Le leggi elettorali e il falso mito della loro influenza sulla “governabilità”

The electoral laws and the false myth of their influence on "governability" The political attention towards the electoral systems is justified by the disputable hypothesis that they exert an influence on the degree of fragmentation of the party system and therefore on the duration of the governments. In fact, according to this argument, the degree of party fragmentation eventually determined by the electoral system would be the main cause of the presence of anti-system parties, of the instability of the government and of the cohesion of the majority that supports it in the parliamentary arena. After having dealt with this general hypothesis and criticized it, the article presents some comparative data on the duration of the governments among the European democracies that will address some alternative explanations. In fact, the status of the governments among the European democracies varies according to their level of integration in the parliamentary arena. A new general hypothesis is stated, according to which the more integrated a government is in the parliamentary arena, the longer is its duration in office. The comparative data support this hypothesis and project new light on the link between governability and the democratic process.