong rationalization of the welfare state. After the victory, the Ulivo coalition made a comprehensive reform of the stato sociale one of its highest priorities. Nevertheless, the ideological differences with Rifondazione Comunista, (whose votes were crucial for reaching a majority in parliament) and the difficult negotiations with the social partners forced the government to considerably reduce its ambitions. The clash with RC reached its peak in 1998 when the party left the coalition and Prodi government lost the majority. Two different governments - supported by the centre-left parties with the exception of the RC - guided by D’Alema and D’Amato succeeded. Both the governments continued the reform undertaken by Prodi and even though they not fully eradicated the distributive and allocative distortions of the Italian welfare, such reforms, however, made significant steps in this direction, promoting a recalibration of the Italian Welfare State.

To sum up, in the first phase of the Prima Repubblica, ideological differences along the general Left-Right scale were undoubtedly narrowed but far from being eliminated. As As Bartolini and D’Alimonte pointed out (1998), both in the 1994 and 1996 issues pertaining to anti-communism, the Catholic vote, and the dangers of neo-fascism almost disappeared campaign. The major ideological cleavages which had frozen the post-war political alignments lost much of their saliency and it is possible to find a greater emphasis on alternative institutional, fiscal, welfare and economic policies. Therefore, even though the trend is that of a general depolarization, compared to the levels of the Prima Repubblica, the conflict over socio-economic issues – in particular the dichotomy liberalism/welfare - remained remarkable. Such growing conflict is confirmed not only through the issues and images of the campaign, but also by the tendency of parties to choose candidates from separate walks of life, which reflected the specific cultural and organisational traditions associated with their respective social groups and the parties’ policies: Forza Italia and the Lega Nord overwhelmingly chose entrepreneurs and liberal professionals; the left more professional politicians, public sector workers, teachers and trade unionists. Also the quantitative analysis corroborates this result. Indeed, Dalton index of polarization for the 1994 and 1996 elections is rather low (respectively, 1,92 and 2,41), with an growth rate of + 0,5%. Nonetheless, if we concentrate more on the economic dimension, the polarization of the party system on the Socialism-Capitalism dimension is higher, though not extreme (3.41 in 1994 and 5.61 in 1996). The pressures derived by the Europeanization process, the concern for hypertrophic public debt and for the fiscal imbalances prompted mainstream parties to promote a rationalization of the Welfare State, but if the Left-wing coalition and in particular PDS favoured a recalibration of the welfare, the centre-right coalition, in particular FI, supported a neo-liberal programme, aimed at privatizing and reducing the social sphere.

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Table 5. Polarization Index

National Elections

Dalton’s Polarization Index

Rile scale

Dalton’s Polarization Index

Soc-Cap scale

1994 1.92 3.41

1996 2.41 5.61

2001 1.32 4.16

2006 2.95 4.47

2008 2.47 2.38

2013 2.22 4.36

Therefore, ideological differences on the welfare state continued to moderately persist, though mainstream Left undertook a moderate, centrist, positions. The Second phase (2001 and 2006 elections). A continuity path. In the 2001, the centre right coalition, Casa delle Libertà, guided by Berlusconi won the elections. The political context was different from the one emerged in the 1994 and 1996 elections. The centre-right coalition was more cohesive, also due to the strength of Berlsuconi leadership. Indeed, the balance of power was in favour of FI, which had obtained an extraordinary success (29% of the votes), while the other parties lost consensus. In particular, Lega Nord’s votes were no longer essential for reaching a majority in parliament and its blackmail power was remarkably decreased

Table 6. 2001 Elections: Party’s salience on Welfare State.

Welfare State Expansion

Welfare State Limitation

The Girasole 9,93 0

Communist Refoundation Party 12,23 0

Party of Italian Communists 9,93 0

Democratic Party of the Left 9,93 0

Daisy - Democracy is Freedom 9,93 0

White Flower 3,22 0,81

Go Italy 3,22 0,81

New Italian Socialist Party 3,22 0,81

National Alliance 3,22 0,81

Northern League 3,22 0,81

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What is more interesting, Berlusconi’s party reshaped its ideological profile towards a more traditional conservative and social-market moderatism, as noted by Ferrera (2014). First of all, it drastically reduced its claim for welfare retrenchment (only 0,81% of its 2001 manifesto was dedicated to opposition to the welfare state), and at the same time moderately supported welfare state expansion (3,22% salience), as table 6 shows.

Furthermore, FI positions on the LR and SC scales were more moderate compared to its the previous stances (respectively +18 and + 39). In other words, FI had started to tone down its neo-liberal rhetoric. This is also evident during the electoral campaign, when the party evidenced that actions for increasing the employment rate would have been undertaken thorough the support of the trade unions and that the so-called diritti acquisiti regarding job contract should have been guaranteed (2001 Forza Italia Manifesto). On the the Left side of the political spectrum, the coalition guided by Rutelli, the Ulivo was less cohesive, notwithstanding that RC did not join the coalition. PDS (now DS) lost support – also due to tensions and conflicts inside the coalition and the low visibility of the DS leaders - becoming the smallest left reformist party in Europe (Ferrera and Gualmini, 2004). The low electoral performance of the DS was to a certain extent compensated by the new moderate centre-left party, La Margherita - born by the union of five centre-left moderate parties - which obtained a significant success, as shown in table 4 (14, 5%).

During the electoral campaign, the Ulivo did not change its strategy towards the welfare state, continuing to support the consolidation of economy recovering, clarifying at the same time that the welfare state cannot be dismantled (the score of the pro welfare state index is indeed quite high: 9%). The influence of the European language is still evident. The concept of felxicurity was introduced in the debate, even though the principle of the concertazione was not questioned, as well as the article 18 of Statuto dei lavoratori (REF). The approach on the economic and welfare issues seems therefore to be the same of that taken in the 1996 election. Several scholars (Ferrera and Gualmini, 2004, Rossi 2002, Fargion 2004) have stressed that the Ulivo’s bad electoral results derived also by the difficulties in contrasting the centre-right leader on the communicative point of view, and in valorising the positive results achieved by the centre-left government, in particular Italy’s entry into EMU. To be more precise, as Rossi (2002) has pointed out, is seems always more clear that Italian left, and in particular the DS, have incomplete its cultural conversion to a genuine, pragmatic, European- style social reformism. This also was confirmed by the presence on the left pole of another two parties, which did not join the Ulivo coalition, Rifondazione Comunista and Italia dei Valori. In particular, Rifondazione Comunista’s leftists ideological and programmatic profile prevented a coalition with the moderate centre-left, showing the symptom of the legacy of ‘polarised pluralism’ and of the incomplete cultural transformation of the Left (Ferrera and Gualmini, 2004).

The 2006 elections took place after a period of social tension between the Berlusconi government and the trade union and the Italian Left, due to reforms in the social field – in particular in the field of concertazione sociale, the pension system and legislation of the labour market. In this occasion, the centre- Left coalition guided, for the second time, by Romano Prodi won the election but with a minimum margin. The ideological differences between the centre-right and centre-left coalitions increased (for the Left coalition: LR score: -17 and Socialism-Capitalism score: -61; for the Right coalition: LR score + 48 and Socialism-Capitalism score +30), even though such a result derived in particular from the strong support put by the centre-right coalition to the economic incentives (9%) and to economy orthodoxy. The Welfare State indeed received equal support by both the poles (Centre-right: 9,64; centre-left: 8,44, table 7).

European Democracy 6,33 0

List Di Pietro - Italy of Values 3,08 2,63

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Table 7. 2006 Elections: Party’s salience on Welfare State.

Welfare State Expansion

Welfare State Limitation

Green Federation 8,44 0 Communist Refoundation Party 8,44 0 Party of Italian Communists 8,44 0 Rose in the Fist 8,44 0 Union of the Center 9,64 0 Go Italy 9,64 0 New Italian Socialist Party 9,64 0 National Alliance 9,64 0 Northern League 9,64 0 List Di Pietro - Italy of Values 8,44 0 Popular Democratic Union for Europe

8,44 0

The Union ñ Prodi 8,44 0 The Olivo Tree 8,44 0

As in 1994, the Left coalition was particularly heterogeneous and was formed by a high

number of little parties, which have a strong blackmail power. Nonetheless, it by and large continued to use the same approach of previous election, promoting a rationalization of the welfare state, and at the same time criticizing in its electoral programme the social reforms carried on by the Right, in particular the excessive labour market flexibility.

To sum up, in the 2001 the polarization of the party system on the economic dimension decreased (4.16) compared to the 1996 elections, but the left pole was the more polarized, in particular due to the presence of radical left parties, out of the centre-left coalition. In the 2006, the polarization over the economic issue remained similar to that of the previous election (+4.47), and even though the ideological differences on the economic dimension increased, all the parties support the welfare state. In this two elections, it was more difficult to assess the extent to which external and internal factors pressuring welfare state have affected parties ideology, but, as far as moderate left parties are concerned, it seems fair to say that the European vincolo estereno has continued to play a key role.

The Third phase (2008 and 2013 elections): The transformation of the moderate Left and the economic crisis

In 2007 the Italian party system witnessed a major experience among Western European party systems. Indeed, the DS and the Margherita, respectively the heirs of Communist Party and the heirs of the Christian Democratic party, was dissolved in order to give birth to a new moderate Centre-Left party, the Democratic Party. As Pasquino has stressed (2009), the major claim of the supporters of the new single party was that the Democratic Party finally reconciled the two reformist political cultures of the past: the Democratic Catholic and the Socialist ones. Notwithstanding that the party lost the legislative election, having won 33 per cent of the national vote, it is of a size comparable to that of all European socialist parties. In addition to what they consider a partisan success, the Democrats also emphasized a systemic achievement: the restructuring of the Italian party and parliamentary systems around only five parties: People of Freedoms, Democratic Party, Northern League, Union of the Center, Italy of Values.

Both the general index of polarization and the index of polarization of the economic dimension decreased compared to the previous years (respectively, 2,47 and 2,38). The PD indeed

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positions itself on a centrist or even more right-oriented positions (Rile scale score: +0,53, S-C scale score: +11), while at the same time PdL has further toned down the neo-liberal rethoric, holding moderate positions (Rile scale score: +15; S-C scale score: -6). This is also displayed from the positions over the welfare state (table 8).

Table 8. 2008 Elections: Party’s salience on Welfare State.

Welfare

State Expansion

Welfare State Limitation

People of Freedom 10,4 0 Democratic Party 3,74 3,74 Union of the Centre 8,51 0 Northern League 1,2 0 List Di Pietro - Italy of Values 2,33 6,98

At least between the two mainstream parties, the ideological distances over welfare and

economic seems to be, though, not eliminated, reduced and the transformation of the Italian Left completed. With the exclusion of the radical left from the Parliament, the low polarization of the Italian party system was likely to persist in the following years.

But in 2011, with the Great Recession and the mounting budgetary tension, Italy become more vulnerable both at the European – i.e. its economy and budgetary conditions threaten EMU and the single currency - and at the domestic level – i.e. the country’s financial and budget situation leads domestic actors to undertake reforms to re-gain confidence from the financial market (Natali and de la Porte, 2013). Berlusconi’s government resigned and a new technocratic government, sustained by the European commission and by the national European leaders, led by Mario Monti, former EU Commissioner for Competition, was voted in the parliament in November 2011, supported by a strange coalition including the Democratic Party (centre-left), the UDC (centre) and the PDL (Berlusconi’s party). The new government’s platform was centred on stability, growth and to a certain extent also equity. Centre-Left and Centre-Right parties found themselves smashed between responsiveness and responsibility (Bardi et al., 2014), voting for social reforms not appreciated by their traditional constituencies. In the following elections (2013), even though the general index of polarization has remained stable (2.2), the index of polarization in the economic dimension increased again (4.4).

Table 9. 2013 Elections: Party’s salience on Welfare State.

Welfare

State Expansion

Welfare State Limitation

People of Freedom 6,67 0 Left Ecology Freedom 5,52 0 Democratic Party 0 0 Democratic Centre 5,87 0 Civic Choice 7,74 2,98 Union of the Center 2,15 0 Brothers of Italy - National Centre-right 6,07 1,08 Labour and Freedom List 0 0 Northern League 6,67 0 Five Star Movement 14,2 0

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The increased polarization can be explained by the emergence of new political competitors. Indeed, as Ferrara has pointed out, the political consequence of this centripetal convergence of mainstream parties was an increasing electoral and ideological centrifugation to the benefit of neo-populist and radical formations in the 2013 elections, which seem to strongly support the welfare state, as tables 9 and 10 show.

Tab.10 2013 Elections results

Tot vot (%)

People of Freedom 21,57

Left Ecology Freedom 3,2

Democratic Party 25,42

Democratic Centre 0,49

Civic Choice 8,31

Union of the Center 1,79

Brothers of Italy - National Centre-right 1,96

Labour and Freedom List 0,23

Northern League 3,86

Five Star Movement 25,56

6. Conclusion

The historical quantitative and qualitative analysis of Italian parties electoral manifestos in the Seconda Repubblica seems to suggest that the ideological differences on social policy that characterized post-war decades have been gradually reduced, but they are far from being completely eliminated. The pressures derived by the Europeanization process, the concern for the hypertrophic public debt and for the fiscal imbalances have prompted mainstream parties to promote a rationalization of the Welfare State. As Vivien Schmidt (2002) has noted, the welfare reform discourse focused on the need to accept sacrifices now (primarily through cuts in benefits and wage restraint) to gain in the long run from the risanamento (return to health) of the welfare system not only by a return to financial health and greater efficiency but also by an increase in social equity and an end to the unfairness, corruption, and runaway spending that threatened to bankrupt the state. By insisting on the importance of balancing economic return to health with social justice, the discourse served to convince both the general public and the social partners of the necessity as well as the appropriateness of reforms in the social field.

To be more precise, the process of European integration can be seen as one, and maybe the main, source of pressure affecting and reshaping the traditional positions of the Italian centre-left on the welfare state. From being the heirs of the Communist Party, the moderate left – now the Democratic Party – has undertaken since the Nineties a difficult reforming path, placing itself on more centrist positions on the economic dimension. It continues in supporting the Welfare state, pushing for a more universalistic more, but, at the same time, it calls for a recalibration and rationalization. On the other hand, the centre-right parties, and in particular Forza Italia/ Popolo delle Libertà have gradually toned down their neo-liberal rhetoric, at least since the 2001 elections,

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eliminating the open criticism to the social policy, showing an increasing moderate support for the welfare state. Nonetheless, it seems not inclined in favour a drastic change of the status quo, i.e., for example towards a more universalistic, and comprehensive, welfare state. On the contrary, the centre-right idea of the welfare state is “based on the Italian subsidiary tradition and on the value of the single person, the family, the work and relationship with the territory” (Popolo delle Libertà, 2013 manifesto). To a certain extent, Italian Right does not take the distance from those dynamics characterizing the southern welfare model, where family remains one of the most important welfare providers and the State, though involved, has to respect its subsidiary role in the social field.

Given that this study represents only preliminary analysis of the topic probed, whose methodology – in particular in data collection and analysis – needs to be strengthen, robust generalization of the findings cannot be made. Nonetheless, it seems fair to state that, by and large, the mainstream parties have embraced the Liberal Neo-Welfarism paradigm, which now is shaping the qualitative dimension of the party system, in particular in the economic dimension. Furthermore, as noted by Ferrera (2014) when analysing the manifestos of the families of parties which are present within the European Parliament, such parties have elaborated distinct and competitive framings, within the LNW in order to win support. Even though a still rigorous methodology has not been developed in this article for classifying LNW framings, it seems fair to use for the Italian mainstream parties the same LNW labels employed by Ferrera for the European Socialist Parties and the European People Party in the analysis mentioned above. Therefore, the PdL, at least since the 2001 elections, seems to have embraced the so-called progressive conservative LNW, giving primary emphasis on the role of the family (an example can be the recurring emphasis of the so-called bonus bebè), equality of opportunity and social cohesion. On, the other hand, the Democratic Party can be associated with the egalitarian-liberal LNW, emphasising equality, opportunity, and inclusion. At the same time, in particular since the 2013 elections as previously explained, LNW has been challenged by old and new ideologies. To be more precise, Welfare Chauvinism - a combination of strong support for economic redistribution with resistance toward distributing Welfare services to immigrants (Andersen and Bjørklund, 1990; Van der Waal et al., 2010) – seems to be embraced by the Italian radical or populist right parties, i.e. Lega Nord and Fratelli d’Italia, and to a certain extent even by the Movimento Cinque Stelle. Given the electoral success of such parties in the last elections, such a ideological competition from without would deserve to be analysed carefully. In conclusion, a further, more accurate, research, employing a more rigorous method as well as possible different data sources, will aim, on the one hand, at providing a more accurate analysis of those causal mechanisms linking the pressures on the welfare state with the narrowing of the ideological differences in the economic dimension; on the other, it will deepen the investigation of parties ideological differences within of the Liberal-Neo Welfarism, as well as the dynamics between the LNW and the new competing ideologies.

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