Italy’s prime minister, Romani Prodi, was ousted by a vote of no confidence in the Senate yesterday. It was a day of high political drama, precipitated by the defection from his center-left coalition of a critical partner earlier in the week, and marked by one senator being spat upon, and then collapsing, after announcing he was staying with the government rather than his party, and with champaign being sprayed around the opposition benches.aa
The (mostly ceremonial) president now must consult with the leaders of the various parties and determine whether a government can be reconstructed out of the current parliament, or whether to dissolve parliament and call for early elections. Former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, smelling blood, wants quick elections. But it is not his decision.
Prodi has a solid majority in the Chamber of Deputies, and retains its confidence. However, Italy is one of the very rare cases of a parliamentary system in which the cabinet must maintain confidence in two chambers.
Knowing little more than what I have summarized so far, and the details of the current electoral system (which I will get to), I would expect a caretaker government to be formed to pass a new electoral system before new elections. One of the issues that has divided the coalition is precisely the electoral system. However, now that the threat of a new election looms,a divided coalition may not want to go to elections under the current rules. The president (who again, is mostly ceremonial) is known to prefer that an electoral reform be completed before new elections. On the other hand, of course, the electoral reforms being talked about would reduce the representation of smaller parties, of which there are many in parliament currently, especially in Prodi’s alliance.aa
Under the system that was adopted just in time for the last elections (April, 2006) by Silvio Berlusconi’s right-wing coalition, the electoral rules are strongly majoritarian. Of course, the media always blame proportional representation for Italy’s short-duration governments.aa However, few systems are actually more majoritarian than what Italy currently has: Any pre-electoral bloc of parties that can obtain a plurality of votes over any other party or bloc is guaranteed at least 55% of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies. Only then does the proportional element come in, as this majority bloc of seats is divided proportionally among the parties in the alliance that won the vote plurality. (And the remaining seats are similarly divided among the rest of the blocs and their component parties.) The Senate allocation formula is essentially the same, but allocation is carried out on a regional basis, rather than nationally. The regional element in the second chamber, as well as the presence of some lifetime senators, is what results in Prodi’s majority being narrower in the senate than in the chamber (158 seats won out of 301 in 2006, compared to 156 for the opposition).
The current system was put in place by Berlusconi and his allies in the expectation that it would be impossible for the center-left to unite, and thus the right could win a large majority of parliament even if its aggregate support declined from the previous election. It almost worked, as the election was razor-thin in the votes (49.7% to 49.5%). But with virtually all parties having combined into one of two big blocs, and with the center-left being just ahead in votes, it was the center-left and Prodi that came out ahead.
Before this week, Prodi had already survived one crisis in the Senate, when he resigned in response to losing a vote on NATO troop deployments (and which was not, in fact, a confidence vote). He was able to come back from that bit of brinkmanship stronger than he had been before it.aa This time seems quite different.
A proportional representation system–an actual PR system–could make Italy much more governable than the impostor the country currently has, especially if it had a 3-5% threshold.aa To the extent that small parties in the governing coalition have been a problem under the current system–and they certainly have been–it is worth noting that these parties are boosted by the current electoral system’s non-proportional provisions. For instance, the second largest party in Prodi’s alliance, the Communist Refoundation, won only 5.7% of the votes in the 2006 election. Yet it has 6.5% of the seats in parliament. Every other party in the alliance has less than 3% of the votes, yet each is over-represented. Collectively, the seven parties other than the largest (L’Ulivo) and Refoundation, have 10.6% of the votes, yet 12.9% of the seats.aa The party that left the coalition this week, the Popolari-UDEUR, won only 1.4% of the vote (both houses) and has 10 seats in the Chamber and only 3 in the Senate. Given the narrower margin in the Senate, that was a pivotal share. Under a PR system, especially with a modest threshold, these small parties would have to combine with others or be out of parliament. Then there is the likely fact that a PR system would mean some parties would leave their current bloc and be available to support either major party and its allies in government. That would be an asset, not a flaw, of a new PR system in Italy.
Will the center-left parties have to contest an election under the current system, which would almost certainly then play out the way Berlusconi had intended the 2006 election to play out? Or can they agree on a different system being passed by a temporary government, thereby delaying the election and perhaps snatching victory from the jaws of this week’s big defeat?
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- Extensive clips were played in DW-TV’s Journal program yesterday, seen via Link TV.aaa
- Although Prodi’s own party is much bigger within his own alliance than is Berlusconi’s is in his alliance, fragmentation after the leading party is much deeper, both in absolute numbers, and in ideology, in the center-left. Based on Chamber representation, the center-right alliance has three parties consisting of 49.8%, 25.3%, and 13.9% of the bloc’s total seats. The center-left, on the other hand, has a leading party with 64.9% of the bloc’s seats, another with 11.8% (the Communist Refoundation) and then four other parties with around four to five percent of the seats each. See results at Adam Carr.aaa
- A plausible case in the past, but the fact that Italy’s electoral system has not been predominantly proportional since 1993 would seem to cast doubt on this claim now.aaa
- These points about the electoral system and the previous government crisis are elaborated down the page in previous plantings, if you first click Italy in the “planted in” line at the top of this post.aaa
- Italy’s old pre-1990s PR system had almost no threshold. Even so, an arguably bigger factor in short-duration postwar governments was the absence of a pole around which to form a government not led by the Christian Democrats, due to the Cold War divisions and the large Communist Party. Internal fragmentation of the Christian Democrats also played a big role–many governments were brought down by “snipers” inside the party, as did secret voting in parliament and very powerful parliamentary committees, many of them chaired by parties other than the leading government parties. In other words, Italian instability has long been caused by factors other than PR.aaa
- These stats refer to Chamber votes and seats. Even though it was the Senate in which the government lost its votes, the regional allocation and lifetime senators make votes-seats analysis in that house a bit more complex. It is complex enough as it is! The patterns are broadly similar. And any reform likely would move both houses in a similar direction.aaa
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There are perhaps reasons to be optimistic about the prospect of electoral reform under an interim government. Most of the plausible coalitions for electoral reform cross-cut the centre-left/centre-right coalitions. That is,
More majoritarian systems are supported by the two largest parties, the Partito Democratico and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia;
Moderately proportional systems with thresholds and no strong centripetal dynamics are supported, strangely enough, by Communist Refoundation and the Christian Democrats (but strongly opposed by Alleanza Nazionale);
Hyper-proportional systems - or maintenance of the status quo - is supported by the smaller parties, mainly on the left, but also (presumably) some of the smaller parties on the right (Storace’s Destra, NPSI).
An interim government might allow one of these transversal coalitions as part of a time-out from normal left/right politics. Berlusconi has been quite strident in his call for immediate elections: we’ll see whether he’s interested in a solution which would compromise his interest in an immediate return to power but potentially aid Forza Italia.
Seed planted by Chris Hanretty — 26 January 2008 @ 10:18
Italy must share with Australia the distinction of being one of the few countries in the world (apart from Belgium, IIRC?) where a PM can be ousted by the Senate voting no confidence (or to block the budget).
That has to be kept in mind when we fix the blame for “unstable govts” in Italy. Having to retain a majority in two houses at once, to stay in office, would be difficult even if both were elected by non-PR voting - vide the example of the USA (Congress and most State legislatures) and, in Australia, Victoria and Western Australia before they adopted upper house PR (2005 and 1986).
True, it’s complicated by (a) rotating terms, (b) malapportionment, and (c) how the votes are split (especially with FPTP, but even with IROV, the order of elimination may be effected and determine whether, eg, a conservative electorate sends a Liberal, a National or a rightish Independent to Canberra or Spring Street). But even when you factor these out, you can still get variations caused by (d) differing electoral boundaries and varying majorities within each district, and (e) voters voting for different parties in different Houses.
Victoria offers nearly a pure distillation of this. From the time electorates for both Houses were equalised in the 1970s, until PR was adopted for the Legislative Council in 2005, Victoria had 72 or 88 Legislative Assembly districts (1 member each, of course) grouped by fours into 18 or 22 Council Provinces (2 MLCs each, 1 per election). Because the Labor Party’s votes were more concentrated in its strongholds, its number of Council seats was typically less than 25% of its Assembly seats won at any given election. A Labor-dominated Province might elect 3 or even 4 Labor MLAs, with a large majority of votes spread across districts, and one Labor MLC, while a Liberal or National stronghold might elect only 2 (or even 1) conservative MLAs but again, 1 conservative MLC.
[Okay, thread hijack off - back to Italy now.]
Seed planted by Tom Round — 26 January 2008 @ 19:03
By “more majoritarian systems” being preferred by some parties, I assume Chris means a single-seat district system, perhaps with two rounds. Is that more ‘majoritarian’ than the current system? By some measures, yes. But, again, you can hardly get more majoritarian than a system that ensures a bloc with the narrowest of pluralities of the vote will have at least 55% of the seats, as does the current Italian system.
For the very smallest parties–and, again, there are more of them on the left than on the right–no PR system (at least one that is likely to be politically feasible) would be as favorable to them as is the current system, provided they are in the bloc that benefits from the majoritarian provisions of this system.
As I noted above, the advantage to small parties in the current system comes not from proportionality, per se, but from the advantage built in for the plurality alliance, including its smallest partners. Small parties on the second-placed alliance are under-represented, as are the largest ones in the second alliance.
Seed planted by MSS — 27 January 2008 @ 16:02
There is nothing at all strange about the second largest party within one of the current blocs (such as Refoundation) or a potential swing party (such as the remnant Christian Democrats) preferring a PR system with a modest threshold.
And it is perfectly predictable that the biggest parties in either bloc would prefer a system of single-seat districts, probably with two rounds. They would have the most candidates surviving into second rounds, though any SSD system (and plurality perhaps even more so) would allow regional parties to survive.
Fundamentally, Italian regional and political divisions guarantee that any electoral system we would recognize as democratic will ensure continued fragmentation, but the character of that fragmentation could vary quite a bit depending on the system (as the experience of fragmentation since WW II, under three fundamentally different systems, two of which are not PR, has shown).
Seed planted by MSS — 27 January 2008 @ 16:07
Dear Prof. Shugart,
I’m a student of Political Science at the University of Bologna (Forlì campus). I understand this form is intended as a space for comments and remarks but I hope you don’t mind if I use it to ask you a question.
After the fall of Prodi’s government Giorgio Napolitano (the President of the Republic) appointed Franco Marini (Chairman of the Senate) in order to verify if a new majority could be set up with the explicit mandate of reforming the electoral system before calling new elections. There is indeed widespread belief across the country that the actual electoral system is not suited to produce stable and durable governments, whatever the outcome.
On the one hand the Democratic Party has expressed its willingness to support Marini in his effort to reform the electoral system and so have done most of the left parties (except the PDCI - Party of the Italian Communists which split up from the Communist Refoundation Party in 1998). On the other hand Berlusconi and his centre-right coalition stubbornly deny their support, saying that they want elections now and that only after elections they will take care of reforming the electoral system (obviously they are sure of winning, since all the polls suggest this might be the most likely outcome).
In the last days, despite all Marini’s efforts, it is almost quite clear he won’t be able to find a majority in Parliament. This means we’ll probably have to vote with the actual electoral system. Apparently there’s not even an agreement for anticipating the referendum (approved by the Constitutional Court and scheduled for a date between April and July) which was meant to adjust the electoral law in the case the Parliament wasn’t able to produce an electoral reform.
This is the updated situation, quite discouraging. But whatever the development of this situation one starts to wonder: which electoral system is best suited for Italy? The ideas on the table so far are only a few. Honestly it’s not even quite clear which party wants what. With some approximation the proposals are: the actual system with only some minor changes in order to produce majorities in the Senate as in the lower chamber (Forza Italia, Berlusconi’s party) , a semi-presidential system like the French one (the National Alliance) and, most probably, a MMP system. The latter is deemed to be the more likely, since it has the support of most parties (Communist Refoundation, Union of Christian Democrats, maybe the Democratic Party) or at least there’s no other option having this kind of support. Other proposals (Vassallum and “Bianco’s draft”) seems not to be taken in consideration anymore.
The MMP system, known in Italy as “the German-style proportional system”, is the reason for my question. It is supported mostly by the parties at the center of the political spectrum and by the Communist Refoundation. It’s not suprising that in the last days a new party at the center has been founded (la Cosa Bianca) from disaffected MPs from both the coalitions. As Michael Gallagher puts it: “there are also signs that a new independent center might emerge, building support from among the left of the right bloc and the right of the left bloc, and basing itself primarily among the remnants of the old DC. Should that be the case, then the old center-based system could yet assert itself once more”.
Finally my question is: do you think a MMP system might encourage and favour the re-emergence of the old center-based system? After all the FDP in Germany has played this role for a long time until the emergence of the Green party. I believe having an unaccountable party at the center, needed to form every government would be quite pernicious consequences, since it would definitely encourage corruption.
Seed planted by Vito Spinelli — 02 February 2008 @ 15:14
Vito, thank you very much for your update. It is reasonable to expect that any PR system with a modest threshold, including MMP, would facilitate the emerging center that you (quoting Gallagher) refer to. And encouraging the reemergence of a center and the possibility of coalition that are not of one bloc and dependent on small members of that bloc (as under the current system) would be salutary for Italy, in my assessment.
Whether the presence of a pivotal party (whether of the center or whatever) would “encourage corruption” really depends on what the party seeks out of coalition (as well as how you define ‘corruption’). The German FDP, in the days that it pivoted between coalition partners at the federal level, was not really of the “center.” It was (and probably still is) a rather ideological liberal party, well to the right on the classic economic dimension, relative to either major party. It was not seeking mainly patronage or other payoffs for supporters, nor were its economic-policy preferences located between the CDU and SPD.
On the other hand, if a party that becomes critical for coalition-building is mainly a rent-seeking agent, its presence may indeed encourage corruption. But that statement could be made about a critical coalition partner of any size or ideological placement. It is not a defining feature of either “centrists” or pivotal parties, or the electoral system, per se.
Seed planted by MSS — 03 February 2008 @ 16:52
Talks on an interim government appear at an impasse. BBC reports that elections now appear likely for April, under current rules. Berlusconi’s bloc leads recent polls by about 10 percentage points.
Seed planted by MSS — 05 February 2008 @ 00:09
What would be a modest threshold?
Seed planted by Jack — 11 February 2008 @ 06:56