Party system and coalition governments in post-WWII Italy

Italian party politics had been described for decades as immoderate and highly fractionalized. A great distance between the parties on the left-to-right dimension (polarization) and fractionalization are the two well-known syndromes of polarized multiparty politics, according to G. Sartori. This chapter addresses the peculiarities of the Italian party system, inquiring into the contemporary changes of the patterns of party competition in Italy. It is argued that the Italian case has moved from polarized pluralism (1948-1992) to polarized bipolarism (1994-2012), with two major political coalitions alternating in power. Nonetheless, the progressive enfeeblement of the two competing coalitions, the emergence of new parties and the dismantlement of the majoritarian electoral laws favour the reestablishment of a multi-polar pattern of competition (from 2013). Italy now seems inexorably destined to go back to some form of multilateral distribution of parties with no clear ideological connotations.