Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 July 2018
La ricostruzione di un sistema partitico competitivo dopo la caduta di un regime non democratico (che per definizione aveva soppresso il pluralismo partitico) non comporta soltanto la creazione (e poi eventualmente il consolidamento) di un numero maggiore o minore di partiti con le proprie identità ideologiche, programmatiche e organizzative, ma anche la definizione di uno spazio politico all'interno del quale queste unità partitiche interagiranno. In effetti nei sistemi politici consolidati le identità stesse delle singole unità partitiche possono essere pienamente determinate solo collocandole nella dimensione sistemica.
This essay studies the making of competitive party systems after the breakdown of a non democratic regime. More in particular the author discusses through a comparative analysis of the three waves of democratizations that have taken place in Europe after the Second World War how the passage from the transition to the post transition phase affects the features of the party system.
The starting point is the finding that the first structuring of the party systems in the new democracies is in most cases strongly influenced by the special problems of the transition period. The article discusses how the need to ensure the conditions for a successful instauration of democracy tends to produce broad coalitions or special front-like political movements associating all political forces which support democracy. The few exceptions to this rule can be explained either by a more easy transition or by a transition controled by external actors. The first structuring produced during the transition is however by its own nature only temporary. With the solution of the problems of this phase the political agenda changes significantly with a shift of the attention from the institutional issues of democracy to the substantial issues of economy, society, etc. The political space widens and gains new dimensions. This is a propitious moment for the birth of new parties, for splits in the old ones and for coalitional changes. A more stable structuring of the party system will be accomplished only during the post-transition phase as a result of a combination of long term socio-political cleavages, legacies of the previous regime and of the new key issues that have gained a place on the political agenda after the accomplishment of democratization.