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Continuities and Discontinuities in the Processes of Elite Recruitment: The Italian Political Field Between Authoritarianism and Democratic Regime

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Abstract

This article presents a longitudinal study during the Italian ‘short twentieth century’ (1919–1994). Our focus is on the behaviour of the political field (PF), the recruitment process of the ministerial elite and its impact on the stability of the political system (PS). The main aim of the paper is to build a descriptive and explanatory model that sheds light on the fragility of the PS in Italy. There are two main findings: PF is formed through waves of new forces (foundational elections) characterised by impermeable bonds (cohort effect). The instability of the PS is largely due to a lack of inclusiveness in the PF. The National Solidarity governments showed that an inclusive PF which gathers loyal and disloyal forces even at a critical juncture phase is able to counterbalance the exogenous challenge.

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Notes

  1. There is extensive literature on whether or not the ‘First Republic’ has come to an end. Herein, we refer to this period mainly in terms of the party system rather than the political system.

  2. The short century is the period that Hobsbawm places between 1914 and 1991 (Hobsbawm 1994).

  3. In this case the controversy about whether or not the Italian Communist Party should be considered an anti-system party in the 1970s is extremely insightful (Sartori 1979; Bobbio 2006).

  4. The most extreme case is that of governments composed entirely of outsider ministers.

  5. Adinolfi Ministerial Elite and CIRCAP database. The database covers 1874 ministerial nominations between 23 June 1919 and February 2013. The most relevant include: the Dizionario biografico degli italiani (2006), Roma, La Navicella, deputati e senatori del parlamento italiano, Roma, Editoriale Italiana; Chi è: dizionario degli italiani d’oggi, Varese, La Tecnografica, 1928, 1947, 1931; M. Missori (1973), Governi, alte cariche dello Stato e prefetti del regno d’Italia, Roma, Istituto Grafico Tiberino. All data for this article was elaborated by the author, using the database on Italian ministers prepared for this study.

  6. Ministers can be selected from inside the parties or not. Party membership is defined in this article “as an organisational affiliation by an individual to a political party, assigning obligations and privileges to that individual. The role of party member is a formal role, to be distinguished from the behaviourally defined role of party activist” (Heidar 1994). Here, proximity is not considered membership.

  7. The larger the number of parties participating at the same time in the selection of ministers, the greater the struggle within the political field and, therefore, the lower the levels of cohesion and coherence.

  8. In the 1913 election, the Liberal formations were still dominant. Among the most important parties: the Liberal Union obtained 47% of the vote, the Radical 10% and Socialists 17%.

  9. Given the fluidity within the several liberal formations, countless transformations and instability, it is impossible to refer to all of them in detail here. See Farneti (1989) and Laschi (1990).

  10. Following the introduction of universal male suffrage in 1913, Liberal formations were poorly organised and struggled to win in their constituencies. Instead of trying to adapt to the new environment in at least 300 constituencies, a pact was made between Giovanni Giolitti, one of the Liberal leaders, and Ottorino Gentiloni (president of the Catholic Electoral Union) to obtain the Catholic vote for liberal candidates. It was the so-called Gentiloni pact (Laschi 1990).

  11. The case of the Socialist, Ivanoe Bonomi, is an exception to this rule; he was appointed minister several times and was Prime Minister between 1921 and1922. However, Bonomi represents a very moderate wing of Italian socialism. He therefore founded the Italian reformist socialist party.

  12. The constituency was dominated by just one person (Notable) who was generally able to win because he/she controlled a small amount of the vote. Membership to the party was weak, volatile or almost absent.

  13. The Social Reformists is a political party that was founded by a moderate offshoot of the Italian Socialist Party.

  14. It is worth underlining that the democratic system did not collapse in other countries with much stronger Fascist-inspired movements mainly because of the capacity of local elites to marginalise the anti-system parties (Capoccia 2005, pp. 108–137).

  15. Literature on the effect of the March on Rome is sharply divided into two main wings: those that consider it to be the start of the dictatorship (Gentile, 2012) and those that do not (De Felice 1966). In this paper, we agree with the empirical model proposed by Giovanni Capoccia that includes the March on Rome in the critical juncture that could have led to different outcomes (Capoccia 2005).

  16. Renzo De Felice stresses that King Vittorio Emanuele III played a determinant role in the fall of the Facta government and Mussolini’s subsequent appointment and the consolidation of his government (De Felice 1966, pp. 120–125).

  17. The most challenging crisis was undoubtedly the fallout of the murder of the socialist deputy, Giacomo Matteotti, by the black shirts in 1924 (De Felice 1966, pp. 305–320).

  18. It is impossible to summarise the entire path of the consolidation of the fascist regime. One of the main steps was certainly the new electoral law enacted in 1924 and the overwhelming victory of fascists in the 1924 political election. The so called ‘leggi fascistissime’ and the suppression of all the opposition parties (1925—1926) was the ultimate conclusion of a longstanding process. For a more detailed explanation, see Renzo De Felice.

  19. The King was far more than a figurehead. Large sectors of the regime, such as the Army, remained more loyal to the King than to the fascist regime. (De Felice 1966).

  20. The transformation process within the political and institutional elite of the fascist regime was slow and difficult. Despite several reforms that affected the nature of the Chamber of Deputies, various bodies of the liberal state remained (Senate, Head of the State, Council of State). They were neither fascist nor anti-fascist, they just collaborated with fascism (Adinolfi 2009a).

  21. Costantino Mortati (1998) provides a theoretical solution for the discrepancy between the formal constitution and workings of the political system, and the contradiction of a constitutionalised party, the PNF. In his theoretical framework, the Italian constitutionalist distinguishes the formal constitution, i.e. the essence of its articles, from the material constitution, namely how it actually works.

  22. Benito Mussolini, Giuseppe Bottai, Dino Grandi, Italo Balbo and Costanzo Ciano were among the most important figures elected MPs between 1921 and 1924 and then appointed minister.

  23. To some extent, the idea of Cohort is different to that of the political field elaborated by Pierre Bourdieu. Whereas the process of learning and acquisition of knowledge is important in the latter, the links between the political elite assume greater relevance in the former, while the acquisition of the habitus is much less important.

  24. The Associazione Nazionalista Italiana actually merged into the PNF in 1923; however, we decided to maintain the distinction from the PNF ministers due to their very different role within the fascist regime. Luigi Federzoni, Giacomo Acerbo and Alfredo Rocco belonged to the group of Nationalist. (De Felice 1966).

  25. During the last years of the fascist regime, a wing emerged that was close to the King. Dino Grandi was certainly the prominent figure and the author of the no-confidence text against Benito Mussolini on the last night of the Grand Council of Fascism when 19 voted against the Duce, namely most of the former Nationalists and Mussolini’s son in law, Galeazzo Ciano. Only 7 voted in favour. The King dismissed Mussolini after the no-confidence vote was approved.

  26. The King retained the loyalty of the armed forces and attracted the loyalty of some of the most prominent figures of the fascist regime. As the Head of State had the power to dismiss the prime minister, the King was the centrepiece to overthrow the fascist regime (De Felice 1990).

  27. The DC won 35.21 per cent of the vote; the Socialists gained 20.68 per cent; and Communists 18.93 per cent.

  28. Some of the main examples are: Ferruccio Parri (Prime Minister and Interior Minister), Alcide De Gasperi (Foreign Minister and Prime Minister), Giuseppe Romita (Interior Minister) and Palmiro Togliatti (Minister of Justice).

  29. Following Hobsbawm’s insight, the golden age covered the years of strong economic growth that started after the Second World War and ended with the economic crisis in 1973 (Hobsbawm 1994).

  30. The electoral gap between the PCI and DC fell below 4 per cent.

  31. To understand the tension at that time, it should be stressed that the former prime minister, Aldo Moro, was kidnapped by the Red Brigade on 16 March 1978, the day Andreotti’s fourth government was supposed to receive a vote of confidence; he was murdered two months later (May, 9).

  32. Republican Giovanni Spadolini (1981–1982) and Socialist Bettino Craxi (1983–1987) were appointed prime minister.

  33. The Head of State, Francesco Cossiga, wrote that the Italian political and party system did not have the capacity to renew itself in the aftermath of the unexpected fall of the Berlin Wall. During the final month of his presidency and after the events of November 1989, he took a clearly anti-system position (Cossiga 2009).

  34. Dis-loyalism is not quite the right term because the forces only wanted to change the rules of the democratic systems; however, it expresses the desire of several fractions of the Italian political system to introduce a new model of democracy. In other words, disloyal does not mean anti-democratic here, but rather supporter of a new, more effective and less corrupt democracy.

  35. The Fourth French Republic is one of the very few cases of a transition from one democracy to another (Morlino 2007).

  36. More than 80% of the votes in the referendum were in favour of the introduction of a majoritarian electoral law.

  37. The strategy of the Partito Democratico della Sinistra was different in 1992 and 1993. In 1992 the PDS decided to not join the coalition of forces supporting the Amato government. In 1993, the PDS was part of Ciampi’s cabinet and after a few days decided to dismiss its ministers and to abstain.

  38. The concept of the cohort is used for example by Norma Ryder and Bettin Lattes (Ryder 1965).

  39. We identified the following foundational elections: 1921 and 1924 for the fascist regime; 1946 (Constituent Assembly) and 1948 for the First Republic where the ministerial elite were largely selected.

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  1. Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES) of the University Institute of Lisbon – IUL, Avenida das Forças Armadas, 1649-026, Lisbon, Portugal

    Goffredo Adinolfi

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Adinolfi, G. Continuities and Discontinuities in the Processes of Elite Recruitment: The Italian Political Field Between Authoritarianism and Democratic Regime. Topoi 41, 79–92 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-021-09782-x

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