Search results

The Partito Democratico della Sinistra (PDS) and Forza Italia are the main actors of the Italian party system. Compared to the slow development of political culture of the PCI and its organizational and social change, the rapid rise of Berlusconi's Forza Italia is characterized as a polyform structure. The hegemony of the Right is not only due to the power of the media but is also an expression of the structural and cultural changes in capitalist states in general and specific Italian factors. Forza Italia represents a modern version of the 'privatization of politics' and is a substitute for a non-existent conservative party. (Prokla / AuD)

The Partita Democratico della Sinistra (PDS) and Forza Italia are the main actors of the Italian party system. Compared to the slow development of political culture of the PCI and its organizationaland social change, the rapid rise of Berlusconi's Forza Italia is characterized as a polyform structure. The hegemony of the Right is not only due to the power of the media but is also an expression of the structural and cultural changes in capitalist states in general and specific Italian factors. Forza Italia represents a modern version of the 'privatization of politics' and is a substitute for a non-existent conservative party.

Since it was founded in 1994, Silvio Berlusconi's party, "Forza Italia", turned over the traditional shape of the Italian political system. Its structure doesn't fit any of the classifications which have been created from the time of Duverger on, except perhaps for Angelo Panebianco's definition (1982) of charismatic party. The object of the paper is the parliamentary class of Forza Italia, which can be almost totally overlapped to the party class, differently from what happened in mass ideological parties. This overlap has two main reasons: the gain for the party in having its executives paid directly from public institutions, and above all – the degree of control that the party leader achieves, having the power to choose the candidates and - as a result - a huge direct power on the party structure itself, making party statutes actually uneffective. The research, conducted by interviewing 50 members of the Parliament of Forza Italia with the methods of vignettes and open interviews, tries to explain the power relationships between party executives, members of the Parliament and the leader.

IntroduzioneA pochi mesi dal primo congresso nazionale di Forza Italia riteniamo utile esporre, sia pure in forma sintetica, i risultati di una ricerca empirica sugli eletti di questo partito nei consigli comunali, provinciali e regionali. La decisione di focalizzare l'analisi sui rappresentanti di Forza Italia nelle amministrazioni locali è suggerita da una serie di fattori, alcuni di rilievo sistemico e altri di portata più circoscritta. I primi inducono a collocare lo studio dei gruppi dirigenti locali di Forza Italia nel più ampio contesto della crisi e del cambiamento del sistema partitico italiano. A tale proposito, posto che fra gli indicatori più importanti di questo fenomeno troviamo il mutamento organiz-zativo ed il ricambio delle élites (Morlino 1996), uno studio del caso come quello condotto consente di misurare, con riferimento ad un importante attore politico, l'intensità e le modalità con le quali si sono manifestati questi processi. La scelta di Forza Italia è dovuta al fatto che, per la sua stessa apparizione, ha significativamente rappresentato la crisi del sistema partitico e quella più generale della democrazia italiana.