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The evolution of party funding in Italy: a case of inclusive cartelisation?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2016

Eugenio Pizzimenti
Eugenio Pizzimenti*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Sciences, University of Pisa
*
*Email: eugenio.pizzimenti@unipi.it
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Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse the evolution of the Italian public funding regime, in the light of the assumptions of the cartel party thesis. In the mid-1990s, the debate on party and party system change was revitalised by R. Katz and P. Mair (1995), who introduced the concept of the ‘cartel party’ as a means to study the increasing influence of the state on party politics. Among the main analytical dimensions of the cartel party argument, the system-level variables have received little attention with respect to the Italian case. In what follows I try to find out empirical evidence for the hypothesised changes in the relationship between parties and the state and in the patterns of inter-party competition. I will analyse the trends of the law-making process in the domain of party funding (1948–2014), by combining these observations with data on parties’ reliance on state funds and party collusive behaviour.

Italian summary

L'obiettivo di questo contributo è analizzare le triaettorie dell'evoluzione del regime di finanziamento pubblico, in Italia, alla luce degli assunti della teoria del cartel party. Nel corso degli anni Novanta, il dibattito sui processi di mutamento dei sistemi e delle organizzazioni di partito è stato rivitalizzato da R. Katz e P. Mair (1995), che hanno introdotto il concetto di ‘partito cartellizzato’ allo scopo di studiare la crescente influenza dello Stato sui partiti e sul loro sistema di relazioni. Tra le principali dimensioni analitiche della teoria del cartel party, le variabili di livello sistemico hanno ricevuto una minore attenzione con riferimento al caso italiano. In quanto segue cercherò di individuare le evidenze empiriche a sostegno dei mutamenti ipotizzati nelle relazioni tra i partiti e lo Stato e a livello di competizione interpartititca. Analizzerò in particolare le tendenze del processo di law-making nel settore del finanziamento pubblico, combinando queste osservazioni con dati relativi alla dipendenza dei partiti dai fondi pubblici e al prevalere di comportamenti di tipo collusivo.

Keywords

cartel partypublic fundingparty competitioncollusion
Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , February 2017 , pp. 71 - 85
Copyright
© 2016 Association for the Study of Modern Italy 

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