In this intriguing book, professors Fasano, Natale and Newell offer a comprehensive and compelling discussion of the Eur
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Table of contents :
Foreword
Introduction
Contents
Political Parties and Political Movements
List of Figures
List of Tables
1 European Socialist Parties Trends: Where Socialdemocratic Parties Are Going After the Berlin Wall Crash
References
2 A Brief History of the Italian Democratic Party and Its (Declining) Support
The Beginning
First Phase: Veltroni’s “Merger Party”
Second Phase: Bersani’s “old-style party”
The Third Phase: Renzi’s “Pragmatic Party”
The Fourth Phase: Zingaretti’s “Omnibus Party”
The Fifth Phase: Schlein’s “Movement Party”
References
3 New Labour and the Italian PD
The Electoral Fortunes of New Labour and the PD in Comparative and Historical Perspective
New Labour
The Democratic Party
Conclusion
References
4 Ten Secretaries in Fifteen Years: Leadership and Organisational Changes
A Party in Search of Unity and a Genuine Political Project
A New Party, Already Rather Old at Birth
The Dimensions of the Political Space, and Policy Orientations
The Values Underpinning the Party’s Political Culture
A Party in Search of Itself
References
5 Back to the Future: Reflections on Prospects for the European Left
What Does It Mean to Be on the Left?
What Has Been Responsible for the Left’s Decline?
What Is to Be Done?
The Year Zero, at Least for the Italian Left
A Sad Conclusion for the Left: A Very Difficult Future
References
Bibliography
Index
The Italian Democratic Party and New Labour The Crisis of the European Left Luciano M. Fasano Paolo Natale James L. Newell
The Italian Democratic Party and New Labour
Luciano M. Fasano · Paolo Natale · James L. Newell
The Italian Democratic Party and New Labour The Crisis of the European Left
Luciano M. Fasano University of Milan Milano, Italy
Paolo Natale University of Milan Milano, Italy
James L. Newell University of Urbino Urbino, Italy
ISBN 978-3-031-54058-5 ISBN 978-3-031-54059-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54059-2 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover credit: © Harvey Loake This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.
Foreword
Is the left in crisis? Again? Has the left always been “in crisis”? Perhaps the idea of a crisis is almost an intrinsic part of the left, across the world? Is crisis a part of the left’s very identity? Many academics are, after all, part of the left—and this may also explain the constant brow-beating and interrogation about this specific side of the political spectrum. Certainly, it is not a good moment if we measure things in terms of elections, with the recent victories and continued strength of right-wing populists in Argentina, the US, The Netherlands, Germany, Hungary and in many other countries across the world. Yet, this trend is also perhaps counter-balanced by the prevalence of “woke” values among the vast majority of young people— on the environment, on race and identity, on gender. Perhaps we need to think about what left actually means? Again, the sense of crisis has been part of a long set of debates, within and between different souls and traditions—communism, socialism, social democracy and even anarchism. But this “crisis” does seem different. It seems almost existential. Does the left even exist today, in any meaningful way? Recent years have seen a series of historical blows to the traditional left. The end of the Soviet Union, with the symbolic fall of the Berlin Wall, removed a large part of the appeal of “actually existing socialism” for communist parties, which split and tried to re-invent themselves, often unsuccessfully. Then, perhaps even more worryingly, the end of Fordism and the decline of the traditional working class took away the main social reference point for social democracy. Bettino Craxi in Italy v
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and Tony Blair in the UK embraced this transformation, taking the opportunity to discard many conventional aspects of their policy platform and their image—from the symbols—the hammer and sickle—to the concrete—the abandoned promise to “control the commanding heights of the economy”, to bring “socialism”. Instead, they re-branded themselves as “new”, and post-Fordist, shorn of what had been an organic link with the working classes and mass parties. At times they appeared almost post-political. Ironically, some of the aspects put forward by these leaders and their re-invented parties opened the door for more right-wing forms of populism, which began to undercut the previous electoral and membership bases of the traditional left and centre-left parties. The same could be said of the trajectory of Matteo Renzi in Italy. Populist movements and organisations began not only to win the votes, but also the hearts and minds of former “red walls”, or “dust belts”—from the Lega, to the Five Star Movement to the Brexit referendum coalition (and later Boris Johnson’s 2019 election alliance), to Trump and to numerous other parties and leaders across the world. How has this happened? How have those who used to be seen as anathema to large parts of the working class now become to be seen as their saviour, as representing them? The historian Alessandro Portelli has recently looked at the phenomenon at a local level, through the words of the people of Terni, an ex-industrial town in central Italy, which was once a stronghold of the union movement and the Italian Communist Party. What emerges from the kaleidoscope of voices he has collected is a sense of loss and disenchantment, of confusion and deep changes to political identities, in a situation of rapid and bewildering social change, the break-up of the way class politics had been seen for decades, industrial decline, immigration, emigration, confusion, fear and anger. Portelli’s is a book which speaks to the issues to be found throughout this volume1 . These aspects of the “crisis” of “the left” seem deep-rooted and irreversible, perhaps almost fatal. Right-wing populists and others with a more hybrid identity have successfully mobilised ex-left constituencies in a struggle against “the establishment”, migrants and refugees, and “globalisation” in the context of a seemingly endless economic crisis which has 1 Alessandro Portelli, La svolta a destra di una città operaia Terni, laboratorio d’Italia,
Donzelli, Rome, 2023. For Portelli on Terni in English see his Biography of an Industrial Town: Terni, Italy, 1831–2014, Palgrave, London, 2017.
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also contributed to their power and appeal, and to the anger of their new base. Moreover, the rise of social media and new forms of communication have created ways of seeing things which have not been understood by many of those on the contemporary left. There have been moments when it appeared that the left was able to create new support alliances or mobilise older groups of supporters—the early phase of Corbyn’s Labour Party (2015–2017) or, for example, the role of the greens in Germany, or the SNP’s heady mix of nationalism, populism and old-style socialism. But all of these experiences have proved short-lived and have either been swept away, or seem in long-term decline. Some have seen the future of the left with a connection to so-called post-political values—decency, honesty, good management and “efficiency”—married to a fluid ideology (or the lack of one) that often outflanks the current right on certain issues. This kind of analysis might be applied to Keir Starmer’s “New” Labour Party, which seems wedded to no real principles, and confines itself largely to a pledge to manage the state more competently than previous governments. Promises of a radical overhaul, of a new system, seem now confined to the right and to the pure populists, although these have often—and quickly—come up hard against reality when in power. If Starmer’s Labour is the future of the left, then “left” really has little meaning, any more. Already, this tendency had been seen with Massimo D’Alema’s minimalist call for “normalisation”. The left thus also appears to have lost its sense of purpose as a reformist movement. Reforms are now conspicuous by their absence from many “left” programmes presented for election. “Change” seems to be confined merely to a change of personnel and of behaviour. There is little engagement with the state itself, the political system or even the economic system. What is usually promised is window dressing, while the building itself is on fire and collapsing. This fascinating and original volume looks at all these issues from a variety of points of view, with a particular focus on the case studies of the Italian Democratic Party and the UK Labour Party, but with analysis which includes the experiences of many other European socialdemocratic parties and organisations. With a focus on electoral fortunes, an area in which all these authors are experts, this book provides answers both from the past—why has the left done so badly, why is it in perennial crisis—and some perspectives for a possible future. In doing this, the authors combine history, politics and cultural analysis, over a long period, creating a rich and varied study which will be of interest to all those who are perplexed
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by current politics, by the rise of populism and by the confusing nature of the contemporary world. In his seminal study Destra e Sinistra (first published in 1994)2 , Norberto Bobbio argued that, in the end, the key difference between left and right lay in different attitudes to the issue of equality. In recent years, this word has been notable by its absence within political debate, replaced by more nebulous terms such as “opportunity”—perhaps it is time the left rediscovered its key mission—although this, as I write in 2023, does not seem a particularly likely prospect. John Foot Professor of Modern Italian History Department of Italian University of Bristol Bristol, UK
2 The latest edition, which includes other contributions, is Norberto Bobbio, Destra e
sinistra. Ragioni e significati di una distinzione politica, Donzelli, Rome, 2014. In English see Left and Right: The Significance of a Political Distinction, Polity, Cambridge, 1996.
Introduction
This book explores the long-term decline of the mainstream parties of the left in Europe from the perspective of two of its largest protagonists: the Italian Democratic Party (PD) and New Labour in the UK. Both represented novel responses to profound problems. In the UK case, the Labour Party had for three decades following the Second World War been buoyed up by the post-war socialdemocratic consensus, whose foundations had been laid by the Atlee government elected in 1945. There was therefore broad agreement between the two main parties that social and economic policy-making ought to be guided by the principles of Keynesian demand management, the public ownership of key industries, the mixed economy, the welfare state and the pursuit of full-employment. In Italy, the Communist Party (PCI) had been buoyed up by the ideology of anti-fascism, whose constitutional foundations it had helped to lay in the post-war Constituent Assembly. Thereafter, it had been able to combine and integrate its control of local government on the one hand and collateral associations on the other, to provide in the regions where it was strong, a range of services—from healthcare and housing to employment and welfare—designed to ensure that citizens were looked after, “from the cradle to the grave”. Both parties had reached the height of their power in the mid-1970s, but undergone major crises immediately thereafter. 1979 was a watershed moment in both cases. In the UK, the Labour Party went down to defeat in the general election of that year after the apparent failure of its
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“social contract ”, a sense of chaos and dissatisfaction with its handling of labour relations, and eroding public confidence in its ability to manage the economy effectively. In Italy, the 1979 general election saw the PCI decline in support for the first time since 1953 after the failure of its “historic compromise” strategy of collaboration with the Christian Democrats as a means of managing economic and social problems if anything more profound than those being suffered by the UK. In both cases, the start of the new decade ushered in a completely new era, one marked by profound economic, social and cultural changes. The 1980s was a decade of renewed economic prosperity underlain by the “Thatcher revolution” and Craxian “decisionismo”. With the emergence of the post-Fordist economy and the rise of neo-liberalism, “loadsamoney” and the yuppie culture had their counterparts in Mediaset and “Milano da bere”1 . Deregulation and free-market capitalism underpinned a profound change of values away from the collective and social ideals that had marked the politics of the 1970s in favour of the pursuit of material wealth, conspicuous consumption and a focus on individual success, in a generalised “retreat to the private sphere”. The Thatcher-inspired employment acts designed to curb the power and influence of the trade unions, and the Prime Minister’s conflicts with the labour movement, had as their counterparts in the Italian case the Craxi-inspired cuts to the wage-indexation system and the Prime Minister’s facing down of the CGIL in the referendum of 1985. The left in both countries faced significant retreats at election after election. The start of the 1990s ushered in yet another new era, one that appeared in at least some respects to hold out the promise of a brighter future for the left in both countries. In the UK, European integration and the Maastricht Treaty led to growing divisions within the Conservative Party while holding out the prospect for Labour of a completely new political project based on a “social Europe” and, with the support of Jacques Delors as EU Commission President, the attempt to replace the socialdemocratic consensus with something similar at the European level. In Italy, the discrediting of the traditional governing parties thanks to “mani pulite” and the transformation of the PCI into a non-communist
1 Literally “Milan to drink”, the phrase originated in the 1980s, to capture the idea
that Milan was a city where people could indulge in a sophisticated and enjoyable lifestyle, emphasizing conspicuous consumption.
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party with a new name provided the basis for a completely fresh start. Nolonger subject to the conventio ad excludendum—the agreement among the Christian Democrats and their allies that the left was permanently ineligible as a potentially governing partner—the PCI’s heirs were now in a position finally to realise the project of the “historic compromise”, in conjunction with left-leaning former Christian Democrats, in the new era of prosperity that seemed likely to be ushered in by Economic and Monetary Union, and the adoption of the single currency at the end of the decade. Both projects reached heights of success—in the UK case with New Labour’s landslide general election victory of 1997, and in the Italian case the year previously with the first-ever overall seat majority, under Romano Prodi, for a pre-constituted electoral coalition of the centre-left: the Ulivo (or “Olive Tree coalition”). Neither project, ultimately, however, proved successful. Though achieving a landslide victory in 1997, Tony Blair and New Labour did so against the background of a record-low turnout. The party failed to develop a core of stable supporters, and by 2010 was once again facing a lengthy period of opposition. In Italy, the PD after its formation in 2007 never succeeded in realising that “majoritarian vocation”—the capacity to occupy all of the political ground to the left of centre and so win elections single-handedly—its founding general secretary, Walter Veltroni, had set for it. At the general election of 2022, it went down, in terms of the absolute number of votes cast for it, to the worst election defeat in its short history. Labour, meanwhile, was gearing up for a general election that had to be held at the beginning of 2025 at the very latest—an election it seemed likely to win—but almost exclusively because of the massive unpopularity of the Conservatives combined with an electoral system that effectively obliges voters to cast their votes for whichever of the two front runners they dislike the least. The explanation for these failures, which reflect the decline in support for the mainstream left in Europe generally over the past forty years, comes in two parts. On the one hand, there are the features of the changing context within which the parties have had to operate. They include the rise of post-Fordism and neo-liberalism; the decline in the size of the industrial working class and in working-class identities; the decline of the mass integration model of party organisation; the emergence and growth of celebrity politics. Globalisation, the growing cleavage between its “winners” and “losers” and the resulting upsurge of the populist right are also essential elements of the explanation, which we attempt to weave
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together in the final chapter of the book where we ask about the lessons the left needs to draw from the experience of recent decades. We place particular emphasis on the emergence of the individualised mass society in which an increasing emphasis on individual autonomy, uniqueness and self-expression is, paradoxically, combined with growing conformity and therefore with a heightened willingness to embrace projects built around decisive leaders and more or less authoritarian political solutions in place of the collective mobilisation the left’s traditional supporters would have embraced in the past. On the other hand, an equally important part of the response has to do with the left’s responses to these changes, including its timidity in the face of challenges to the values of equality and international solidarity to which it could, before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, have responded more decisively. Conflicts over these matters bear on questions of power—on whether it is being employed justly or unjustly—and therefore go to the heart of what politics is about: who gets what, when and how. And since the rights and obligations governing who gets what, when and how are, once established, usually permanent (though, obviously, not always) so the struggle over (in)equality and so forth is permanent and is, ultimately, a struggle for hegemony. Yet hegemony cannot possibly be achieved in the absence of an effective ideology or a narrative that can inform the development of a political programme and so enable a party to set the agenda of public political discussion as opposed to having constantly to respond to agendas set by others. Emblematic in this regard were Enrico Letta’s decision to contest the 2022 election in support of “the Draghi agenda” and Keir Starmer’s decision to contest the forthcoming UK general election in support of a promise to “make Brexit work”—agendas neither of which originated with the two men and were entirely imposed on their parties from without. From an historical perspective, this is perhaps not surprising. At bottom, both the New Labour and PD projects were reflections of the post-Cold War world and “The End of History” with their contempt for ideology and their staunch refusal to see the world in “leftright” terms. It is not surprising, therefore, that both Labour and the PD currently give the impression of being “empty shells”. Both appear to be at pivotal moments in their history with the UK general election set to demonstrate whether Labour has the power to put an end to nearly a decade and a half of rule by the most electorally successful party of the right in Europe, with the new leadership of Elly Schlein set to demonstrate whether a radical general secretary in charge of a divided PD whose
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members apparently preferred another can develop effective opposition to a right-wing government that looks set to remain securely in office at least until 2027. Against this background, the remainder of our book is organised as follows. Chapter 1 provides the essential contextualising information and analysis by exploring the trajectory of support for key European parties within the democratic socialist tradition and documenting the development that provides the basic rationale for our work: that “While there have been occasional moments of respite marked by electoral victories or the emergence of new leadership, these positive periods have not been sufficient to reverse the overall declining trend that has characterized [the mainstream left] over the past thirty years” (p.000). Chapters 2, 3 and 4 focus on the trajectories of the PD and New Labour in more detail. Chapter 2 discusses the PD’s origins and the five different attempts, under the corresponding number of general secretaries, it has made to date to recast itself and get to grips with the failures, perceived and real, of the immediately preceding phase of its history. Chapter 3 considers the “New Labour” phenomenon in an attempt to throw light on its similarities with the PD phenomenon and therefore on the extent to which an understanding of the former can help us to understand the latter. Chapter 4 presents data from a series of surveys among delegates to the PD’s national congresses to highlight the party’s still unresolved difficulties in achieving effective institutionalisation, making it seem like a political entity that is constantly under construction, with leadership changes, splits and programmatic instability being due above all to the inability to consolidate an identity for itself. Finally, in the concluding Chapter 5, we attempt to draw on the analyses of the preceding four chapters to draw some conclusions for the future of the European left— this in terms of concise answers to three questions: What does it mean to be on the left in the early twenty-first century? What has been responsible for the left’s decline? What is to be done? A large number of individuals were responsible, whether aware of it or not, for providing encouragement, opportunities for discussion and ideas on which we have drawn. We owe them a debt of gratitude. They include Michael Salvati, Luigi Ceccarini, Giovanni Barbieri, Silvia Bolgherini, Marco Damiani, Ilvo Diamanti, Nicola Pasini, Antonio Floridia and Gianfranco Pasquino. We would like to thank Rosa Mulé and Sofia Ventura for organising the conference, “Dove sta andando la sinistra italiana?”, at the University of Bologna, on 29 November 2022 at which some of
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the ideas expressed in this volume were first tried out and, for the same reason, Mara Morini, Antonella Seddone and Davide Vampa for organising, under the auspices of the UK Political Studies Association’s “Italian Politics Specialist Group”, the conference, “The Crisis of European Social Democracy: Causes and Consequences in an Age of Uncertainty”, at the University of Genova on 14–15 June 2019. Ambra Finotello, as commissioning editor at Palgrave, has been enormously supportive in believing in our work and encouraging us to complete it. Finally, we would like to thank the two anonymous referees who read our manuscript after we submitted it. It goes without saying that responsibility for any errors of fact or interpretation remaining in the text lies solely with us as the authors. December 2023
Luciano M. Fasano Paolo Natale James L. Newell
Contents
1
2
European Socialist Parties Trends: Where Socialdemocratic Parties Are Going After the Berlin Wall Crash
1
A Brief History of the Italian Democratic Party and Its (Declining) Support
31
3
New Labour and the Italian PD
69
4
Ten Secretaries in Fifteen Years: Leadership and Organisational Changes
99
Back to the Future: Reflections on Prospects for the European Left
135
5
Bibliography
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Index
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Political Parties and Political Movements
Name
Abbreviation
Country
Alleanza Democratica, Democratic Alliance Alleanza Nazionale, National Alliance Alleanza Lombardia Autonoma, Alliance Lombardy Autonomy Articolo 1 Movimento Democratici e Progressisti, Article 1 Movement of Democrats and Progressives Avanguardia Operaia, Workers’ Vanguard Democrazia cristiana, Christian Democracy Christian Democratic, German Christian Democrats Sweden, Kristdemokraterna Communist Party of East Germany Communist Party of Greece Communist Party of Portuguese Workers Communist Party of Sweden Partito Comunista Italiano, Italian Communist Party Conservative Party, Conservatives Centro Democratico, Democratic Centre Democratic Intervention Partito Democratico della Sinistra, Democratic Party of the Left Partito Democratico, Italian Democratic Party Die Linke Dimokratiki Aristera Movimento Repubblicani Europei, European Republican Movement
AD AN aLa
ITA ITA ITA
Art1
ITA
AO DC CDU/CSU KD GDR KKE PCTP KP PCI CONS CD DI PDS
ITA ITA GER SWE GER GRE PORT SWE ITA UK ITA PORT ITA
PD LINKE DIMAR MRE
ITA GER GRE ITA (continued)
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POLITICAL PARTIES AND POLITICAL MOVEMENTS
(continued) Name
Abbreviation
Country
European Socialist Party Fratelli d’Italia, Brothers of Italy French Communist Party French Socialist Party International Union of Socialist Youth, Youth section of the International Socialist Movement Italia dei Valori, Italy of Values Socialisti Democratici Italiani, Italian Democratic Socialists Federazione Giovanile Comunista Italiana, Italian Federation of Young Communists Partito Socialista Italiano, Italian Socialist Party Kínima Allagís, Movement for Change La France Insoumise la République En Marche la Rete, the Network Labour Party Left Bloc Democratici di Sinistra, Left Democrats Left Party, Sweden Lega Nord, Northern League Liberi e Uguali, Free and Equal Liga Veneta, Liga Front Veneto Margherita-Democrazia e Libertà, Daisy-Democracy and Freedom Liberals, United Kingdom Movement of Democratic Socialists, Kin¯ıma D¯ımokrat¯on Sosialist¯on Movimento Cinque Stelle, Five-Star Movement Movimento Sociale Italiano, Italian Social Movement Néa Dimokratía, New Democracy Party Nouvelle Union Populaire Ecologique et Sociale Panellinio Sosialistiko Kinima, Panhellenic Socialist Movement Parti Socialiste, Socialist Party, France Partido Popular, Popular Party, Spain Partido Socialista Obrero Español, Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party Partido Socialista, Portuguese Socialist Party Partito Popolare Italiano, Italian People’s Party Partito della Rifondazione Comunista, Party of Communist Refoundation Party of Democratic Socialism, German
PSE FdI PCF PSF IUSY
UE ITA FRA FRA International
IdV SDI
ITA ITA
FIGC
ITA
PSI KINAL PHI RE RETE LABOUR BE DS V LN LeU LV DL
ITA GRE FRA FRA ITA UK PORT ITA SWE ITA ITA ITA ITA
LIB KINIMA
UK GRE
M5S MSI NA NUPES PASOK
ITA ITA GRE FRA GRE
PSF PP PSOE
FRA SPA SPA
PS PPI PRC
PORT ITA ITA
PDSG
GER (continued)
POLITICAL PARTIES AND POLITICAL MOVEMENTS
(continued) Name
Abbreviation
Country
Partito Pensionati, Pensioners’ Party People’s Democratic Union Politics XXI Popolo delle Libertà, People of Freedom Portuguese Communist Party Possibile, Possible Potere al popolo, Power to the People Rainbow Left, Sinistra arcobaleno Revolutionary Socialist Party Scelta civica, Civic Choice Sinistra Ecologia e Libertà, Left Ecology and Freedom Socialdemocratic Party, Portugal Socialisti italiani, Italian Socialist, or Socialist Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, Social Democratic Party of Germany Spanish Communist Party, Partido Comunista de España Socialdemocratic Workers’ Party of Sweden, Sveriges Socialdemokratiska Arbetareparti Synaspismos Rizospastikis Aristeras , Coalition of the Radical Left la Rosa nel Pugno, the Rose in the Fist Unified Socialist Party of Germany United Democratic Coalition, Portugal
PENS UDP P XXI PdL PCP Pos PAP SA PSR SC SEL SDP SI SPD
ITA PORT PORT ITA PORT ITA ITA ITA PORT ITA ITA PORT ITA GER
PCE SAP
SPA SWE
Syriza
GRE
RnP SED CDUP
ITA GER PORT
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List of Figures
Fig. 1.1
Fig. 2.1 Fig. 3.1
Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2
Million of voters for PCI (PDS, DS, PD—Italy) and the labour (UK), in the Parliament election (Low Chamber) 1987–2022 Support for the PD 2008–2023 at elections and in voting intentions polls (%) % of the electorate voting for the main party of the left, UK and Italy, since WW2 (Note Horizontal axis gives the years elections were held in the UK. Results for Italy relate to the general elections held in 1948, 1953, 1958, 1963, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1979, 1983, 1987, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2001, 2006, 2008, 2013, 2018. Vertical bars for the UK show the proportion of the electorate mobilised by the Labour Party. Vertical bars for Italy show the proportion of the electorate mobilised in Chamber of Deputies elections by the Popular Democratic Front (1948), the Italian Communist Party (1953–1987), the Democratic Party of the Left (1992–1996), the Democrats of the Left (2001), the Olive Tree (2006), the Democratic Party [2008–2018]) Support for the PD 2008–2023 at elections (and in voting intention polls) Basic values according to National Assembly delegates (2009–2023). Average scores
6 42
72 101 128
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LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 4.3
Basic values according to National Assembly delegates (2023) supporting the Schlein and Bonaccini motions (average scores)
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List of Tables
Table 1.1 Table 1.2 Table 2.1 Table 4.1
Table 4.2
Table 4.3
Table 4.4 Table 5.1
Voters and share of votes for the parties of the left or centre-Left in Europe Voters for the single party and for the Coalition of Centre-Left in Italy Participation to the primaries and support for the PD in the corresponding elections Orientations on ethical-value questions, on socio-economic questions and on migration of delegates supporting the various congress motions Orientations on ethical-value questions, on socio-economic questions and on migration by prior party affiliation Orientations on ethical-value questions and on socio-economic questions among supporters of the majority motion in National Assemblies (2007–2023) Scoring of 2023 National Assembly delegates of the values, “merit”, “competition” and “market” Vote shares received by the mainstream socialist/ socialdemocratic parties in parliamentary elections (%)
8 10 44
113
115
117 130 142
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CHAPTER 1
European Socialist Parties Trends: Where Socialdemocratic Parties Are Going After the Berlin Wall Crash
Abstract The actual difficulties of the left parties are rooted in both their past history and their recent experiences. Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin wall, the European left appears still to be attempting to make up for lost time: the collapse of a vision of the world and of political objectives inspired by the values of socialism and communism should have led, in the Western Europe, to a general reconceptualisation of the nature of both the left and political project it needed to devise in pursuit of social and political change, by defeating exclusions and inequalities. This trend affects both Italy and UK, as two countries where the main leftwing parties explicitly choice the so-called Third Way. In the first case, concerning the Partito Democratico, by promoting the birth of a new merger party between Ds (Democrats of Left) and Margherita (Daisy). In the second case, concerning the Labour Party, by promoting a political and organisational change, under the banner of the so-called Third Way, inside that party itself. Similar trends happened in other European countries, for instance in Germany, where the Socialdemocratic Party led by Schroeder took the run of the so-called Neue Mitte, and in Spain, where under the Zapatero’s leadership the Spanish Socialist and Workers’ Party inaugurated the season of the so-called Nueva Via. A different path was instead followed by France, where the Socialist Party, after the defeat of Jospin in the 2002 presidential election, because of the high fragmentation that characterised the so-called Gauche pluriel, took a different way, remaining strongly divided by very deep conflicts within it. As we © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 L. M. Fasano et al., The Italian Democratic Party and New Labour, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54059-2_1
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can see, in all these European countries, such as UK, Italy, Germany and Spain, the main left-wing parties attempted the way of a new socialism founded on hybridisation with the liberal tradition, thus making an effort to counter the current crisis. In France, on the other hand, the path token by the left parties was different and led to the defeat of the 2017 presidential election, won by Macron, once he left the PSF making a new political movement called “La République En Marche”. This chapter aims to synthetically reconstruct these events, focussing mainly both on the tendencies of the electoral consensus that have characterised these left parties in the last thirty years and on the perceptions of their voters, as they are no longer so close to the kind of policies and society they would like to achieve. Keywords Political parties · European left · Socialist/Socialdemocratic parties · Italian democratic party · Voting behaviour · Decline of the left
Thirty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the European reformist left, which aligns with the socialist and democratic tradition, is facing a crisis on multiple fronts. This crisis encompasses political culture, ideas, programmatic proposals and the ability to govern effectively. This segment of the political spectrum, which seeks new ways to address contemporary societal challenges while adhering to progressive values, has been grappling with an ongoing decline in electoral support, particularly among its traditional voter base—the working classes and a portion of the middle class. In comparison with the late 1980s, support for the major European socialdemocratic parties has significantly diminished in absolute terms. This trend can be observed in countries such as France, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Italy and Greece, with only the UK and Portugal being partial exceptions. It is crucial to note that this decline is closely linked to another significant phenomenon that has characterised these parties over the past decade: a dwindling appeal within their traditional constituencies, especially among salaried workers and the working class. Many of these individuals have shifted their allegiance to populist parties of the right. When examining the trajectory of support for key European parties within the democratic socialist tradition—including PASOK in Greece, PSOE in Spain, the PS in Portugal, the PSF in France, the SPD in
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Germany and SAP in Sweden—and comparing them to the party in Italy that currently represents the primary successor to the social-communist tradition, the PD, several commonalities emerge. These parties have experienced a slow and steady decline in votes over the past few decades, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the present day. While there have been occasional moments of respite marked by electoral victories or the emergence of new leadership, these positive periods have not been sufficient to reverse the overall declining trend that has characterised their fortunes over the past thirty years. The parties that have suffered the most significant electoral setbacks are PASOK and the French Socialist Party, both witnessing a substantial erosion of their voter bases. PASOK, in particular, has experienced a staggering 65% loss of votes in Greece, while the French Socialist Party has faced a 62% decline in France.1 During Mitterrand’s presidency, the French Socialist Party saw a sharp decline in its support, losing almost half of its voters between the 1988 and 1993 legislative assembly elections. Its vote fell from nearly 8.5 million to just under 4.5 million. However, the party gradually recovered, reaching more than 7.6 million votes in the 2012 elections, shortly after François Hollande assumed the presidency. Just five years later, in the 2017 elections, the party’s support plummeted to only 1.6 million votes, marking the lowest point in its recent history. This decline continued, leading the party to participate in the 2022 elections as part of the Nouvelle Union populaire écologique et sociale, a left-wing coalition led by former Minister Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who later left the party to establish a new political movement, La France Insoumise. The Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) faced a similarly bleak fate. After enjoying electoral success in the two decades following the fall of the Berlin Wall, during which it garnered between 2.5 million
1 PASOK goes from more than 2.5 million voters in 1990 to just over six hundred thousand votes in June 2023, won within the KINAL coalition with Democratic Left (DIMAR), a party that originated from a split from Syriza, whose weight within that coalition is, however, very limited. The haemorrhage of support affecting the Greek Socialists is equivalent in total to just under two million votes in thirty-three years. The PSF went from nearly 4.5 million votes in 1993 to about 1.7 million voters in 2017, a net loss of more than 2.7 million votes. The figure for the most recent legislative elections, which were held in June 2022, is in contrast, although it must be mainly attributed to the success of the lead party of the NUPES coalition, the alliance in which the PSF itself was a participant, along with Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise.
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and 3 million votes and supported Papandreou’s socialist-led governments, PASOK suddenly experienced a dramatic decline. In May 2012, it fell to just over eight hundred thousand votes, with a further decline to 756,000 a month later in the June 2012 elections. This represented a loss of about two-thirds of its support. In the January 2015 elections, PASOK’s support dwindled even further, dropping to below three hundred thousand votes. In subsequent elections, PASOK formed an electoral alliance with DIMAR, a new party with socialdemocratic leanings, which allowed it to surpass the three hundred thousand vote threshold in the September 2015 elections. In the 2019 elections, again in coalition with DIMAR under the banner of the Movement for Change (KINAL), PASOK attracted over four hundred thousand voters. In the most recent May and June 2023 elections, still in alliance with DIMAR within KINAL, PASOK secured more than 600 thousand votes in both rounds. Two other significant parties within the European socialist camp, namely PSOE and the SPD, have also experienced substantial declines in voter support, amounting to approximately 15% and 23%, respectively, compared to the electorate they commanded in the early 1990.2 The Socialdemocratic Party of Germany (SPD) underwent a transformation in voter support after the period of growth that followed the general elections following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990. During this phase, the SPD steadily increased its support from 15.5 million voters to over 20 million votes, securing victory in the 1998 general elections with Gerhard Schröder as Chancellor. However, signs of a decline emerged as early as the 2002 elections, even though Schröder was reappointed as Chancellor. The most significant drop occurred in the 2005 elections, which marked the beginning of a series of Merkel-led governments through a Grand Coalition formula. During this time, the SPD’s support was halved, garnering just under 10 million votes. Subsequently, the party’s support fluctuated between 11 and 9.5 million votes in the following two rounds of elections in 2013 and 2017. It witnessed a slight resurgence in the last general election held in 2021, securing just under
2 The PSOE goes from just over 9 million votes in 1993 to just over 7.7 million votes in July 2023, a net loss of about 1.4 million votes. The SPD goes from more than 15.5 million votes in 1990 to just under 12 million in 2021, losing a total of more than 3.5 million votes.
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12 million votes, leading Olaf Scholz, the deputy Chancellor and Finance Minister in the last Merkel government, to form a government. A similar trajectory has been observed in the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). After three election rounds between 1989 and 2000, where they secured approximately 8 to 9 million voters each time, including the period of Felipe González’s government and the subsequent rise of José Aznar, PSOE won more than 11 million votes with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. However, it experienced a significant decline to just over 5 million votes over three election rounds between 2011 and 2016. Despite a modest recovery in the closely contested 2019 elections (held in April and November) that led to a return to government under a new leader, Pedro Sánchez, the party was unable to surpass 7.5 million votes in the first round or 6.7 million in the second round. In the early return to the polls in July 2023, following a severe defeat in the spring local elections, PSOE managed to regain support surpassing 7.5 million votes. However, it was still overtaken by the Partido Popular. The phenomenon of declining voter support is not limited to Southern Europe; it has also affected Nordic Social Democracy and the British Labour Party. Over the past three decades, the Labour Party in the UK and the Socialdemocratic Workers’ Party of Sweden have lost approximately 11% and 5% of their voter bases. Respectively.3 Although both the Socialdemocratic Workers’ Party of Sweden and the British Labour Party have experienced some decline in their electorates over time, they appear to have been less severely impacted compared to other parties. The Socialdemocratic Workers’ Party of Sweden has maintained relatively stable support. From the 1988 general election to the 2022 general election, SAP’s results fluctuated within a range of approximately half a million votes, with minimal variation, especially between 2006 and 2022. While they received slightly more votes in the 2022 general election compared to their earlier results, it was insufficient to 3 The Labour Party drops from about 11.5 million voters in 1992 to just over 10 million in 2019, a net loss of nearly 1.3 million votes. Returning to the just over 10 million voters who made up the Labour electoral pool at the time of the Conservative governments of Thatcher and Major. The Socialdemocratic Workers’ Party of Sweden goes from just over 2 million votes in 1991 to 1.9 million voters in 2022, suffering a much smaller loss than all other parties considered, that is, just under 100,000 votes. Although by the last general election, while reconfirmed as the country’s first party, the SAP was relegated to opposition by a centre-right majority consisting of the Moderate Party, Christian Democrats and Liberals.
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16
ITALY
UK
15 14
13.5 13
12.9 11.9 12.1
12
11.6 11 10
10.7
10.3
10.3 10.0 9.6
9
9.3 8.6
8
8.6
7.9 7.9
7 6 5
6.3
6.2
6.2 5.3
4
Fig. 1.1 Million of voters for PCI (PDS, DS, PD—Italy) and the labour (UK), in the Parliament election (Low Chamber) 1987–2022
keep them in government, where they had been continuously present for two terms (Fig. 1.1). On the other hand, the British Labour Party has exhibited a more unpredictable electoral performance.4 Despite this, the support they garnered in the 2019 election was roughly equivalent, in percentage and absolute terms, to their vote in 1987, during the Thatcher government era. However, between 1987 and 2019, the British Labour Party experienced considerable fluctuations in its performance. An initial phase of electoral growth culminated in Tony Blair’s New Labour winning more than 13.5 million votes in 1997. This was followed by a period of decline, leading to Labour’s disappointing performance in the 2010 election with 4 Notably, a period of steady growth in support since 1987, culminating in the more than 13.5 million votes won by Tony Blair’s New Labour in 1997, was followed by a period of decline, which led Labour to collapse to just over 8.5 million votes in the 2010 general election. From there, a new upswing begins, to the nearly 13 million won— albeit in defeat—by Jeremy Corbin in 2017, a success not, however, repeated at the next election in 2019, when Labour’s votes return to the 10 million or so of nearly three decades earlier.
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just over 8.5 million votes. Subsequently, a new phase of growth began, with Jeremy Corbyn securing nearly 13 million votes in the 2017 election, although this success was not repeated in the 2019 election when Labour’s vote count returned to the approximately 10 million marks, similar to that of nearly 30 years earlier. The Portuguese Socialist Party is the exception in the European political landscape, experiencing growth in support of 38% from the early 1990s to the present.5 This growth occurred within an electoral landscape marked by alternating governments with its historic centre-right rival, the Socialdemocratic Party (Table 1.1). After the era of governments led by the Social Democrat Cavaco Silva ended, the Portuguese Socialist Party came to power in 1995 with Antonio Guterres as its leader. This marked a significant period of governance for the party, during which it also held the presidency of the Portuguese Republic. The party’s support fluctuated between over 2.5 million voters in 1995 and 2 million in 2002. In 2005, it once again gained over 2.5 million votes, securing a victory and a return to power with José Sócrates at the helm. Sócrates remained in government for two more terms until 2011 when the Socialists ceded power to the Socialdemocratic Party, which formed a government led by Passos Coelho. In 2015, the Portuguese Socialists returned to power after an election that failed to provide the Social Democrats with enough seats to form a government. This time, Antonio Costa led a coalition known as the “Geringonça”, formed with the Left Bloc and the United Democratic Coalition. Later, they governed independently following their 2022 election victory, winning by 14 points over the Social Democrats and securing an absolute majority of seats in the Assembly of the Republic. However, even during the Guterres and Soares years, as well as more recently during the Costa years, the Portuguese Socialist Party experienced a notable reduction in support. In the ten years between their victory in the 2005 elections and their narrow defeat in 2015, support for the party tended to decline, reaching its lowest point during the latter election when, for the first time since the early 1990s, the Socialist Party’s 5 The Portuguese Socialist Party goes from just under 1.7 million voters in 1991 to just over 2.3 million in 2022, showing an increase in support of about 630,000. A real exception, compared to the trend observed by the other socialist and socialdemocratic parties considered.
1991 16,70,618 29.1
1995 25,83,755 43.8
1999 23,59,939 44.0
1996 28,13,245 41.5 2002 20,55,986 37.8
2000 30,07,596 43.8
2005 25,73,869 45.1
2004 30,03,275 40.5
2006 19,42,625 35.0
2009 20,77,695 36.6
2007 27,27,853 38.1
2010 18,27,497 30.7
2011 21,59,742 38.7
2009 30,12,373 43.9
2014 18,86,473 31.3
2022 58,36,079 25.6
2015 17,47,685 32.3
2012 8,01,233 12.8
2018 18,30,386 28.3
2019 19,08,036 36.3
2015 3,02,298 5.2
2022 19,64,474 30.3
2019 75,13,142 28.7
PORTUGAL 1987 PS 12,62,506 22.2
1993 32,35,017 46.9
2002 21,13,560 39.8
2017 16,85,677 3.5
2016 54,43,846 22.6
1990 25,43,042 38.6
1998 19,14,426 36.4
2012 76,18,326 29.3
2015 55,45,315 22.0
1989 27,24,334 40.7
1994 25,13,905 45.2
2007 64,36,520 24.7
2004 2008 2011 1,10,26,163 1,12,89,335 70,03,511 42.6 43.9 28.8
GRECIA PASOK
1991 20,62,761 37.7
2002 60,86,599 24.1
2000 79,18,752 34.1
1988 23,21,826 43.2
1997 59,61,612 23.5
1996 94,25,678 37.6
SWEDEN SAP
1993 44,15,495 17.6
1993 91,50,083 38.8
1988 84,93,702 34.8
32.1
FRANCE PSF
40.0
1989 81,15,568 39.6
30.4
2017 2019 1,28,74,985 1,02,69,051
SPAIN PSOE
35.2
2015 93,44,328
1987 1990 1994 1998 2002 2005 2009 2013 2017 2021 1,40,25,763 1,55,45,366 1,71,40,354 2,01,81,269 1,84,84,560 1,81,29,100 1,24,77,437 1,28,43,458 1,14,29,231 1,19,55,434 37.0 33.5 36.4 40.9 38.5 38.4 27.9 29.4 24.6 25.7
40.7
29.0
43.2
30.8
34.4
2010 86,06,517
1987 1992 1997 2001 2005 1,00,29,270 1,15,60,484 1,35,18,167 1,07,24,953 95,52,436
Voters and share of votes for the parties of the left or centre-Left in Europe
GERMANY SPD
UK Labour Party
Table 1.1
2022 23,01,887 41.4
2019 4,57,623 8.1
2023 77,60,970 31.7
2023 6,76,165 11.5
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voter base fell below the 2 million threshold. This trend was reversed in the 2022 elections when they once again surpassed this threshold. The recent history of these parties, spanning the past 30 years from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the present, can be broadly divided into two distinct phases. The first phase, which began in the years following the fall of the Berlin Wall and continued until roughly the early 2000s, was characterised by significant growth in support for most of these parties. This growth sometimes led to election victories and the assumption of government leadership. The second phase commenced in the latter part of the first decade of the new century and has continued throughout the second decade up to the present day. In this phase, a common trend among most socialist parties has been a decline in voter support. In the Italian context, growth and decline happened somewhat later, specifically, after 2006. This period coincides with the fall of Romano Prodi’s Ulivo government and the establishment of the Democratic Party (PD) through the efforts of the Democratici di Sinistra (DS) and the Margherita-Democrazia è Libertà (DL). Consequently, it is possible to divide the Italian left’s political trajectory from 1989 to the present into two distinct periods: one before and one after the formation of the PD. This division proves particularly valuable when comparing the Italian case with that of the UK and subsequently with the other countries under consideration (Table 1.2). As mentioned earlier, the first phase of this evolution corresponds to a period of expansion characterised by a growth in support, often resulting in electoral victories and the assumption of government positions. It is as if, following the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union and its satellite states, socialist and socialdemocratic political forces in Western Europe had finally freed themselves from the weight of a historical presence. This presence, which had exerted a significant influence on relations among left-wing parties in European states since the Third International, was relevant both in the case of Italy, where the principal left-wing party was the PCI, and in other European countries where socialist and socialdemocratic parties had long held a dominant position on the left. However, it is important to note that the collapse of the Berlin Wall did not have the same dramatic impact in these countries as it did in the Italian context. Let us begin by examining the European context and then proceed to analyse the situation in Italy. German Social Democracy faced a unique situation following the reunification of East and West Germany, as it had to coexist with the
Coalition of Centre-Left
Party
ITALY year
Table 1.2
1992 63,21,084 16.1 PDS
96,19,720 24.5 PDS, PRC, VERDI
1987 1,02,50,644 26.6 PCI
1,02,50,644 26.6 PCI
1,33,08,244 34.3 PROGRESSISTI
1994 78,81,646 20.4 PDS 1,62,65,985 43.4 ULIVO
1996 78,94,118 21.1 PDS 1,31,69,239 35.5 ULIVO
2001 61,51,154 16.6 DS 1,90,02,598 49.8 UNIONE
2006 1,19,30,983 31.3 Ulivo 1,40,99,747 37.6 PD, IDV
2008 1,20,95,306 33.2 PD
Voters for the single party and for the Coalition of Centre-Left in Italy
1,00,49,393 29.6 PD, SEL, AA
2013 86,46,034 25.4 PD
74,80,806 22.8 PD, +EUR, AA
2018 61,61,896 18.8 PD
73,37,975 26.1 PD, VERDI-SIN
2022 53,48,676 19.0 PD
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Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor to the Unified Socialist Party of Germany (SED), the former Communist Party of East Germany (GDR). This situation was unprecedented, particularly because the Communist Party in West Germany had been declared unconstitutional as early as 1956. In the years that followed, especially starting in 2005, when the electoral alliance “Die Linke” was formed and later became an official party, relations between the SPD and other left-wing formations in Germany became increasingly confrontational. The German case is particularly significant because, during this period, other countries did not undergo such significant transformations in their party systems and competitive dynamics. In some countries, socialist and socialdemocratic parties coexisted with parties to their left, which held more radical political positions. Other countries had no significant alternatives to the left of socialist and socialdemocratic parties. For example, in France and Spain, there were parties of the European communist tradition to the left of their respective socialist parties—the French Communist Party (PCF) and the Spanish Communist Party (PCE). In Sweden, a party with communist origins had existed since the days of the Third International, initially called the Socialdemocratic Left Party of Sweden and later the Communist Party of Sweden, which subsequently became the Left Party. In Greece, PASOK faced competition from left-wing movements and parties, including the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and Synaspismos, a diverse left-wing coalition that later gave rise to the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza). In Portugal, political movements to the left of the Socialist Party had roots in the period following the dictatorship of Salazar and Caetano. These movements included the Portuguese Communist Party, the ecologist party the Greens, Democratic Intervention, Politics XXI, the People’s Democratic Union and the Revolutionary Socialist Party, which eventually formed the Left Bloc. The United Democratic Coalition and the Left Bloc, along with the small Communist Party of Portuguese Workers, represented the left-wing political landscape following the 1995 elections, while the Socialist Party maintained its primacy on the left. In the UK, the Labour Party faced no significant competition from parties to its left. Although it included components of the radical left, such as Marxist and Trotskyist groups, these remained a minority within the party and did not significantly impact its internal political and programmatic direction. Consequently, the Labour Party gained no specific competitive advantage from the collapse of the Berlin Wall and there was
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a delay of eight years before the party was able to return one of its leaders to Downing Street, despite the conclusion of Margaret Thatcher’s tenure of office in 1990. Between 1987 and 1989, just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, several socialist parties were in government across Europe. PSOE led by Felipe Gonzales was in power in Spain, the PSF under François Mitterrand governed France, and SAP, headed by Ingvar Carlsson, led the government in Sweden. Gonzales and Mitterrand had established themselves as long-serving leaders who had left a significant mark on their respective countries’ recent political history. However, their time in power was coming to an end. Carlsson, on the other hand, assumed the task of leading Sweden after the assassination of Olof Palme in 1986 having previously been designated as Palme’s deputy Prime Minister. In contrast, socialist parties in the UK, Portugal and Germany had spent a prolonged period in opposition. The UK had seen consecutive governments led by the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher; Germany had Christian Democratic governments under Helmut Kohl, and Portugal had been led by the Socialdemocratic Party under Aníbal Cavaco Silva for an extended period. These long-lasting political leaders had marginalised British Labour, German Social Democrats and Portuguese Socialists, rendering them politically irrelevant. Greece presented a different situation, where the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) had been in power during the first half of the 1980s under Andreas Papandreou. However, the two rounds of elections in 1989, held in June and November, resulted in the defeat of PASOK and the rise of the right-wing New Democracy Party. A technocratic government was subsequently installed. PASOK remained closely associated with the charismatic figure of Papandreou, its founder, who briefly returned to lead the government but eventually found himself in opposition. In Italy during this period, the prevailing government formula was the pentapartito or “five-party” arrangement, which included the Christian Democrats (DC), minor secular parties (PRI, PLI, PDSI) and the Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI). The Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI), having moved beyond the historic compromise phase and the period of national solidarity governments with the DC, had been stably in opposition for a decade. In the second phase of this evolution, the lingering influence of the Soviet communist world was still evident in the early 1990s. General elections took place in Germany, the UK, Sweden, Portugal and Greece
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between 1990 and 1992, resulting in the defeat of socialist parties. Only in France and Spain did the socialist parties, led by Mitterrand and Gonzales respectively, manage to stay in power. However, around the mid-1990s, a recovery began for socialist and socialdemocratic parties across these countries. In Greece and Sweden, this recovery occurred between 1993 and 1994 when PASOK and SAP won elections, bringing Papandreou and Carlsson back to power. A similar resurgence happened in the UK and Germany between 1997 and 1998. The Labour Party and the SPD emerged victorious after a lengthy period of Conservative Party and CDU-CSU dominance. They won these elections under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder, who initiated a new era of governance under the banners of two somewhat similar cultural philosophies: the “Third Way” and the “Neue Mitte”. These approaches aimed to transcend the limitations of traditional labour and socialdemocratic politics by incorporating liberal perspectives.6 This strategic repositioning of their respective parties drew inspiration from the successful experiment carried out by Bill Clinton with the US Democratic Party during the 1992 presidential elections. Spain and France, having experienced substantial and extended periods of socialist government in the late 1980s and early 1990s, saw PSOE and the PSF return to electoral victory later, with Zapatero’s win in 2004 and Hollande’s victory in 2012, respectively. In Portugal, the 1992 elections were won by the Socialdemocratic Party, which had been in power since 1985 under the leadership of Cavaco Silva. Despite the Socialist Party’s growing support since the 1987 general election, it remained over twenty percentage points behind the Socialdemocratic Party, equivalent to more than 1.2 million votes. Cavaco Silva had held significant positions both as Prime Minister and later as President of the Republic, shaping the history of the Portuguese Socialdemocratic Party for three decades. The decline in support for the main European socialist and socialdemocratic parties started in the early 2000s, with the exception of France. In France, support had already decreased in 1993 two years before François Mitterrand’s presidency came to an end, but it began to rise again until 2012 when François Hollande, a new socialist leader, was elected President.
6 See Blair, T. and Schroder, G. (1998).
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However, the most significant drop in votes occurred between 2008 and 2011. During these years, leftist political forces found themselves unprepared to address the consequences of the Great Recession that affected the Western world for about a decade starting in 2008. The only exceptions were the PSF, which experienced its largest decrease in support only in 2017 following the departure of former Socialist Minister Emmanuel Macron to form a new political movement called République En Marche, and PASOK, which only faced the Greek economic crisis with the elections of May and June 2012. This timing is not coincidental. Leftist parties, which had become accustomed to coexisting peacefully with globalisation and its effects, were ill-equipped to deal with the crisis. It is quite likely that their inability to provide timely and effective responses to the groups most affected by the economic downturn led to a gradual detachment of these social groups from the left-wing forces, particularly the socialist and socialdemocratic parties. In Greece, PASOK experienced a significant decline in support during the economic and financial crisis that unfolded between 2012 (May and June) and 2015 (January and September). Prior to this crisis, PASOK had consistently received between 3 and 2.7 million votes in the early 2000s. However, during the four general elections held in this period, PASOK’s fortunes took a severe hit. In the May 2012 elections, it lost more than two million votes. Subsequently, in the January and September 2015 elections, following a split in the party led by the historic leader Papandreou, who formed the Movement of Democratic Socialists, PASOK’s support dwindled to just under 350,000 voters. It entered a coalition with DIMAR, a sister party of democratic socialist inspiration. PASOK continued to be part of the Movement for Change (KIMAR) coalition with DiMAR in the 2019 elections, where it garnered just under half a million votes. In the most recent elections in May and July 2023, the party experienced a slight recovery in support, securing just under 600,000 votes. This represents a stark contrast to its earlier prominence when, from the early 1980s to the first decade of the 2000s, PASOK played a leading role in several governments, including its participation in the National Unity Executive in 2011/12.7 7 Between 1981 and 2012, PASOK participated in no fewer than ten executives, out of a total of sixteen, expressing the president of the council on seven occasions. Its last participation in government now dates back to 2011/12 in the National Unity coalition
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In Spain, PSOE, which received more than 11 million votes in the 2004 and 2008 general elections under Zapatero’s leadership, experienced a significant decline in support. In the closely contested elections of 2015 and 2016, the party garnered about 5.5 million voters. However, there was a partial recovery in April 2019 when Pedro Sanchez led the party to victory with 7.5 million voters. Despite this improvement, PSOE still fell well short of its performances during the previous decade, trailing by approximately 3.5 million votes. Even in the second round of elections in 2019, when PSOE secured over 6.7 million votes and Sanchez was reconfirmed as the leader, its support remained below the nearly 8 million votes that had led to the collapse of Almunia’s PSOE against Aznar in 2000. The victory of the Popular Party in the 2023 elections did not provide its leader, Núñez Feijóo, with the parliamentary majority necessary to form a centre-right government, so that PSOE might return to office in the near future. However, though support for the Spanish Socialists increased by 3.7 percentage points, this changed little, as their vote has not exceeded the 9 million mark since the early 2000s. In Germany, the SPD, which boasted 18–20 million voters during the Schroeder era (in 1998, 2002 and 2005), has seen a gradual decline in support. It first dipped to just over 12 million votes in the 2009 and 2013 general elections. Subsequently, there was a further decline with only 9.5 million voters in the 2017 elections. In the 2021 elections, the German Social Democrats, now led by Olaf Scholz, experienced a modest recovery by garnering nearly 12 million votes. This allowed them to return to government without having to rely on the grand coalition formula that had characterised the two previous German governments. However, it is important to note that Scholz’s achievement, facilitated by his role as deputy Chancellor during the last Merkel government, was insufficient to enable the German Social Democrats to regain the level of support they had enjoyed during Schroeder’s first chancellorship. In France, the PSF saw a significant decline in its support, dropping from around 6–7.5 million voters in the early 2000s to just over 1.5 million votes in the 2017 National Assembly elections. This decline was
with New Democracy and the Orthodox People’s Grouping, under the leadership of Lucas Papademos.
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exacerbated by Emmanuel Macron’s decision to leave the party and establish his own political group, La République En Marche, which greatly weakened the French Socialists by siphoning off their traditional voter base. The PSF, now a shadow of its former self, was compelled to form an alliance with the French Communist Party and other left-wing parties in a diverse coalition called the Nouvelle Union populaire écologique et sociale (NUPE), led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise. While the NUPE achieved 5.8 million votes in the 2022 elections, which matched the level of support the old Socialist Party had had in 1997, the transformation of the French left under Mélenchon’s leadership has not yet replicated the electoral successes that allowed the PSF to propel François Hollande into the presidency and win the legislative elections of 2012. In Sweden, the decline of SAP was less dramatic. They went from approximately 2 million votes in the early 2000s to 1.9 million voters in the 2022 election. However, despite winning the election, their victory was not sufficient to secure the reappointment of the outgoing Minister of State, Social Democrat Magdalena Andersson, as the head of government. Over the past two decades, the Swedish Social Democrats have experienced fluctuations in their electoral fortunes, in terms of both election results and their ability to form a government. Although they led the country for two extended periods, from 2002 to 2006 (with a brief stint in 1996) and from 2014 to 2022, they have not managed to surpass the two-million-vote threshold since 2002. This period included their prominent role in governing the country for twelve years, from 1996 to 2006, first under the leadership of Ingvar Carlsson and later under Goran Persson. In the UK, Tony Blair’s New Labour began the first decade of the 2000s with just under 11 million votes. However, by the end of this decade, under Gordon Brown’s leadership in 2010, they had only slightly more than eight and a half million voters. This level of support was the lowest since the 1983 election when, under Michael Foot, Labour achieved a similar result. The Labour Party’s support started to grow again in the 2015 election, when under Ed Milliband, they garnered just over 9 million votes. Under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, they came close to hitting nearly 13 million votes in the 2017 election. However, these results were still not sufficient to bring Labour back into government. Just two years later, again
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under Corbyn’s leadership, they experienced a loss of more than two and a half million votes, resulting in an outcome similar to that of the 1987 elections, which occurred before the fall of the Berlin Wall, when their support slightly exceeded the 10 million mark. In Portugal, since the early 2000s, there has been a consistent level of support for the Socialist Party, which has remained at around two million votes. This trend continued even after the period from 1995 to 2002, during which the Socialists held both the presidency of the republic, first with Soares and then with Sampaio, and the leadership of the government with Guterres. The only exception to this trend occurred in the 2015 elections when their support dropped to 1.7 million votes, which was about 300,000 votes less than the Socialdemocratic Party. However, despite this, the Socialist Party ended up forming the government with Antonio Costa as the leader, after only a month and a half of the Socialdemocratic Party being in power with Passos Coelho. Overall, the Portuguese Socialists have been in power for a long period, uninterruptedly leading the executive for the past eight years. This prolonged period of governance has allowed them to maintain their level of support at around two million votes, making them a notable exception in the landscape of European left-wing parties. The trend in support that has characterised socialist and socialdemocratic parties in major European countries since the collapse of the Berlin Wall can also be viewed in terms of their roles as the majority or the opposition. While the overall trend of declining support remains consistent, it is notable that in most of the cases we have discussed, especially in Germany, the UK, France, Sweden and Portugal, there is a pattern where support tends to increase when these parties are in opposition and decrease when they have recently been in government. This suggests an anti-cyclical tendency, indicating that left-wing parties may not benefit from being in government. It is as if the strategy of being in power, and subsequent retrospective voting by the electorate, tends to damage their electoral performance in the elections that follow their time in government. This phenomenon is particularly evident in the UK with the Labour Party. Their support increased from 1987 for a decade until their first electoral victory under Blair. However, it contracted in subsequent elections between 2001 and 2010 under different leadership, ultimately leading to their defeat under Brown’s leadership. Support then increased again when they were in opposition between 2015 and 2017, with
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the only exception being in 2019 when they faced another election in opposition under Corbyn, which saw a decline in support. Similar patterns can be observed with the Socialist Party in France, where they saw increased support in the elections of 1997, 2007 and 2012 when they were in the opposition, both in the Elysée and in the National Assembly. Conversely, they experienced a loss of votes in both 1993 and 2017 when they were in leadership positions in the government with Bérégovoy and Cazeneuve, and in the presidency of the republic with Mitterrand and Hollande, respectively. In Germany, the SPD had gains in support in 1990, 1994 and 1998 when they were in opposition to the 3rd, 4th and 5th Kohl governments, respectively. However, a decline in votes accompanied the elections following the two Schroeder governments in 2002 and 2005, as well as the first grand coalition government in which the German Social Democrats participated under the leadership of Angela Merkel. In Portugal, the Socialist Party increased its votes in the elections of 1991, 1995 (when they were in opposition to the government of Cavaco Silva) and 2005 (when their Socialdemocratic opponent Santana Lopes was in government). However, they lost support in the elections of 1999 and 2002 when they were in government with Antonio Guterres, as well as in 2009 when the executive was led by the Socialist José Sócrates. There was a partial recovery of support in the following elections of 2011. In the last two electoral rounds of 2019 and 2022, the Portuguese PS managed to regain support by being in government under the leadership of Antonio Costa. The trend for the Socialdemocratic Workers’ Party of Sweden is different, as it is more stable and less affected by alternating growth and decline. The peak of two and a half million votes recorded in the 1994 elections occurred when they were in opposition. Conversely, PASOK in Greece had a quite different trend due to its considerable instability. It did not lend itself well to interpretations related to the role of being in the majority or opposition, especially considering the collapse it suffered with the elections of May 2012, following its participation in the government of national unity and the severe economic and social effects of the financial crisis affecting the country. In contrast, the trajectory of PSOE in Spain does not follow the declining trend from government positions that we have observed in most other socialist and socialdemocratic parties. Instead, the Spanish
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Socialists had a different pattern. Between the 1989 and 2000 elections, they experienced growth in support while in government, in 1993 and 1996, respectively, after the third and fourth Gonzales governments. However, they suffered a decline in support when in opposition, in the 2000 election round following the first executive led by Aznar. Subsequently, between 2004 and 2008, they saw an increase in support both in opposition to the second Aznar government, when they almost unexpectedly won the elections after the Islamist attacks in Madrid, and following the first socialist executive led by Zapatero. However, after Zapatero’s second term in government, during the 2011 elections, and then between 2015 and 2016, they suffered a substantial loss of support in both government and opposition. This led to the last three election rounds, occurring between 2019 and 2023, which exhibited an even more discontinuous trend. In contrast to the overview concerning socialist and socialdemocratic parties in other major European countries, the Italian case shows several notable peculiarities. To begin with, Italy was home to the largest Communist Party in Western Europe. While the PCI’s affiliation with the Soviet Union was widely recognised, Italian Communists consistently attempted to assert a degree of autonomy from Moscow. This autonomy, however, failed to grant the Italian Communists sufficient political legitimacy to serve as a credible governing alternative. This was evident in the exclusion of the Communists from majority coalitions, except for the brief period of the “historic compromise” when they provided external support to the single-party Christian Democratic executive led by Giulio Andreotti from 1978 to 1979. Moreover, the PCI faced stiff competition from the PSI, particularly after the Socialists, under their new leader Bettino Craxi, adopted a more autonomous stance. This competition peaked with the defeat of the Communists in the referendum leading to abolition of the cost-of-living escalator, a policy strongly advocated by the Socialists. It was during the two years beginning with the fall of the Berlin Wall and ending with the collapse of the USSR that the history of the PCI came to an end and gave way to the post-communist phase. This transition was marked by the creation of the Partito Democratico della Sinistra and the subsequent split that gave rise to the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (PRC). Only during the period between 1992 and 1994, following the implosion of the PSI, along with the DC and other governing parties, due to the Tangentopoli investigations and the trials exposing widespread
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corruption in their respective leaderships, did the PDS emerge as the dominant force within the Italian left. Alongside the PDS, a few other small political groups, including Verdi, Alleanza Democratica and la Rete, also found their place on the Italian left, in addition to the PRC. In the early 1990s, Italy underwent a significant transformation, primarily driven by the Tangentopoli investigations, marking the end of the First Republic. This period saw the beginning of a lengthy and ongoing transition. The Left, during this time, was divided into two new parties: the PDS and the PRC, both emerging from the dissolution of the PCI after its 1991 constituent congress held in Rimini. However, the election results were not particularly reassuring. Together, these two parties, which carried forward the communist legacy, garnered just over 8.5 million votes (6.3 million for the PDS and 2.2 million for the PRC), which was more than 1.7 million fewer than the number of votes the PCI had won at its final general election in 1987. Consequently, the PDS and the PRC found themselves in opposition. First, they faced the Amato government in 1992, which was supported by a four-party coalition consisting of the DC, PLI, PSDI and PSI. Subsequently, they opposed the Ciampi government in 1993, after the PDS withdrew its support just hours after its ministers had been sworn in. This move was a protest against the refusal of the Chamber of Deputies to lift the parliamentary immunity of PSI general secretary, Bettino Craxi, who was implicated in the Tangentopoli investigation. Italy returned to the polls two years later, marked by the entry of media mogul Silvio Berlusconi into politics, with his personal party, Forza Italia (FI). This election also saw the formation of a complex coalition, with Berlusconi allied with Umberto Bossi’s Lega Nord (LN) in the northern regions (Polo delle Libertà) and with Alleanza Nazionale, a party that had emerged from the MSI, in the southern regions (Polo del Buon Governo). Simultaneously, the Italian party system underwent profound changes. They included the dissolution of the parties of the First Republic, many of which were implicated in the Tangentopoli investigations, as well as the emergence of new political groups, including FI, AN, the LN, AD and the Network. The Italian party system took on a bipolar format, which would remain a defining feature at least until the general elections of 2008. Analysis of political developments in this context is notably more complex compared to analysis of the trajectories of socialist and social
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democratic parties in other European countries. There are two main reasons for this complexity. Firstly, unlike other countries where distinct socialist or socialdemocratic parties still exist, Italy has witnessed multiple shifts in the political landscape over the past three decades. This has resulted in the emergence of various political entities, many of which can be considered as more or less direct successors to the PCI. It is important to note that Italy no longer has a single socialist or Socialdemocratic Party, in contrast to other major Western European countries where such parties still operate. Secondly, between 1992 and 2022, there were significant changes to the Italian political and institutional context mainly due to alterations in the electoral system. In 1992, elections were still conducted under the old proportional law, which helped to frame the polarised multiparty system (Sartori 1982) of the so-called First Republic.8 And then, between 1994 and 2001, Italy transitioned to a majoritarian system, with a proportional quota limited to one quarter of the available seats in the Chamber of Deputies. This shift favoured the development of a bipolar party system characterised by two electoral coalitions, one of the centreleft and the other of the centre-right, each competing for overall seat majorities. Subsequently, from 2006 to 2013, Italy had a proportional electoral system with a majority premium, and then, from the 2018 election, a hybrid electoral system with single-member constituencies and proportional list voting. These changes significantly influenced the political landscape, facilitating the emergence of third parties, most notably the Movimento Cinque Stelle (Five Star Movement, M5s). As a result, Italy
8 The journalistic expression “Prima repubblica” (First republic) is intended to qualify the Italian political system in the first phase of its republican history, from 1946 to 1994. Characteristics of the so-called “First Republic” were:(a) blocked democracy, i.e. the absence of party alternation in government, given that the PCI on the left and the MSI on the right were systematically precluded from participating in the national executive, which was therefore limited to the DC, the so-called minor secular parties and, finally, from the early 1960s, the PSI; (b) consociativism, i.e. the prevalence of a logic of compromise whereby a large part of law making had to have an implicit agreement between the party of relative majority, the DC, and the main opposition party, the PCI; (c) ideological polarisation, i.e. the high cultural distance that separated the opposition parties of the right from those of the left, making it impossible for them to collaborate with the governing parties; (d) absence of responsibility respectively in the role of government or opposition, as government parties were obliged to govern together while opposition parties were prevented from doing so. See Fabbrini (2009), Passigli (2021) and, as a more general reference, Jones and Pasquino (2015).
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experienced a kind of “tri-polarisation” of its party system, characterised by a weakening of the bipolar dynamic and the presence of two coalitions and a third significantly sized force, the M5s, which refused to coalesce with either of the other two either at the 2013 or at the 2018 elections. In summary, Italy’s political landscape over this period evolved from the polarised multi-party system of the First Republic to a bipolar system marked by the presence of two large coalitions, and eventually to a tri-polar system with the simultaneous presence of two coalitions and influential third parties like the M5s. In the case of Italy, calculations and evaluations have become more complex for several reasons. Firstly, the party system has experienced a constant and swift influx of new political entities. Secondly, the changes of electoral system have led to varying competitive conditions in election campaigns. These factors have had a substantial impact on how the political landscape has been organised and how voter support trends have developed. Consequently, comparing Italy with the other European countries discussed here is extremely challenging. Over the past thirty years, the Italian party system has seen the successive emergence of several political parties that can trace their roots back to the social-communist tradition. Within the centre-left, this evolution is exemplified by the transformation of the PDS into the DS and finally the PD. Furthermore, the PD now includes elements from the MargheritaDemocrazia è Libertà, a party with roots in the Catholic democratic tradition, specifically, the Christian Democratic left. In the realm of left-wing radical forces, the changes are mainly seen in the transition from the PRC to the Party of Italian Communists, with interim phases like those seeing the emergence of the Sinistra Arcobaleno and the Sinistra Ecologia e Libertà (SEL). Recently, a new movement called Liberi e Uguali emerged after factions historically connected to Massimo D’Alema and Pierluigi Bersani left the PD. To assess the performance of left and centre-left parties in the Italian context, it is crucial to establish a reference point. Temporally, this reference point is located in the late 1980s, with a significant turning point in 1991. This year marked the svolta della Bolognina (“Bolognina turning point”), leading to the dissolution of the PCI and the emergence of the PDS and the PRC. Additionally, it is important to note that 1992, just a year after the PCI’s dissolution, witnessed the collapse of the political system known as the “First Republic”. This collapse resulted from the Tangentopoli investigations, which particularly targeted the parties within
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the then five-party governing coalition (consisting of the DC, the PSI, the PSDI, the PRI and the PLI). The PDS remained largely untouched by the scandal, partly because it was not involved in the networks of corrupt exchange that implicated the governing parties, such as those underpinning the Enimont bribery allegations.9 Furthermore, the PDS had recently undergone a significant transformation, presenting itself to the public in a new light. 1992 was also significant as it marked the last elections to be held under the old proportional electoral law that had been in use during the “First Republic”. In 1994, the electoral landscape shifted further with the introduction of the Mattarella law, which, due to its predominantly majoritarian nature,10 facilitated the formation of relatively stable electoral coalitions. This electoral system, used for the 1994 and two subsequent elections, helped solidify a competitive dynamic characterised by bipolarity. When examining the performance of left and centre-left political forces in Italy from the 1994 general elections to the 2022 elections, we can approach the analysis from several perspectives. These perspectives help us understand the complex dynamics in Italian politics, especially considering the legacy of the PCI. One perspective involves focussing on the direct heirs of the PCI and tracing the evolution of the main centre-left party, initially known as the Partito Democratico della Sinistra, later as the Democrats of the Left (DS) and today represented by the Democratic Party (PD). These parties have direct roots in the Partito Comunista Italiano. Another perspective focusses on the parties that have formed the centre-left coalition at various elections. This perspective considers the
9 The Enimont bribe trial was the main judicial trial of the Manipulite season. It took place in Milan between 1993 and 2000 and saw the involvement of the leading politicians of the governing parties of the so-called First Republic. 10 As a reminder, the Mattarella law for election to the House provided for 3/4 of the seats to be allocated in single-member, single-round constituencies and 1/4 of the seats to be allocated proportionally within a single national constituency with a 4% barrier threshold. In the Senate, on the other hand, 3/4 of the seats were also allocated in single-member, single-round constituencies, while the remaining quarter were allocated proportionally through a kind of catch-up on a regional basis with respect to the total list votes of the parties linked to the candidates in the single-member constituencies, once the votes obtained by those elected were separated out.
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broader set of parties that have aligned themselves with the centre-left on several occasions. An important factor to consider is the discontinuity that emerged after the 2006 elections when an electoral alliance between the DS and the Margherita played a pivotal role in the Unione11 coalition led by Romano Prodi. This event marked the beginning of the path leading to the formation of the PD. The PD brought together elements from both the post-communist left and the Christian Democratic tradition. As a result, it became increasingly challenging to attribute the evolutionary trajectory of the left solely to the post-communist tradition. These perspectives help illuminate the complex political landscape in Italy, where the legacy of the PCI and the shifting alliances within the centre-left have helped shape the country’s political dynamics in recent years. In the context of the first perspective, the largest party, as previously mentioned, has traced a line of development from the PCI to the PDS, then to the DS, and subsequently, with the collaboration of MargheritaDemocrazia è Libertà, to the formation of the PD. When we examine this trajectory, we observe a significant decline in voter support. From the over 10 million votes once garnered by the PCI, support for the left has dwindled to the just over 5 million votes won by the PD in the latest, 2022, general election. This represents a loss of approximately 48% of the votes that the PCI received in the late 1980s. It is worth noting that the electoral base of the PCI was relatively stable during that time. After a drop in the combined share of the vote going to the PDS and the PRC in the 1992 general election following the svolta della Bolognina (−16.8%),12 by the 1994 election, the total vote for these two parties had rebounded to over 11 million, matching the support the PCI had achieved at its last election in 1987. The first significant reduction in votes for the post-Communists occurred three years later, following the split between the PRC and 11 Unione was the name of the rassemblement that brought together with leader Romano Prodi the forces of the reformist centre-left (Ulivo) with those of the radical left and centre, alternatives to the Casa delle Libertà, which was the centre-right coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi. 12 To be precise, in the 1987 general election the PCI obtained 10,250,644 votes, while in the 1992 general election the PDS and PRC won 6,321,084 and 2,204,641 votes, respectively, which together make 8,525,725 votes, or 1,724,919 fewer preferences, or 17% less support than the PCI.
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the Party of Italian Communists (PdCI). At the 2001 general election, the total vote for the three parties (PDS, PRC and PdCI) combined descended to just over 8.6 million, constituting a 22% loss compared to the votes they had won at the previous election. Interestingly, there appears to be a regularity: following splits, the parties involved often experience a decline in voter support. In the case of the heirs of the PCI, this decline also seems to follow a pattern, with their vote pool consistently hovering around 8 million votes both in 1992, following the PDS-PRC split, and in 2001, following the PRC-PdCI split. With the 2006 parliamentary elections, which featured a combined list fielded by the DS and the Margherita for the Chamber of Deputies election, this historical trajectory came to an end, serving only as a reference point for the potential electoral base that the post-communist left contributes to the centre-left’s overall support in subsequent elections. Even when considering voters who, in 2018, supported political offerings derived from the post-communist tradition, totalling approximately 1.6 million, it becomes evident that the post-communist left no longer approaches the level of support that the PCI achieved back in 1987. In the 2006 elections, characterised by the emergence of an electoral alliance between the DS and the Margherita as part of the Unione coalition led by Romano Prodi, there was a notable increase in voter support. This increase can be attributed to significant changes in the political context. The election saw the convergence of two key political traditions: the heirs of the communist tradition, represented by the DS, and the heirs of the Christian Democratic tradition, particularly the faction known as the “DC left”, which had given rise to the Margherita-DL founded in the run-up to the 2001 elections. This convergence occurred within the combined lists of the Ulivo coalition, fielded for the Chamber of Deputies contest. When we distinguish between the periods from 1992 to 2001, marked by the political offerings of the PCI’s successors (the PDS-DS, the PRC and PdCI), and the period from 2006 to 2008, which led to the creation of the PD through the merger of DS and DL-Margherita, a significant shift in the profile of the Italian centre-left becomes evident. The birth of the PD represented an extraordinary opportunity for the Italian centre-left. It shifted the focus from the post-communist legacy to the potential for the cultivation of a centre-left electorate with a clear governmental ambition. During the PD’s formative phase and its first test in general elections, this coalition managed to secure nearly 12 million
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votes under the “Uniti nell’Ulivo” list. Additionally, at the 2006 election, the centre-left parties collectively received 19 million votes, with an additional 7 million votes coming from smaller parties allied with “Uniti nell’Ulivo” within the centre-left coalition.13 The 2008 election marked the debut of the PD. Under Veltroni’s leadership, the party aimed to establish a competitive dynamic centred around significant degree of bipartisanship. The plan was for the Democrats to represent the centre-left, while the Popolo della Libertà would serve as the core party for the centre-right, in line with the concept of a “majority vocation.”14 If we draw on the perspective that considers the PD as the direct heir of the post-communist tradition, we can make a number of comparisons. When we trace the process of political development that began with the PCI and ended with the formation of the PD, passing through the PDS and the DS, we observe a significant decline in support. The PCI, in 1987, garnered more than 10 million votes, while the PD in 2022 received slightly over 5 million votes. This is equivalent to the loss of approximately 48% of the voters that supported the Communists in the 1980s. However, if we focus on the period starting with the svolta della Bolognina, which led to the formation of the PDS and its first electoral outing in 1992, and ending with the most recent election in 2022, the difference in voter support is more modest. In 1992, the PDS secured just over 6.3 million votes, and in 2022, the PD received slightly over 5 million votes. However, there are other ways to measure this phenomenon. We can consider the parties that belong to the centre-left coalition as additional
13 The centre-left electoral array, i.e. the set of lists linked to Romano Prodi’s candi-
dacy, included, in addition to the list United in the Ulivo (consisting of DS and DL), PRC, PDCI, the Rosa nel Pugno (a formation uniting Socialists and Radicals), Italia dei Valori (the political party of former Mani pulite magistrate Antonio Di Pietro), Greens, UDEUR (the list of former Christian Democrats built by former President of the Republic, Francesco Cossiga, and Clemente Mastella), joined by other smaller lists, such as the Socialists, Consumers’ Movement, the Alleanza Lombardia Autonoma, the Liga Veneta and the Partito Pensionati. 14 Broadly interpreting a concept of Duverger’s, the idea of “majoritarian vocation” means the presence of parties that, on the respective centre-left and centre-right sides, were supposed to compete, within a bipolar dynamic, aspiring to win enough compensations to govern almost alone.
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benchmarks. From this perspective, it is interesting to note that in the 1992 elections, held before the introduction of the Mattarella electoral law, which favoured bipolar competition by allocating three quarters of the seats in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate in accordance with the single-member, simple plurality system, the centre-left parties15 combined received over 15.7 million votes. Two years later, under the new electoral law, this figure dropped to just over 13 million votes, but then increased to 16 million in the subsequent elections of 1996 and 2001. The turning point came at the 2006 election when the Democratici di Sinistra and the Margherita formed an electoral alliance called Uniti nell’Ulivo. This alliance, after forming a federation with the Socialisti Democratici Italiani (SDI) and the Movimento Repubblicani Europei the year before, received an impressive 19 million votes. However, the size of the coalition posed several challenges, leading to the instability of the newly formed Prodi government and eventually causing it to fall, resulting in early elections. During this period, the Ulivo’s federative project continued to progress, and after a significant electoral defeat in the 2007 local elections, the conditions were considered favourable for the establishment of the Partito Democratico (Democratic Party, PD). The birth of the PD and the political strategy adopted by its leader, Walter Veltroni, during the party’s formation phase, enabled it to secure more than 12 million votes at the 2008 election. Combined with the just under 1.6 million votes of Italia dei Valori (IdV), a political formation led by the former public prosecutor, Antonio Di Pietro, the new centre-left coalition amassed a total of just under 14 million votes. This seemed to suggest that the decision to exclude the radical left forces from the coalition could be a successful strategy, given that the electoral competition was now dominated by the PD and the Popolo delle Libertà (PdL), a political entity created by Berlusconi through the merger of FI and AN.
15 Since the bipolar competitive dynamic favoured by the Mattarella electoral law, which
would not be approved until the following year, had not yet been established, in 1992 we consider parties placed in the centre-left PDS, PSI, PRC, the Green lists and La Rete, a national list with a civic imprint, born on the initiative of Leoluca Orlando, Nando dalla Chiesa, Claudio Fava, Alfredo Galasso, Carmine Mancuso and Diego Novelli, as an aggregation between progressive Catholic forces and leftist forces.
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The 2008 elections thus marked a significant turning point, peculiar to the Italian case, signifying the end of the first phase of evolution and the start of the second. From that point onward, the electoral trajectory of the centre-left coalition diverged from that of the range of parties (the Sinistra Arcobaleno and other formations of the radical left) identifying with a left-wing position, in that it had a broader electoral base. However, by the 2013 elections, when the PD was under the leadership of Pierluigi Bersani, the party reverted to an alliance strategy that aimed to build a coalition encompassing political forces from both the centre, such as the Centro Democratico, and the left, such as Sinistra Ecologia e Libertà (SEL), the direct heir of the Sinistra Arcobaleno. This strategy did not yield the anticipated results. While the gap between the centre-left coalition and the parties of the left initially widened to over 1.6 million votes in 2018, it then narrowed to just over 600,000 votes in 2022. Interestingly, the PD lost almost three-and-a-half million votes between 2013 and 2018, and a further 800,000 votes between 2018 and 2022. This pattern indicates, contrary to its initial expectations of being a “majority” party, both the PD’s increasing difficulty in attracting votes and a progressive decline in the appeal of the political forces of the left and centre-left generally. Finally, concerning electoral trends related to the dynamics of being in the majority or opposition, let us delve into the period between the 1992 and 1996 elections. During this time, there was a decrease in support when the left was in opposition and an increase when it was in government. However, we should differentiate between the Prodi government of 1996, where the PDS’ participation was a result of the prior political decision to be part the centre-left electoral coalition, and the Ciampi government of 1994, led by a technocrat, which was quite different. The slight increase in votes between the 1994 and 1996 elections, resulting in an electoral victory, can be attributed to the failure of the first Berlusconi government. It fell shortly after the centre-right’s unexpected and decisive victory in the 1994 elections due to a disagreement between Berlusconi’s FI and the Lega Nord over welfare system reform. Moving on to the 2001 elections, the DS had just completed a legislative term in government, initially with the Prodi I government and then with the governments led by their former general secretary, Massimo D’Alema, and the Amato II government. This extended period in government had a negative impact on their popularity. In 1998, the Prodi I government had collapsed due to the premier opposition to the PRC’s
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proposal to reduce working hours. The subsequent alternation in government between coalitions of the centre-right and centre-left, marking the transition from the “Republic of Parties” to the “Second Republic” in 1994, impeded the formation of a unified political entity on the basis of the Ulivo coalition. However, this alternation favoured the success of the Ulivo in the 2006 elections. In contrast, the 2008 elections, with the birth of the Democratic Party (PD), introduced both a disruptive element and a turning point. The array of centre-left political offerings shifted significantly, presenting voters with a new situation. Instead of the broad coalitions that had characterised the centre-left, from the Progressisti of 1994 to the Ulivo in 2006, voters now faced a single party, the PD, formed through the merger of the DS and the Margherita (along with other smaller secular democratic groups). This was intended as an alternative to the other leftwing political forces that had previously been part of those coalitions. The PD did not win the 2008 elections, but it achieved a level of support comparable only to what the PCI had achieved in the 1976 elections. After 2008 and up to the 2022 elections, the PD remained in government, albeit as part of coalitions variously constituted. They included two technocratic governments led by Mario Monti and Mario Draghi; a broad coalition government that included parties of the centre-right under Enrico Letta; two centre-left governments led by Matteo Renzi and Paolo Gentiloni, respectively; and a government in partnership with the M5s led by Giuseppe Conte. This continuous presence in government ultimately led to a decline in voter support. Voters began to perceive the PD as an integral part of the country’s power structure. Meanwhile Italy was witnessing the rise of anti-establishment parties, such as Beppe Grillo’s M5s and the League under Matteo Salvini (with the League later taking on a more pronounced sovereigntist stance even before Giorgia Meloni’s arrival in the Prime Minister’s office in Palazzo Chigi). Thus, the perception grew that the PD was part of the establishment and this provided to be highly damaging to the main left-wing party in Italy.
References Blair, T and G. Schroder. (1998). Europe: The Third Way/Die Neue Mitte, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Working Documents No. 2/June. Fabbrini, Sergio. (2009). The Transformation of Italian Democracy, in Bulletin of Italian Politics, vol. 1, n. 1, pp. 29–47.
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Jones, Erik and Gianfranco Pasquino (Eds.) (2015). The Oxford Handbook of Italian Politics, Oxford (UK): Oxford Academic Press. Passigli, Stefano. (2021). Elogio della Prima repubblica, Milano: La Nave di Teseo. Sartori, Giovanni. (1982). Teoria dei partiti e caso italiano, Milano: Sugarco.
CHAPTER 2
A Brief History of the Italian Democratic Party and Its (Declining) Support
Abstract The creation of the Democratic Party (PD), from a certain point of view, was the realisation of Moro’s and Berlinguer’s dream of the past century, the so-called Compromesso storico (“Historic Compromise”), an attempt to achieve an agreement between what had been the most popular political traditions in Italian society: progressive Catholicism on the one hand and socialism-communism on the other. The PD, created in 2007 by bringing together the two main elements of the Italian centre-left—the Democratici di Sinistra (Left Democrats, DS) and the “Margherita” (Daisy)—had tried to unify in a unique party all the political forces of a coalition which, in the previous 13 years of the so-called Second Republic, was the principal antagonist of Berlusconi. According to Michele Salvati, the time had come to put aside the assumptions of the twentieth century and fully embrace the new one by establishing a reformist entity capable of presenting itself as a credible party of government, “in order to create a new, liberal, identity for the left” (Il Partito Democratico. Alle origini di un’idea politica, il Mulino, Bologna 2003); for until then, in Italy as in other European countries, the parties of the left had lost sight of their “third vocation”, namely, the capacity to speak to the entire country and not just to their own constituency. It was a thesis which had already been expounded some decades earlier by a perspicacious Anglo-American political scientist, Henry Drucker (Doctrine and Ethos in the Labour Party, George Allen & Unwin, London 1979), an acute observer of the evolution of the UK Labour Party. This chapter © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 L. M. Fasano et al., The Italian Democratic Party and New Labour, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54059-2_2
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summarises the main events that took place within the Democratic Party, as well as its role in the political context of the country. Keywords Political parties · Italian Democratic Party · Party organisation · Party leadership · Voting behaviour · Survey trend · Primaries · Party factions
It was in the air for years—from the moment Romano Prodi decided to be the candidate premier, in 1996, at the head of a “strange” coalition called the Ulivo. But what was this Ulivo? From a certain point of view, it was the realisation of the dream of Aldo Moro and Enrico Berlinguer, an attempt to achieve an agreement between what had, historically, been the most popular political traditions in Italian society: progressive Catholicism on the one hand and socialism-communism on the other. It was an historic compromise that had long been in the making but which, at the same time, was instrumental in nature, having the immediate goal of defeating the Ulivo’s two new opponents on the political scene. These—“leghismo” and “berlusconismo”, once allied, then separated and then allied again—were well prepared and created considerable fear among the forces of the centre-left. Although the League ran alone, the election of 1996 saw the “mutilated” victory of the centre-left, which was unable to govern without the support of Rifondazione Comunista, a left-wing party led by Fausto Bertinotti, whose support was withdrawn a couple of years later, causing the fall of the government. But more important than Prodi’s partial victory was the slowly growing awareness that, one day, the alliance between the progressive forces of Catholic democratic and socialdemocratic inspiration would lead to something more organic than a simple coalition between parties: no longer a mere electoral alliance, but the formation of a genuine political party. At the end of the century, circumstances did not yet seem propitious for such an initiative, and it was postponed due to the emergence, immediately after the European election in 1999, of a new political entity. This was one bringing together the different traditions of “noncommunist” reformism represented by Rutelli and the mayors’ movement (CentoCittà); by Prodi’s Democrats (the Asinello); and by various other minor forces. Federated under the umbrella of Democrazia è Libertà,
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they became known almost immediately as the Margherita, from the floral symbol the new entity adopted. The birth of this political alliance, whose official debut took place at the 2001 parliamentary election, resulted in the project of a party embracing the entire Ulivo coalition being shelved. The coalition itself in fact presented candidates only in the majoritarian arena, in the singlemember constituencies, where common candidates represented all of its component parties. The emergence of the Margherita also brought a change in the configuration of the Italian centre-left at this time in that it was substantially a two-branched formation. On the one hand, a more leftist party (the PDS, which later became the DS—Democratici di Sinistra), aimed to win the support of progressive voters. On the other, the Margherita leaned more to the centre, with the aim of winning the support of moderate voters unwilling to vote for Berlusconi. But the clear defeat of the Ulivo parties in the proportional arena gave new impetus to the project for the amalgamation of its two largest components, and discussions began to take place around the issue of how to realise it in practice. The obstacles in its way were rooted in past history and stretched back at least to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and with it the parallel collapse of a vision of the world and of political objectives inspired by the values of socialism and communism. The identity of the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI) had been evolving ever since Enrico Berlinguer became general secretary, giving rise, first, to so-called Eurocommunism and then to the “historic compromise” between Christian Democrats, on the one hand, and Socialists and Communists on the other. The party’s identity was then once again called into question, this time dramatically so, thanks to the historical events associated with Mikhail Gorbachev and the policy of perestroika, where these events culminated in the abandonment of those political and normative perspectives that had taken socialism of the Soviet variety as their long-term point of reference. The end of the Cold War, bringing with it the end of a period in which the world had been divided between two opposing blocks (with the East opposed to the West, NATO against the Warsaw Pact), should have led, in the West and in particular in Italy—which had been home to the largest Communist Party in the West—to a general reconceptualisation of the nature of the left and of the political project it needed to devise in pursuit of social and political change in the country.
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But with one or two isolated exceptions, such as the case of New Labour under Tony Blair (see Chapter 3 for an in-depth discussion), this did not happen. Without any attempts being made to engage in a genuine reappraisal of social and political realities, or to come to terms with the economic and labour-market changes associated with globalisation, outlooks remained firmly tied to a world that had disappeared, continuing to draw on cultural and ideological narratives rooted in the past—a past based on assumptions that had lost relevance in a society in which voting and political representation were driven by new narratives. As is well known, for many decades electoral behaviour in the Western democracies in general, and in Italy in particular, had been very stable. Voting choices had been explicable, in the case of vast numbers of electors, in terms of the so-called vote of belonging (voto di appartenenza). Voting had therefore been characterised by party loyalty—an “extreme loyalty” ( fedeltà pesante) as it has often been called (Mannheimer and Natale 2009: 25–6; Natale 2007: 264)—as an expression of the deeprootedness of the traditional Catholic subculture on the one hand and the socialist and communist subculture on the other. Citizens’ relationships with their parties had therefore been part of their DNA: the party was the most significant element of a person’s political identity, so much so that the normative and value system informing his or her outlooks from the moment of birth allowed for no deviations other than ones that were occasional or episodic. By the 1980s, then, the traditional subcultural ties typical of the “First Republic” had withered, to be replaced, in Italy, by a novel kind of ideological division thanks to the advent of Silvio Berlusconi in the “Second Republic” following Tangentopoli. The strong contrast between the world view represented by Berlusconi and the one represented by the left gave the latter a theme around which its various elements could come together, a kind of unifying sentiment politically and electorally—but of a negative kind: one based on conflict grounded in resistance (against “what we are not, what we don’t want” to use poet Montale’s famous expression), recreating a sense of belonging based on what has been called “light (or surface) loyalty” ( fedeltà leggera) (Natale 2002, 2007). Voting acquired a new kind of stability, one that was no longer based on voters’ recognition of the importance of parties as representatives of their interests or of the subcultures with which they identified, but on their acceptance of the ideologies the two political areas stood for. Right against left, the state against the
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market, Berlusconismo against anti-Berlusconismo were, until the end of the first decade of the new century, the divisions that most affected citizens’ voting decisions. But on the part of the left, the task of rethinking its political strategy, of devising a project for getting to grips with the future development of Western society and its role within that society, was sacrificed to the demands of immediate-term electoral requirements.
The Beginning The PD, created in 2007 by bringing together the two elements of the Italian centre-left, had attempted to unify the various elements of a coalition that had experienced growing internal conflict—between the Democratici di Sinistra and the Margherita, and between the traditional communist allies, the DS and Rifondazione Comunista (RC), likened to a couple that was “separated but living together” (i separati in casa). According to Michele Salvati (2003), the time had come to put aside the assumptions of the twentieth century and fully embrace the new one by establishing a reformist entity capable of presenting itself as a credible party of government; for until then, in Italy as in other European countries, the parties of the left had lost sight of their “third vocation”, namely, the capacity to speak to the entire country and not just to their own constituency. It was a thesis which had already been expounded some decades earlier by a perspicacious Anglo-American political scientist, Henry Drucker (1979), an acute observer of the evolution of the British Labour Party. Until the 1970s, he had in fact identified and analysed the three sources of inspiration that coexisted within Labour, in an amalgam that can be easily adapted and applied to the parties of the left in Italy and, probably, to all the socialdemocratic parties in Europe. The first was ethical in nature, typically expressed by Marxism, one based on the struggle against inequality, for egalitarianism, rooted in the resurgence of the less-well off strata of the population, in favour of universal rights, in defence of the poor and the disinherited of all types in society. The second source of inspiration was socialdemocratic, one closely identified with the party’s natural constituency, corresponding to the proletariat in the first instance, the working class and ordinary working people subsequently, emphasising political action that would bring
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empowerment through the achievement of wide-ranging rights in the field of welfare. The third source of inspiration was the democratic-reformist one, the aims and objectives of which were to govern the country as a whole through approaches which, in the interests of growth, were based on policies that started from liberalism to embrace a mixture of the classic elements of market regulation. According to the Anglo-American political scientist, while the ethical inspiration is present in all the left parties, the prevalence of the second or the third of these perspectives within the party informed the aims and objectives which at different times it set for itself with respect to the government of the country. If the second prevailed, then the party would confine itself to the opposition benches, seeking to influence government policies from there. If the third prevailed, then it would set itself the objective of governing the country in all its complexity, engaging in open competition with the parties of the centre or the centre-right. In the first of these two scenarios, the party’s target voters would constitute a minority, consisting more or less of employees obliged to work for their living whose interests the party would seek to advance. In the second case, the party’s target voters would necessarily constitute the electorate as a whole given the ambition of transforming the country, and the party would have to be capable of developing policies that could win the support of a majority of the population. Although this analysis was developed in the 1970s, it describes almost perfectly the problem confronting the left in Italy during the so-called Second Republic. Salvati, in his 2003 book, wrote clearly: “now that the grand narratives, the plans for radical social and economic reorganisation, are no more, the left must return to the great modern tradition, the liberal tradition, the idea of liberty as the empowerment of the largest number of citizens possible […] in order to create a new, liberal, identity for the left” (Salvati, 2003). These were, in many senses, prophetic words, ones partially accepted by Romano Prodi himself who, at the end of his term as President of the European Commission and again candidate to lead the centreleft in the subsequent parliamentary elections, promoted a unified list of DS and Margherita candidates at the European elections in 2004 (“Uniti nell’Ulivo”). He did so again in the election of 2006 when, despite the change in the electoral law which abolished the single-member constituencies—in which coalitions fielded common candidates—the
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unified list was fielded for the Chamber of Deputies contest but not for the Senate, achieving a satisfactory electoral outcome. On that occasion, however, in the hope of definitively beating the centre-right Bossi-Berlusconi alliance, the opposition to the outgoing government took the form of a coalition that included a large number of parties, including ones that had traditionally been opposed to the left. Fielded with the clear objective of obtaining the maximum support possible, the coalition was so broad that it proved to be an obstacle to the formation of a cohesive and capable government. The narrow margin of victory obtained by the Unione (that was the name of that purely electoral coalition in which all the parties opposed to Berlusconi were present) allowed it to obtain the majority premium in the Chamber of Deputies, but it was in the Senate that the first problems immediately arose. Here, the Prodi government could count on a small majority only, with the support of the senators for life, some of whom were also very old and were “forced” to attend whenever the executive’s majority was in doubt. In addition, the large and unwieldy nature of the coalition would not allow for effective and shared government action. After less than two years of constant quarrels, the Unione finally fell apart and the country returned, once again, to the polls. In the meantime, however, something was changing in the interaction between the two major parties of the centre-left. The positive outcome of the last election had given rise, in a number of DS and Margherita spokespeople, to the idea that the time was ripe for the formation of a unified party. This, it was thought, might provide the impetus for a transformation of the Italian party system in a clearly bipolar direction, with the possible emergence of a two-party system on the model of American democracy. Thus, in the aftermath of local elections at which the centre-left performed badly, Veltroni, the most convinced supporter of the project, was appointed as leader in-pectore of the New Democratic Party, whose foundation was becoming increasingly urgent, given the negative performance of the Prodi government. In an article for l’Unità (the newspaper of the left) of 14 October 2016, Veltroni himself pointed out that, “the PD was born—we must say clearly—to confront a political emergency, at a moment of collapsing support for its constituent parties. And it was formed—this too must be said—with a delay of ten years” through what has always been most difficult in political life: a merger.
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At its last congress, with approval of the majority motion of its secretary, Fassino, the DS ratified in April 2007 the decision to merge with the Margherita to form the Democratic Party. However, not everyone in the DS agreed with the decision, underlining the possibility of an excessively moderate drift on the part of the new party. Some prominent exponents abandoned it, forming a new group that would be called the Democratic Left. In contrast, in the Margherita the motion in favour of merger presented by President Rutelli was overwhelmingly supported albeit with some minor expressions of dissent. On 23 May 2007, in the new party’s first formal act, the so-called 14 October committee was appointed, taking its name from the date on which the “primaries” would be held to elect the first constituent assembly of the Democratic Party and its first secretary, while Romano Prodi became “honorary” President of the nascent PD. Whether or not the consultations organised by the PD for the election of its national secretary could be defined as primaries has been a matter of discussion for a long time. Today we know that, in the final analysis, the use of the appellation is not entirely illegitimate. If it is true that primaries are a mechanism for the selection of candidates for monocratic institutional positions, then it is equally true that the PD’s Statute, which was to be approved shortly, while providing for the possibility of coalition primaries, recognised the principle of identification between the premiership and the leadership. This meant that elections for the position of party general secretary were ipso facto the main vehicle for selecting the candidate for Palazzo Chigi (the building housing the Presidency of the Council of Ministers) in subsequent elections. Thus began the merger process, which, in a few months, would lead as we said to the birth of a new political entity, bringing together the DS and the Margherita. However, there was a real danger that this operation would amount only to a sort of “cold fusion”, that is, that the amalgamation of post-Christian Democrats and post-Communists in the nascent Democratic Party would correspond to nothing more than the unification of the leading groups of the two founding parties. To avoid this risk, it was decided to make the formal establishment of the new party coincide with the direct election of the new general secretary and the National Assembly through the primaries, open to both DS and Margherita members, and to voters of the centre-left who supported the new project.
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First Phase: Veltroni’s “Merger Party” The consultation on 14 October ratified the choice of the mayor of Rome as the first general secretary, with a high turnout of over three-and-a-halfmillion voters who, going to the polls, sanctioned the victory of Veltroni (with 75% of the vote). Already in the initial months of the life of the new party, Veltroni and the PD tried to increase the pace of reform, especially that relating to a new electoral law. This was intended to bring the country closer to a two-party system through the imposition of very high representation thresholds that would cut out the minor political formations, “invited” to merge with the major parties. Meanwhile, precisely in order to prevent, among other things, the approval of this latest reform, and after a series of strong expressions of discontent, the Minister of Justice, Clemente Mastella, withdrew his support for the government, bringing about its early demise in January 2008. In view of fresh elections, which following the fall of the Prodi government would take place a few months later, the newly formed Democratic Party had to accelerate the process of its internal organisational integration, trying to harmonise as much as possible the different political components that had become part of it. During this constituent period, the PD can be defined as a sort of “merger party” or “amalgam party”, to indicate precisely an initial phase demarcated by the problem of internal unification, both of individuals and of shared political programmes. The debate around the party’s organisational format was particularly heated and divided the PD into two opposing views. Historically, the confrontation had been between the American model (the electoral party) and the European model (the mass party). Over time, this comparison was replaced by that between liquid (or “light”) and structured (or “heavy”) parties. The first was supported by the Veltroni secretariat, while the second, as we shall see, corresponded to the positions of D’Alema and Bersani. In particular, the “light” party, according to Veltroni, would be embodied in a political subject with a so-called majoritarian vocation. This, through an authoritative and recognised leadership, would enable the party to speak to citizens directly, in a non-ideological language, one capable of representing the different economic, social and cultural traditions of the country, mobilising them behind a shared reformist project. The speeches that Veltroni gave with the start of the election campaign for the primaries were the most obvious representations of this outlook.
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The “heavy” party, according to D’Alema and Bersani, was instead an updated version of the traditional European mass integration party. Capable of representing certain social sectors (primarily public-sector workers) constituting only one part (and in all probability a minority) of society, the party would be obliged to run for government in the country through the formation of coalitions with other political forces, of the centre and/or the left.
In June 2007, from the Lingotto of Turin, Walter Veltroni (born in Rome on 3 July 1955), launched his bid for the leadership of the new Democratic Party, of which in October he became the first national secretary with almost 76% of the votes. He was to resign in February 2009, following the party’s defeat in the regional elections in Sardinia. Son of Vittorio Veltroni, one of the first RAI radio and television news directors, he lives in Rome and is married with two daughters. At the beginning of his political career, he was secretary of the young communists. From 1976 to 1981, he was a municipal councillor in Rome for the PCI. In 1987 he was elected to Parliament. In 1989, he assisted Achille Occhetto with the transformation that led to the birth of the PDS (Democratic Party of the Left ). He directed l’Unità from 1992 to 1996, relaunching the newspaper thanks to the continuous publication, as inserts, of books and videotapes: a novelty in the Italian context that would increase the newspaper’s daily circulation by tens of thousands of copies. In 1995, together with Romano Prodi, he promoted the birth of the Ulivo, the centre-left coalition that would win the parliamentary elections of April 1996. In the aftermath of these, in the Prodi government, he held the positions of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Cultural heritage. In November 1998, after the fall of the Prodi government, he was elected National Secretary of the DS and, in June 1999, Member of the European Parliament, where he was a member of the Commission for Culture, Youth, Education, Mass-media and Sport. In May 2001, he was elected Mayor of Rome and re-elected in 2006 at the first round with 61.4% of the votes. He resigned as mayor to take over the leadership of the PD and, after his resignation as Secretary in 2009, formally retired from active political life. He is the author of numerous essays, including: “The Broken Dream” (1981), on the life of Robert Kennedy; “Football is a science
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to love” (1982); “Me and Berlusconi (and Rai)” (1990); “Governing from the left” (1997). His commitment to bringing the conditions of third world countries to international attention prompted him to make a long journey to Africa, describing his experience in the book, “Maybe God is sick” (2000). Africa is also linked to the nightly RAI Radio 2 programme “The Mayor and the DJ”, with Pierluigi Diaco, from which a musical compilation was taken: “Me We” (2002), whose proceeds were donated to the construction of water wells in Mozambique, in the suburbs of Maputo, inaugurated in July 2003. In May 2003, he obtained an honorary degree for his public service from John Cabot University. Also in May 2003, he published “Il disco del mondo”, about the life of the jazz musician, Luca Flores . He made his debut in fiction in 2004 with “Senza Patricio”, a collection of stories inspired by a trip to Argentina. In 2006 his first novel, “The discovery of the dawn”, was published, followed by numerous others. More recently, starting with “When Berlinguer was there” (2014), he has devoted himself to documentaries, movies and crime novels.
Walter Veltroni, therefore, was the first secretary of the Democratic Party, as well as its candidate for the role of Prime Minister, according to the principle, written into the PD’s statute, that the party leader was automatically its candidate Prime Minister. In the run-up to the elections of April 2008, the first element that was emphasised by Veltroni was the so-called majoritarian vocation of the party, that is, the idea that the PD would not agree to enter any future coalition, aiming at all times to govern as a single-party executive. Moreover, the failure of the Prodi government had also meant the failure of bipolarity based on large and heterogeneous multi-party coalitions, suitable for winning elections, but not for guaranteeing government cohesion and stability. The immediate consequence of the search for a majoritarian vocation was that the PD renounced a possible alliance with the radical left Rifondazione Comunista, with the greens and with other communist formations (which came together to field a joint list, the Sinistra Arcobaleno). In truth, there was an immediate derogation from the principle of standing alone in favour of Italia dei Valori, the political formation founded by the ex-magistrate Di Pietro, who joined Veltroni in the formation of a two-party electoral cartel in the April legislative elections.
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The result, despite the optimistic expectations of Veltroni and the other leaders of the PD, was, all in all, rather negative. Paradoxically, the situation at party level was not as bad for the PD: with over 33% of the vote, it achieved almost the best result for a left-wing force in the entire Italian electoral history, for legislative consultations, lower only than in 1976, when the PCI exceeded 34% (see Fig. 2.1). However, Berlusconi’s PDL surpassed it by 4 points, while the entire centre-right coalition clearly won the decisive contest, with a gap of almost ten points over the centre-left, which had moreover been “fed” by potential supporters of the Sinistra Arcobaleno in the name of casting a so-called useful vote. From an electoral point of view, the elections were a real defeat for the left generally: the PD lost badly and the parties to its left were unable even to enter Parliament. On the other hand, it is also true that the negative legacy of the outgoing Prodi government, which was constantly riddled with of conflicts among its (politically distant) components and also for this reason enjoyed very modest confidence among voters, could not but affect the policy proposals presented by the centre-left. The choice of the moment of birth of the PD was, if not from a strategic point of view, at least from a tactical one, not the best from the point of view of the electoral support it might otherwise have obtained. It is well known that party mergers are problematic even in electorally favourable contexts; even more is this the case in contexts in which the climate of opinion is unfavourable. In the following months, there were further negative developments: the regional elections in Abruzzo and Sardinia saw two more defeats for the PD and its candidates. The débâcle suffered by the outgoing Sardinian governor Soru, on whom Veltroni had pinned his hopes of a PD victory, 45 40.7
40 35
33.2
30 25 20
32.5
30.1 26.1
25,1
26.2
25.4
30.1 25.5 22.7 18.7
20,0
20.3
19.1
20.0
15 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
Fig. 2.1 Support for the PD 2008–2023 at elections and in voting intentions polls (%)
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became the symbol of a political strategy that was poorly understood or poorly evaluated by the voters, and heavily criticised within the party, forcing the general secretary to resign, in February 2009. Concerned about the impending European elections, the governing bodies of the PD decided to postpone the congress to elect the new general secretary until after new primaries, and entrusted Veltroni’s deputy, Dario Franceschini, with interim leadership of the party. The slide in support for the new party continued: its performance at the European elections in June was lacklustre, with just 26% of the votes, over 7% less than at the previous year’s parliamentary elections. A decisive change of direction was needed, as Deborah Serracchiani, a young member of the party very critical of D’Alema and the leftist democrats, pointed out. Serracchiani herself would enjoy a rapid political rise, becoming a few years later President of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region and the party’s deputy general secretary. Finally, new primaries were held in October (see Table 2.1 for a summary of all the primaries) with the victory of Pierluigi Bersani who, supported by D’Alema himself, defeated, among others, the outgoing Secretary Franceschini. The path traced by Veltroni was thus abruptly interrupted, and the road to construction of a “lightweight” party abandoned. An attempt was then made to return to the more reassuring path towards the traditional “heavy party”. It was an important change of course, which redesigned the type of party the PD aimed to become, inaugurating a new political phase, whose distinctive features were profoundly different compared to those of the party Veltroni had aimed to create.
Second Phase: Bersani’s “old-style party” Veltroni’s idea, as has been said, was to build a lighter-weight PD, with less internal bureaucracy. It was to be a revised and corrected version of the “presidential party”, with direct and participatory democracy from below, in which members and the congress would have a limited role and where primaries would sanction the leader’s legitimacy. This has often been referred to as a “liquid party”. During the months of his regency, Franceschini, who shared this basic idea, albeit with much less conviction than Veltroni, had continued the strategy pursued by the first secretary. With the victory of Bersani, the imprint of the new general secretary became clear as he attempted to move the PD in the direction of more traditional organisational models. New impetus was given to the party’s
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Table 2.1 Participation to the primaries and support for the PD in the corresponding elections PD Primaries
2007
2009
2013
2017
2019
2023
primary voters (millions) members enrollees (/1000) (“circoli”) voters (/ 1000)
3.6
3.1
2.8
1.8
1.6
1.1
820
540
445
375
280
462
295
265
190
150
Elections
2008 General 12.5
2009 European 8.1
2013 General 8.9
2018 General 6.2
2019 European 6.1
2022 General 5.4
33.2
26.1
25.4
21.1
18.7
19.1
PD results
voters (millions) share of votes
branches; greater recognition was given to the importance of grass-roots activities, and there was to be a pyramidal structure with primacy accorded to the central management group (the party in central office) as compared to the party in public office. It was in fact a sort of re-adoption of the organisational features of the PCI and the DS in the Second Republic, which, according to Veltroni himself, had created a precedent in Italian history by moving decisively away from the idea of a mass reformist party. Bersani often referred to the type of party he sought to create as the “partito-ditta” (party-firm). It was one that would be fuelled by a strong sense of belonging and with a strong value system, firmly anchored in the traditional leftist electorate. A community of values would be created and used as the basis on which to present policy proposals. These would be aimed, not at the entire electorate. Rather, they were considered useful for the building of coalition governments involving political forces representative of the moderate and centre electorate. Political leaders who had believed in Veltroni’s proposal (such as Rutelli, who had led the Margherita towards the merger) left the party given the new direction that the PD was taking, with its socialdemocratic turn. In practice, they saw in this path an attempt to re-adopt previous models, which seemed not to have worked, in a country that was rapidly
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changing its approaches to politics and the ways in which the impact of civil society demands on the world of parties took shape. The general perception was that the PD was returning to the typical “old-style” party, no longer suitable for communicating with an evolving electorate, which expected political decision-making to be radically different from the past, more agile, transversal, majority-oriented and less “concertative”.
Pierluigi Bersani (born in Bettola on 29 September 1951) was elected secretary of the PD in October 2009 and resigned in April 2013, following the failure (thanks to an internal party feud) to elect either Marini or Prodi as Head of State. Son of a primary school teacher and a mechanic and gas fitter, Bersani received a strongly religious education but soon turned his back on Catholicism and became politically committed to the left, provoking the anger of his family. He initially took part in the movements of the extra-parliamentary left (founding a section of Avanguardia Operaia in 1970) then joining the ranks of the PCI: it was a choice that Bersani justified by “the desire to really change things” within a party that aimed to rule the country. As a member of the Communist Party, he was elected as regional councillor in Emilia-Romagna on three successive occasions. Lanfranco Turci (then president of the region) asked him to join the regional executive with responsibility for social services in 1980 and for employment and professional training 1985. In 1990, the new president, Boselli, entrusted him with the Department for Planning and Institutional Affairs, and with the vice-presidency of the Region. In 1993, when Boselli resigned, the Regional Council elected him as the new president, and Bersani quickly made a name for himself through important measures of liberalization, the regulation of waste disposal, environmental protection and the introduction of home care for terminally ill patients. He became the first directly elected president of EmiliaRomagna in 1995, with 54% of the votes and immediately devoted considerable attention to employment-related issues. His presidency did not last long, because in 1996 he joined the first Prodi government as Minister for Industry, Commerce and the Self-employed, beginning a process of liberalization that won him the plaudits of many. He also remained in government with D’Alema, in 1998, and Amato, in 2000, as Minister of Transport and Navigation.
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Elected to the Chamber of Deputies, for the first time, as a representative of the DS in 2001, he resigned after his election to the European Parliament in 2004 when he won a number of preference votes, in his constituency, that was second only to the number obtained by Berlusconi. In 2004, he published a book written with Enrico Letta, “Journey into the Italian Economy”. In 2006 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies as a representative of the Ulivo and joined the Prodi government as Minister for Economic Development. The following two years were to be the year of the so-called ‘lenzuolate’, in which many new regulations were introduced: he deregulated the marketing of pharmaceuticals, abolished regulations for architects and engineers, and abolished fixed charging fees for mobile phones. With the birth of the PD, Bersani was appointed first party treasurer and spokesperson for the Economy and Finance in the shadow cabinet, and then (with the appointment of Franceschini in 2009) national President of the PD’s Economic Forum, before winning the primaries against Franceschini himself. During the years of his secretariat, he published a book-interview entitled, “For a good reason”, where he set out the PD’s programme for government. After his resignation, in 2013, he remained a critical member of the Renzi-led PD until in February 2017 he joined the new party, ‘Article 1 - Democratic and Progressive Movement’ .
Meanwhile, the end of the Berlusconi era seemed to be just around the corner. Mario Monti replaced him at the head of a technocratic government to deal with the major economic and financial problems the country had encountered after the international crisis that had arisen between 2007 and 2008. The rebirth of a new leftist opposition culminated in the important victories of “leftist” mayors, firstly of Pisapia in Milan, which ended a twenty-year centre-right administration, and then of Zedda in Cagliari and Doria in Genoa. The victories probably had the effect of confirming the correctness of the road taken by Bersani. The PD prepared for the elections by making a new pact with the traditional leftist forces; but the country’s troubled economic circumstances again undermined the pact. Thus, the party returned to the idea—tactically pursued—of a future government alliance with Monti’s party—which in turn took to the political fray as “Scelta Civica”—in the event of a victory by the PD not sufficiently large in the upcoming 2013 elections.
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In December 2012, primaries were held in order to select the candidate Prime Minister. Despite the changed political circumstances, the PD initially nominated Bersani for the position, in accordance with the principle of overlap between the party leadership and the premiership. However, it was recognised that the PD had insufficient strength to achieve outright victory on its own, and that it would have to approach the elections by pursuing an alliance strategy that extended to leftist forces as well as to those in the centre. Bersani should have been the candidate in an election with a foregone conclusion, but he had to face competition from the mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi. In the name of a bitter battle for the renewal of the democratic ruling class, Renzi demanded to be allowed to participate, as a candidate, in the coalition primaries. Notwithstanding the statutory provision (which was amended to accommodate him), he competed against Bersani, losing in the end in the second round. The “demolition man” (“il rottamatore”), as Renzi was soon called, presented himself as a sort of continuity candidate by embracing Veltroni’s original conception of the party and was initially supported—although not openly—by the ex-secretary himself. On the other hand, Renzi sought to take Veltroni’s strategy to extremes. Strongly advocating the idea of a party with a “majoritarian vocation”, he sought to overcome resistance to replacement of the party’s leading officials, which until then had prevented the PD from going beyond the simple fusion between post-Christian Democrats and post-Communists. Renzi’s defeat confirmed Bersani in the role as candidate Prime Minister but shortly thereafter Bersani was faced with an unexpectedly negative election result. Thanks to the extraordinary success of the Five Star Movement, catapulted by Beppe Grillo towards unimagined success, the PD won the election for the Chamber of Deputies by a very few votes (with a share close to 25%) but was unable to obtain a majority in the Senate. Compared to 2008, the PD lost about 4 million voters and more than 8% of the valid votes. With the centre-left, the centre-right and the Five Star Movement all of nearly equal size, the country was in fact ungovernable, and attempts to reach a governing agreement with Grillo and Casaleggio, the founders of the movement, were in vain: they in fact refused to enter a coalition with the PD. The defeat of Bersani was evident and became even clearer when he proved unable to channel the votes of PD parliamentarians in the direction of his candidate, the moderate Marini, in the subsequent election of the President of the Republic. Even Prodi’s candidacy failed to
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attract the unanimous support of PD parliamentarians, who now seemed ungovernable, divided as they were by open factional conflict. The return of Napolitano—persuaded to remain in post for the time necessary to secure parliamentary approval for the urgent institutional reforms—marked the end of Bersani’s term as general secretary and he resigned in April 2013. As happened when Franceschini succeeded Veltroni, it was decided to entrust the party to an interim leader, in this case Epifani (previous leader of the left-wing trade union CGIL), while fresh primaries for the appointment of a new general secretary were organised and eventually held in December. In the meantime, Napolitano entrusted the task of forming the new government to Enrico Letta. Supported by some of the forces of the centre, and by Berlusconi’s centre-right (a sort of “grand coalition”), the government’s specific aim was to continue the economic and financial recovery work and to prepare the necessary institutional reforms, especially a new electoral law which, it was hoped, would ensure greater governing stability.
The Third Phase: Renzi’s “Pragmatic Party” The primaries held on 8 December 2013 marked the beginning of a new political phase for the PD during which it would tend to take on the characteristics of a leader-dominated party, a party model that was becoming increasingly common in many other Western democracies. As Mauro Calise (2016) well argues in his recent essay, “La democrazia del leader”, parties—already weakly anchored socially and ideologically— have undergone a kind of internal dismemberment under the blows of personalisation. The centrality of the Prime Minister and government has enabled them to take the place—as well as the functions—of Parliament, producing a media colonisation of everyday political life. In this way, parties have ceased to be the focus of political debate and law making. Matteo Renzi, already defeated by Bersani in the previous year’s primaries to select the centre-left’s candidate Prime Minister, won the open primary election for the PD leadership (with over two-thirds of the votes). His defeated opponents were Gianni Cuperlo, who advocated the party model which had already been championed by the outgoing secretary, and Pippo Civati, a young party spokesperson whose vision was of a party more closely resembling a left-wing social movement and offering
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a kind of “bottom-up” participation which was much loved by the Five Star Movement. The new secretary was elected at the end of 2013, and he replaced Enrico Letta as Prime Minister of the PD-NCD (a little party of centreright) government a couple of months later. Renzi’s political assumptions and promises were based clearly on the fundamental idea of creating novel ways of communicating and agenda setting. The two main elements of Renzi’s strategy were, on the one hand, an increase in rates of legislative throughput and, on the other, a strictly pragmatic approach to the resolution of political disputes. Abandoning the left’s traditional principles, which, in his opinion, stood in the way of the most urgently needed reforms, his ambition was to construct the tactical or strategic alliances that would make it possible to legislate more rapidly in a Parliament that was, at that time, so fragmented that it was impossible to govern with any kind of autonomy. Although his idea of the party’s role was not very different from first secretary Walter Veltroni’s (with its emphasis on the idea of a majoritarian vocation), the immediate circumstances were such that in order to initiate the economic and institutional reforms the country required, it was impossible to avoid involving other parties, including ones whose platforms were very different from those of the PD. The objective of the Renzi government was to introduce as quickly as possible the most urgently needed reforms including those concerning the labour market and those of a more strictly constitutional kind, as well as a modification of the electoral law (the so-called Porcellum) then in force which the Constitutional Court had ruled to be in violation of the constitution. And this was precisely the government’s first move: to seek the broadest alliance possible, in Parliament and among the political parties, with a view to getting agreement on an electoral law that would result in unambiguous election outcomes and a strong executive by providing a clear parliamentary majority for the winning party. Renzi actually did attempt to involve all of the major parties in the drafting of a law based on the widest agreement possible but soon came up against the refusal of the M5s—though dialogue with the centre-right proceeded in a productive manner: so much so that within a month a new electoral law was ready to be presented to Parliament and was approved by the Chamber of Deputies in March 2014. It was at that time that the so-called (from the PD headquarters in Rome) Patto del Nazareno was agreed upon. This was a sort of agreement in principle between the centre-right (and in particular,
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Berlusconi himself) and the centre-left on the electoral reform and on the constitutional changes to be pursued, besides agreement concerning election of the head of state who would have to take Giorgio Napolitano’s place as President sometime during the following two years. The change of course engineered by Renzi during the initial months of his term of office seemed to appeal to voters, not only those in sympathy with his party but also a significant proportion of the supporters of other parties. The idea of “lowering the drawbridge” to other parties without distinction and without the imposition of any vetoes in the interests of the more efficient and effective functioning of the political system as a whole was indeed a new approach to politics. For Italy had just emerged from a twenty-year period of unceasing conflict, between supporters and opponents of Berlusconi. The approach the new PD secretary stood for was clearly of the democratic-reformist type, whose ultimate aims and objectives consisted precisely in effective government of the entire country, without special attention being paid to the party’s “own” voters, those forming its natural constituency. The notion of what is often called “the party of the Nation” is based less on a commitment to the tactical use of specific agreements with parties located elsewhere on the political spectrum (something that can sometimes be considered) than it is on a willingness and an ability to speak to the whole country without distinction, avoiding legislation in the interests of its own constituency only, seeking instead to broaden the party’s support to include voters located further away on the political spectrum. From the procedural point of view, the “pragmatic party” (Natale and Fasano 2017) is based on the idea of seeking alliances and common agreement concerning specific items of legislation independently of any judgements concerning the parties whose agreement is sought. We shall see later why it was that such an approach could not but create fears among the PD’s minority factions, which openly demanded that Renzi take actions more collegially and consonant with the party’s history and values. The decisiveness shown by the new Prime Minister in his efforts to deal with unresolved problems soon met with the approval of a large proportion of voters: public opinion in fact reacted very positively to the shift away from the traditional lethargy with which political decisions had been made. Even though he had not achieved office as the result of an electoral victory, confidence in him personally and in his government reached unusually high levels. In the initial months of his government’s term of
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office, at least until the summer of 2014, the proportion of voters with a positive view of Renzi was consistently above 66%—meaning that more than two-thirds of citizens looked positively on the experiment being tried out by the former mayor of Florence, giving him credit to a degree unusual in the light of the traditional relationship between governors and the governed. The overcoming of traditional barriers and the abandonment of the past socialist and communist narratives seemed to open up new frontiers of electoral support among those who had traditionally been unsympathetic to the latter. The first real problems for the Prime Minister, following his success at the European elections of 2014, came less from voters than from within the party. In the first place, he was attacked for the personalisation he had brought to policy-making and campaigning, something that was so obvious that it gave rise to the acronym PDR, a play on the PD abbreviation, and used in jest to mean il Partito Di Renzi (“the Renzi party”), in sharp contrast with the traditional collegiality of decision-making, real or presumed. In the second place, some of the government’s decisions appeared to be in marked contrast with the recent and less recent history of the centre-left, first and foremost, the decision to abolish some of the clauses of Article 18 of the Workers’ Statute, providing protection against unfair dismissal, that was part of what came to be called “the Jobs Act”. In general, the years of Renzi’s leadership were ones during which the PD(R) sought to redefine its original ideological location on the left–right spectrum, abandoning it in favour of a course of action that was “rational with respect to aims” both from the point of view of the policies to be pursued and in terms of the alliances to be sought, enabling the PD to become a sort of pragmatic party where nothing was ruled out a priori. All the resources available in the political market place were therefore taken into consideration without preclusion, this with the object of achieving hoped-for results on three fronts: in the first place in the electoral arena and in terms of the party’s direct relations with voters; in the second place in the governing arena and in relations with other parties, whether part of the majority or the opposition; and finally in the party arena with the aim of gaining control over policy without having to come to terms with the party’s internal minorities. The sharpest criticism of Renzi’s strategy, as has been said, came precisely from the party’s minority factions, in particular those associated with Bersani and D’Alema, who had already regarded the Florentine
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as a sort of “foreign body” at the time of the coalition primaries held in 2012 and who were now responsible for creating an atmosphere of acrimonious conflict: many of them took positions sharply critical and implacably opposed to the “leader-dominated” and “centrist” direction in which Renzi—in their interpretation—sought to take the party, thereby distorting its nature (and besides D’Alema and Bersani, dissenters also included Gianni Cuperlo who soon resigned the party’s presidency).
Matteo Renzi (born in Florence on 11 January 1975) was elected secretary of the Democratic Party in December 2013 and remained in office until January 2017. Son of Tiziano Renzi, former municipal councillor of the DC in Rignano sull’Arno, he began his political activity when he was still very young. In 1996, at the age of 21, he was active in the electoral committees backing Romano Prodi in the Valdarno and he joined the catholic PPI , of which he became provincial secretary in 1999. At that time, he also graduated in law with a thesis on Giorgio La Pira, member of the Constituent Assembly, and then twice mayor of Florence between 1951 and 1965. Renzi considered La Pira to be a considerable political authority, saying that he had been inspired by his work. In 2001 his political career continued with his appointment, in Florence during the first party congress, as city secretary of the newborn Margherita. In that period Matteo Renzi also adopted what would become the leitmotiv of his political storytelling, the need for a generational change within the Italian political leadership group. His career within the party led him to become provincial secretary in 2003, while he was first elected to public office a year later when he became President of the province, thanks to an electoral agreement between the Margherita and the DS. During his Presidency he was particularly committed to the cultural promotion of the province, with a series of events called the “Genio Fiorentino”, and to lowering provincial taxes. In 2006 he published his political programme in a book entitled “Between De Gasperi and U2. Thirty-year-olds and the future”. This book was the prelude to his candidacy in the primary elections to choose the party’s candidate in elections for the mayoralty of Florence to be held in June 2009. Not being satisfied with the candidacy for a new term as President of the province, a level considered much less important than the Municipal one, Renzi decided to break with the
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internal custom of the centre-left coalition which involved the choice of a DS candidate for Palazzo Vecchio. The desire to “swim against the tide” and the main slogan for the campaign (“Either I change Florence, or I change job and I go back to work”) well synthesized two other recurring elements in Matteo Renzi’s communication, besides that of renewal. On 15 February he obtained about 40% of the votes in the primaries thus becoming the centre left’s mayoral candidate. In the elections he obtained 48% in the first round and 60% in the second, defeating the centre-right candidate Giovanni Galli, a former football goalkeeper. In 2010, at the former Leopolda station of Florence, he organized a conference entitled “Next stop Italy” and from there he re-launched his challenge to the PD establishment by talking about “scrapping” the party’s leading officials. The first national-level test of his revolutionary proposal came with the primaries to select the centre-left’s candidate prime minister, at the end of 2012, when he was defeated at the second round of voting by Bersani. After winning the primaries for selection of the new PD party leader in 2013, he became Prime Minister on 14 February 2014, from which position he resigned the day after his defeat in the constitutional referendum of 4 December 2016. In the subsequent primaries for the position of PD secretary, he still won by a large margin but, after the heavy defeat of the party in the 2018 political election, he definitively abandoned this role. His detachment from the PD became increasingly evident and in 2019 he left the party to found a new political organization: Italia Viva.
After the election of the new President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, elected without the votes of Berlusconi and Forza Italia, the government tried to stem the tide of its declining support but, at the same time, also had to fend off new attacks, this time by Berlusconi himself. Feeling betrayed by Renzi with respect to the so-called Nazarene Pact (which, as has been said, was thought to have included a commitment to bipartisanship in the choice of the new Head of State), the leader of Forza Italia inaugurated a period of strenuous opposition to Renzi and his cabinet. For the premier, almost constantly attacked by both the left and a large part of the centre-right, there began a period of slow but constant decline, from which he could no longer fully recover.
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Citizens’ trust in the PD and its government soon began to show new cracks, confirmed by the party’s lacklustre performance in the local elections of spring 2015, which saw, among other things, the unexpected defeat of the centre-left coalition in Liguria. In that region, Raffaella Paita, the PD candidate supported by Renzi himself in the primaries against the former Union leader Sergio Cofferati (who later left the party) was soundly beaten by the representative of Forza Italia, Giovanni Toti, also thanks to the presence of a candidate from the radical left (Luca Pastorino), supported by Cofferati, whose votes were probably decisive in the defeat of PD. In the majority that supported the government, the alliances with the centre-right components that had previously been very close to Berlusconi gradually became almost organic: some of the parliamentarians, led by Denis Verdini, left Forza Italia and founded the new movement, Ala, which voted in the Senate for Renzi’s important constitutional reforms, being decisive in ensuring that the reforms had sufficient numbers for their approval. The pragmatic party seemed to find it increasingly difficult to maintain a visible centre-left course, while in the country at large the appeal of the only political force capable of defeating the PD, the Five Star Movement, continued to grow. At the local elections in the spring of 2016, the party’s inability to retain a significant part of its support became evident. It failed to retain Naples, badly losing even Rome and Turin, in addition to winning only 50 councils among the major municipalities, as compared with the more than 100 it had previously controlled. Therefore, the elections of June 2016 confirmed almost all the negative forecasts for the PD, which among the big cities won only in Bologna, Cagliari and Milan, thanks to the candidacy of Beppe Sala, back from the success of Expo2015, of which he was CEO. The outcome of the referendum on the constitutional reforms, so strongly desired by Renzi and on which he staked all his remaining hopes of remaining in control of the country, did nothing other than to confirm, instead, his dramatic loss of support among voters. Notwithstanding the strongly personal profile given to the contest, captured by Renzi’s declarations that he would either win or he would resign, or perhaps precisely because of this, voters decisively rejected the proposed reform—which had already failed to be endorsed by Parliament by other than a simple majority—after a campaign that had been conducted in the fiery climate of full-frontal opposition to the Prime Minister.
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The result of the referendum, held on 4 December 2016 and marked by an unexpectedly high turnout (close to 70%), led to the pre-announced resignation of Matteo Renzi as head of the executive. Those against the reform amounted to almost 60% of voters, and united all the parties opposed to the government, together with significant proportions of the PD minority headed by D’Alema and Bersani. The immediate consequence of the defeat was renewed criticism of Renzi’s leadership of the party, the secretary being obliged publicly to admit to some of his mistakes both in terms of his communication style and in terms of his excessive personalisation of the referendum campaign. On the other hand, defeat brought greater internal cohesion, to both the PD’s electoral base and its delegates thereby in fact giving Matteo Renzi greater power in his role as party secretary. In evident continuity with the Renzi government, the role of Prime Minister was conferred on Paolo Gentiloni (the foreign minister in the outgoing government), who was a former leader of the Margherita—one who had from the beginning been a convinced supporter of the project embodied in the Ulivo coalition and had been among the PD’s most prominent founders. Renzi, after some weeks of silence, convened the national assembly where he tendered his resignation as general secretary, in anticipation of a new party congress and fresh elections for the position to be held at the end of April. The atmosphere at the assembly was acrimonious in the extreme, with the minority factions seeking by every means possible to persuade Renzi to step aside and forgo presenting himself as a candidate at the leadership elections, threatening to resign from the party, which they did two days later. The “socialdemocratic” wing led by D’Alema, Bersani, Roberto Speranza and the President of the Tuscan regional council, Enrico Rossi, gave birth to a new political entity, the Articolo 1–MDP, which took with it about thirty PD parliamentarians who were joined by about twenty who had been associated with SEL, the left-wing party. Now, to the left of the PD, there had been formed a rather numerous arrays of parties and movements. This was a clear sign that the problem faced by the left could not be attributed solely to Renzi but had to do with a huge disconnect between what the left had to offer and the expectations of the Italian electorate. With the date of the elections being repeatedly postponed, the Gentiloni government appeared to maintain itself in office quite well, even though its majority was not very large, especially in the Senate. At the new PD primary elections that would be held on 30 April 2017, Renzi
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again won by a landslide, with 70% of the vote, even though the number of people participating was significantly below that for the earlier leadership contests. His opponents, Andrea Orlando, Minister of Justice in the Gentiloni executive, and Michele Emiliano, Governor of Puglia, obtained only 20% and 10% of the vote, respectively. It was a second chance for Matteo Renzi as PD leader. Renzi had consolidated his support among PD sympathisers, although his second term as party leader was a slow and resigned march towards the 2018 general election, which almost everyone predicted the party would lose. Torn by deep divisions, the centre-left that approached the election was fragmented into several competing lists: in addition to the Democratic Party, there were at least two left-wing political formations, Liberi e Uguali (LeU—born from the merger of Articolo 1, SEL and Possibile, the movement founded by Civati) and Potere al Popolo, starting from alternative positions to those of the PD. Already a few months before the vote, on 4 March 2018, what was the party’s third national-level electoral test augured very badly for it. It was suffering a dramatic and uninterrupted loss of support: from the referendum on the constitutional reform, the decline in the party’s electoral appeal seemed to be constant, and the attempts to revive it, with the resignation of Renzi as Premier and the advent of Gentiloni in his place, seemed to be in vain. Vain was the hope of regaining Italians’ trust in both the party and its government. An increasingly lost electorate, both from the numerical point of view and in its perceptions of its preferred party, no longer understood either what its political proposal was, or the vision of society to which it aspired. At the 2018 general election, there was the clear affirmation of the Five Star Movement, which won almost a third of the vote in both branches of Parliament, while the Democratic Party suffered a sharp drop, winning a disappointing 18.7% (in the lower Chamber), equivalent to the loss of just over two and a half million votes. Within a few days, the defeat led to Renzi’s resignation from the secretariat, accompanied by a substantial renunciation of the very pragmatic style of his leadership—this as the result of a shared negative evaluation by large numbers of party officials, not only those associated with the left-wing minority. The PD National Assembly elected the former Minister of Agriculture, Maurizio Martina, as interim general secretary, with the task of leading the party until new primaries, convened for 3 March 2019, could be held. The factions that had explicitly supported the leadership of Renzi
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were the protagonists of a kind of “diaspora”, distributing their support among the three candidates in the running: the governor of Lazio, Nicola Zingaretti, the interim general secretary, Martina, and the ex-radical, Roberto Giachetti. The controversial judgement of Renzi, however, seemed destined, for better or for worse, to overshadow the congressional debate, which revealed a division between the small minority of the party, supporting Giachetti, which proudly defended the record of Renzi’s government, and those who, in contrast, believed it was necessary to draw a line under that experience, such as Zingaretti and partially Martina. The birth of an unusual, yellow-green, majority between the League and the M5S, after the PD’s refusal to coalesce with the latter, placed a dark cloud over the party, after almost eight uninterrupted years as part of the governing majority, pending a feasible reconstruction.
The Fourth Phase: Zingaretti’s “Omnibus Party” The primaries of 3 March 2019, held in a climate of relative indifference on the part of citizens and public opinion, saw the participation of approximately 1,580,000 selectors, two-thirds of whom voted for Zingaretti, while Martina and Giachetti obtained respectively 22% and 12% of the vote. The victory of Zingaretti signalled a desire by the PD to turn its back on a period of its history during which it had been dominated by its leader. The party’s Statute was changed again, eliminating the rule providing that the party’s leader was automatically its candidate Prime Minister and therefore its candidate to lead the coalition of the centre-left in national elections. Zingaretti’s more collegial and inclusive leadership style (a sort of omnibus party, all “on board”), together with the constructive approach taken by most of Martina’s followers, resulted in an evident reduction in internal conflict. Only the relationship with the smaller Giachetti faction remained acrimonious as the two sides sought to emphasise the distance between the spirit of the new leadership, closer to that of Bersani, and the more incisively reformist and pragmatic inspiration of the Renzian outlook. Anyway, the conduct of Zingaretti seemed to correspond to the expectations of greater unity widespread both among officials representing the party in central office and among party members at ground level, not to mention a large proportion of the party’s sympathisers, the so-called people of the primaries. A new cohesion was now built at the expense of the personal effectiveness and media visibility of
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the new secretary, in a party crowded by survivors of the various diasporas that had taken place on the left over the years and which in the following few months would see the departure of Renzi himself. By the way, paradoxically, at the end of 2019, twelve years after the birth of the Democratic Party, none of the previous party leaders elected through the primaries would still be present within it, and Veltroni himself was outside the boundaries of an active politics in the PD, having become a writer and a docufilm director.
“It’s daily normality that helps you stay human. I do the shopping, I cook, I take the bus, but without photographers around” said Nicola Zingaretti in a recent interview with Vanity Fair. Born in Rome on 11 October 1965, Zingaretti had an unremarkable upbringing, developing a strong passion for politics from adolescence, which led him to make passion his own unique trademark. Perhaps he is the last example of a party official produced by the communist tradition, whose professional milestones reflect the classic career path taken by political leaders who combine internal party office-holding with experience in local and regional government as well as in the European Parliament. The younger brother of the actor Luca Zingaretti, the popular commissar Montalbano of the RAI fiction series inspired by Andrea Camilleri’s novels, Nicola joined the PCI in 1985, when he was just twenty, to become the municipal secretary of the roman FIGC, the communist youth organization. In this way he began an early and rapid political ascent within the PCI, which in just seven years, in 1992, led him to become secretary of the Young Left, the new organization for left-wing youth created as part of the transition from the PCI to the PDS. The following year, as a corollary of his now solid party commitments, his local-government career began with his election as a municipal councillor in Rome. From the mid-1990s, his party commitments led him to assume an international role: in 1995 he became President of the International Union of Socialist Youth, as well as Vice President of the Youth section of the International Socialist Movement. In 1998, having been appointed International Relations spokesperson for the DS National Committee, he organized the Congress of the European Socialist Party in Milan. In 2000 he became Secretary of the Roman Federation of the DS and he would be the coordinator of the campaign to elect Veltroni (with whom he has always had a very strong tie) as mayor of Rome.
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Moreover, the early 2000s was a very positive period for the Roman centre-left coalition, which in 2003 also won the Roman provincial elections, while the DS became the largest party in the province after eight years of centre-right supremacy. After becoming the most prominent centre-left spokesperson in the politics of Rome and Lazio, in 2008 Zingaretti was elected President of the Province of Rome and ran for the office of president of the Lazio region, where he was elected for the first time in 2013 and for a second term in 2018, despite the fact that in the general election of the same year the centre-left coalition suffered an humiliating defeat. Zingaretti would also be the first, and so far the only, President of Lazio to be elected twice in succession. One of the main representatives of the former DS within the Democratic Party, in the autumn of 2018 Zingaretti launched his candidacy for the position of party general secretary, immediately being able to count on the support of Gentiloni and Franceschini as well as on his historic proximity to Veltroni. The primaries of 4 March 2019 saw him elected with 66% of the votes, ahead of both the former interim general secretary, Martina, and of Giachetti who was supported by a minority previously very close to Renzi. Thus began Zingaretti’s political experience as leader of the PD, which position he held until 14 March 2021.
Zingaretti was immediately put to the test in the elections for the new European Parliament, which would be held less than three months after his election as PD secretary, in May 2019, even though there was a desire, both at the top of the party and in the party on the ground, not to use this first electoral challenge to judge the nascent leadership too harshly. The significant although limited recovery of support in the European elections, which saw the Democratic Party obtain 22.7% of the votes, almost four points more than at the general election the previous year, was welcomed. The government crisis provoked by Salvini in the hope of acquiring “full powers” through fresh elections following the encouraging performance of his party in the European elections, and the growing conflict between the League and the M5s starting during the European election campaign itself, gave unexpected centrality to the PD, when the possibility of a government agreement with the Five Star Movement itself became apparent. The PD and the M5s had almost always had very tense relations, their supporters and officials often showing barely concealed hatred for each
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other. Yet despite this, the two parties decided to try to reach a governing accord, driven as they were by two main considerations. The first was their fear, encouraged by voting intentions polls, that in the event of early elections, Salvini and the centre-right would obtain absolute majorities in both chambers of Parliament and thus form a government whose policies would be in open conflict with Italy’s position in Europe. Such a government, with a “sovereigntist” outlook, would have the parliamentary support to enable it to remain in office for an entire legislative term, with the risk of dragging the country, according to the PD, in the direction of a social and economic disaster. The second consideration, of a more immediate-term nature, was that the time required for the campaign that would have to be conducted in the event of fresh elections, would make it impossible to legislate for that year’s budget—which in many quarters was deemed crucial for the fate of the Italian economy. For the M5s, there was the further consideration that an election would almost certainly see it perform very badly and risk it returning to Parliament with fewer than half the number of deputies and senators it had managed to elect as a result of its outstanding performance in 2018. The former PD general secretary, Matteo Renzi, was among those most keen for an agreement with the M5s—this partly for the reasons mentioned above, partly because in the event of early elections he would lose large numbers of his loyal parliamentary followers, elected when he was party leader and therefore had control of the party lists. The new general secretary, Nicola Zingaretti who, for precisely the opposite reasons, was initially reluctant, in the end became convinced that agreement was the best path for the country and for his party. Consequently, he began the negotiations that led to the formation of a new parliamentary majority consisting of the PD, the M5s and LeU, which came together only in early September. The second cabinet headed by Giuseppe Conte therefore brought the Democratic Party back into government, even though its aims had more to do with excluding Salvini from office than with bringing about serious political and government change. Over the subsequent months, Conte’s new government seemed to withstand the pressures exerted on it by the widely foreseen internal disagreements and debates about how much of the legacy of the outgoing government to retain, especially concerning the issues of security and immigration. In relation to these, the leadership of the PD found it difficult to support the earlier reforms Salvini had spearheaded when in office. The main instigator of the conflicts was once again Matteo Renzi. Though
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he had been one of the leaders who had gone furthest in seeking to bring about the unprecedented governing alliance, in the weeks that followed he took extremely critical stands both in relation to the M5s and in relation to the PD. In an attempt to create more room for manoeuvre for himself, he finally decided to abandon the PD and to create a new party, Italia Viva, taking with him a sizeable number of faithful parliamentarians and ministers, while remaining part of the governing majority. What the government appeared to lack, however, was a clear change of direction as compared to the outgoing government: a shared political project it could present to citizens as a vision for the years ahead. Voters, polls suggested, appeared to be aware of this lack of vision and remained reluctant to express high levels of trust in the new executive whose approvals ratings remained much lower than those enjoyed by the first Conte government. The opposition parties, especially the League and the right-wing Fratelli d’Italia, drew comfort from this—and from the fact that their own poll ratings continued to hold up, confirming and (especially in the case of FDI) improving upon the support they had won at the European Parliament election in May. The first real test for the government, and especially for the PD, one that was perhaps decisive for the very survival of the executive, came with the regional elections in Emilia-Romagna in January 2020. This region, which had been a symbol of the communist subculture and had been governed for decades after the War by a left-wing coalition of the PCI and the PSI, now risked passing into the hands of the centre-right. Until just over a decade previously, the centre-left had controlled almost all the country’s regional administrations. The only exceptions had been Sicily, Lombardy, Veneto and, occasionally, Molise. From 2018 onwards, the situation had been radically different in that there had never been an election that did not result, sometimes with a very large majority, in a victory for its opponents. From then, the centre-right had conquered, one after the other, Basilicata, Sicily, Sardinia, Friuli, Abruzzo and Molise, Piemonte, Trentino and Calabria, taking to 13 out of 20 the number of regions under its control. All these regions, with the exception of Veneto and Lombardy, had been realistic targets for both the centreleft and the centre-right and had had administrations staffed by both coalitions. In contrast, the four regions making up the so-called red belt— Tuscany, Marche, Umbria and Emilia-Romagna—had always remained in the hands of the centre-left.
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Some months beforehand, immediately after the birth of the yellow– red government, came the first signs of the end of the post-communist supremacy: in Umbria, the unprecedented PD-M5s alliance had gone down to a crushing defeat outdistanced by the centre-right by more than twenty percentage points, and the centre-left’s hegemony had begun to wane. If the same happened in Emilia-Romagna, it was suggested, then the situation for the centre-left would begin to be extremely worrying— less because of its impact on the government than for what it would imply, in social and cultural terms, for the left’s position in the country at large. This was because it would mark the end of an historical epoch—one in which Emilia-Romagna had always stood out as a region that had been well governed; whose admirers had used it to suggest that another Italy was possible; where employment, welfare and hospitality had gone hand in hand with high standards of living and high levels of social integration. It was a model that risked disappearing under the pressure of the League and Salvini. Opinion polls suggested that the contest would be a very closely fought one, with the lead enjoyed by the outgoing regional president, Stefano Bonaccini, always remaining very small. In the end, the fears of the PD and the government of an historic defeat failed to materialise. Bonaccini won by a large margin. However, the decline in support for the centre-left, especially in the suburbs, and the increased support for the centre-right remained indisputable, revealing that in two crucial respects the situation in Emilia-Romagna was the same as that in the rest of the country. With regard to the performance of the centre-right, certainly, Salvini’s coalition failed to achieve an outcome the polls had suggested was at least possible. The historic “red” region appeared still to be unwinnable. However, the coalition led by the League now seemed to have become clearly competitive, confirming the result it had achieved at the European election (44%), improving on its performance at the 2018 general election by ten percentage points and on its performance at the previous regional election by even more. The general impression was that Salvini’s appeal in Emilia-Romagna as elsewhere—with stronger and more visible candidates locally and nationally and higher turnouts in the suburbs—was the one with the greatest chance of winning a majority for many years to come. Second, the elections marked the decline of the “post-communist” hegemony in the historic red region. Despite the respectable performance of Bonaccini and his coalition, the impression conveyed by the election
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outcome was of a region geographically divided into two, partly interlocking, parts, or even of two completely different regions. On the one hand, there was the division between centre and periphery, with the most densely populated municipalities voting for the left, those in the peripheries for the right. On the other hand, there was the division between the various provinces, with Piacenza, Parma, Ferrara and Rimini going to the right and those, such as Reggio Emilia, Modena and Bologna, strung out in a relatively central geographical position (the heart of the socialist and communist subculture) remaining, for the time being, with the left. It is problematic to think of Emilia-Romagna as a homogenously “red” region. Rather, it is one housing two sharply contrasting realities as between provincial capitals and their hinterlands. This phenomenon has been reflected elsewhere, throughout the West, for at least a decade. The affirmation of right-wing populist and sovereigntist parties, and the decline of progressive and leftist parties, has been increasing for at least a decade in most Western democratic countries, starting with Europe. And so far, neither the PD nor the other European socialist and socialdemocratic parties have succeeded in providing adequate responses, within valid and shareable political frameworks, to the problems of voters and society as a whole. In recent months, many political transformations have taken place in Italy, which have once again changed the entire scenario: Renzi withdrew his support for Conte’s government; to avoid an early general election, the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, asked the previous head of the ECB Mario Draghi to form a technocrat-led government, which was supported by almost all the parties represented in Parliament, with the exception of Fratelli d’Italia (led by Giorgia Meloni). Nicola Zingaretti resigned as secretary of PD and was replaced, for the first time without primaries, by Enrico Letta. Under the leadership of Letta, the Democratic Party saw further change, becoming a sort of “party of government”, adopting policies very close to those being pursued by the new Prime Minister. In the months following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, likely political developments became uncertain as did the role of the Democratic Party, which seemed to require further radical transformation to regain appeal among Italian voters. Mario Draghi’s resignation led Italy to a new general election which delivered the country into the hands of the right-wing coalition, supported by almost half of the voting electorate (45%), even though
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turnout fell to its lowest level in Italian electoral history: in fact, only 2 out of 3 Italians participated in the poll. Fratelli d’Italia had the highest level of support, with more than 25% of the votes, the Democratic Party took second place with a paltry 19%, while the coalition it led was overtaken by the centre-right coalition by nearly 15% of the votes.
The Fifth Phase: Schlein’s “Movement Party” This bitter defeat, along with the parallel landslide by the opposing coalition which leaned much further to the right than during the years of Berlusconism and Forza Italia, led to another resignation of a PD secretary. Letta, in fact, stepped down from the leadership of the party and announced new primaries a few months later. Meanwhile, the new government, consisting of Fratelli d’Italia, the Lega and Forza Italia, was established under the leadership of a new Prime Minister, FdI’s Giorgia Meloni, whose party had clearly emerged victorious in the elections. The February 2023 primaries pit the President of Emilia-Romagna, Stefano Bonaccini—who was well liked by party members (among whom he won a majority) and was a man of continuity, including territorial continuity—against Elly Schlein, who represents the “new”, the novelty of the PD. A young woman, without a past in the Democratic Party and who presented herself in a certainly more radical guise than Bonaccini, Schlein would be supported by most sympathisers and would manage in that way to defeat Bonaccini, albeit by a narrow margin. The new PD secretary initially appeared to be successful, especially in her role as an opponent of the Meloni government. In her first few weeks, she brought a sense of freshness to a political force that had, for nearly a decade (with the exception of the Lega-M5s period of office), been “trapped in government” out of a sense of responsibility towards the country. The mere notion of a shift in perspective, moving away from the stale debate between the left and centre, and changing the party’s approach and slogans, had an immediate impact on public opinion, creating a perception of revitalisation and renewal, raising hopes that different paths might be pursued. Of course, we must also consider the policy decisions and actions of the new secretary. She has made clear statements and proclamations that take a confrontational stance against the measures and policies of the rightcentre government. However, there has been some hesitation, particularly
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on issues that are not entirely settled within the party, such as wastedisposal plants and the matter of supplying arms to Ukraine, as some observers have noted. Under her leadership, the party has seen a boost, particularly because, for the first time in decades, the PD remains firmly in opposition. This position makes it possible to develop significant criticisms of the government. This advantage propelled Giorgia Meloni from obscurity to stardom in little more than a year. The Democratic Party itself could benefit from this opposition advantage, but it must be able to outline a vision for the future, offer an effective alternative to current policies, provide clear and understandable slogans, and demonstrate the vision that has been lacking in most of the PD’s leaders up to this point.
Elena Ethel Schlein, also known as Elly, was born on 4 May 1985, in Lugano, Canton Ticino. It’s essential to highlight the family background in which Elly grew up, as it played a significant role in shaping her political engagement. Her father, Melvin Schlein, an American political scientist and academic with Jewish roots from Balkan Europe, held the position of professor emeritus of political science and history at Franklin University in Lugano when Elly was born. Her mother, Maria Paola Viviani, was a full professor of comparative public law at the University of Insubria. She is also related to Agostino Viviani, an anti-fascist lawyer who served as a senator for the Italian Socialist Party. Elly’s siblings include Benjamin, a mathematician, and Susanna, who serves as first diplomatic counsellor at the Italian Embassy in Athens. After graduating with honours from Lugano Cantonal High School in 2004, Elly moved to Bologna. In March 2011, she graduated with honours in law, presenting a thesis on constitutional law. During her time in the United States, she volunteered in Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. In 2011, Elly co-founded the university student association, Progrè, in Bologna. The organization aimed to raise awareness of migration policies and prison conditions, publishing its own magazine. In April 2013, following the unsuccessful presidential candidacy of Romano Prodi, she initiated the #OccupyPD campaign in response to the national leadership’s decision to support the Letta grand coalition government. This campaign involved occupying several party offices to voice the discontent of the party’s youth base.
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During the 2013 PD primary elections, Elly supported the candidacy of Pippo Civati, a member of the Chamber of Deputies and former regional councillor from Lombardy. Civati placed third behind Cuperlo and Renzi. Elly remained involved in the national leadership as a member of the Civati faction. In the 2014 European elections, she was elected as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) on the PD’s lists, receiving over 50,000 votes. However, after a year, she left the party due to disagreements with the political direction being taken by Secretary and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, whom she characterized as a politician of the “centreright”. She subsequently joined Possibile, a party founded by Civati. In 2020, she ran in the regional elections in Emilia-Romagna on an electoral list fielded by a coalition of left-wing groups. Elly was elected with over 22,000 votes, becoming the list candidate with the highest number of preference votes in the history of regional elections in Emilia-Romagna. She was appointed vice-president of the region and was responsible for welfare and the Climate Pact under the region’s re-elected president, Stefano Bonaccini. At the early general election of 2022, Elly ran for and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies as an independent, representing the Emilia-Romagna constituency. Following Enrico Letta’s resignation as national secretary, she officially entered the race for the PD secretariat on 4 December and re-joined the party on 12 December, ending her seven-year absence. In the internal vote involving PD members, Schlein secured 35% compared to Bonaccini’s 53%. However, in the open primaries held on 26 February, she was elected as secretary with 53.8% of the vote, surpassing Bonaccini’s 46.2%. This marked the first time in the party’s history that a female secretary had been elected, and it was also the first time the outcome of the membership vote had been overturned in the open primaries .
The year 2023 appears to mark a critical turning point for the PD. The party has had to come to terms with what, in the 2022 general election, was one of its worst electoral performances ever—one that has been echoed in nearly all subsequent electoral contests, be it regional or municipal, with only a few minor exceptions. The party’s performances at these elections, apart from being disappointing in themselves, were exacerbated by the lack of cohesion within the centre-left coalition. It trailed behind the centre-right coalition by more than 15 points, and the centre-right
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looks set to govern without significant obstacles for the remainder of the legislative term and potentially to extend its hold on office beyond 2027. After a decade of electoral competitiveness, the PD’s second decade has suggested a failure to realise the “majoritarian vocation” initially articulated by Veltroni. Public opinion, party members and citizens who lean towards the PD are demanding a substantial change in direction after years of internal disputes. They seek a genuine alternative political proposal to counter the right-centre governments led first by Salvini’s League and now by Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia. Lastly, the outcome of the April 2023 vote in Molise (with the victory of the right-wing coalition with a lead of over 25%) represents the culmination of the opposition establishment’s failures and shortcomings. This regional cannot be dismissed as a minor electoral event, for it reveals that Italian politics have reached a turning point, a year zero for the main opposition party, with several factors having contributed to the shift. First, it reveals that abstention no longer favours the centre-left. Over the past four to five years, particularly since Salvini’s victory in the 2019 European elections, lower voter turnout has benefitted the right. In contrast to the situation hitherto, today, centre-left voters are more likely to abstain from voting. Second, there has been a shift from city centres to the suburbs. That is, larger cities have gradually turned away from the left. For example, in Isernia, the right-wing majority won by a significant margin over the regional average. In Campobasso, where the progressive coalition had a significant victory only three years earlier, the two coalitions tied. This trend has been observed in various municipalities in previous local elections as well. Third, the 5-star-PD alliance struggled to win support obtaining 15– 20% fewer votes than the combined vote share of the two parties running separately at the previous election. Fourth, building a broad coalition with other opposition forces is proving difficult. While some advocate for a leftward shift, many believe it is almost impossible to form a cohesive coalition capable of defeating the right. Fifth, the centre-left faces difficulties in competing with the Meloniled centre-right, which continues to attract moderate voters. To regain competitiveness, the opposition needs to identify key issues that can convince citizens, especially in areas like employment, wages, development, healthcare and transportation.
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If Elly Schlein can develop a convincing programme, opposition forces may regain their competitive edge, but achieving this before the end of the current legislative term appears challenging. For the PD, 2023 seems to represent a genuine reset, a year zero, waiting for a possible (partial) resurrection in the European elections of 2024.
References Calise, M. (2016). La democrazia del leader, Laterza, Roma-Bari. Drucker, H. (1979). Doctrine and Ethos in the Labour Party, Londra: Allen & Unwin. Mannheimer, R., and P. Natale. (2009). L’Italia dei furbi, Il Sole 24 ore, Milano. Natale, P. (2002). ‘Una fedeltà leggera: i movimenti di voto nella «Seconda Repubblica»’, in “Maggioritario, finalmente? La transizione elettorale 1994– 2001” (a cura di R.D’Alimonte e S.Bartolini, Il Mulino, Bologna. Natale, P. (2007). ‘Mobilità elettorale e “fedeltà leggera”: i movimenti di voto’, in “Nel segreto dell’urna” (a cura di Feltrin, Natale e Ricolfi), Utet, Torino. Natale, P. and L.M. e Fasano. (2017). L’ultimo partito. Dieci anni di Partito Democratico, Torino: Giappichelli. Salvati, M. (2003). Il Partito democratico. Alle origini di un’idea politica, Bologna: il Mulino.
CHAPTER 3
New Labour and the Italian PD
Abstract This chapter discusses “New Labour”, considering the similarities with the PD and therefore the extent to which an understanding of the former helps us to understand the latter. The first section places the two parties in context by discussing the overlap between their electoral trajectories and those of European parties of the mainstream left generally. The second considers why “New Labour” ultimately failed to bring about any lasting change in the fortunes of the left in the UK. The third considers the PD, arguing that its failure, hitherto, to realise a majoritarian vocation, has at least in part to do with matters very similar to those that account for the failure of “New Labour”. The final section concludes. It will suggest that both New Labour and the Partito Democratico provide examples of mainstream left parties which, having embraced neo-liberal ideological assumptions, becoming converts to the causes of deregulation and a reduced welfare state, faced electoral calamity as a result, losing vast numbers of their erstwhile supporters (the so-called losers of globalisation) to the Eurosceptical, populist right—with the resulting Brexit catastrophe in the UK and the consolidation of the far-right League and Fratelli d’Italia in Italy. Keywords Political parties · Labour party · “New” labour · Italian Democratic Party · Party organisation · Party leadership · Voting behaviour · Ideology · Political culture
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 L. M. Fasano et al., The Italian Democratic Party and New Labour, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54059-2_3
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Policy should never be made by those who do not have to live with the consequences. (Liza Schuster, City University of London)
The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the “New Labour” phenomenon with a view to considering the extent to which there are to be found similarities with the phenomenon of the Italian Partito Democratico (Democratic Party, PD) and therefore the extent to which an understanding of the former can help us to understand the latter. It is divided into four sections. The following section places the two parties in comparative and historical context by discussing, first, the overlap between their electoral trajectories and those of European parties of the mainstream left generally, and then the commonalities, in terms of economic, social and political landscapes, that account for them. The second section discusses the distinguishing characteristics of “New Labour” before drawing on this discussion to consider why, in spite of its apparent novelty and initial success, it ultimately failed to bring about any lasting change in the fortunes of the left in the UK. The third section moves on to consider the PD, arguing that its failure, hitherto, to achieve the objective it set for itself at the outset, namely, to occupy all of the political space to the left of centre and so realise a majoritarian vocation, has at least in part to do with matters very similar to those that account for the failure of “New Labour”. The final section concludes.
The Electoral Fortunes of New Labour and the PD in Comparative and Historical Perspective However else it may be described, stemming from the commitment to equality, the left-wing project has always been one of empowering the underprivileged or disadvantaged strata—for much of the left’s history referred to as “the working class”—by helping them to make up in numbers what they lack in terms of other resources, while recognising that, to be effective, large numbers must be organised. Consequently, the most telling measure of the left’s performance, at least in electoral terms, is the number of voters, as a proportion of the electorate, it successfully persuades to turn out and, once at the polls, compactly to vote for its main party representative. On this basis, we see that the proportions averaged 33.7% and 24.7% in the UK and Italy, respectively, until the end of
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the 1970s and have been 23.5% and 19.1% in the two countries, respectively, since that time (Fig. 3.1). In neither case, then, has the left come close to mobilising a majority of the electorate. Far from representing exceptions, these performances, on the contrary, represent the norm in Europe: “even when successful social democrats or labourists in the period 1944–78 gained 40% or more of the electorate in Austria, Norway, Britain or Sweden, and even edged up to majority status in Austria and Sweden temporarily, their electoral progress was arrested” (Levy 1989: 208). There were two reasons for this. On the one hand, parties of the left competed with parties seeking to preserve the status quo. The universal franchise meant that these parties had to appeal beyond the ranks of the privileged to voters parties of the left were also seeking to mobilise. Status quo-oriented parties were able to win significant proportions of these voters by means of discourses—“one nation Conservatism”, “social Catholicism” and so forth—central planks of which were to do at least some of what the left was also seeking to do, namely, “to reduce the significance of socio-economic divisions by adding to citizenship entitlements with regard to the state and so compensating for the inequalities between people engendered by the market” (Newell 2022). On the other hand, having made the choice to seek the advancement of the interests of the underprivileged within the institutions of capitalist society, through elections and reform rather than revolution, parties of the left found themselves confronted with the dilemma famously outlined by Przeworski and Sprague (1986). That is, if they restricted their appeals to one segment of society, then they could not win a majority—either because it did not represent a majority or because less than the entirety of those belonging to that segment would vote for the party. On the other hand, if they sought to broaden their appeals beyond the segment, downplaying its specific claims, then they could not win a majority either as doing so meant that those belonging to the segment became vulnerable to appeals to vote on the basis of alternative—ethnic, linguistic, confessional, etc.—identities. In both the UK and Italy, the averages reveal that the left has been even less successful in approaching a majority in the most recent period than it was in the three initial post-war decades. In fact, as measures of the left’s capacity to mobilise voters, the figures if anything understate the decline in its fortunes. In the UK case, the electoral system, by confining the rational voter’s choices to the two front runners in each constituency, has “artificially” underpinned support for the Labour Party,
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UK
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Fig. 3.1 % of the electorate voting for the main party of the left, UK and Italy, since WW2 (Note Horizontal axis gives the years elections were held in the UK. Results for Italy relate to the general elections held in 1948, 1953, 1958, 1963, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1979, 1983, 1987, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2001, 2006, 2008, 2013, 2018. Vertical bars for the UK show the proportion of the electorate mobilised by the Labour Party. Vertical bars for Italy show the proportion of the electorate mobilised in Chamber of Deputies elections by the Popular Democratic Front (1948), the Italian Communist Party (1953–1987), the Democratic Party of the Left (1992–1996), the Democrats of the Left (2001), the Olive Tree (2006), the Democratic Party [2008–2018])
always preventing it, no matter how unpopular it has been, from losing its status as one of the two largest parties. In the Italian case, the contrast between the earlier and later periods would be larger if it took account of the fact that for much of the first period not one but two significantly sized parties, the Communists and the Socialists, competed for the mantle of most authentic representative of the less privileged strata. Nor do the figures say anything about the quality of the support for the parties. Such support, we know from the accumulated survey data, is much more fluid now than it was in the early post-war years. Much less of it can be attributed, now than in the past, to the voters the parties originally thought of as their principal interlocutors: society’s least privileged. Indeed, the 2018 elections in Italy and the 2019 elections in the UK gave rise to the phenomenon of what De Sio (2018) has referred to as “class voting in reverse”. This is the tendency of the left, if anything, to attract greater support among those perceiving themselves as members of
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the more affluent, than among those perceiving themselves as members of the less affluent, social strata. In both countries, then, the left has been subject to a process of longterm electoral decline, one that also represents the norm rather than the exception, and which, therefore, reflects the problems that have beset the left in Western democracies generally since the end of the Second World War. In the initial post-war years, support for parties of the left was underpinned by a combination of mutually reinforcing economic, social and political circumstances that have since gone more or less completely out of existence. Traditionally, claims by parties of the left to be the most authentic representatives of the interests of the working class were met with a response on the part of voters—that is, class went some way to structuring the vote—at least partly because the economic landscape—bringing together workers in large factories manufacturing mass-produced goods for protected domestic markets—was such as to encourage the parties’ interlocutors to accept working-class identities for themselves. Especially if they lived in distinct working-class neighbourhoods, they were likely to vote for the left “automatically”, seeing in its party the representative of the group to which they themselves belonged. The competing influences to which they were exposed would, relative to what would come later, be limited—both by the limitations of their own economic resources and by the efforts of the left-wing parties themselves: parties of mass integration reliant on mass memberships to get their messages across. These circumstances, in turn, helped to propel into, or to maintain in government office, parties of the left whose political fortunes were underpinned by the way in which domestic markets, sustained by high wages and Keynesian demand management, made possible rising productivity and broadly shared prosperity. From round about the early 1970s, economic developments—globalisation and corresponding changes in European labour markets and industrial structures, driven, most notably, by the so-called oil shock, the deregulation of international markets and the development of computer technology—brought an accelerating decline in the size of the manual working class and a decline, among those who remained working class, in the numbers perceiving themselves as such. New opportunities for escape from traditional working-class milieux brought a decline in cultural uniformities and heightened senses of individualism. These, together with media developments—making it possible for political leaders to appeal
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directly to voters and so escape reliance on well-oiled party machines with mass memberships for the purposes of communication—brought a withering of the grass-roots organisations of the parties of the left that had once provided leisure and other services aimed at the encadrement of their followers. Meanwhile, reliance on media for political communication— television first, the Internet and social media in the new century—meant bowing to media imperatives and thus to the imperatives of personalisation and the emergence of celebrity politics. This added to the impact of globalisation and the restrictions it placed on the ability of parties of the left to distinguish themselves from competitors on the right on position issues. Forced to compete on valence issues, on the qualities of their leaders and the provision of spectacle, parties of the left lost their capacity to mediate effectively between state and society, increasingly treating voters as passive spectators in an “audience democracy” (Manin 1997). Voters, for their part, reacted by voting in an increasingly critical fashion, far less on the basis of hereditary and affective ties and far more on the basis of their evaluations of competence and performance where their decisions were as likely as not to lead them to vote for new, “outsider”, parties, or for no party at all. European parties of the left therefore now operate in a social and political context radically different from that of earlier post-war decades, a context whose most significant features are the following. First, there is a more integrated Europe. Prior to the Maastricht Treaty, European integration had not gone far enough for it to feature highly, if at all, in public debate within the member states. Since then, it has not gone far enough not to do so. Thanks to the Maastricht Treaty, member states surrendered sovereignty in the area of monetary policy but without any corresponding development, at European level, of principles of fiscal solidarity or of mechanisms of democratic accountability. Consequently, in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash and the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis, leftwing parties in government in countries like Greece and Spain were obliged to pursue policies of austerity no different from those adopted in other countries by parties of the right. Meanwhile, the absence, in EU decision-making, of officially sanctioned partisanship or of mechanisms for the legitimate expression of opposition meant that opposition to austerity could only be expressed as opposition to the (EU) system, and this was spearheaded by new, outsider, parties combining nationalist and populist discourses.
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Second, neo-liberal globalisation has led to the emergence of a new social cleavage between the “winners” and “losers” of globalisation (Kriesi et al. 2006). The latter are the semi-skilled and unskilled workers experiencing unemployment and falling incomes thanks to the industrial restructuring and growing regional disparities associated with globalisation, who feel threatened economically and culturally by globalisation thanks to its requirement for increased labour mobility across national borders. The former are the better-educated workers employed in the new knowledge-intensive, high-technology, industries tending to develop, away from the peripheries inhabited by globalisation’s losers, in urbanised and metropolitan centres where the technological and scientific knowledge is most strongly present. While globalisation’s “losers” are socially conservative in outlook, globalisation’s winners are libertarian and cosmopolitan. Globalisation’s “losers” have suffered downward pressure on wages and living standards thanks to the shift in the international division of labour and the emergence of global supply chains. Globalisation’s “winners” have enjoyed progressively rising living standards especially if they have been able to save and invest, as invested savings have allowed them to share in economic growth with investment portfolios growing in value, year on year, in line with economic expansion. European parties of the left thus find themselves confronted with potential supporters among whom there is a growing economic and cultural divide. Their commitment to economic equality appeals to globalisation’s “losers” but is less attractive to globalisation’s “winners” while their commitment to equal rights for people of different genders, ethnicities, sexual orientations and so forth appeals to globalisation’s “winners” but is less attractive to “losers”. Consequently, the two categories are difficult to hold together in coalition.
New Labour Against this background, it is noteworthy that, despite its initial successes, “New Labour”—the supposedly novel political entity led by Tony Blair (Box 3.1) and then Gordon Brown (Box 3.2) between 1994 and 2010— has revealed itself incapable of reversing the party’s fortunes more permanently. In 1997, Labour won an unprecedented seat majority and the two subsequent general elections—only to lose the election in 2010 and the three subsequent elections. Had “New Labour” succeeded in engineering a permanent shift in the allegiances of the electorate then we would have expected to see this reflected, in the data concerning voters’ affective party ties. Stegmueller, Neundorf and Scotto (2014) explore the dynamics of
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Labour Party support between 1991 and 2008, just before the party was expelled from office, finding that while the proportion of Labour partisans steadily increased in the 1990s, peaking at 40% in 1997, by 2008 the proportion had declined to approximately 20%. Moreover, using panel data to explore what was going on beneath the aggregate changes, they find that an overwhelming majority of those whose partisanship remained unchanged over the period were averse to Labour. Stable Labour partisans amounted to just 13% of the sample with “New Labour’s” rise and fall resting on the one-third of the electorate “who shifted in and out of supporting Labour” (Stegmueller et al. 2014: 12). Box 3.1 Tony Blair Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, born on 6 May 1953, in Edinburgh joined the Labour Party in 1975 shortly after graduating in Law from Oxford. When elected to Parliament in 1983, he was positioned on the left of the party, but then rose rapidly through the ranks to become party leader in 1994. In this position, one of his first acts was to secure the repeal of “Clause IV”, the commitment in the party’s statute to public ownership. As Prime Minister from 1997, he was responsible for overseeing the introduction of a number of progressive reforms including freedom of information legislation, a significant extension of the rights of members of the LGBTQI+ community, legislative assemblies for Scotland and Wales and legislation incorporating into UK law the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights. He oversaw significant increases in spending on health and education. On the other hand, he also promoted the marketization of these areas, introduced tuition fees for higher education, chose to retain the previous Conservative governments’ anti-trade union legislation and increased powers for the police, accompanying it with a moralising insistence on individual responsibility that gave Labour a social authoritarianism running counter to his party’s traditions. Shortly after the start of Blair’s second term, US President George W. Bush began his “War on Terror”. Blair’s decision, as part of this war, to join the president in the invasion of Iraq led to the collapse of his popularity and widespread allegations that he had misled Parliament concerning the reasons for the invasion. Following the start of his third term, which began with a significantly reduced majority, he announced his imminent retirement as party leader and Prime Minister, which came about in June 2007.
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Labour therefore failed to develop, over its thirteen years in office a sizeable core of stable supporters. In addition, viewed more closely, “New Labour” was not very successful even initially—while the degree of novelty it stood for is at best debatable. Observers were impressed by the record seat majority Blair won in 1997 and by his two subsequent general election wins (results unprecedented in the party’s history) and were wont (post hoc ergo propter hoc) to attribute the wins to the apparently radical change of direction he imposed on his party when he became leader in 1994. That is, since Blair coined the term “New Labour”, initially as a rhetorical device, precisely in order to emphasise how different his party was as compared to the party “many imagined it to have been during the late 1970s and early 1980s” (Fielding 2003: 3), not surprisingly, many took him at his word, attributing Labour’s victories to what they assumed was “a genuinely distinct political phenomenon” (Fielding 2003: 1). However, the sizes of the party’s seat majorities were misleading. Although in 1997 the seat majority was a record high, it was won against the background of a record-low turnout (71.4%: the lowest since 1945) so the party’s share of the electorate was no higher than in 1970, when it lost to the Conservatives (Fig. 3.1). Turnouts were, by a considerable margin, even lower in 2001 (59.4%) and 2005 (61.4%). Consequently, as Daddow (2011: 33) points out, “[t]he British first-past-the-post electoral system gave New Labour big working majorities, but in terms of the actual number of people turning out to vote for the government, the mandate was less than convincing and weakened with every election”. The victories reflected as much dissatisfaction with the Conservatives (especially in 1997) as they did positive support for Labour (whose victory in 2001 was widely perceived as a foregone conclusion and therefore achieved by default). Nor was it clear that what was thought responsible for the success—“New Labour”—was as novel as many assumed. While some have been wont to argue that it represented the renunciation of earlier ambitions in the area of market regulation, the abandonment of commitments to equality, and even the embrace of “Thatcherism”, others have argued that it represented more of a continuity than a break with the party’s past—pointing to, among others, the former Labour leader, Hugh Gaitskell, and the so-called revisionist thinkers who, in the 1950s and 1960s, made arguments about the party’s need to “adapt” that were not dissimilar to those that would later be made by Blair. The disagreement did not entirely overlap the distinction
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between apologists and critics of “New Labour”; for the stress on continuity was embraced not only by those less inclined to condemn it, but also by left-wing critics who “thought Blair to be in awe of capitalism, but considered he shared that disposition with most previous Labour leaders” (Fielding 2003: 2). Box 3.2 Gordon Brown James Gordon Brown was born on 20 February 1951, in Renfrewshire, and after a history PhD in 1982 was—like Blair, with whom he shared a parliamentary office—elected to Parliament for the first time in 1983. It is widely believed that, in the contest leading Blair to become party leader, Brown agreed not to stand against him on the understanding that he would serve as Chancellor of the Exchequer with wide powers over domestic policy and that Blair would resign the premiership in his favour at the end of a second term. Denial by Blair’s supporters that any such deal was made contributed to an atmosphere of rivalry and animosity between the two men that led to periodic reports of actual conflicts marking more or less the entire period of Blair’s premiership. Consequently, when in 2007 Blair endorsed Brown’s candidacy for the party leadership only after it became clear that there would be no other serious contenders the gesture was taken as further evidence of the strained relations between the two. As Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1997 to 2007, Brown presided over the longest period of sustained economic growth in British history and a major reform of monetary and fiscal policy, including giving operational independence to the Bank of England. His insistence in 1997 that the Treasury would set “five economic tests” to determine whether the case had been made to adopt the Euro was thought to reflect a hostility to Eurozone membership which, had it been overcome, would have rendered Brexit practically impossible or at least considerably more difficult. As Prime Minister he was initially popular, but because he resisted speculation that he would seek a popular mandate of his own by calling an early general election, he was condemned to undergo the subsequent decline in popularity that would lead to his defeat in the general election at the end of the legislature’s five-year term in 2010.
The question we want to address is why “New Labour” ultimately failed to reverse the party’s declining fortunes. In order to get to grips with it, we have to have a clear understanding of the “New Labour” phenomenon itself. It was, we have said, a rhetorical device, designed to
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distance the party from its past. It was also a response to “Thatcherism”— meaning the political project pursued by the Conservative Party in office, under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, over four successive terms from 1979. The fact that it was a “political project” was significant; for this meant that it was not just a set of policies, but an attempt to alter, society-wide, modes of organisation, thought and value (Hall 2011: 10). This meant that by the time the Conservatives left office in 1997, the economic and social landscape was fundamentally different to the one they had inherited. By attacking the basic assumptions of the “post-war socialdemocratic consensus”,1 privatisation, the sale of council houses, the decline in manufacturing employment and anti-trade union legislation all helped to promote a culture of individualism and a decline in the extent to which citizens could or would look to collective action to provide solutions to problems of material security. There had been a fundamental “paradigm shift” from a social and economic model laid down by Labour in the immediate post-war years to a new, “neo-liberal”, paradigm consolidated by their Conservative opponents. And just as the Conservatives had, until Thatcher, felt obliged, for pragmatic reasons, to pursue their political objectives within the framework of the post-war consensus, so, now, Blair felt similarly obliged to adapt to the framework of his political opponents. Part of this involved accepting the public perceptions of his party that appeared to have become ingrained partly due to the ideological battle waged by the Conservatives in their “paradigm-shifting” endeavours: that it was economically incompetent, anti-aspirational and too beholden to the trade unions. That many of these perceptions were unfair or even false was, as Fielding (2003: 3) notes, “very much a moot point, for in 1994, Blair’s objective was to get elected, not debate the shortcomings of public opinion. This meant he had to take the people’s flawed perception of his party’s past and present as it was: Blair did not believe he enjoyed the time or the resources to alter it”. Hence, rather than attacking the Conservatives’ reforms (the privatisations, trade union legislation and so forth), he would accept them and stake his claim to the office of Prime
1 The economic order and social model to which the two major parties were at least rhetorically committed from the end of the war until the mid-1970s, involving support for a mixed economy, Keynesian demand management, a commitment to full employment, a recognised role for the trade unions in policy-making, market regulation and a generous welfare state.
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Minister by making the case that his party “had fundamentally and irreversibly changed with his election as leader” (Fielding 2003: 3) and that he could beat the Conservatives at their own game (a task with which he was given some involuntary assistance when on “black Wednesday” in September 1992, his opponents effectively surrendered their claim to be the most economically competent of the two parties because the government was forced to withdraw sterling from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism). From one point of view, then, “New Labour” could be interpreted a response to the party’s electoral difficulties—and thus potentially dismissed as merely “preference accommodating” (Ludlam 2005: 135): a more or less opportunistic strategy of appeasement of the small number of “swing voters” in the small number of marginal constituencies to which the main parties are obliged to appeal in a two-party system based on the single-member, simple plurality electoral system. Suggestions that “New Labour” was not just a response to the party’s electoral difficulties— and therefore was not merely “preference accommodating”, representing, rather, the pursuit of “an “accommodate-to-shape” strategy” (Ludlam 2005: 135–136)—usually base their cases on one or the other of three arguments. One is that to dismiss the “New Labour” project as being merely “preference accommodating” is to ignore precisely what was most distinctive about it, namely, that it was fundamentally a project of strategic communication driven by awareness of “the damage the press caused to the electoral fortunes of the Labour Party under Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock in the 1980s and early 1990s and [by the determination to avoid] a repeat performance in the later 1990s” (Daddow 2011: 66). Blair and his advisors were aware that the presentation and perception of policy were in practical terms inseparable from policy-making since “language does not just transmit thoughts or reflect the meanings of social context but actually takes part in the constitution of both” (Cabrera 2005: 27; cited by Daddow 2011: 63). For this reason, “New Labour” in government paid unusually close attention to managing the news agenda, seeking to control as many of the messages available for public consumption as it could, even to the extent of having its communications advisors (or “spin doctors”) attend Cabinet meetings. Consequently, the argument is that the distinction between accommodating and shaping public preferences is a difficult one to sustain in practice and that what was distinctive about “New Labour” was precisely the amount of effort it
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devoted to attempting to control what the public thought in the very act of attempting to accommodate it. A second argument is that the view that “New Labour” was merely an opportunistic embrace of the ideas of its opponents for the purpose of winning elections,2 erroneously implies that it was without any original intellectual foundations of its own, an implication that clashes with the reality of the theories by which it was informed. These gave it a “penchant for transcending binaries” (Daddow 2011: 82) that reflected the essence of the political battle it had to wage if it was to retain autonomy and room for manoeuvre: a battle against both the forces of the “Old Labour” left and the Conservative “new right”. It is not surprising, therefore, that the theories were conceived, by both observers and New Labour politicians alike, as ones reflecting commitment to a “Third Way”: a political project going beyond left and right “to forge a new political settlement fitted to the new conditions of a global economy but attentive to the importance of social cohesion” (Newman 2001: 40). Crucial to the argument—bearing in mind the relationship between language and policy mentioned above—is the point that conceptions of a “Third Way” were referred to extensively in speeches given by Blair and others to define Labour’s programme of reform. The third argument is that if “New Labour” really were nothing more than an opportunistic adaptation to electoral circumstances, then we would not really expect to find much by way of real novelty in the policy programme it put into effect after it achieved office and certainly nothing informed by a distinctive, “New Labour” outlook. And yet— it is argued—this is precisely what we do find. Janet Newman (2001), for example, points out, focussing on the first Labour government, that one view of it is of a government that merely continued an agenda laid down by its predecessors: one that transformed the relationship between state and society as a result of privatisation, introducing market mechanisms and managerialism to the public sphere, and recasting citizen users of public services as “customers”. In fact, Newman (2001: 1–2) argues, “the picture is more complex in that Labour also attempted to … forge a consensus around an agenda of “modernising” reforms” that, at least during its initial years in office, “emphasised innovation, experimentation 2 Margaret Thatcher once famously remarked, when asked what her greatest achievement was, “Tony Blair and New Labour. We forced our opponents to change their minds” https://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/2008/04/making-history.html.
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and policy evaluation designed to build the foundations for sustainable long-term change in public services”. “New Labour”, in short, attempted to bring about a shift to a new mode of governance, one in which “the discourses of the “Third Way” and of “Modernisation” work[ed] to establish the necessity of change and to define a particular programme of reform” (Newman 2001: 9). It is beyond the scope of this chapter to offer anything like an exhaustive account of the reasons for “New Labour’s” ultimate demise. We confine ourselves to offering some suggestions as to the part it itself may have played, by expanding upon the discussion of “New Labour” set out above. Then, by considering the extent to which similar phenomena may have been present in the recent history of the Partito Democratico (Democratic Party, PD) we explore how far they also help us to understand the vicissitudes of that party. In the first place, there was, arguably, a difficulty in the name itself. If the problem was to get past popular prejudices and negative attitudes towards the party, then the term “New Labour” could only ever be partially successful, for it was presented as the antithesis of what Blair and his advisors referred to as “Old Labour”: the unpopular party from which they were keen to take their distance. However, as George Lakoff’s theory of framing has taught us, negating frames simply reinforces them. It is for this reason that Lakoff entitled his (2004) book, Don’t think of an elephant! (Campus and Cosenza 2010) and why he implies that Richard Nixon, attempting to resist pressure to resign at the height of the Watergate scandal, was ill-advised to go on television, as he did, and declare to the nation, “I’m not a crook!” Similarly, if the voter mistrusted the Labour Party, then the unremitting insistence, from 1994, on describing it as “New Labour” was as likely to reinforce the feeling of mistrust as it was to convince the voter that he/she could safely ignore that feeling. Second, New Labour’s awareness that language and policy coconstitute one another led it, as we have seen, to be particularly sensitive to matters of presentation and communication—which in turn meant managing and controlling the messages used to construct news agendas. In a sense it was an especially striking example of the application of the principle of permanent campaigning (Blumenthal 1980): “using support mobilisation as a key resource for governing, while using governing as an instrument to build and sustain support—which in turn requires using communication as a tool in the battle to control the political agenda” (Paolucci and Newell 2008). Yet, as a tool of support mobilisation,
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permanent campaigning in “New Labour” hands suffered from a crucial weakness; for, if the purpose of political communication is, among other things, to establish and maintain one’s own credibility and authority while undermining those of opponents, then paradoxically, New Labour found that its attempts to control communication themselves left it vulnerable in these respects. Years before the term “fake news” was invented, with the arrival in office of “New Labour”, the term “spin” gained wide currency to mean much the same thing: something “pernicious and untrustworthy”, and something that “inherently privileged deception over honesty” (Daddow 2011: 64). In the hands of “New Labour” critics, “spin” came to imply that the “New Labour” project was “shallow and lacking in substance” (Daddow 2011: 66). And since it was all about attempting to control the news agenda, it was used to refer to New Labour’s highly centralised style of news management and policy-making, with power and authority heavily concentrated in the hands of the Prime Minister and his closest advisors—with the implication that their commitment to principles of government by consent, if not to principles of democracy themselves, was open to question. Third, the ability of a party to establish and maintain a loyal following is, arguably, at least partly related to its ability to project a clear ideological profile, one that clearly distinguishes it from its opponents, so that even the least politically engaged among citizens are able to perceive what divides the parties. Otherwise, it is difficult to mobilise them. Prior to the advent of “New Labour”, the distinction between Labour and the Conservatives was, arguably, well understood. In essence, Labour in public perceptions stood for public ownership, sharply progressive taxation and a generous welfare state. The Conservatives stood for free enterprise, low taxation and the minimal state. Given that “New Labour” sought to distance itself from both of these profiles, the issue was how successful its “Third Way” ideology would be in giving it an alternative profile that made it distinct. The “Third Way”, as is well known, owed much to the work of Anthony Giddens (1998, 2000) who argued that “distinctions between left and right were unhelpful in addressing contemporary problems” and that the Third Way “differed from the “old” left in its emphasis on the modernisation of the welfare state, but also from neo-liberalism in its emphasis on social investment and the need to build a flourishing civil society” (Newman 2001: 41). On close inspection, it is evident that the “Third Way” represents a coherent and potentially convincing idea. As Newman points out, in essence it involved the
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attempt to combine within a single discourse, traditional left-wing values concerning citizenship, welfare and society, and right-wing themes associated with markets and the economy. “People and communities became “capital (human and social)” central to economic success (Giddens 2000: 52). Education became a form of “investment” in the future. Equality was reconstructed as equality of access to education and employment opportunities. The welfare state was reconceptualised as a “social investment state”” (Newman 2001: 42). The issue was the potential of “the Third Way” to acquire a profile in the popular imagination as distinct as those to which it was opposed. In this regard, it is significant that it tended to be presented, in speeches and government policy documents, in one or the other of two ways: either as an idea that would deliver “the best of both worlds” (as in both a “successful economy” and a “humane society”) or as a programme of “modernising” reform juxtaposed to two discredited pasts. In either case, therefore, it tended to be presented predominantly in terms of what it was not rather than what it was —so it was hardly surprising that “many questioned how far the Third Way represented a distinctive political programme or policy direction” (Newman 2001: 45). The very fact that left-wing critics could argue that it was in reality an ideological cloak for the pursuit of a fundamentally neo-liberal political project—and the fact that its supporters equally vehemently denied such suggestions—was itself testimony to how little clarity there was, in the popular imagination, about what it, and therefore “New Labour”, actually stood for. Fourth, parties lacking clear ideological profiles must fall back on other means of mobilising supporters. Since the 1970s, the predominant way in which this has been done is by “personalisation”, as a result of which parties’ fortunes have come increasingly to depend on the personal appeal of their leaders; leaders, therefore, have come to acquire heightened power over their parties; and consequently, they have acquired increased powers over executives, when in office. This is the well-known process of the “presidentialisation” of politics (Poguntke and Webb (2005). “New Labour” sought to exploit these processes to the maximum extent possible. Blair’s conquest of the party leadership was heavily reliant on assumptions that of the candidates in contention his personal qualities gave him the greatest potential as a campaigner. Once he became Prime Minister he was, as a presidential, not to say autocratic leader, the high-profile human embodiment of “New Labour”, which
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had been very much his own, personal, project from the very beginning. He attempted, in short, to mobilise support by drawing heavily on his personal charisma—with the crucial weakness that this entailed. Compliance that is induced by the exercise of charismatic authority must inevitably be more fragile than the compliance that is the result of the other two types (legal-rational and traditional authority), since as soon as citizens’ dissatisfaction causes confidence in the unusual qualities of the charismatic leader to evaporate, then so too does his/her authority. Moreover, the persistence of charismatic authority over time is heavily dependent, to a degree that the other two types are not, on the continued successful production of desired outputs, as these are needed to sustain citizens’ beliefs in the leader’s unusual qualities in the first place. Fifth, at the centre of “New Labour’s” agenda of “modernising” public services were two contradictory frames, both of which were likely to enhance political dissatisfaction and the growth of anti-political sentiments. On the one hand, there was the empowering conception of the citizen as a consumer, a conception largely inherited from the previous government under John Major who had used it as a means of improving the efficiency of service delivery through the setting of performance targets, an emphasis on league tables and competition between service providers (e.g. in education). On the other hand, there was a disempowering emphasis on globalisation as an inevitable process to which states had no choice but to adapt, and to which the government’s “modernisation” agenda sought to respond. Both seemed as likely to raise as to reduce public dissatisfactions; for on the one hand, the government was inviting citizens to expect services to be of measurable quality with the implication that they had the right to complain when they were not. But on the other hand, it was telling them that there was no realistic alternative to its reform programme so that if they didn’t like it, then they could either put up or shut up. Finally, what Daddow (2011: 82) calls New Labour’s “penchant for transcending binaries”, referred to above, has turned out, in the case of the European issue, to have had consequences of the utmost gravity both for the party and for the country as a whole. When “New Labour” first took office, it did so in opposition to a Conservative Party that was very visibly divided on Europe. Europe was therefore coming to occupy an increasingly high profile on the agenda of public discussion in the UK, especially given the launch of the Euro and therefore the issue of the government’s stance in relation to it. Consequently, from
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1997, “New Labour” as a Europhile Party invested a considerable quantity of rhetorical resources in the attempt to undermine “Eurosceptical” attitudes among the public and so reduce the constraints on it as it sought to develop its European policy once in office. That it ultimately failed in this task was at least in part due to the crucial element of ambiguity that lay at the heart of its efforts. Thus, on the one hand it opposed the discourses of Eurosceptics and right-wing nationalists, but on the other hand, it did so, not from a position of principled commitment to the ideal of European integration, but rather from the strictly pragmatic position that Eurosceptics were mistaken as to where the national interest lay. As Blair himself put it: “I don’t support ever closer union for the sake of it; but precisely because, in the world in which we live, it will be the only way of advancing our national interest effectively” (cited by Daddow 2011: 131). The difficulty with such a position is that it would be unconvincing to (the few) convinced Europeans because it conveyed the message that the commitment to integration and supra-nationalism was less than wholehearted. At the same time, by insisting on integration on national interest grounds it would fail to convince Eurosceptics either precisely because from their perspective integration was inimical to “the national interest” as they understood the concept. In short, “New Labour’s” position reflected a long-standing ambiguity towards the European integration project in British political culture and it was a stance which, years later, in the aftermath of the 2016 Brexit referendum, would come back massively to bite it. At the election of 2019, polls suggested that voters’ positions on Brexit (for or against) were the most important issue in influencing their voting decisions—which was hardly surprising as the election had been called by the outgoing Conservatives on precisely this issue and fought by them under the slogan, “Get Brexit Done!”. Under these circumstances, Labour’s position of so-called constructive ambiguity (involving support for a second referendum on Brexit but the leader’s refusal to indicate which side he would campaign for in such a referendum) in attempting to please everyone ended up pleasing no one “and largely failed to keep the “Eurosceptics” among its supporters on board anyway. Thus, of those who voted Leave in 2016, 77% chose either the Conservatives or the Brexit party, including nearly a third (29%) of Leave voters who had chosen Labour at the previous election” (Newell 2022). In short, with citizens having by 2019 come to identify more strongly as “Leavers” or “Remainers” than they identified with any of the political parties, Labour was effectively appealing to an empty auditorium.
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Not surprisingly, therefore, it went down to an historic defeat—while the country as a whole lost what was by then the one remaining opportunity to avoid heading towards the door marked “EU exit”.
The Democratic Party Like “New Labour”, the PD was very much a project of seeking to synthesise, and thereby go beyond, two seemingly discredited alternatives: in its case, communism on the one hand and Christian Democracy on the other. These were two alternatives that had, quite literally, been fatally wounded: the first by the collapse of the Berlin Wall; the second by the Tangentopoli corruption scandal of the early 1990s, which had brought the disintegration of all the traditional governing parties and the transformation of the party system in a new, bipolar direction. It is not surprising, therefore, that the New Labour and PD projects developed in parallel and influenced one another. If the antecedents of New Labour could be traced back to the so-called revisionist thinkers of the 1950s and 1960s, then those of the PD were to be found in the “historic compromise” of Enrico Berlinguer of the 1970s. For all their substantive differences and differences of context, both antecedents were attempts to change the strategic thinking of their respective parties with a view to ensuring their continued viability as vehicles of progressive reform. In the 1990s, as Blair drove forward an overhaul of the Labour Party, symbolised by abandonment of the party constitution’s Clause IV commitment to public ownership, in Italy, the Communist Party underwent an even more radical overhaul symbolised, first, by its change of name and then by its leadership of the PD’s parent entity, the Olive Tree coalition, which took office just a year before New Labour. Both reflected the spirit of the times: a post-Cold War world marking the end of the “old ideologies” and the “end of history” in Francis Fukuyama’s (1992) famous phrase: a new beginning in which capitalism and liberal democracy were the only games in town. Tony Blair (born in 1953) and, the principal progenitor of the PD, Walter Veltroni (born in 1955) were closely acquainted and of similar ages. Both obtained the leadership of their parties at least in part because their personal characteristics were thought to make them more powerful as campaigners than the other potential leaders. Both conceived their projects as ones of “modernisation”: a term used to designate changes that had to take place if the left were to win a majority in each country.
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When, in 1996, Veltroni, as deputy Prime Minister, gave a speech to the Labour Party’s annual conference—the only foreign leader invited to do so—the comment of la Repubblica was that to describe his outlook and that of Blair as “convergent” was a considerable understatement: “the overlaps between the themes of Blair’s speech on Tuesday and Veltroni’s speech yesterday were so many and so close as to demonstrate that their views of society are identical”.3 A few months later, just before the 1997 general election, Veltroni was back in the UK to support Blair, with l’Unità remarking that “the words that keep cropping up in the vocabulary of the British Labour leader, Tony Blair, are very, very similar to the ideas with which Walter Veltroni is trying, with increasing determination, to construct an identity for the coalition governing Italy”.4 In an era in which the personalisation and presidentialisation of politics had massively increased the power of leaders over their parties, commonalities of biography and outlook between them would inevitably be translated into close political cooperation. For instance, when Veltroni took time out from his duties as deputy Prime Minister to do political favours for his friend Blair, he would in no sense have been unmindful of the potential dividends for his government in—for example—the corridors of power of the European Union. Meanwhile, the similarities in outlook between the two leaders were translated into a number of further significant similarities. In the first place, in 2008, shortly after former Communists and exChristian Democrats had come together in the PD, its founding leader, Veltroni, became the high-profile object of political satire when Italian comedians poked fun at him for his comical overuse of the expression “ma anche” (“but also”) and therefore for his apparent ability, within a single speech, to say one thing and its exact opposite.5 In doing so, they were paying unwitting tribute to how much the PD leader owed to New Labour; for “ma anche” captured the essence of the outlooks both of “New Labour” and of Veltroni. “Ma anche” was, as Corriere della Sera explained. 3 ‘Tra Blair e Veltroni feeling a sinistra’, la Repubblica, 3 October 1996, https://ric
erca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1996/10/03/tra-blair-veltroni-feelingsinistra.html. 4 Alberto Leiss, ‘Veltroni con Blair: il nuovo siamo noi’, l’Unità, 2 March 1997, p. 7, https://archivio.unita.news/assets/main/1997/03/02/page_007.pdf. 5 See, for example, Maurizio Crozza at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDAtmN h8LwA.
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not a deception, as his outraged critics, opposed to him as a matter of principle, claim, but a worldview: to hold together; to forge alliances; to smooth over rough edges and disagreements. The ‘cross-fertilisation’ of cultures; reconciliation in place of confrontation; combination rather than exclusion: moderates ‘but also’ idealists; reformists but also radicals. It just so happens, however, that ‘ma-anchismo’ represents the very raison d’être of the new Democratic Party, whose purpose is to supersede the conflict between forces that, historically, have campaigned on opposing political and ideological sides, to achieve the melting of political glaciers. Therefore, its leader could not be other than Walter Veltroni.6
Second, since Veltroni had based his leadership precisely on the idea that the familiar traditions, post-Communist and former Christian Democrat, already fading, could co-exit—and in any case needed, in a postideological world, to be overcome—it was not surprising that the party like “New Labour” struggled to find an ideological profile voters could easily identify or relate to. The absence of a clear ideological profile weakens a party in two crucial ways besides making it more difficult for it to mobilise voters. First, it deprives potential members of reasons for wanting to join. Like the Labour Party in the period following Blair’s rise to power, the PD in the first ten years of its existence underwent a more or less unremitting decline in membership.7 In the case of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn’s (Box. 3.3) more clearly “ideological” leadership from 20158 led to an initial revival of popular enthusiasm for the party (revealed by the rise in membership and the unexpectedly good election result in 2017)9 ; but his leadership was ultimately destroyed by the refusal 6 Pierluigi Battista, ‘Veltroni l’uomo dei “ma anche”’Corriere della Sera Magazine, 7 April 2008, https://www.corriere.it/politica/08_aprile_07/magazine_veltroni_uomo_dei_ ma_anche_96da21e8-04ba-11dd-b273-00144f486ba6.shtml. 7 Membership of the Labour Party declined from 405,000 in 1997, the year of Tony Blair’s first election victory to 193,000 in 2010, the year the party lost office. Source: Richard Keen, “Membership of UK Political Parties”, House of Commons Library Standard Note SN/SG/5125, 30 January 2015. There were around 620,000 PD members in 2010 (http://festademocratica.it/doc/216317/circoli-in-rete.htm) and 374,786 in 2019: https://www.partitodemocratico.it/congresso-2019/ecco-i-nomi-dei-tre-candidatialle-primarie-del-3-marzo/. 8 Following the resignation of Ed Miliband: Box 3.3. 9 Membership rose to over half a million following Corbyn’s assumption of the party
leadership and has fallen back more recently. Source: Lukas Audickas, Noel Dempsey and Philip Loft, “Membership of UK Political Parties, House of Commons Library
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of his parliamentary followers to cooperate with him and his own refusal to shift from a position of “constructive ambiguity” concerning the EU. Second, a party’s ideology provides a framework within which specific policies acquire meaning and are able to contribute to defining the party’s political profile. Therefore, its absence makes it more difficult for the party to perform its function of moulding public opinion, orienting political debate and presenting ideas for public discussion (Floridia 2021). Parties come to be the followers rather than the leaders of public opinion; their public authority declines; voters become increasingly volatile. Parties, hence, come to operate with increasingly short time horizons and consequently find it more difficult, if not impossible, to develop agreed-upon long-term strategies for the future of the country—with a further decline in public confidence in a vicious downward spiral. This is precisely what has happened to Italian political parties since the 1990s; why anti-political sentiments are so worryingly widespread; why Italy has provided the arena for the emergence of novel, anti-establishment, forces such as the Five Star Movement. The organisational profile chosen for the new PD made it unlikely that that the party would acquire a clear profile any time in the near future. This was because it was conceived as a partito leggero, meaning a party with a slimmed down extra-parliamentary organisation and firm leadership from the top, in which decisions concerning the leadership would be located outside the party among the party’s registered supporters. The PD’s Statute thereby turned it into a kind of plebiscitary democracy, undermining the organisations of the “party on the ground” (Katz and Mair 1993) as forums for discussion and deliberation, and so turning them, as bodies whose membership was linked to the fortunes of the leadership candidates, into assemblies for the ratification of decisions as opposed to ones able to enforce effective accountability of the leader (Floridia 2019, ch. 2). Thus began the rise of Matteo Renzi whose charisma and promises of rottamazione tapped into anti-political sentiments widespread in the PD and among citizens at large and who was
Briefing Paper Number SN05125, 9 August 2019”. In 2017, the Labour Party was widely expected to suffer an election rout and was trailing the Conservative Party by 20 percentage points in voting intensions polls at the start of the campaign. The popularity of an unexpectedly successful “anti-austerity” campaign on the part of Corbyn meant that by election day itself, the lead had been reduced to just two-and-a-half points, as the result of which the government lost its parliamentary majority.
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assisted by party institutions which disincentivised membership driven by ideals, while incentivising members who for more or less opportunistic reasons could be persuaded to fall in behind a leader whose personal qualities appeared to, and for a time did, hold out the prospect of restoring the party’s fortunes. Members were important because it was they who got to say who could be a candidate in the first place and whose votes determined who would be among the top two among whom party supporters would choose. The problem with leadership built upon little other than the creation of massive expectations about the amount of change the individual leader himself can achieve is that it does nothing to prevent support evaporating as soon as enthusiasm gives way to disappointment and resentment (Floridia 2019: 136)—as Renzi—and the PD—found out to their cost at the election of 2018. Against this background, the splits and instability that were among the PD’s most salient features, were merely confirmations of its inability, in the absence of secure ideological anchors, to develop an agreed political project. Box. 3.3 Ed Miliband Edward Samuel Miliband, son of the Marxist intellectual, Ralph Miliband, was born in London on 24 December 1969. After graduating from Oxford in 1992, he worked as an advisor to the Treasury and was elected to Parliament for the first time in 2005. In October 2008, he was appointed Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change in which capacity he won applause from environmental campaigners for his success in shifting government policy in the direction of more stringent carbon emissions targets and requirements. His capacity to inspire people together with his reputation as a principled politician probably played a major role in his decision to contest the Labour Party leadership following Gordon Brown’s resignation in the aftermath of the party’s defeat at the general election of 2010. As with the elections as leader of Blair and Brown before him, the system by which he was elected provided that candidates had to have the nominations of 12.5% of Labour parliamentarians. Contests would be decided by an electoral college in which the votes of (1) members of affiliated groups (mostly trade unions), (2) party members and (3) MPs were weighted equally and were counted using the alternative vote system. During the contest, Miliband described himself as a socialist and distanced himself from some of the actions of the Blair governments especially in the areas of civil liberties and foreign policy. However, on becoming leader he sponsored an Immigration Reform Bill embodying a less-than-welcoming
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attitude to migrants and launched the party’s 2015 election campaign pledging, among other things, to extend the period that EU jobseekers had to wait before being eligible for benefits from three months to two years. Following Labour’s defeat at the election, he resigned as leader with Harriet Harman becoming acting leader before his successor was elected four months later.
Lacking secure ideological anchors not only has the PD been unable to mould public opinion or set any kind of agenda for Italian society, but precisely for that reason, like “New Labour” it has been completely incapable of increasing its own room for manoeuvre by helping citizens to embrace progressive values. Just as New Labour’s inability to adopt principled positions on EU integration led it to an historic defeat in 2019, so the PD’s inability to adopt principled positions on the most highprofile issue at the 2018 election—immigration—led it too to an historic defeat. In February 2017 its interior minister, Marco Minniti, had externalised responsibility for what was a humanitarian emergency through an ethically unsavoury agreement with the Libyan authorities which had led to a reduction in the numbers of refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean. Future PD leader, Nicola Zingaretti, later sought to claim credit for the agreement, suggesting that while the right-wing nationalist League fomented problems, the PD found solutions for them. But this, far from helping to combat anti-migrant prejudices, simply left unanswered the question of why, if the “problem” was as the League defined it to be (migration constructed as a “threat”), voters would not also vote for its (xenophobic) “solution” (Cundari 2019; Newell 2019a, b). And indeed, despite Zingaretti’s boasts, in 2018 the PD went down to its largest defeat since the party’s founding while the League won its largest victory. So, as the new century entered its third decade and disease and war were about to write a new chapter in Europe’s history, two of its largest parties of the mainstream left revealed themselves to be completely incapable of acting as effective bulwarks against the spread of nationalism and xenophobia. Box 3.4 Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn, born in Chippenham on 26 May 1949, joined the Labour Party at the age of 16 and after leaving school worked as
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a trade union organiser before being elected to Parliament for the first time in 1983. On the left of the party, he routinely voted against the instructions of the whips under the Blair and Brown governments and was an outspoken opponent of the invasion of Iraq. Following Ed Miliband’s resignation as party leader and instigation of the procedures leading to the election of his successor, those who nominated Corbyn did so not because they thought he would win but in many cases simply in order to widen debate within the party. However, in 2014, the rules for electing the leader had been changed by placing the election in the hands of members and registered and affiliated supporters all of whom would have one vote weighted equally. And although the change reflected a long-standing desire on the right of the party to dilute the influence of trade unions and radical activists, the effect was to lead to a huge increase in the numbers of members and supporters during the course of the campaign and Corbyn’s election by a landslide 59.5%. With the party in public office and the party on the ground now set against each other, the former succeeded in forcing his resignation and the holding of a fresh contest the following year, but this merely confirmed Corbyn’s position with an even larger proportion: 61.8%. His success, against predictions, in depriving the Conservatives of their overall majority at the 2017 election was widely attributed to the popularity of an anti-austerity manifesto entitled “For the many, not the few”. Following Labour’s defeat at the 2019 election and his subsequent resignation as leader, he was suspended from the party after suggesting, in light of long-standing allegations of antisemitism, that the scale the problem in Labour had been exaggerated by his opponents and the media.
In the UK, the Labour Party under Keir Starmer (Box 3.5) following Corbyn’s demise in the aftermath of the 2019 election looked likely to win the general election which had to be held no later than January 2025—but only because the Conservatives were so desperately unpopular. It was evident that on issues from Brexit and climate change to migration and taxation, the party had largely embraced the assumptions of its opponents, providing further confirmation, if such were needed, that any ability it had had to sustain any real counter-culture, alternative to that of the Conservatives, had disappeared with the end of postwar consensus. In Italy, the PD, having acquiesced in the suspension of conflict around competing political projects by agreeing to sustain in office a technocrat-led government under Mario Draghi, went down to an entirely predictable defeat in the 2022 general election. Its grass roots,
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much as Labour’s had done with the 2015 election of Corbyn as leader, then took matters into their own hands by forcing the appointment as leader of the 38-year-old left libertarian, Elly Schlein. It remained to be seen whether, lacking solid backing among the “party in public office”, Schlein would succeed in writing a new more positive chapter for her party, or would end up following Corbyn into oblivion. Box 3.5 Keir Starmer Keir Rodney Starmer was born in London on 2 September 1962, graduating in Law at the University of Leeds in 1985. He was editor of the radical left-wing magazine, Socialist Alternatives, in 1986 and 1987 and in the latter year became a barrister. In 2008 he was appointed as Director of Public Prosecutions in which capacity he altered guidelines for the prosecution of those improperly claiming social security benefits enabling them to be sent to prison for an increased term of ten years. Elected to the House of Commons in 2015, in the aftermath of the 2016 Brexit referendum, he supported calls for a popular vote on the withdrawal agreement saying he would choose “remain” in such a vote. However, in 2023 he wrote that Britain’s future was outside the EU and that if elected he would seek neither a return to the customs union or single market, nor a return to freedom of movement. In 2016 he was one of a number of shadow cabinet members who resigned in an attempt to defenestrate Jeremy Corbyn but agreed to re-join the shadow cabinet following the party leadership election in December. In 2020, he himself became leader with 56.2% at the first round of voting. The period since then has seen him abandon the left-wing platform he advocated when he was elected, including pledges to nationalise public utilities and abolish tuition fees. In 2021, the party lost nearly 100,000 members. In 2022, Starmer confirmed that he would no longer honour the ten left-wing pledges he had made during his leadership campaign. In 2023 they were removed from his website.
Conclusion In an increasingly globalised world and an increasingly integrated Europe where the main economic and social changes affecting politics in one state are largely replicated in others, it is not surprising that we have found significant overlaps in the experience of “New Labour” and the Italian PD. From the perspective of what makes them, as European parties of
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the left, effective or otherwise as vehicles for progressive change, the most significant of the commonalities, in our view, has been their inability to develop political narratives10 sufficiently powerful to help voters embrace progressive values in opposition to those of the populist right whose fortunes have been massively raised in recent years thanks, among other things, to the EU’s legitimacy crisis. Thanks to the Eurozone crisis and the inability of the EU member states to reach agreement on common approaches to managing issues such as migration, and thanks to the unavailability of channels at European level for the expression of opposition other than by expressing opposition to “the system”, large numbers of globalisation’s “losers” who would once have voted for the left have been attracted away by the nationalist right. The inability of parties of the left to develop effective counter-narratives has been part of a vicious circle between their inability to do so and their declining public authority. As their organisations on the ground have withered, their representatives in public office have been decreasingly willing to jeopardise their positions by attempting to steer public opinion as their declining authority and increasing voter volatility has decreased their capacity to do so. The fundamental problem with the strategies pursued by the Labour Party and the PD in recent years is that they have sought to avoid hard choices by trying to please everyone (Dahrendorf 1999; cited by Newman 2001: 46). Until they ditch pragmatism11 and rediscover more principled positions, then they will simply continue to reinforce the frames of their competitors on
10 I am using the term “narratives” in the sense in which it is used by Mark Laity (2018) who describes a narrative as a story which, by telling people who they are, where they are, how they came to be where they are and where they are going, creates common values; reinforces identity (against the “other”); lays out objectives; and identifies end states. “Narratives are important because they move people in a way that merely technocratic discourses, based on empirical evidence and rational argument alone, do not and cannot. People believe narratives to be true because they want them to be true; for without narratives—involving emotional resonance and moral authority as well as rational persuasion—they find it difficult to make sense of the world and their places in it” (Newell 2022). 11 Pragmatism “is, I take it, the doctrine that an idea is true if it works. But inasmuch
as not all that works is worth working; inasmuch as not all that works for to-day, works in the long run; inasmuch as it is as well to know, before practical demonstration, whether or not we are working with temporal dynamite; and inasmuch as Pragmatism considers none of these things: I wish to suggest that it is not altogether admirable when applied to politics” (Chipman 1912: 189).
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the right and the road back to electoral health will be a very long one indeed.
References Blumenthal, S. (1980). The Permanent Campaign, New York, NY: AbeBooks. Cabrera, M.A. (2005). Postsocial History: An Introduction, trans. M. McMahon. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Campus, Donatella and Giovanna Cosenza. (2010). ‘Not only Berlusconi: The Search for a Personalised Leadership in the Italian Centre Left’, Paper Presented to the Panel, ‘Personalised Leadership: Not just a Phenomenon of the Right’, Political Studies Association Annual Conference 2010, 29 March—1 April, Edinburgh. Chipman, Warwick. (1912, February). ‘Pragmatism and Politics’, The American Political Science Review, 6(1) Supplement: Proceedings of the American Political Science Association at Its Eighth Annual Meeting, pp. 189–197, https:// www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4616991.pdf. Cundari, Francesco. (2019, September 25). ‘Lo strano caso del salvinismo democratico’, Liniesta, https://www.linkiesta.it/it/article/2019/09/25/governomigranti-accordo-lamorgese-libia-torture-immigrati-salvini/43690/. Daddow, Oliver. (2011). New Labour and the European Union: Blair and Brown’s Logic of History, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Dahrendorf, R. (1999, September 6). ‘Whatever Happened to Liberty?’, New Statesman. De Sio, Lorenzo. (2018, March 6). ‘Il ritorno del voto di classe, ma al contrario (ovvero se il PD è il partito delle élite)’, Centro italiano studi elettorali, https://cise.luiss.it/cise/2018/03/06/il-ritorno-del-voto-diclasse-ma-al-contrario-ovvero-se-il-pd-e-il-partito-delle-elite/. Fielding, Steven. (2003). The Labour Party: Continuity and Change in the Making of ‘New’ Labour, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Floridia, Antonio. (2019). Un partito sbagliato: Democrazia e organizzazione nel partito democratico, Roma: Castelvecchi. Floridia, Antonio. (2021, October 20). ‘Il future del PD dopo le ultime elezioni’, il Mulino, https://www.rivistailmulino.it/a/il-futuro-del-pd-br-dopo-le-ult ime-elezioni. Fukuyama, F. (1992). The End of History and the Last Man, New York: the Free Press. Giddens, A. (1998). The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy, Cambridge: Polity Press. Giddens, A. (2000). The Third Way and its Critics, Cambridge: Polity Press. Hall, Stuart. (2011). ‘The Neo-liberal Revolution: Thatcher, Blair, Cameron— the Long March of Neoliberalism Continues’, Soundings, 28: 9–27.
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Katz, Richard and Peter Mair. (1993). ‘The Evolution of Party Organizations in Europe: The Three Faces of Party Organization’, American Review of Politics, XIV: 593–618. Kriesi, H., E. Grande, R. Lachat, M. Dolezal, S. Bornschier and F. Timotheos. (2006). ‘Globalization and the Transformation of the National Political space: Six European Countries Compared’, European Journal of Political Research, 45: 921–956. Laity, Mark. (2018). ‘Storytelling and Politics: How History, Myths and Narratives Drive our Decisions’, https://www.psa.ac.uk/psa/news/storytellingand-politics-how-history-myths-and-narratives-drive-our-decisions. Levy, Carl. (1989). Review of Paper Stones: A History of Electoral Socialism by Adam Przeworski and John Sprague, History Workshop, no. 27 (Spring): 207–212. Ludlam, Steve. (2005). ‘Book Review: The Labour Party: Continuity and Change in the Making of ‘New’ Labour,’ Party Politics, 11(1): 135–137. Manin, Bernard. (1997). The Principles of Representative Government, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Newell, James L. (2019a). ‘Italy’s New Government and the Migrant Crisis’, Contemporary Italian Politics, 11(4): 355–357. Newell, James L. (2019b). ‘Meanings and Messages: Social Democrats and the EU’s Legitimation Crisis in the 2019 Election Campaign’, Comunicazione Politica, 3/2019, pp. 301–320. Newell, James L. (2022). European Integration and the Crisis of Social Democracy, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Newman, Janet. (2001). Modernising Governance: New Labour, Policy and Society, London: Sage. Paolucci, Caterina and James L. Newell. (2008, August). ‘The Prodi Government of 2006 and 2007’, Modern Italy, 13(3): 283–291. Poguntke, Thomas and Paul Webb (Eds.) (2005). The Presidentialization of Politics: A Comparative Study of Modern Democracies, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Przeworski, Adam and John Sprague. (1986). Paper Stones: A History of Electoral Socialism, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stegmueller, Daniel, Anja Neundorf and Thomas J. Scotto. (2014). ‘The Dynamics of Party Support for New Labour, 1991–2008’, Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, Research Paper, https://www. iser.essex.ac.uk/files/blog/2016/getting-the-most-from-political-data/dyn amics-of-party-identification-in-turbulent-times.pdf.
CHAPTER 4
Ten Secretaries in Fifteen Years: Leadership and Organisational Changes
Abstract In its still short history, as a party that has not even reached fifteen years of life, Italian PD had four party leaders elected in the primaries, as well as four “Regent” Secretaries elected by the National Assembly and a President Acting as Secretary elected by the appointment of the National Assembly. The failure to consolidate a stable leadership, together with the construction of a new ruling class, is one of the great limits of the PD, a party that seems to be victim of a sort of “Kronos Syndrome” that leads it to kill its children. The chapter critically examines the profiles of the various leaders who have succeeded at the head of the party, starting with those directly elected in the primaries. It thus highlights how each party leader has failed in trying to affirm their own idea of a party. And how in this way the party ever ends up replicating the same dynamic, as in a sort of Nietzsche’s “eternal return of the same” which effectively prevents the PD from completing its institutionalization process. Each leadership failure is followed by an attempt to restore cohesion into a party that has in the meantime divided, due to strong conflicts between internal fractions. This task is carried out by the socalled “Regent” secretaries which are elected by the National Assembly once the previous leader resigns. Then, the transition managed by each “Regent” secretary ends with the election of a new party leader in the primary, in an effort to create a “new beginning” that each time proves as unrealistic as it is ineffective. In this way, the succession of four Secretaries with profoundly different styles of leadership and ideas of the party © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 L. M. Fasano et al., The Italian Democratic Party and New Labour, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54059-2_4
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organizational model did not allow the party itself to consolidate over time a political culture, a ruling class and an organizational model. The chapter ends by examining the current phase, under the leadership of the new Secretary Letta, who in his own way, and for the umpteenth time, is trying to rebuild a party that is constantly a victim of itself. Keywords Political parties · Italian democratic party · Election and survey trend · Party organization · Primaries · Political culture · Political values · Party delegates · Party factions
A Party in Search of Unity and a Genuine Political Project Let us begin at the end, with what, at the time we were finishing this book, represented the latest official act of the Democratic Party, more than 15 years after its birth, in the spring of 2023. The National Assembly elected in that year met in a climate of near desperation: the PD had just suffered one of the worst electoral performances in its history, having failed to achieve more than 19% in the previous year’s general election, only slightly higher than at the general election before that. This was a result, which, in addition to being a significant setback in itself, took place in the context of a defeat for the centre-left as whole, outdistanced as it was by the centre-right by more than 15 percentage points. Unless the balance of power within the centre-right changed, it seemed set to govern without major difficulties for the next five years of the legislature, until 2027, if not beyond. If the 2019 European elections (22.7%) had seemed as if they might represent the first sign of a turnaround, there had been no further improvement. Therefore, the dominant theme in recent years—with the exception of the 2014 European election—remains one of crisis—a crisis that has seen support for the party at general elections fall by 50% in ten years (see Fig. 4.1). During the first decade of its existence, the party was competitive in elections. However, since then, the PD has failed to demonstrate the “majoritarian vocation” that Veltroni had deemed essential for the party to win elections on its own. Furthermore, despite the incumbency of a series of leaders and general secretaries who have come and gone— leaders such as Walter Veltroni, Massimo D’Alema, Matteo Renzi and
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45 40.7
40 35 30 25 20 15
33.2 26.1
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22.7 18.7
19.1
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
Fig. 4.1 Support for the PD 2008–2023 at elections (and in voting intention polls)
Nicola Zingaretti—internal conflicts have persisted. Public opinion, party members and citizens affiliated with the party are demanding a significant change of direction. They seek unity within the largest party of the centreleft opposition, which has been plagued by infighting for years. They also desire a political project representing a genuine alternative to the one embodied by the last centre-right government (when Berlusconi was still in office) and to the one embodied in the right-centre government staffed by Matteo Salvini’s League and Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia. Following the recent primaries, where participation levels, though falling, saw turnout decline by less than had been expected, there was a sense of optimism on the centre-left. Elly Schlein outperformed Stefano Bonaccini, thereby reversing the outcome of the vote that had taken place among party members. Centre-left supporters were now anticipating an Assembly that would effectively rejuvenate the party as a first step on the road to a comeback. This would enable the PD to overcome its subordination to a political agenda set by the parties of government and its inability to mount an effective opposition to the policies of the executive led by Giorgia Meloni, who had been steadily gaining support among Italians for the previous two years. Meanwhile, debate about whether to pursue a more centrist alliance (involving the so-called Third Pole led by Carlo Calenda and Matteo Renzi) or a more left-wing one (with closer ties to the Five Star Movement of Beppe Grillo and Giuseppe Conte) continued. This was seen by some commentators as a significant potential challenge to unity among activists, the leadership and other influential figures within the party. Against this background, Stefano Bonaccini represented the more liberal-democratic or reformist outlook that had been prevalent from 2013 onwards at roughly about the time Matteo Renzi had assumed the
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leadership. Meanwhile, Elly Schlein represented the radical street activists with their emphasis on “civil liberties” on the one hand and workers’ right on the other. This was a perspective that pointed in the direction of dialogue with representatives of organised interests and the trade unions, in the name of a more socialdemocratic left, close to that associated with Pierluigi Bersani, with the addition of elements borrowed from radical politicians in the UK and the United States. The coexistence of these two outlooks bore witness to the fact that the party was divided on several substantive issues and that neither outlook was able to gain the upper hand. Indeed, beyond determining who would become general secretary, the primaries revealed that, numerically speaking, internal support for the two outlooks was very evenly divided. This was likely to make it even more difficult than would otherwise have been the case for the party to reach agreed policy positions. The delegates of the last Assembly began their deliberations well aware of the difficulties arising from the pre-existing fractures within the party. These, as we will see shortly, are reflected in opinions, attitudes, values and political-programmatic choices difficult to reconcile in the search for a unified and shared party line. The Nuvola (that means cloud, realised by the famous architect Fuksas)—the name of the conference centre in Rome where the inaugural session of the Assembly elected together with the new general secretary took place—was highly symbolic as far as delegates were concerned. For the name seemed to recall the pall hanging over both the party and Italian society itself, where the right appeared clearly to be winning the hearts and minds of Italian voters. The newly appointed general secretary delivered a speech to the National Assembly that strongly emphasised both the need for unity (reflected in her decision to appoint Bonaccini to the position of party president), and the desire for a re-foundation of the party on the basis of unambiguously left-wing values. However, the positions of the delegates seemed to reflect the desire for a return to the values represented by Bersani’s leadership rather than for a constructive synthesis of the party’s founding values revised in light of the experience of the previous twelve years. But while highlighting the more radical character of the delegates’ outlooks, their positions seemed to swing constantly between one interpretation and another: between the values of social democracy and social-movement activism on the one hand and those of democratic-reformism on the other.
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These circumstances reflected, once again, the two obstacles in the way of the party’s growth that had been apparent during the first ten years of its existence: the lack of consolidation and its low level of institutionalisation.1 Renzi’s resignation in 2018 had brought these limitations once again into stark relief. For it had reinforced the sense of observers that the PD was a party without a clear organisational profile and that one of the main reasons for this lay precisely in leadership instability, alongside the leadership team’s limited ability to control internal decision-making processes, and the absence of a coherent and unified political identity. The legacy bequeathed by the political history of the two co-founding parties and by the past affiliations of a large part of the active leadership cadre that came from those parties was too strong. Moreover, it now existed alongside the new perspective introduced by the leadership of Elly Schlein, suggesting, provisionally at least, that the PD might come more closely to resemble a “movement-party”. The difficulties encountered by the PD in the process of institutionalisation, make it seem like a political entity that is constantly under construction, with leadership changes, splits and programmatic instability being due above all to the inability to consolidate an identity, a political culture—or an ideology—and a plausible project for government. These critical issues have profoundly affected behaviour and political choices from the bottom to the top of the party, from rank-and-file activists to the central leadership group (the party in central office), and representatives in public offices from local councils to the national parliament (the party in public office). A convenient way to portray them is by surveying the party’s national congress delegates. On the one hand, delegates represent the backbone of the party (Ignazi and Bordandini 2018), as they are drawn from among its local and national officials and elected representatives at various levels. They therefore represent the party’s active cadres (Bellucci et al. 2000), that is, people who devote a significant part of their lives to political activity.
1 On the level of institutionalisation of a political party, see Panebianco (1982), and
for an initial application of the concept to the case of the PD, see Fasano (2010). It is also worth noting that the success of the institutionalisation process depends on the party’s ability permanently to incorporate the goals and constitutive values of the founding members, so that the organisation’s survival over time becomes a value in itself (Selznick 1957).
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In addition, a substantial proportion of the delegates is made up of what we might call the party’s middle-ranking officials, whose constant activism ensures continuity of the link between the party’s base, its local branches and the central leadership group at national level. This enables us to view the party not only from the bottom, from the perspective of the membership (Bale et al. 2019), but also from the point of view of a cross-section of those who associate party membership with political roles and responsibilities, at different levels. The surveys we have carried out among PD activists, delegates to the National Assembly, from the establishment of the Constituent Assembly in 2007 until 2023, following the election of Elly Schlein, reveal clearly the existence among them of a significant degree of polarisation on both policy matters and matters of principle. Such analyses clearly highlight that the PD, like other parties of the European left, is riven, and if anything even more so, by divisions reflecting the so-called “fifth socio-political cleavage” identified by the political scientist, Stein Rokkan (1970). This is the division between an identity-driven, revolutionary left, represented by the communist parties in their early days, and a pragmatic reformist left, represented by the socialist parties. Within the PD, this fault line is associated with a further fracture. On the one hand, there is the socialdemocratic left, represented in the Italian case by the direct heirs of the PCI. Today their outlooks are enmeshed with those deriving from radical protest action (resembling in some ways the positions of Jean-Luc Melenchon in France and the radicalism of Bernie Sanders in the US and Jeremy Corbyn in the UK), represented by Schlein. On the other hand, there is the liberal-democratic left, represented mainly by those whose political roots extend back to the so-called Christian Democratic left and, later, the Margherita and the transformation wrought by Renzi within the PD, represented by Bonaccini. These distinctions have a different meaning in the early twenty-first century, compared to those they had in the past, and the political and cultural identities they reflect cannot be considered stable over time, as they are subject to a process of constant transformation (Natale 2007). However, the cultural legacy of the traditional European political families remains influential and, notwithstanding changed circumstances and new and evolving cultural outlooks, remains a significant determinant of political orientations. Therefore, the main problem facing the PD is that it remains a kind of shifting mélange of the two, if not three, types of division we have referred to. Recomposing within a single organised political
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subject informed by a relatively homogeneous and stable cultural framework, the constantly evolving outlooks and perspectives present in the PD, remain a difficult and complex task. With regard to the party leadership, in the fifteen years since its inception, the PD has had six general secretaries elected by a procedure resembling open primaries. It has had three general secretaries elected by the National Assembly following resignation of the leader elected by means of the preceding primaries. It has seen its deputy general secretary appointed as interim leader by the National Executive. In short, it has had ten leaders in just fifteen years, suggesting a party in the grip of a kind of “Cronos syndrome”, whereby it seems compelled constantly to destroy its most promising offspring (Fasano and Martocchia Diodati 2014; Fasano et al. 2018; Natale and Fasano 2017). Leadership instability has been accompanied by splits and the departure of high-profile party spokespersons. These include not least the two-times general secretary, Matteo Renzi. More recently, there have been comebacks, such as those of former PD secretary, Pierluigi Bersani, and former health secretary, Roberto Speranza, who had left to form “Articolo 1—Movimento Democratici e Progressisti” because of their opposition to Renzi’s style of leadership, and who returned to the PD after Schlein’s election. This has meant not only a systematic inability to consolidate a leadership group, but it has severely undermined the party’s ability to institutionalise itself. Every party, when it is being constructed, undergoes a process of elaborating its aims, this as an outcome of internal deliberation of the leadership groups that competed to form it. A political culture is thereby defined, as is the party’s image of society and strategic vision for the future, from which the social strata whose interests the party seeks to advance and the messages to be addressed to them are identified. With the passage of time, the new party begins to incorporate and assimilate the complex of values and purposes that have shaped its political culture, gradually acquiring a clearly defined profile and political identity, and with them, a degree of institutionalisation. This is a process with respect to which prospects for the party’s survival come, over time, to depend less on the purposes it had set for itself during its construction, than on its consolidation. However, it is equally true that the process makes possible the development of those selective incentives and widespread party loyalties that are also necessary to ensure the party’s continued existence (Panebianco 1982). The final outcome of the institutionalisation of a political party is its consolidation, which is measured along two dimensions. The first is the degree of its
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autonomy from the external environment. The second is the degree of interdependence between its different organisational and territorial levels, thanks to which the central leadership group (the party in central office) is able to control and direct its internal decision-making processes by coordinating with its local branches (the party on the ground). The significant obstacles encountered by the PD on the road to institutionalisation were also reflected by the fact that in little more than fifteen years of existence, it became a classic cartel party (Katz and Mair 1995). This meant that the party’s extremely heterogeneous leadership group failed to elaborate a set of aims sufficiently congruent and consistent with each other as to provide an effective common denominator of the political traditions that had contributed to the party’s birth. They failed too to establish any common benchmarks for identifying the social strata whose interests the party would seek to advance or the policies to be promoted as priorities within a clear programme for government. Rather, the PD since its foundation has seen a succession of very different images and conceptions of the party. These have, at times, been accompanied by a partial turnover of leadership groups, particularly in the executive and in the Direzione Nazionale, punctuated by a rapid turnover of leaders, none of whom, however, has been able to make an effective contribution to the party’s political and organisational consolidation. The first conception was the one represented by Veltroni’s “amalgam party” (2007–2009). This reflected the difficulties of ensuring cohesion inherent in every new beginning but sought to embody the ideals of a centre-left that would be both reformist and radical. It embodied the clear goal of fashioning a political entity that would have a “majoritarian vocation”, that is, one capable of freeing itself from the eternal blackmail of the minor centre-left parties, which since the era of Romano Prodi’s Ulivo coalition had had power to influence government decisions out of all proportion to their size. The next was Bersani’s “old-style party” (2009–2013), one more closely reflecting the socialdemocratic tradition, which understood the party’s role from the perspective of a strict division of labour, that is, from the perspective of a strategy of alliances with minor parties of the left and centre. With respect to these parties, the PD would acknowledge the limits of its support and so confine itself to acting as a guarantor of the coalition. This was followed by Renzi’s “pragmatic party” (2013–2019), which expressed the idea of a political force committed primarily to the governing activity of its leader. It was an idea, which, through turnover of the leadership group, especially of its most
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diehard post-communist and former Christian Democratic exponents, sought to leave behind the heavy burden of their legacy and to make possible a strategy of pursuing reform on the basis of whatever alliances needed to be assembled to make it possible. Zingaretti’s “omnibus party” (2019–2021), was an attempt to affirm a reassuring degree of discontinuity with respect to the heated internal conflicts that had marked the previous leader’s incumbency. It therefore represented a more inclusive and unified style of leadership, one imprinting on the party the idea of a large container capable of accommodating everyone. The party would therefore represent a kind of omnibus political entity, which, however, came at the expense of programmatic incisiveness and clarity in an alliance strategy, which, in a rather rough-and-ready way sought to include, in addition to parties from the centre and the left, the Five Star Movement.2 Finally, Schlein’s “movement-party” (2022) seeks to refashion the PD as a more radical entity, one open to civil society and the input of social movements representing an electorate clearly located on the left of the political spectrum.
A New Party, Already Rather Old at Birth The decision to build an open party based on leadership selection through so-called primary elections has helped to weaken the PD’s autonomy with respect to its environment, rendering its boundaries permeable and indistinct. The decision to extend election of the party’s leader to the participation of voters was pursued in an innovative way, but it was one that inevitably resulted in an organisation difficult to manage. However, it was precisely because of these arrangements that—in the aftermath of Romano Prodi’s failure to be elected to the Presidency of the Republic and of the formation of the Letta executive—the outsider, Matteo Renzi, succeeded in becoming general secretary (Addario and Fasano 2015). From there he was able to launch a political project and programme for government, which, despite the contradictory nature of their outcomes, allowed the PD to reacquire a position of decisive importance within the Italian political system, at least until the 2014 European elections,
2 For an analysis of how the PD’s evolution has been impacted by the succession of general secretaries elected through the so-called primaries, from Veltroni to Zingaretti, see Fasano (2020).
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when the party obtained 40% of the vote. It is true that, on several occasions—mainly during the period of Bersani’s leadership but also after the PD suffered heavy defeats in primaries for the choice of centre-left mayoral candidates in the largest municipalities—the leadership was highly critical of this arrangement, seeking to recover centrality and room for manoeuvre for the party organisation. It is true too that with Schlein’s election as general secretary—when for the first time the vote of members through the local conventions produced a result different from that delivered by voters through the primary consultations—the problem of the party’s autonomy with respect to its environment became compelling as never before. Once again, the arrangements for election of the party leader had enabled an outsider to capture the position, but, in contrast with Renzi, they at the same time highlighted the weaknesses of a political organisation incapable of blending the expectations and choices of activists and voters in a shared political vision. The point is that once the PD had been launched, it was never able to develop a clear and coherent political project. Therefore, the new political entity emerging from the 2007 constituent process remained almost exclusively a combination of the traditions of the great mass parties, the DC and PCI. Protagonists in the First Republic of the “historic compromise” between Aldo Moro and Enrico Berlinguer, and overhauled by the post-communist and former Christian Democratic leaders of the founding parties—the Democratici di Sinistra and the Margherita—the traditions only seemingly took on the appearance of a renewed political culture. Of the three causes that have historically inspired parties of the left, most notably the Labour Party—the liberal-democratic, the socialdemocratic and the egalitarian-ethical—the leaderships that have from time to time emerged victorious from the so-called primaries have attempted to combine them in ways that have been unstable and unsatisfactory. Veltroni attempted to combine the egalitarian-ethical and the liberaldemocratic reformist causes, but he was successful only for the brief period of the constituent phase. Subsequently, Bersani tried to restore centrality to the socialdemocratic and the egalitarian-ethical causes, but the narrowness of the victory in the 2013 general election and the difficulties that followed put an abrupt end to that project. Renzi diverted the party along a strongly reformist and liberal-democratic path, but the attempted divorce from the other two causes, the socialdemocratic and the egalitarian-ethical, proved fatal for him, not least as a result of the divisions triggered by the campaign leading up to the referendum on
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constitutional reform. Zingaretti, striving to combine the three causes through a leadership style inspired by collegiality, while favouring, like Bersani, the axis between the socialdemocratic and egalitarian-ethical causes, was forced to suffer the breakaway of a substantial number of those prioritising the liberal-democratic reformist cause. Ultimately, Schlein proposed a more authentic overhaul of the party’s rationale, one that would prioritise the egalitarian-ethical cause; but less than a year after her election she found herself at the centre of a new conflict with those prioritising the liberal-democratic cause and with the more reformist elements among those prioritising the socialdemocratic cause. To the extent that they stimulate internal debate, such differences can be seen as resources; but if they are to be credible in the eyes of the public, they must soon be integrated into unified and shared proposals. Since the establishment of the Constituent Assembly, which coincided with the election of the party’s first general secretary, Walter Veltroni, many things have changed. In 2007, the legacy of the two co-founding parties, the DS and DL, was still significant. The leader, his position consecrated by victory in the primaries, had taken on the task of leading the construction of the new party—which was still the expression of a political generation that had been active on the national political stage since the late 1980s. The leadership group surrounding the new general secretary was almost entirely composed of those who had managed the DS and DL until the day before, this being especially true of the two putative political sponsors of Veltroni himself, Massimo D’Alema and Franco Marini, who represented the most obvious emblems of continuity among the leadership group. Even the small amount of renewal and change that took place through the Constituent Assembly was, in fact, the result of a selection process under the control of the national leadership (the party in central office), following the traditional logic of co-optation. More than two-thirds (72.8%) of the national delegates came from the two cofounding parties, while only one-third of the Assembly members were drawn from other political parties or were making their political debut. The weight of the past was even more apparent in 2009 when, with the Constituent phase now concluded, the majority of delegates aligned with Bersani and those associated with Marino saw the natural destination of the PD as lying within the socialdemocratic tradition. The absence of a shared political identity and the ensuing unresolved tensions between the former Christian Democratic and post-communist components regarding
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the objectives and strategies of the party, effectively prevented the achievement of internal cohesion. Tensions between groups within these two components had the same effect. Consider, for example, the conflict between the Dalemiani and Veltroniani among former members of the DS, and between the radical wing, the socialdemocratic wing and the reformist wing (which brought together fragments from both the DS and the DL). In the first two years of its existence, from 2007 to 2009, the PD had already had three general secretaries, two of whom were selected through the so-called primaries, and one who took office following election by the National Assembly. Such a tumultuous political history, one marked by sudden reversals, could only hinder the attempts of each leader and their leadership group to consolidate the new party. This was also reflected in the continuing heterogeneity in the outlooks of the national delegates. It was only with the National Assembly of 2013 that a majority of delegates consisted of so-called natives (that is, those who had had no previous political experience in the DS or DL), and there was greater cohesion than among those who had previously supported both Veltroni and Bersani. The theme of generational renewal, with 14% of members under the age of thirty, took on particular significance. When Renzi’s “rottamazione” (literally, “demolition”) became a heated topic of political debate within the PD, generational renewal coincided with the entry of new forces, essentially without previous political experience, becoming an important tool in the hands of the new general secretary to facilitate radical political and organisational change. These new additions become the protagonists of a new political phase in the history of the party, directing it towards strategic choices that broke with the post-communist and former Christian Democratic traditions that had characterised management by the party leadership up to that point. However, this situation lasted only three short years, from Renzi’s election as general secretary and his appointment as Prime Minister, up until the referendum on constitutional reform proposed by Renzi himself, when he suffered such a heavy setback that recovery was impossible. At that point, internal divisions erupted into open conflict. The divisions between those who had supported and continued to support Renzi’s line, favouring his re-election as party secretary in 2017, and those who opposed it, claiming that his leadership was alien to the history and traditions of the party, ran so deep that they led to several defections and rendered the party’s strategy increasingly uncertain. As we shall see,
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during Renzi’s second term as leader, the PD became more and more heterogeneous and divided, causing even the most loyal centre-left voters to defect, resulting in significant losses at both the general election of 2018 and the European Parliament election the year after. The period covered by the leadership of Nicola Zingaretti and then Enrico Letta represent a historical interlude prior to the onset of the current period which concerns Letta’s attempt to achieve party unity by initiating a new constituent phase following defeat in the 2022 general election, which then led to the election of Elly Schlein as general secretary.
The Dimensions of the Political Space, and Policy Orientations Let us now focus on delegates’ positions on policy issues and their underlying values, as these are crucial for understanding the political culture of the PD (Fasano 2009, 2010; Fasano and Martocchia Diodati 2014; Fasano et al. 2018; Natale and Fasano 2017; Natale 2020). This is even more important today as the constituent phase initiated by the outgoing general secretary, Enrico Letta, as well as Elly Schlein’s decision to run for the party’s leadership, stems from a desire radically to renew the PD and, in part, its leadership in light of the disappointments of the recent past. These include Renzi’s defeat in the 2018 elections, Zingaretti’s difficulties in rebuilding the party and the bitter defeat at the 2022 general election under Letta’s leadership, which represented the party’s worst result since its establishment in 2007. For this reason, shedding light on the policy and value orientations of the new group of activists involved in running the party can help us to understand the direction the PD is taking under the leadership of the new general secretary. The value and policy orientations of the delegates to both the 2007 Constituent Assembly (Fasano 2009) and to the National Assemblies from 2009 to 2019 (Fasano 2010; Fasano and Martocchia Diodati 2014; Fasano et al. 2018; Natale 2019), could be analysed in terms of two main dimensions, with respect to which their orientations exhibited the most significant distinctions. Such dimensions continue to be relevant. One is the ethical-value dimension, which concerns personal attitudes towards the Catholic religion, the role of ecclesiastical hierarchies in Italian politics and religious instruction in schools. The other is the socio-economic dimension, related to the role of public intervention in the economy, the
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trade-off between taxes and services and the power of the trade unions.3 These dimensions, as is well-known, have played a crucial role in defining and delimiting the political space within the party, inspiring political initiatives, the construction of programmatic proposals and debate between the party’s internal components. To these two most important dimensions, a third one, related to orientations and stances concerning immigration matters, was added.4 This is an issue of increasing importance because, in contrast with centre-right parties (Di Virgilio and Segatti 2016), in the PD immigration is evaluated very differently by voters and elected officials, as well as by delegates to the National Assembly and their selectors. This issue is also important for the political and government agenda of the country, where debate between the current majority and the opposition in Parliament remains heated. It also acts as a differentiating factor within the group of national delegates, marking significant differences between the supporters of the Schlein motion and those of the Bonaccini motion. The three identified dimensions, concerning labour-market and economic issues, ethically sensitive social issues and positions on immigration, describe a political space where the positioning of delegates supporting the two main congress motions is clearly delineated and, for the most part, polarised. This is primarily due to the greater tendency of
3 The two dimensions that define the political space were identified by means of exploratory principal components analysis using varimax rotation conducted on some of the variables present in our dataset. This confirmed the outcomes of the previous analyses of delegates to the National Assemblies from 2007 to 2019. The input variables were essentially those used in the exploratory analyses conducted on previous occasions. In particular, questions related to the involvement of ecclesiastical hierarchies in debates on Italian laws; the place of religion in the personal lives of respondents; religious instruction in schools; government intervention in the economy; the power of trade unions; the trade-off between taxes and services; choices regarding the reception of immigrants, and preservation of the customs and traditions of immigrants resident in Italy. The corresponding variables were standardised by recoding them on a common scale from 1 to 100. The analysis revealed three underlying factors, respectively associated with a socioeconomic dimension, an ethical-value dimension and an immigration dimension, capable of explaining 58% of the total variance. On the basis of these results, we defined three additive indices, associating the component variables with each of the three factors and dichotomising them with respect to the average value. 4 Attempts to identify additional dimensions of the political space through the inclusion of other significant variables, such as those related to environmental issues, which are increasingly important in both public debate and within the PD, produced less satisfactory results in terms of the percentage of variance explained.
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supporters of the new general secretary to take clear and less compromising positions on each of these issues. Conversely, the supporters of Bonaccini tend to express evaluations that are more attentive to the consequences of different political choices. A concise illustration of these orientations is provided in Table 4.1, where they are related to the Schlein and Bonaccini motions. Regarding the economic and social dimensions, it is apparent that among the Bonaccini delegates, a pro-market orientation prevails (62.1%), while among the supporters of the new general secretary, a pro-labour orientation is more prevalent (56.1%). These data are not surprising since the new general secretary has sought to emphasise, at least symbolically, that her priorities include labour and the fight against job insecurity. These, along with environmental issues, represent two key aspects of her programme. Bonaccini, on the other hand, despite his background in the DS and his historical connections with the Italian communist tradition, has preferred to characterise his programme in a more pragmatic manner, especially through a less pronounced focus on labour-related issues. Something similar occurs with respect to the ethical-value dimension, where just under two-thirds of Schlein’s supporters (65.1%) express a liberal orientation, i.e. pro-choice. Among the delegates elected in support of Bonaccini, a majority (56.7%) express a paternalistic orientation, i.e. pro-life. These data can largely be attributed to the greater presence of Catholics among the latter group. Bonaccini, of all the PD’s Table 4.1 Orientations on ethical-value questions, on socio-economic questions and on migration of delegates supporting the various congress motions Schlein
Bonaccini
Others
Total
Ethical-value dimension Pro-life Pro-choice
34.9 65.1
56.7 43.3
50 50
44.9 55.1
Socio-economic dimension Pro-labour Pro-market
56.1 43.9
37.9 62.1
28.5 71.5
47.1 52.9
Migration issue Greater restrictions Greater openness
29.3 70.7
44.4 55.6
71.4 28.6
37.9 62.1
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leaders, was seen as the candidate who would ensure greater recognition of Catholic positions, given the connections he could claim with the party’s historical traditions, which partly revolved around seeking an agreement between former-DL Catholics and ex-DS secularists. The prevalence of an ethical-value orientation among Bonaccini’s supporters, corresponding to the orientations and expectations of the Catholic world, is also confirmed by the presence among them of individuals with a background in DL: individuals, who, as already noted, are more numerous within Bonaccini’s ranks than within Schlein’s. Regarding the immigration issue, among delegates generally there is an attitude of openness towards the presence of foreigners, supported by just under 80%. 71% of Schlein’s supporters favour unrestricted immigration. On the other hand, Bonaccini’s supporters show more caution. Among them, there is only an 11-point gap between those who support the reception of migrants and those who believe it appropriate to introduce limitations, whereas in Schlein’s ranks, there is a 40-point difference. It is interesting to note that the orientation of the party’s middle-level activists on this issue is quite similar to what was found among the voters in the survey conducted during the primaries. During that survey, 70% of those who voted for Schlein declared themselves essentially in favour of migrant reception, albeit to different degrees and with different emphases. In contrast, Bonaccini’s voters showed more caution, with a third of them diplomatically stating that the current reception policy (which, as the legislation currently stands, effectively links reception to the availability of a job) should not be changed. The positioning of supporters of the two main motions in the political space represented by the three identified dimensions (socio-economic issues, ethical-value issues and the immigration question) is reflected in their self-placement on the political spectrum. This demonstrates that these dimensions play a role in bringing about some polarisation between Schlein and Bonaccini supporters. They give concrete meaning to their self-placement on the left (or centre-left), laying the groundwork for permanent, “at-a-distance”, conflict between the two groups. This conflict feeds on different policy orientations and different understandings of the party: those that see it as a political entity representing a new progressive left or, alternatively, those that want it to represent the original centre-left reformist orientation. Therefore, among the delegates who consider themselves on the left, a pro-labour orientation prevails (68.8%), while among those who place
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themselves on the centre-left or in the centre of the political spectrum, a pro-market orientation prevails (57.8% and 81.8%, respectively). Similarly, among delegates who consider themselves on the left, just under 80% exhibit a pro-choice orientation, whereas just under two-thirds of those in the centre express a pro-life orientation. Those who identify themselves as centre-left are almost evenly divided between these two positions (51.4% and 48.6%, respectively). Something similar is observed regarding the issue of the presence of foreigners, with 83.3% of delegates who identify as left-leaning tending to favour an open approach to immigration, while nearly 73% of those who see themselves as centre-leaning support regulated access. The data on past party affiliations described in Table 4.2 are also interesting. They clearly highlight how divisions within the PD, despite the sixteen years that have passed since the party’s inception, can still revolve around political-cultural distinctions related to the differences between former-DS and former-DL members, ultimately pointing to an irreconcilable tension between post-communists and former Christian Democrats. This is mainly attributed to the sense of unease that Catholic Democrats feel towards the new general secretary. This unease was already evident before her election, starting with the beginning of the constituent process of the new PD during the discussion on modification of the Charter of Values. Table 4.2 Orientations on ethical-value questions, on socio-economic questions and on migration by prior party affiliation “Natives”
Margherita
DS
Art.1
Total
43.8 56.2
81.8 18.2
43.2 56.8
0 100
44.4 55.6
Socio-economic dimension Pro-labour 44.9 Pro-market 55.1
36.4 63.6
50 50
71.4 28.6
46.4 53.6
Migration Issue Greater restrictions Greater oppenness
54.5 45.5
45.2 54.8
0 100
38.5 61.5
Ethical-value dimension Pro-life Pro-choice
34.9 65.1
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As a result, among the delegates who were previously affiliated with DL, a pro-life orientation prevails to a large extent (81.8%), which is not reflected either among those with a background in the DS or among the native Democrats. Among the latter group, pro-life supporters amount to about half. The difference is less pronounced regarding socioeconomic issues, where the majority of former-DL delegates in favour of a market-oriented approach (63.6%) is larger than among native Democrats (55.1%), while former-DS delegates are divided equally between promarket and pro-labour orientations. Former-DL delegates also distinguish themselves regarding the immigration issue, where a majority favours limiting flows (54.5%), in contrast to native Democrats (65.1%) and former-DS members (54.8%), both of which groups generally support reception. The data just presented clearly highlight that middle-level party activists and the leadership team surrounding the new general secretary feature significant elements of novelty, essentially linked to the discontinuity with the past that characterised Elly Schlein’s candidacy in the eyes of voters and members. This discontinuity, in the history of the PD, has obvious similarities with the experience of Matteo Renzi’s first period of leadership. This resemblance between the cases of Schlein and Renzi, both of whom are also the only two general secretaries to have fully exploited the logic of “leadership contestability” implicit in the primary elections, is particularly evident when considering the orientations regarding socio-economic issues and ethical-values prevalent among supporters of the majority motions. Referencing the prevalent orientations among supporters of the majority motions has the advantage of immediately highlighting the positioning of the leader and the supporting leadership group in the political space. As shown in Table 4.3, there has been a substantial change and consequent realignment with respect to the socio-economic dimension and the prevalent positions within the party. In fact, between 2007 and 2009, both Veltroni’s Constituent Assembly and the first National Assembly under Bersani’s leadership showed a majority, around 60%, of delegates with a pro-labour orientation. This orientation likely reflected the still-strong legacy of the DS and the post-communist origins of these leadership groups. However, under Renzi’s leadership, in the National Assemblies of 2013 (68.1%) and 2017 (72.3%), supporters of his motions
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Table 4.3 Orientations on ethical-value questions and on socio-economic questions among supporters of the majority motion in National Assemblies (2007–2023) Veltroni 07
Bersani 09
Renzi 13
Renzi 17
Zingaretti 19
Schlein 23
Socio-economic dimension Pro-labour 59 Pro-market 41
59.5 40.5
31.9 68.1
27.7 72.3
48 52
56.1 43.9
Ethical-value dimension Pro-choice 63.4 Pro-life 36.6
56 44
33.1 66.9
47.4 52.6
60.5 39.5
65.1 34.9
helped shift the majority of the party towards a more market-friendly position. Subsequently, with Zingaretti’s election as general secretary, opinion was more or less evenly divided. Among supporters of the general secretary’s motion, the pro-market orientation remained prevalent (52%), only four percentage points ahead of the pro-labour position. This suggested that the pro-market orientation that had been a distinctive feature of the Renzi era had gone into decline. Delegates, regardless of the motion they supported, largely favoured a pro-market approach, but the leadership’s policies were more responsive to the call of the pro-labour orientation. Finally, with Schlein’s leadership, the realignment of majority positions in the direction of a more traditionally pro-labour orientation was completed. Delegates supporting the new general secretary mostly had a pro-labour orientation, reaching a percentage (56.1%) that was little different from the orientation that had characterised Veltroni’s majority in 2007 and Bersani’s in 2009. A similar trend can be observed regarding the ethical-value dimension (see again Table 4.3). In Veltroni’s Constituent Assembly and Bersani’s first National Assembly, majorities supporting the general secretaries favoured a liberal orientation (pro-choice), at 63.4% and 56%, respectively. Again, as with socio-economic issues, Renzi’s leadership between 2013 and 2017 brought about a change in orientation. In both instances, the majority leaned towards a paternalistic position (pro-life). After Renzi’s terms of office, the National Assembly elected alongside Zingaretti once again saw a prevailing liberal orientation, with percentages
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(60.5%) approaching those present in Veltroni’s Constituent Assembly. However, it was with Schlein’s leadership that the new majority firmly embraced a pro-choice perspective, reaching a historical high (65.1%) on this dimension. We can therefore conclude that the new PD, born under the leadership of Schlein and with the hope of bringing about a change that would give the party a more combative image, is characterised by a traditional liberal-labour identity. This identity appears more pronounced today than it has been in the past decade. It is a characteristic that is, in some ways, congruent with the role of opposition that the PD currently finds itself in, given the defeat in the September 2022 general elections. However, acquiring this distinctive trait, which suggests a party image more clearly defined than the one that has characterised the party in the past decade, cannot alone fill the void of culture and political identity. This, along with its fragile institutionalisation, remains the major problem of the PD. On the one hand, the combative and passionate image of Schlein’s new PD is likely to reassure a portion of the leadership, as well as voters and supporters who were hoping for a party firmly positioned on the progressive left. They believe that this is the best way to regain electoral support. On the other hand, the image is a cause of concern for the many other PD voters who still believe in a party that is pragmatically capable of engaging with broad sections of Italian society with a view to presenting a credible alternative to the centre-right. Two contrasting images are thus in conflict, reflecting two irreconcilable cultural and organisational party models. As we have already argued, drawing on the analysis of the British political scientist, Henry M. Drucker (1979), the PD’s history has been marked, like the histories of other leftof-centre, socialist or socialdemocratic parties in Europe, by an unresolved tension between three different elements. The first of these is a radical element, that of the “ethical party”, characterised by uncompromising egalitarianism, expressed through the struggle against inequality and the defence of the poor and disadvantaged, advocating for the empowerment of the weakest and the assertion of universal individual rights. The second is a labour-welfare element, that of the “socialdemocratic party”, which recognises the centrality of the historical evolution of the proletariat, i.e. the world of wage labour, identifying it as the target electorate. It mobilises to improve living conditions, material resources and social opportunities through policies reforming the welfare system. Finally, there is a pragmatic element, that of the “liberal-democratic party”, whose
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intention is to govern the country using a non-ideological “state/market” mix. PD leaders, from Veltroni to Letta, sought to interpret their role either from the perspective of the “socialdemocratic party” or from that of the “liberal-democratic party”. This meant the continuous alternation between different, incompatible, conceptions of what the PD was and what it should represent, in a seemingly endless succession of mutually contradictory party conceptions—conceptions that ultimately never managed to solve an identity problem that lingered constantly in the background. Veltroni and Renzi provided types of leadership that were consistent with the “liberal-democratic party” model, though for different reasons. On the other hand, Bersani and Zingaretti embodied types of leadership reflecting the “socialdemocratic party” model. Even the general secretaries selected, without recourse to primary elections, by the National Assembly (Epifani, Martina and Letta) can be clearly associated with one or the other of these two models. Epifani was an advocate of the “socialdemocratic model”, while Martina attempted to embody the “liberal-democratic model”. Finally, Letta predominantly reflected the “socialdemocratic model”, as demonstrated, especially in the last period of his leadership, from the campaign for the 2022 general election to the constituent process that led to the election of his successor and the birth of the “new PD”. In this alternation of leadership styles corresponding to different cultural and organisational party models, conditions favourable to the emergence of a general secretary committed to the “ethical party” model were never created. This model was, at most, reflected in the perspectives of third-placed candidates, such as Giuseppe Civati in 2013 and, to a lesser extent, Ignazio Marino in 2009. Most of the time, supporters of this model had to settle for some variant of the “socialdemocratic party” by supporting a candidate who represented that outlook. A typical example in this regard is the candidacy of Andrea Orlando in 2017, which offered a “socialdemocratic” perspective in opposition to the “liberal-democratic” perspective of Matteo Renzi, and which attracted the support of more radical left-wing components who embraced the “ethical party” model. However, with Schlein’s election, a leadership that embodies the “ethical party” model has asserted itself for the first time. This corresponds to the role of an opposition party that seeks to influence the government’s policies rather than competing for a role in the government, entirely
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neglecting the fundamental issue of how concretely to represent a credible alternative to the centre-right. The assertion of the “ethical party” model, under Schlein’s leadership, has had the consequence of reopening conflicts and divisions between the majority and internal minorities, which continue to be a defining characteristic of the PD. The degree of internal conflict remains high. Today, in Schlein’s “new PD”, as in the cases of the PD from Renzi to Zingaretti (and even under Bersani’s leadership, albeit to a lesser extent), internal minorities are opposed to a dominant coalition. This coalition, in turn, supports the candidate who won the primaries and gained control of the party for their area or faction—which is the reason for the enduring unresolved issue. It prevents the PD leadership from developing a political culture and organisational model, or defining the party’s ideological goals and the social strata whose interests it seeks to represent. This is due to the fact that the internal ideological space, defined in terms of value orientations and principles guiding political action, continues to be a contested field. While in 2017—after Renzi’s reconfirmation as party leader and with the advent of the “native” party—it was reasonable to assume that the influence of previous affiliations was now very limited,5 today, six years later, following Schlein’s election as general secretary, as we have seen, previous affiliations once again matter. This is due to discontent among the Catholic-identifying sectors of the PD as a reaction to the “ethical party” model embodied by the new leadership.
The Values Underpinning the Party’s Political Culture The internal divisions on the dimensions that define the political space within the party—the socio-economic and ethical-value dimensions— reflect the profound differences in orientation among its middle-level
5 Let us consider an example: the vast majority of delegates to the National Assembly elected in 2017, regardless of their previous affiliations, including native Democrats, as well as post-communists and former Christian Democrats, were characterised by a pro-market orientation on socio-economic issues. This clearly suggested that the “socialdemocratic party” model could be considered outdated. However, since no process within political parties is irreversible, today, under the leadership of the new general secretary, we are witnessing a significant return to that model.
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activists on the basic values that should in their view inspire the PD’s political culture and guide its actions. The investigations conducted over time among delegates to the PD’s National Assembly, similar to those conducted among delegates to the national congresses of the PDS and DS between 1995 and 2000 (Bellucci et al. 2000), provide interesting insights in this regard. Among other things, they clearly highlight the considerable difficulties the Italian left faces in acknowledging values with an individualistic and liberal character, capable of better interpreting the demands emerging in individualised mass societies. As highlighted by Schwartz (1992 and 1994), individuals tend to orient themselves based on certain fundamental values, which are relatively stable convictions about ideal and desirable ways of acting or being, contributing to the definition of specific aims guiding their thoughts and behaviour in various areas of their lives. These values appear to derive from the motivations that individuals perceive as compelling, concerning the satisfaction of basic needs such as self-preservation and the preservation of one’s group, control and dominance over others, affiliation and kinship. They are closely related to each other, as reasons to believe and act in similar or opposing ways, and can be traced back to two normative dimensions. These are conservation vs. openness to change, reflecting the opposition between the desire for autonomy and the desire for conformity; self-transcendence vs. self-enhancement, reflecting the tension between committing to the well-being of others and the pursuit of success or dominance over one’s peers. The set of reference values that determine individuals’ attitudes, evaluations and behaviour is also compatible with the potential for individuation that has increasingly characterised the evolution of contemporary society, thanks especially to the advent of the so-called information society (Melucci 1982, 1989 and 1996). This development has favoured the marked detachment from political ideologies experienced by party activists themselves, driving two contrasting but fundamental trends over the past thirty years. The first has emerged thanks to the prosperity and personal and social security that the post-war period has provided, allowing for the assertion of post-materialist values related to expectations of self-realisation (Inglehart 1983), or increasingly individualised social demands, especially the pursuit of personal success or dominance over one’s peers. The second trend, which has only emerged in the last two decades, following a decrease in
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job security and an increase in inequality, has pushed these same individualised needs in a more authoritarian and conservative direction (Inglehart 2019), promoting the forms of sovereigntism, supremacism and populism that we have recently seen emerging in the most advanced Western liberal democracies. There has therefore been a shift from the primacy of materialistic values to post-materialistic values and from the need for self-realisation to the need for protection. This has taken place in a mass individualised society increasingly distant from the forms of collective identification that in the last century allowed the construction of paths to emancipation through the mobilisation of social classes (Pasini et al. 2023). The difficulties experienced by the Italian left, in some ways similar to its sister parties elsewhere in Europe, in fully understanding the social change underlying these two trends, are reflected in the polarisation that characterises the political field, as well as in the contrast between different value orientations of members and leaders of the PD. If factions with profoundly different values (Schwartz 1992) coexist within the same party, and if as a result, party members define their policy orientations differently, producing political initiatives with different orientations each time, then it is difficult for that party to find consensus internally and present itself externally as a political entity capable of united action. It is also likely that members of the same party prioritise their factional over their party membership. This situation is clearly depicted by the scores (from 1 to 10) national PD delegates from 2009 to 2023 assigned to certain values essential for the construction of a political culture. For a relatively stable core of these values, such as equality, equal opportunities, secularism, pacifism, the environment and work, there are rather high averages, ranging from 8 to 9, in the various national assemblies. These values are, by their nature, universalistic, referring to the dimension of self-transcendence in action. Values such as equality, work and the environment are universalistic in nature and therefore also refer to the self-transcendent dimension of action. Comparing the average scores delegates to the National Assemblies of 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2019 assigned to these values distinguished by motion of affiliation, we find that average scores are very high, with the mean of the averages across the various assemblies exceeding 9. Other universalistic values such as pacifism, equal opportunities and secularism also have relatively high average scores, with the mean of the averages exceeding 8. Scores assigned to merit, whose universalistic significance
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is more ambiguous, as it can assume different meanings and is partly attributable to the self-realisation dimension of action, are more variable. The average value per assembly ranges from 9.2 for the 2009 delegates to 6.8 for the 2023 delegates, with the mean across the various assemblies being 8.5. Values that are typically individualistic and attributable to the self-realisation dimension of action, such as the market and competition, on the other hand, have rather low average scores, with means across the various assemblies ranging from 6 to 7. Of greater interest are the comparisons between competition and the market on the one hand, and equality, work and the environment on the other. The former are values that exhibit a more individualistic orientation towards self-realisation and the latter are those that reflect a strictly universalistic orientation towards self-transcendence. The divergence in scores for these values can be seen as lying at the root of the deep divisions persisting among middle-level activists. These divisions prevent the emergence of a common normative perspective for making sense of the changes affecting Italian society, especially the growing individualisation of citizen expectations and demands, including those arising from the need for security interpreted in an egoistic and individualistic way, favouring the rise of populist and anti-system political forces. Of particular interest are the scores for competition, with an average that exceeds 7 only among delegates to the 2013 National Assembly, elected concurrently with Matteo Renzi’s first term and that drops to 4.9 among delegates to the National Assembly recently elected with the new general secretary, Elly Schlein. Scores are just above 7 among delegates to the other three assemblies: the one in 2009 with the leadership of Bersani, the one in 2017 during Renzi’s second term and the one in 2019 with the leadership of Zingaretti. The market, which is also linked to the individualistic dimension of self-realisation, shows more highly, with an average ranging from 6.5, also recorded among delegates to the National Assembly elected with Schlein, and a maximum of 7.3 among the delegates elected during Renzi’s second term. On the other hand, average scores for the combination equality/work never fall below 9.1 and 9.3, with equality reaching its peak among the delegates elected in 2019 in conjunction with Zingaretti, and work reaching a peak of 9.7 among the delegates elected under Schlein’s leadership. It is therefore evident that the most significant shift in the value orientations of delegates occurs between the National Assembly of 2009, elected concurrently with Bersani, and that of 2013, elected during
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Renzi’s first term. In particular, average scores for the competition/ market combination show a significant increase, rising from 7 to well above this, reducing the distance that previously separated them from the average scores for the other values. Secondly, the overall increase is mainly due to the contribution of delegates supporting Renzi’s motion, who rate it above 7, while supporters of Cuperlo’s and Civati’s motions give lower average scores. Conversely, between Renzi’s second term in 2017 and the Assembly recently elected with Schlein, the average scores for competition begin to decline, falling below 6. In turn, average scores for the market remain above 7 even among 2019 delegates elected under Zingaretti’s leadership, showing a significant increase among delegates elected in concomitance with Renzi’s first and second terms, while falling below that level among delegates to the current Assembly elected with Schlein. As a result, between 2009 and 2013, a normative reference system defined in terms of the universalistic values of the self-transcendent dimension with which the left has traditionally aligned itself, were combined with values foreign to that tradition. These values, concerning competition and the market, are related to the self-affirmation dimension of action. This had significant consequences for perceptions of desirable ways of being and acting among middle-level activists, leading to increasingly divergent motivational drives and policy orientations. Following Renzi’s departure from the PD, the tensions that had arisen during his leadership gave rise to the belief among some that his leadership had been a mistake. Consequently, the transformation gave rise to a division between the liberal-democratic and the socialdemocratic and ethical causes that have remained ever since. This transformation of the PD’s value system and persisting polarisation among middle-level activists along the equality/work and competition/market dimension is evident in the increasing scores for universalistic values related to self-transcendence (equality and work) compared to individualistic values related to self-realisation (competition and market). There is also a growing misalignment of the sides, which intensifies starting with the 2013 National Assembly, demonstrating that the value systems of reference of the delegates were becoming increasingly differentiated in relation to their different affiliations. Even in 2009, under Bersani’s leadership, the party’s middle-level activists’ scores were largely convergent. Delegates associated with Marino’s candidacy, at that time representing the party’s ethical cause, were an
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exception. They tended to assign scores significantly above the average to values such as secularism and equal opportunities, and significantly below the average to the market. But in 2013, and even more so in 2017, during Renzi’s two terms as general secretary, these scores began to vary to a great extent. In 2013, there was significant divergence in scores for all the values considered, with the exception of pacifism, especially between the supporters of Renzi’s motion and delegates supporting the minority motions. This divergence became even more pronounced, again with the sole exception of pacifism, in the National Assembly of 2017. Then, significantly different scores between supporters of the various motions affected the entire value system, indicating that the PD’s normative and value system of reference had become highly fragmented. Not even Zingaretti’s leadership—which aimed to be inclusive and so reduce the conflicts that had permeated the party in the years preceding his administration—managed to reconcile these differences. Thus, delegates supporting Roberto Giachetti, the candidate representing the reformist-liberal-democratic cause, claiming continuity with Renzi’s leadership, exhibit a profile of evaluations significantly different from those of supporters of the other motions. Pronounced differentiation in the value assessments of the middle-level activists has tended to solidify over time. It is likely that since the fractures that emerged during Renzi’s leadership, the party has been unable to absorb, or at least mitigate, these differences within the framework of a relatively homogeneous political culture. The National Assembly elected in 2023 alongside Elly Schlein reveals even more pronounced divergences. They are especially pronounced between the majority supporting the new general secretary, and those supporting the other candidates, especially Stefano Bonaccini. The fragmentation of values that characterises the value system of the PD is a serious problem for the party. In this regard, the PD exhibits all the symptoms of a left-wing entity that has failed to come to terms with its past and is struggling to position itself with a vision of the future. On the one hand, at least since the second term of Renzi’s leadership, the emergence of a party of native democrats (De Luca and Fasano 2018) might have been expected decisively to have reduced the influence of the post-communist and former Christian Democratic legacies. On the other hand, the deep divisions that persist among middle-level activists, especially on socio-economic issues vital for its credibility as a possible alternative government, clearly suggest the existence of a PD composed
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of multiple factions. These factions perpetuate a conflict that has become so intense that the party is unable to find the internal consensus necessary to safeguarding its image and identity as perceived by voters and the public. This is a problem that appears to have no solution, and the various leaders that have succeeded one another over time have never managed to address it seriously. During Renzi’s two terms, the general secretary and his leadership team were unwilling to address the fundamental issue of political culture and identity, and Zingaretti’s inclusive leadership contributed to further ambiguity and uncertainty in the party’s political profile. The election of the new general secretary, Elly Schlein, occurred following the instigation of a new constituent process, one that also resulted in the production of a new Charter of Values, without replacing the previous one, in order to open the party to new forces. However, even this seems unlikely to improve the situation. The unusual situation that arose as a result of the divergent outcomes of the membership ballot, won by Bonaccini, and the primary, won by Schlein, further deepened the division between the party on the ground, composed of local administrators closer to Bonaccini, and the party in central office, where supporters selected by Schlein herself occupy key positions. The absence of political-cultural consolidation and a low degree of institutionalisation remain the two main structural challenges for the PD. The almost total lack of interest shown by the leadership in these challenges can only further expose the party to the risks of internal polarisation, clearly fuelled by the need to compensate for the lack of a shared identity and political culture. This is attempted, on the one hand, through abstract references to an allegedly genuine left-wing ideology and, on the other hand, through attachment to sectarian, sub-party or factional identities. Processes of differentiation have helped sustain a fragile, ambiguous and contradictory political identity among middle-level party activists. This has led to a sort of stratification between an ideological or political-cultural identity, a party identity and a sub-party or factional identity (Catellani et al. 2005). The absence of a clearly defined political culture has obstructed mediation between different factions on the basis of shared criteria. The handling of internal conflict exclusively through decisions taken by majority voting in a context of dual identification has made it difficult to find means of coexistence where party identity could serve to limit the impact of factional or sub-factional affiliations. Since
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its founding in 2007, factions and groups within the PD have proliferated immensely, generating processes of internal differentiation that often go far beyond the disagreements arising from the National Assembly motions. Internal conflict surrounding competing identities has, therefore, intensified, with the absence of a clear party identity having increased the pull of past ideological affiliations, sometimes exploited for instrumental reasons, as well as of more recent forms of solidarity and group affiliations. From this perspective, it is significant that the average scores assigned to the various values by delegates to National Assemblies from 2009 to 2023, differ less between supporters of the different motions than among supporters of the same motion. Therefore, motion affiliation, on the one hand, is not enough to explain the differences among delegates regarding their specific value orientations, and, on the other hand, it cannot be considered as a criterion structuring internal party debate. This conclusion further exacerbates the PD’s internal instability, making it even more difficult to create the conditions needed to reducing ambiguity and conflict. The internal ideological space, as it currently stands, is revealed by the survey we conducted among delegates of the National Assembly elected in 2023. As in the past (Fasano et al. 2018), a core of universalistic values related to the self-transcendent dimension of action (Schwartz 1992)—equality, gender equality, secularism, pacifism and labour with the subsequent addition of the environment—receives relatively high ratings from the delegates.6 There is also a certain convergence in delegates’ evaluations regardless of the motion they support. On the other hand, more individualistic values related to the self-assertive dimension of action (Schwartz 1992)—the market, competition and merit—receive relatively lower scores and there is greater divergence in scores, depending on the motion considered. However, among delegates to the newly elected National Assembly these latter values receive even lower scores than in the past, declining to historic lows, especially among supporters of the majority motion. An idea of the change that has occurred can be derived from Fig. 4.2, which represents the average scores assigned to these values by all delegates to each of 6 Respondents were asked to score a set of basic values on a scale from 1 to 10. The values in question were secularism, equality, pacifism, gender equality, merit, competition, markets, labour and the environment.
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the National Assemblies from 2009 to 2023. It is evident that there have been changes in the scores assigned to values such as competition, merit and the market, especially compared to those assigned during Renzi’s two terms as general secretary. In particular, the average score for competition among delegates to the 2023 Assembly is 5.34, while the scores for merit and the market are lower than those for these values among delegates to the previous National Assemblies. Among the current delegates, scores for all of the values, with the exception of gender equality, work and the environment, are lower than among the delegates participating in the earlier surveys, suggesting that the current delegates have more stringent attitudes. Thus, the disavowal of individualistic values related to the selfassertive dimension of action, especially competition and merit, evident among delegates to the newly elected National Assembly, can largely be attributed to the contrasting orientation to these values of supporters of the Schlein motion. This is evident from Fig. 4.3, which compares the average scores given by the latter with those given by Bonaccini’s delegates. The difference between the two groups is clear: the 2009
2013
2017
2019
2023
Laicity 10 9
Labour
Equality
8 7 6 Market
5
Pacifism
4
Competition
Environment
Merit
Equal opportunity
Fig. 4.2 Basic values according to National Assembly delegates (2009–2023). Average scores
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market, competition and merit receive higher scores from members of the National Assembly aligned with Bonaccini, while work, the environment, secularism, equality, pacifism and gender equality are judged more favourably by those aligned with the new general secretary. This sudden and radical change in the orientations of the “new PD”, has helped to turn Schlein’s “movement-oriented” party into a political entity espousing a traditional liberal-labour perspective, where a fundamental theme revolves around negative orientations to the market and the individualistic values of competition and merit. The change is also reflected, in the internal political space, by the delegates’ positioning on the socio-economic dimension, which, as already emphasised, has become a significant dimension of conflict. As shown in Table 4.4, in fact, those who evaluate the market, competition and merit negatively (assigning scores of 5 or less) are predominantly pro-labour-oriented, amounting to 56.3%, 59.7% and 64.1%, respectively, of those evaluating negatively merit, competition and the market. On the other hand, those who evaluate these three values positively (assigning scores of 8 to 10) are predominantly pro-market-oriented, amounting to 60% in each case of those evaluating these values positively.
Bonaccini Laicity 10 9 8 7 6 5 4
Labour
Market
Competition
Schlein
Equality
Pacifism
Environment Merit
Equal opportunity
Fig. 4.3 Basic values according to National Assembly delegates (2023) supporting the Schlein and Bonaccini motions (average scores)
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Table 4.4 Scoring of 2023 National Assembly delegates of the values, “merit”, “competition” and “market” Socio-economic dimension
Negative evaluation
Neither positive nor negative
Positive evaluation
Total
Value: Merit pro-market pro-labour
56.3 43.8
57.9 42.1
39.5 60.5
47.9 52.1
Value: Competition pro-market pro-labour
59.7 40.3
37.7 62.3
39.1 60.9
48.6 51.4
Value: Markets pro-market pro-labour
64.1 35.9
45.5 54.5
39.7 60.3
47.9 52.1
Key Negative evaluation: from 1 to 5 out of 10. Neither negative nor positive evaluation: 6 or 7 out of 10. Positive evaluation: from 8 to 10 out of 10.
A Party in Search of Itself Sixteen years after its formation, with the fifth general secretary to be selected through the system of primary elections having just taken office, no unbiased observer looking at the PD’s history could fail to appreciate that the party had long been in the grip of a severe identity crisis. There was the added complication—as revealed by the unprecedented events of 2023—of a fairly significant fracture between party members and voters, described and analysed in the preceding chapters, with clear and significant repercussions for the future of the Democrats and their approach to various issues, as we will see in the paragraphs that follow. Walter Veltroni, Dario Franceschini, Pierluigi Bersani, Guglielmo Epifani, Matteo Renzi (twice), Maurizio Martina, Nicola Zingaretti, Enrico Letta and now Elly Schlein: ten party general secretaries, elected with or without primaries. These and the large number of “used and discarded” leaders are the most evident demonstration of the PD’s inability to establish a stable leadership group. There has been alternation between a succession of general secretaries elected directly by members and voters, and “caretakers” who took over the leadership ahead of the regular congresses. Caretaker leaders have been made necessary by defeats
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(as in the case of Veltroni and Renzi), or impasses (as in the case of Bersani), or resignations (as in the case of Zingaretti). Each has had his own style and political strategy, often conflicting with those of his predecessor, suggesting, especially as all this has happened in the early years of the PD’s existence, the party’s difficulty in establishing a stable identity. From this perspective, each of the five general secretaries selected by means of primary elections—Veltroni, Bersani, Renzi, Zingaretti and Schlein—has sought to establish an image and identity for the party that corresponds to one or the other of the five different types of party we have described above.7 The history of the PD has therefore been marked by Veltroni’s amalgam party (2007–2009), Bersani’s old-style party (2009– 2013), Renzi’s pragmatic party (2013–2019), Zingaretti’s omnibus party (2020–2022) and today Schlein’s movement-oriented party. Just like her predecessors, Schlein, who seems to have in mind a new “movement-type” party, is seeking to lay the programmatic foundations for yet another party model. She is doing so while having to contend with the large and heterogeneous Bonaccini faction, which in turn embodies an idea of the party that is far from superfluous as it represents a sort of blend between Renzi’s pragmatic party and Zingaretti’s omnibus party. These are different images, closely connected with contrasting political identities, leadership styles, party organisational forms, alliance strategies and even conceptions of democracy. Thanks to their abrupt appearance and rapid succession, such images have failed to find a significant echo among voters, or to provide the basis for a shared political project or vision of society that could resonate with a population facing problems that differ from those parties of the left have traditionally tended to address. For good reason, voters have chosen to punish the PD electorally by gravitating towards the more “simplistic” proposals, first of the Five Star Movement, then of Salvini’s League and, most recently, of Fratelli d’Italia led by Giorgia Meloni. Whether Elly Schlein’s leadership represents another new beginning, whether it represents an embrace of one of the previous party models
7 In this regard, the Democratic Party bears a remarkable resemblance to the evolution
of the British Labour Party, in which three main ideological and organisational models can be found. They are, the “ethical party”, characterised by uncompromising egalitarianism; the “socialdemocratic party”, driven mainly by trade union concerns and the “democraticreformist party”, which gained prominence after the end of the socialdemocratic phase. For the PD, see Natale and Fasano (2017), and for the Labour Party, see Drucker (1979).
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or whether it represents a novel synthesis of previous attempts the PD has made to find its purpose and become the point of reference for a significant portion of the centre-left electorate, is still too early to tell. However, the challenges faced by the new general secretary do not bode well. The PD, even after this latest change of phase, continues to be a party constantly in search of itself.
References Addario, Nicolò and Luciano M. Fasano. (2015). ‘La vera innovazione è politica’, Il Mulino, LXIV(1): 63–68. Bale, Tim, Paul Webb and Monica Poletti. (2019). Footsoldiers: Political Party Membership in the 21st Century, London: Routledge. Bellucci, Paolo, Marco Maraffi and Paolo Segatti. (2000). PCI, PDS, DS, La trasformazione dell’identità politica della sinistra di governo, Roma: Donzelli. Catellani, Patrizia, Patrizia Milesi and Alberto Crescentini. (2005). ‘One Root, Different Branches: Identity, Injustice and Schism’, in Patrizia Catellani, Patrizia Milesi and Alberto Crescentini (Eds.), Extreme Right Activists in Europe, London: Routledge, pp. 204–223. De Luca, Roberto and Luciano M. Fasano (Eds) (2018). Il Partito Democratico dei nativi, Novi Ligure (AL): Edizioni Epoké. Di Virgilio, Aldo and Paolo Segatti. (2016). La rappresentanza politica in Italia. Candidati ed elettori nelle elezioni politiche del 2013, Bologna: il Mulino. Drucker, H. (1979). Doctrine and Ethos in the Labour Party, Londra, Allen & Unwin. Fasano, L.M. (2009). L’Assemblea costituente nazionale del PD, in G. Pasquino (a cura di), Il Partito Democratico. Elezione del segretario, organizzazione, potere. Bologna, Bononia University Press, pp. 141–186. Fasano, L.M. (2010). L’Assemblea nazionale del PD, in G. Pasquino e F. Venturino (a cura di), Il Partito Democratico di Bersani. Persone, profilo e prospettive, Bologna, Bononia University Press, pp. 35–66. Fasano, L.M. (2020). El Partito Democratico: Del partido de los reformistas al partido fallido. Un primer balance (2007–2019), in Revista de Estudios Políticos, vol.189, julio/septiembre, pp. 127–166. Fasano, L.M. e Martocchia Diodati, N. (2014). L’Assemblea nazionale del Partito Democratico, in G. Pasquino e F. Venturino (a cura di), Il Partito Democratico secondo Matteo, Bologna, Bononia University Press, pp. 65– 100. Fasano, L.M., Martocchia Diodati, N. e Natale, P. (2018). L’Assemblea nazionale del Partito Democratico, in R. De Luca e L.M. Fasano, Il Partito Democratico dei nativi, Novi Ligure (AL), Epoké, pp. 177–196.
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Ignazi, P. e Bordandini, P. (2018). I muscoli del partito. Il ruolo dei quadri intermedi nella politica atrofizzata, Bologna, il Mulino. Inglehart, Ronald. (1983). The Silent Revolution. Changing Values and Political Styles Among Western Publics, Princeton (N.J.): Princeton University Press. Inglehart, Ronald. (2019). Cultural Evolution: People’s Motivations are Changing, and Reshaping the World, Cambridge (Mass.): Cambridge University Press. Katz, Richard and Peter, Mair. (1995). ‘Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party’, Party Politics 1(1): 5-28. Melucci, Alberto. (1982). L’invenzione del presente. Movimenti sociali nelle società complesse, Bologna: il Mulino. Melucci, Alberto. (1989). Nomads of the Present. Social Movements and Individual Needs in Contemporary Society, London: Hutchinson. Melucci, Alberto. (1996). Challenging Codes. Collective action in the Information Age, Cambridge (UK):Cambridge University Press. Melucci, Alberto. (2000). Culture in gioco. Differenze per convivere, Milano: Il Saggiatore. Natale, P. (2007). Mobilità elettorale e “fedeltà leggera”: i movimenti di voto, in “Nel segreto dell’urna” (a cura di Feltrin, Natale e Ricolfi), Utet, Torino, 2007 Natale, P. (2019). L’Assemblea nazionale del Partito Democratico, in S. Rombi e F. Serricchio (a cura di), L’elezione di Zingaretti. La rivincita del partito?, Novi Ligure (AL), Epoké, pp. 229–241. Natale, Paolo. (2020). L’Assemblea nazionale del Partito Democratico, in S. Rombi e F. Serricchio (a cura di), L’elezione di Zingaretti. La rivincita del partito?, Novi Ligure (AL), Edizioni Epoké, pp. 229–241. Natale, P. e Fasano, L.M. (2017). L’ultimo partito. Dieci anni di Partito Democratico, Torino, Giappichelli. Panebianco, A. (1982). Modelli di partito. Organizzazione e potere nei partiti politici, Bologna, il Mulino. Pasini, Nicola, Luciano Mario Fasano and Giovanni Antonio Cerutti. (2023). ‘Can the Left Respond to New cleavages in Italy’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies 28(5):570–584. Rokkan, S. (1970). Citizens, Elections, Parties, Oslo: Scandinavian University Books. Schwartz, S.H. (1992). Universals in the Content and Structures of Values. Theory and Empirical Tests in 20 Countries, Advance in Experimental Social Psychology, n. 25, Academic Press, San Diego, p. 1–65. Schwartz, Shalom H. (1994). ‘Beyond Individualism/Collectivism: New Cultural Dimensions of Values’, in U. Kim, H. C. Triandis, Ç. Kâ˘gitçiba¸si, S.-C. Choi
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and G. Yoon (Eds.), Individualism and Collectivism: Theory, Method, and Applications, Thousand Oaks (CA): Sage Publications, pp. 85–119. Selznick, P. (1957). La leadership nelle organizzazioni, Milano, Franco Angeli.
CHAPTER 5
Back to the Future: Reflections on Prospects for the European Left
Abstract As we underlined at the beginning of the book, the actual difficulties of the Western Left parties are rooted in both their past history and their recent experiences. Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin wall, the attempts made by the mainstream European Left-Wing parties to engage in a genuine reappraisal of social and political realities, or to come to terms with the economic and labour-market changes depending on globalisation, gave so far uncertain and contradictory results. This is true both for the Labour Party in England and the Partito Democratico in Italy, and for the Socialdemocratic Party in Germany, the Socialist and Workers’ Party in Spain and the Socialist Party in France. And all that happened even if these parties have taken different paths to change and increase their ability to gain support in different sectors of society. The Labour Party and the Italian PD straight took the direct route of the so-called Third way, the first inside the same political party of the past, and the second by making a party merge between the heirs of the Christian Democrat’s progressist wing and of the Communists. The German Socialdemocratic Party and the Spanish Socialist and Workers’ Party preferred to undertake a relatively less conflictive strategy of both “innovation and continuity”. Between the late 1990s and early 2000s, all these parties gained good results in terms of electoral support. The France Socialist Party had instead less luck: staying more in the footsteps of the left tradition and choosing a more plural solution, it has been through a long political crisis that led it to the surprising recent electoral defeats. But beyond these alternating fortunes, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 L. M. Fasano et al., The Italian Democratic Party and New Labour, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54059-2_5
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in the last three decades all these parties were equally joined by a constant decline of their votes. The left’s revival hinges on three crucial aspects: a clear understanding of its identity in the twenty-first century, an acknowledgement of its current state and a comprehension of the prerequisites for rejuvenation. Exploring the meaning of left and right reveals enduring tensions around nationhood and interclass cooperation versus class and internationalism. While the right embraces a coherent ideology, the left’s lack of vision, exemplified by parties like Italy’s PD, and Labour in the UK leads to electoral setbacks. The left’s decline since the 1980s is rooted in post-Fordist economic shifts, cultural changes and the rise of populism. To rekindle its influence, the left must reassert equality, readdress globalisation’s winners and losers, and champion a renewed internationalism, transcending national boundaries. Keywords Decline of the left · Left-wing revival · Individualised mass society · Post-materialist values · Equality and supranational democracy · Globalisation and populism · Political culture · Ideological clarity
The analysis conducted thus far has allowed us to scrutinise the trajectory of the Italian Democratic Party in comparison with recent developments in the Labour Party. These parties’ problems have emerged against the background of a wider crisis afflicting the European left generally, one engulfing some of the most influential socialist and socialdemocratic parties in Western Europe. It has become evident that the European left is currently facing a complex predicament, marked by declining electoral support and a dearth of innovative ideas. In order for the left to have any realistic prospect of reviving its fortunes, three things are indispensable. The first is to have a clear understanding of what it means to be on the left in the early twenty-first century; the second is to understand how and why the left has come to find itself in its current parlous state; the third to understand, thereby, the conditions necessary for a revival.
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What Does It Mean to Be on the Left? With regard to the first of these issues, we begin by noting that in a recent book about Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy, FdI), Vassallo and Vignati (2023: 23) point out that “Fascism and communism were the two dominant anti-liberal ideological movements in mass politics during the first half of the twentieth century. Fascism was built upon the absolute importance of the nation and interclass cooperation, while communism centred around the absolute significance of class and internationalism”. With the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and (partly as a consequence of that) the end of the so-called First Republic, both of the Italian parties representing these traditions, the Movimento Sociale Italiano (Italian Social Movement, MSI) and the Partito Comunista Italiano (Italian Communist Party, PCI) were forced to renounce their “foundation myths” and therefore underwent transformations of identity. Yet “the nation and interclass cooperation” on the one hand and “the meaning of class and internationalism” on the other continue, albeit in a subdued fashion, to be the core around which the conflict between left and right revolves. Beneath the surface of the individualised mass society, which has helped weaken perceptions of these traditional cultural points of reference, the points of reference themselves remain. On the right, the importance of nation and interclass cooperation are clearly apparent. They have always been central to—for example— conservatism, which rejects suggestions that it is an ideology in defence of a partial interest, claiming instead to defend an entire way of life— society as an organic entity—with interclass cooperation as a concomitant. Concomitant too is the emphasis on nation, which has historically also had an instrumental value in helping to counter the appeal of socialism and ideas of international workers’ solidarity. Nazional-conservatorismo is now the ideology FdI explicitly embraces, enabling it both to claim continuity with its organisational and ideological heritage and to wage war on the fascist/anti-fascist dichotomy in narratives around the Republic’s identity—while also enabling it to maintain solid connections with strong sister parties through the National Conservatism Movement crossnationally.1
1 The movement’s website can be found here: https://nationalconservatism.org/ about/.
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The situation on the left is different, in that there is nothing like as clear a vision of what it wants as the vision that exists on the right. For example, in the immediate aftermath of the Italian general election of September 2022, which saw the number of votes cast for the Partito Democratico (Democratic Party, PD) reach an all-time low, media commentators referred to the party as “an empty shell”2 to draw attention to the fact that, as Lirio Abbare (2022: 11) put it, “The left no longer knows what it wants, it can no longer say in positive terms what it wants and where it wants to go”. In other words, it fought the election in support of what has been called the “Draghi agenda”—but Draghi was a technocrat, his agenda serving to manage a crisis situation in the present. It was never intended to be understood as a political or party programme. What was lacking on the part of the PD was any implicit or explicit vision of the future. The same is true of the Labour Party. In the autumn of 2023, researchers associated with the think tank, “More in Common”,3 asked voters to mention one or two words to describe what they thought each party leader stood for and revealed that among the most frequently mentioned in relation to Keir Starmer were “Nothing”, “No idea”, “Don’t know” and “Not sure”.4 Significantly, other words mentioned did include “Working class” and “Equality” suggesting that the party’s traditional ideological commitments had not completely disappeared from the public imagination. Nevertheless, it was telling that in the run-up to a key by-election on 19 October 2023, the director of “More in Common”, Luke Tryl, said that his organisation’s “focus group of undecided voters in MidBedfordshire showed a “striking” lack of enthusiasm for Keir Starmer and Labour” (Forrest 2023). (By-elections are significant in the British political system because, although they only take place in single constituencies, by creating or putting a brake on band-waggon effects, they have a much wider significance for the fortunes of political parties.) In Italy, voters in general but also those close to the PD itself (in an Ipsos poll
2 See, for example, the edition of l’Espresso of 2 October 2022, entitled ‘Vuoto a sinistra’. 3 https://www.moreincommon.com. 4 The results of the research were presented during the BBC broadcast, “Sunday with
Laura Kuenssberg” aired on 8 October 2023, which can be viewed at https://www.bbc. co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001rbhl/sunday-with-laura-kuenssberg-08102023.
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conducted in September 2023) struggled to define what the programme and watchwords of the party and its leader, Elly Schlein, were. Clearly defined and understood ideologies are essential to parties’ success as Antonio Floridia (2019) points out. A party lacking an ideology lacks the outlook that can organise and render coherent the ideas and principles informing its programme and policies. It thus lacks a fundamental means of coordination with its potential constituents (Hinich and Munger 2010). This makes it more difficult for it to set the agenda of public political discussion and therefore to influence public opinion—as a result of which it is restricted to supporting or opposing the visions expressed by others, condemned constantly to follow or to adapt itself to public opinion. It also makes it more difficult for it to cultivate an audience of core supporters willing to back it through thick and thin, making it more likely that it is condemned to having to re-create its base of support afresh at each election. It was probable that it was FdI’s clear ideology and therefore its notable capacity for agenda setting that explained, at least in part, why, one year on from the September 2022 general election, it was— despite polling evidence revealing widespread voter dissatisfaction with the government’s performance on then high-salience issues like immigration and the cost of living—if anything polling at higher levels than its 2022 vote share (Newell 2023). And it was probably because the PD lacked an ideology that the polling distance between the two parties one year on was in all essentials the same as the distance that had separated them in September 2022. In short, if the left was to revive its fortunes, then it needed to “return to basics” and ask itself what it meant to be on the left in the early twenty-first century. First and foremost, the term “left” cannot be understood without understanding what the term “right” means, and vice versa, precisely because each gets its meaning from the other. The terms are mutually exclusive, in the sense that it is not possible, at one and the same time, to be both “on the left” and “on the right”, though of course individual voters frequently do have left-wing positions on some issues combined with right-wing positions on others. The terms “left” and
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“right” refer to a spatial metaphor, originating with the French revolution,5 which voters and other actors use to make sense of politics. Despite periodic attempts to insist that the terms are no longer helpful—such as those associated with “the End of History” (Fukuyama 1992), in the aftermath of the Cold War, or with the emergence and growth of the Movimento Cinque Stelle (Five Star Movement, M5s) from 2013—they continue to be meaningful and routinely used by actors to orient themselves politically. Confirmation of this is given by two things. One is that survey respondents are willing and able, by and large, to locate themselves in left–right terms when asked to do so. The other is the simple fact that beneath the flux of changes in the political supply, and notwithstanding heightened voter volatility in an age of weakened party attachments, a constant remains: vote-switching from one side to the other remains a rarity (Natale 2021). As for the substance of the two terms, Norberto Bobbio (1994) argues convincingly that the pair “equality/inequality” best captures the common conceptual denominators that have made possible their persistent use over time. First legal equality, then political equality (with the extension of the franchise in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) and finally economic and social equality (relating to class, gender, the LGBTQI community and so forth) have been the hallmarks of the left—providing, so to speak, the common perceptions, the shared ideas of what “true” equality is—since the eighteenth century. Meanwhile, the commitment to internationalism reflects the historical circumstance that all European parties of the left, revolutionary or otherwise, have been outgrowths of nineteenth-century Marxism with its insistence that solidarity had to be international in scope. The early trade unions had already learnt that political power was proportional not just to large numbers but to the degree to which these numbers were organised. To this Marx and Engels added the observation that in an era in which “big industry [had] already brought all the peoples of the Earth … into such close relation with one another that none [was]
5 This has been challenged as a Pfannkuche (2023) who argues that presumably because in the House government sat on the speakers left, speaker’s right.
popular misconception. See Gauchet (1992) and the terms originate with the English parliament— of Commons, those opposed to the monarch’s while the monarch’s preferred members sat on the
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independent of what happen[ed] to the others”,6 the workers’ emancipation would have to be organised internationally. Today internationalism lives on in the awareness that in an age of pandemics, climate change, nuclear proliferation, food insecurity and so forth, no one individually can be safe unless everyone is safe, underpinning thereby, the ambitions of some on the left to turn citizenship rights, like healthcare, for example, into universal rights—supported by supranational institutions such as the European Union7 —in a world of open borders. This is a need that is felt both within nation-states and globally—one that has given rise to the demand for new forms and methods of public intervention, understood from the perspective of a possible global democracy (Martinelli 2008; Crouch 2018). It is precisely on the ground of a new internationalism that the Left’s initiatives must, in the first instance, be based.
What Has Been Responsible for the Left’s Decline? Across Europe, the left has been in decline since around 1970/1980 (Table 5.1), when Fordist manufacturing systems in protected national economies, Keynesian demand management and broadly shared prosperity began to give way to a new world. This was a world of post-Fordist capital accumulation, increasing trade liberalisation, the growing intellectual influence of neo-liberalism in place of Keynesianism and an increasing shift in the distribution of income and wealth from labour to capital. In terms of electoral support, through the 1980s and part of the 1990s the left’s decline was in some cases relatively modest. Then, the political consequences of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, especially the discrediting of communism, briefly seemed to favour socialist and socialdemocratic parties and suggest, perhaps, a bright future for them. However, from the turn of the century support declined more rapidly, revealing that prognostications concerning the parties’ future had been illusory and that the emperor (the left) really was without any new clothes. The post-Fordist economy brought a decline in the numbers belonging to the left’s traditional constituency, the manual or industrial working class, as well as a decline in the likelihood that the vast majority who
6 https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/manifesto.pdf 7 As the extensive literature on European social citizenship shows. See Amelina et al.
(2019) , Gerhards and Lengfeld (2015), Roche and Van Berkel (2018), Ferrera (2019).
42.8 12.0 13.5 37.4 22.1 34.8 33.5 34.4 9.5 29.7 31.9 34.3 29.1 39.6 37.7
1990 33.2 9.5 10.2 29.1 22.9 24.1 38.5 40.7 10.8 16.6 15.1 24.3 44.1 34.2 36.4
2000 29.3 9.2 13.7 24.8 19.1 29.4 23.0 29.1 19.5 37.6 19.6 35.4 36.6 28.8 30.7
2010
21.2 (2019) 6.7 (2019) 9.5 (2019) 27.5 (2022) 19.9 (2023) 7.4 (2017) 25.7 (2021) 32.1 (2019) 4.4 (2020) 19.0 (2022) 5.7 (2021) 26.3 (2021) 41.4 (2022) 31.7 (2023) 30.3 (2022)
Most recent
Note the figures relate to the parliamentary election closest in time to the date appearing at the top of each of the columns. The date of the most recent election, appearing in the furthest column to the right, are given in brackets *Figures are for the Flemish Socialist Party (top line) and the French Socialist Party **2017 is the date of the last legislative election at which the Partie Socialiste competed independently ***Figures are for the elections of 1979 (PCI + PSI); 1992 (PDS + PSI); 2001 (DS); 2008 (PD); 2022 (PD) ****2021 is the date of the last election at which the PvdA competed independently Source Adapted from Newell, 2022, Table 3.1
51.0 12.4 12.7 38.3 23.9 37.5 42.9 36.9 9.9 40.2 28.3 37.2 27.3 30.4 43.2
1980
Vote shares received by the mainstream socialist/socialdemocratic parties in parliamentary elections (%)
Denmark Finland France** Germany GB Ireland Italy*** Netherlands**** Norway Portugal Spain Sweden
Austria Belgium*
Table 5.1
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remained reliant on wage labour for their maintenance would perceive themselves as “working class”. Less likely to be employed in a large plant, the post-Fordist worker was as likely as not to be employed by a small firm specialised in a particular area of expertise. Therefore, he/ she was as likely as not to be better educated than his/her forebears. As a consumer he/she would be targeted in a different way, as mass markets for consumer essentials became, relatively, less important as compared to markets for luxury, custom and positional goods. He/she would have opportunities for escape from traditional work-class milieux, for exposure to cosmopolitan influences, which his/her parents’ generation of the 1950s and 1960s would only have been able to dream of. All of this worked in the direction of heightened senses of individualism; the encouragement to think of self in terms of new identities; and a breakdown in cultural uniformities. Post-Fordism was accompanied by the spread of, first television and then the Internet and so the eventual emergence of the mediatisation and the personalisation of politics and the growth of a sort of celebrity culture. Politicians, no longer reliant on party machines for the communication of their messages, but, first, on the broadcast media, were obliged to bow to media imperatives for emphases less on policy than on the personal qualities of candidates and leaders. Then, with the advent of the Internet technologies and social media, they could establish direct, unmediated connections with their followers—this in the search for a fan base, and with it a much more powerful link with followers than that which could be provided by mere supporters. By and large, the right has been far more successful in tapping the power of celebrity politics than the left has— think, Silvio Berlusconi, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson versus Achille Occhetto, Hilary Clinton and Keir Starmer. Traditionally, the left had relied on parties of mass integration for the social, and with it the political, encadrement of its followers; but post-Fordism was accompanied by the decline of these parties, the emergence of cartel parties (Katz and Mair 1995) and therefore a decline in the capacity of parties generally to mediate between civil society and the state. Traditional models of representative democracy gave way to audience democracy (Manin 1997) in which voters were less likely to vote automatically for their chosen party because they saw in it the representatives of the social group to which they themselves belonged—but more critically and less enthusiastically. Meanwhile, political elites came
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increasingly to view themselves as a stable profession, so isolating themselves—often within weakly accountable institutions (such as independent central banks) as means to protect themselves from the unpredictable nature of the voting public (Mair 2013). Against this background, a crucial new division in the left’s traditional constituency opened up: the one between the “winners” and “losers” of globalisation (Kriesi et al. 2006). Winners were the post-Fordist workers with high levels of human capital—who were therefore cosmopolitan in outlook and able to share in the economic benefits of globalisation. Losers were the semi-skilled and unskilled workers whose employment security was threatened by the emergence of global supply chains and the relocation of manufacturing to newly industrialising countries where labour power was cheaper and markets unregulated (Hilpert and Hickie 2013: 231). Losers have been increasingly attracted away from the left to new populist parties of the right such as the Lega (League) and UKIP, this as the result of a two-fold process. On the one hand, globalisation implied a declining capacity of the nation state to guarantee social and economic citizenship rights (as political power drained away upwards and to some extent downwards), mainly with regard to employment and wages; therefore, growing difficulties for parties of the left in seeking to differentiate themselves programmatically from competitors on the right, and hence a declining ability of traditional supporters to see the parties’ relevance to their needs. On the other hand, globalisation has enabled populists of right increasingly to mobilise losers, by directing their resentments to globalisation’s concomitants in terms of cultural change, mass migration and the emergence of supranational institutions. The upshot has been that in the UK, class has virtually disappeared as a feature capable of distinguishing supporters of the left and the right, while in Italy it has led to the emergence of what De Sio (2018) has called “class voting in reverse”. All this has taken place against the background of further cultural changes. That is, growing senses of individualism initially encouraged people to think in terms of new identities and needs related to expectations of self-fulfilment (Inglehart 1977). More recently, advanced democracies have witnessed the emergence of the individualised mass society (Bauman 2001; Giddens 1991) in which there is a paradoxical combination of individualisation and characteristics of mass behaviour and conformity. In such a society, encouraged to blame their own failings and weaknesses for their discomforts and defeats, globalisation’s “losers” have
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been led to respond to decreasing job security and increasing inequality in a different way as compared to the past. That is, they no longer respond in terms of class or social group solidarity, but in an increasingly “personalistic” way, by turning to “decisive” leaders and authoritarian political solutions (Inglehart 2019). The swelling ranks of the “losers”—individuals who are fragile in terms of their cultural, social and economic endowments, abandoned to their own fate—together with a scarcity of the economic resources needed to neutralise conditions of disadvantage (see Di Gregorio 2019, 2021) have produced an explosive mixture. Insecurity and fear of the future have contributed, on the one hand, to increasing the need for certainty, fuelling new fundamentalisms, from religious radicalism to identity nationalism, and, on the other, to spreading the passive behaviour and indifference typical of conformist, mass culture, as manifested by the spread of antipolitical sentiments and generalised criticism of elites (Melucci 1982, 2000). Faced with these changes, left-wing parties’ elites, victims of an inferiority complex vis-à-vis the system they had opposed prior to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, have on the one hand come increasingly to rely on techno-economic apparatuses, delegating ever larger decisionmaking functions to them. On the other hand, they have “Brahminised” themselves (Piketty 2020), becoming a self-referential, homogeneous and professional class stably structured within state institutions (Mair 2013). This too has helped drive the populist upsurge that has marked the recent electoral history of Western democracies, and which the left has so far been incapable of countering.
What Is to Be Done? In democracies, political parties have a responsibility to be responsive to public opinion, but they also have a responsibility to lead it—as only in that way can they pursue policies, which, while not yielding much by way of immediate benefits or short-term popularity, are crucial for society’s future. Leading public opinion can counteract populism, which often relies on exploiting fears and emotions and which represents a threat to democracy because it is antithetical to principles of pluralism and minority rights. The first requirement, then, is that the left develops a clear ideology, something that is essential for articulating a compelling narrative and vision for the future. In a competitive political landscape, parties need to differentiate themselves from their rivals. An ideology
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serves as a unique selling point, helping voters understand how one party is distinct from another. Without a clear ideology, a party may struggle to stand out. An ideology brings coherence and consistency to policy development. Consistency, in turn, can build public trust. Voters are more likely to trust parties that remain true to their stated principles. Parties that shift their positions frequently or lack a clear ideology may be viewed with scepticism. Central to this ideology, there needs to be a renewed emphasis on equality and thus on the redistribution of income and wealth, as well as on increasing the life chances of individuals, classes, generations, genders, etc. The period from the end of the war until the end of the 1970s in the UK, Italy and elsewhere was one of rapid growth and shrinking inequality brought about by high tax rates and “an ideology that inequality needed to be kept in check, that was shared between the corporate sector, civil society and the government”. What we now know as the “Reagan-Thatcher revolution” “was the starting point of a dizzying rise in inequality within countries that continues to this day” (Banerjee and Duflo 2021: 3). Increasing income inequality can lead to greater economic insecurity for a significant portion of the population. Those with lower incomes may struggle to cover basic expenses, and they often lack the financial stability to weather unexpected crises. In a mass individualised society, (growing) inequality is linked to (growing) political apathy among the disadvantaged, i.e. to the retreat to a vision of the inequality affecting their living conditions that is divorced from the logic of collective action and distributive conflict. A lack of interest in political engagement thus leads to declining voter turnout and the increasing likelihood that political decisions, such as the Italian government’s recent decision to abolish the Citizenship Income, will mainly serve the interests of the better off. Alternatively, as economic disparities widen, it may become more challenging to find common ground on policy issues, leading to political gridlock and social divisions. The rise of the modern welfare state in the mid-twentieth century, which brought significant progress in health, education and other areas, “was linked to the rise of steep progressive taxation rates …. A similar evolution will be necessary in order to address the challenges of the twenty-first century” (Chancel et al. 2021: 20) such as policies to address climate change which are unlikely to be politically feasible unless combined with measures to address inequality—as the Yellow Vests movement in France made clear. The authors of the World Inequality Report 2022 make the
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point that given the very large volume of wealth increasingly concentrated at the top of the distribution, even “modest progressive taxes can generate significant revenues for governments” (Chancel et al. 2021: 20). Finally, in order for such policies to be feasible in a globalised world dominated by mobile capital, they have to be pursued in the context of renewed attempts to engage with “the difficult task of trying to extend the reach of democracy, regulation and social policy to levels beyond the nation state” (Crouch 2018: 11). This means an acceptance that national Keynesianism and “social democracy in one country” are now dead, and the recognition that from now on they will have to be pursued transnationally or not at all. For this to be possible, there will have to be “further transfers of sovereignty to Europe; further democratisation of the way that sovereignty is exercised; more energetic attempts to create a genuine European public sphere” (Newell 2019b: 302). Recent efforts to set up an international minimum tax agreement in order to prevent multinational corporations escaping taxation by shifting their profits to tax havens and playing countries off against each other as they compete for inward investment are exemplary of what needs to be done. Currently, the intergovernmental character of the European institutions provides little scope for partisan political engagement or the legitimate expression of partisan opposition at EU level. Consequently, opposition has in recent years come to be expressed as an opposition to the system, spearheaded by sovereigntist and right-wing populist forces. European democratisation, involving, among other things, giving the European Parliament the power of legislative initiative, developing transnational party lists and strengthening the Spitzenkandidaten system, can help strengthen the supranational dimension and therefore the emergence of a powerful socialdemocratic agenda at European level.
The Year Zero, at Least for the Italian Left Ultimately, 2023 seems to represent a pivotal moment, a sort of starting point with significant implications for both the Democratic Party in Italy and many left-wing parties across Europe. The challenges faced by the PD are indicative of broader trends that could apply to other countries. As we have seen, at the general election of 2022, the Democratic Party suffered one of the worst electoral performances in its short history, while suffering similar poor performances in (almost) all subsequent electoral competitions, whether at the regional or municipal level, with only a few minor
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exceptions. Not only were these electoral outcomes disappointing for the party, but they also failed to prevent a significant lead by the centre-right coalition, which is poised to govern comfortably in the coming years, potentially until 2027 and beyond, unless there are substantial changes in the dynamics within the governing coalition. After a decade of significant electoral competitiveness, the PD, now in its second decade, has yet to demonstrate the “majoritarian vocation” that Veltroni initially deemed essential for running independently in elections. There is a growing demand from the public, party members and citizens associated with the party for a substantial change in direction. After years of persistent internal conflicts, there is a call for the implementation of a genuine alternative political proposal distinct from the previous centrist government, from the rightward leaning government led by Salvini’s League and from the decidedly right-centre government currently led by Giorgia Meloni’s FdI. The last few years have marked a turning point in Italian politics, signifying a reset for the main party of opposition as one by one, the pillars that once supported the left have gradually fallen away. We can identify five such pillars. The first concerns abstentionism, which no longer favours the centreleft: for the past four or five years, since Salvini’s victory at the 2019 European elections, the smaller the number of voters turning out to vote, the more the right has been successful. Once upon a time, it was said that those identifying with the left were more eager to participate as they had a keener sense of “civic duty”. Today, even in run-off ballots, the leftwing voter is more willing to stay at home, leaving the field open to her opponents. Those who are not motivated to vote today are on average centre-left voters. The second pillar has to do with the vote of the centre as compared to the peripheries. Voters in the larger cities are gradually turning their backs on the left. In all the most recent electoral competitions, the centre/periphery polarisation which once favoured the left has gradually declined to the point of disappearing. Thirdly, the alliance between the M5s and the PD in electoral contests since the 2022 general election appears not to have worked at all. Compared to the general election, when they ran separately, the two parties have suffered combined loses of between 15 and 20% of the vote. Fourthly, the so-called campo largo (literally, “broad field”), the alliance encompassing all the forces of opposition, no longer exists. Many have perceived a drift to the left on the part of the PD, and have left the party as a consequence; but many others have argued that it is in principle impossible to re-establish a more
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or less cohesive coalition with the aim of defeating the right. Prodi’s Ulivo succeeded, and, even though its component parties struggled to remain united, it at least managed to win elections and govern for a few years. Finally, the road to building a coalition capable of competing with the centre-right led by Meloni is a long one. The government’s “honeymoon period” is still not over, and the capacity of FdI to attract votes, especially among “moderates”, is continuing to grow. The new opposition as so far failed to identify key issues on which it that can convince citizens. Beyond civil rights, it needs to formulate convincing proposals on work, wages, development, healthcare and transport. If Elly Schlein and the PD are able to endow themselves with a convincing programme, the opposition forces of the centre-left will be able to become competitive once again, but this is something that is very difficult to achieve in a short space of time. 2023 may therefore come to be regarded as a watershed year both for Italy and for the rest of Europe.
A Sad Conclusion for the Left: A Very Difficult Future All that said, the most crucial point remains that of how it is possible to outline a left-wing perspective that is attentive to equality—of income, wealth, social status, life opportunities and, therefore, the capacity for emancipation in the form of active citizenship—and projected into an international dimension aimed at extending the reach of democracy on a supranational scale, capable of winning the support and consent of voters, as well as of a set of social actors who identify with it over a reasonably long period of time. In the individualised mass society, the perception of social justice solutions increasingly comes through a personal, selfish and self-referential evaluation of them. And this represents a truly cyclopean challenge for a left that has always been accustomed to declining needs and expectations in the form of collective and class emancipation. It is not a matter of disowning itself, but of renewing its ideology and political culture, identifying new conditions suitable for intercepting the needs, expectations and fears of a society in which demands can no longer be interpreted in terms of large collective aggregates, as were the social classes, but are instead the product of individualised claims and demands. As we underlined at the beginning of the book, the actual difficulties of the Western Left parties are rooted in both their past history and their recent experiences. Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin wall, the
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attempts made by the mainstream European Left-Wing parties to engage in a genuine reappraisal of social and political realities, or to come to terms with the economic and labour-market changes depending on globalisation, gave so far uncertain and contradictory results. This is true both for the Labour Party in England and the Partito Democratico in Italy, and for the Socialdemocratic Party in Germany, the Socialist and Workers’ Party in Spain and the Socialist Party in France. And all that happened even if these parties have taken different paths to change and increase their ability to gain support in different sectors of society. The Labour Party and the Italian PD straight took the direct route of the so-called Third way, the first inside the same political party of the past and the second by making a party merge between the heirs of the Christian Democrat’s progressist wing and of the Communists. The German Socialdemocratic Party and the Spanish Socialist and Workers’ Party preferred to undertake a relatively less conflictive strategy of both “innovation and continuity”. Between the late 1990s and early 2000s, all these parties gained good results in terms of electoral support. The France Socialist Party had instead less luck: staying more in the footsteps of the left tradition and choosing a more plural solution, it has been through a long political crisis that led it to the surprising recent electoral defeats. But beyond these alternating fortunes, in the last three decades all these parties were equally joined by a constant decline of their votes. A decline that not even the organisational changes of the party, from the procedures for selecting party leaders to other democratic infraparty solutions, have been able to counteract. And this decline has also been accompanied by important changes in political orientation from a programmatic point of view. This problem has recently afflicted in the same way a large part of the left-wing parties of the Western democracies, including the US Democratic Party, due to a progressive change in the social profile of the left voters, which are increasingly composed by wealthy and high educated citizens, who live in large urban centres staying at the cut edge of the social transformations yield by globalisation. So that a new cleavage appears on the political scene, after the cleavage between capital and labour that has characterised the formation of left-wing parties so far and over time (Rokkan): it is the cleavage between Centre and Periphery which, as Hanspeter Kriesi underlines (The transformation of cleavage politics. The 1997 Stein Rokkan lecture. European journal of political research, 33.2: 165–185), pits the losers against the winners of globalisation. And this time, the Western mainstream left-wing parties are
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clearly more able to interpret the expectations of the latter rather than the former. According to this brand-new scenario, a long and complicated road must be taken by the left to become a majoritarian choice of the Western electorate. Nevertheless, the central issue lies in crafting a left-wing perspective that prioritises equality across various dimensions—income, wealth, social status, life chances and the potential for emancipation through active citizenship. This perspective should also extend globally, working to enhance democracy on a supranational scale while gaining sustained support and consent from voters and a coalition of social actors over an extended period. In the context of an individualised mass society, perceptions of social justice are increasingly shaped by personal, selfish and self-referential attitudes. This poses a significant challenge for the left, accustomed as it is to addressing needs and expectations in terms of collective requirements and the exigencies of class emancipation. It demands not that the left disowns its principles but that it revitalises its ideology and political culture by identifying new conditions capable of engaging with the needs, expectations and fears of a society in which interests are no longer expressed in terms of large collective entities, such as social classes, but rather as individualised claims and demands for action.
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Index
A Abbate, Lirio, 138 Abstentionism, 148 Addario, Nicolò, 107 Alleanza Democratica, Democratic Alliance (AD), 20 Alleanza Lombardia Autonoma, Alliance Lombardy Autonomy, 26 Alleanza Nazionale, National Alliance (AN), 20 Almunia, Amann Joaquín, 15 amalgam party, 39, 106, 131 Amato, Giuliano, 20 Amelina, Anna, 141 AN. See Alleanza Nazionale Andersson, Magdalena, 16 Andreotti, Giulio, 19 article 18, Italian Workers’ Statute, 51 Articolo 1 Movimento Democratici e Progressisti, Article 1 Movement of Democrats and Progressive, xvii, 55, 105 Audickas, Lukas, 89 autonomy degree, 19
Avanguardia Operaia (AO), 45 Aznar, José María Alfredo López, 5, 15, 19 B Bale, Tim, 104 Banerjee, Abhijit, 146 Battista, Pierluigi, 89 Bellucci, Paolo, 103, 121 Benjamin, Schlein, 65 Bérégovoy, Pierre, 18 Berlinguer, Enrico, 32, 33, 87, 108 Berlin Wall, xii, 2–4, 9, 11, 12, 17, 19, 33, 87, 137, 141, 145 Berlusconi, Silvio, 20, 27, 28, 33, 34, 37, 42, 46, 48, 50, 53, 54, 101, 143 Bersani, Pierluigi, 22, 28, 39, 40, 43, 44, 46–48, 51, 52, 55, 57, 102, 105, 106, 108–110, 116, 117, 119, 120, 123, 124, 130, 131 Bertinotti, Fausto, 32 Blair, Tony, xi, 6, 13, 16, 17, 34, 75, 76–82, 84, 86–89
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 L. M. Fasano et al., The Italian Democratic Party and New Labour, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54059-2
161
162
INDEX
Blumenthal, Sidney, 82 Bobbio, Norberto, 140 Bolognina, 22 Bonaccini, Stefano, 62, 64, 66, 101, 102, 104, 112–114, 125, 126, 128, 129, 131 Bordandini, Paola, 103 Boselli, Enrico, 45 Bossi, Umberto, 20, 37 Brexit, 86, 93, 94
C Cabrera, Miguel, 80 Caetano, Marcello José das Neves Alves, 11 Calenda, Carlo, 101 Calise, Mauro, 48 Camilleri, Andrea, 58 Campus, Donatella, 82 Carlsson, Ingvar, 12, 13, 16 Casaleggio, Gianroberto, 47 Catellani, Patrizia, 126 Cavaco Silva, Aníbal António, 7, 12, 13, 18 Cazeneuve, Bernard Guy Georges, 18 Centocittà, movement, 32 centre-left, xi, 21, 25, 29, 32, 35, 37, 42, 50, 51, 53, 57, 61, 62, 67, 115, 148 centre/periphery polarisation, 63, 148, 150 centre-right, 21, 29, 36, 49, 53, 60–62, 100, 120 Cerutti, Giovanni Alberto, 122 CGIL, x, 48 Chancel, Lucas, 146, 147 Charter of Values, 115, 126 Chipman, Warwick, 95 Chirumbolo, Antonio, 126 Christian Democratic, German (CDU/CSU), 12
Christian Democrats, Italy, x Christian Democrats, Sweden, Kristdemokraterna (KD), 5 Ciampi, Azelio, 20, 28 Civati, Giuseppe detto Pippo, 48, 56, 66, 119, 124 class voting in reverse, 72, 144 cleavage, cleavages, xi, 75, 150 Clinton, Hilary Rodham, 143 Cofferati, Sergio, 54 co-founding parties, 103, 109 Cold War, xii, 33, 87, 140 communism, 32, 33, 87, 137, 141 Communist Party, Italian (PCI), ix, 72, 87, 137 Communist party of East Germany (GDR), 11 Communist Party of Greece (KKE), 11 Communist Party of Portuguese Workers (PCTP), 11 Communist Party of Sweden (KP), 11 Conservative “new right”, 81 Conservative Party, Conservatives (CONS), x, 12, 13, 85 Constituent Assembly, ix, 38, 52, 104, 109, 111, 116–118 constituent phase, 108, 109, 111 Constitutional Court, 49 Consumers’ Movement, 26 Conte, Giuseppe, 29, 60, 61, 63, 101 conventio ad excludendum, xi Corbyn, Jeremy, 7, 16–18, 89, 90, 92–93, 94, 104 Corriere della Sera Magazine, Sette, 88, 89 Cosenza, Giovanna, 82 Cossiga, Francesco, 26 Costa, Antonio, 7, 17, 18 Craxi, Bettino, x, 19, 20 Cronos syndrome, 105 Crouch, Colin, 141, 147
INDEX
Crozza, Maurizio, 88 Cundari, Francesco, 92 Cuperlo, Gianni, 48, 52, 66, 124
D Daddow, Oliver, 77, 80, 81, 83, 85, 86 Dahrendorf, Ralph, 95 D’Alema, Massimo, 22, 28, 39, 40, 43, 45, 51, 52, 55, 100, 109 dalla Chiesa, Nando, 27 DC left, 25 decisionism, x degree of autonomy, 19 degree of interdependence, interdependence degree, 106 delegates, xiii, 55, 102–104, 109–114, 116, 117, 121–125, 127–129 Delors, Jacques, x Democratic Centre, xiv De Luca, Roberto, 125 Democratici di Sinistra, Left Democrats, Italian (DS), 9, 27, 33, 35, 108 Democratic Intervention (DI), 11 Democratic Party, Italian (PD), ix, 23, 27, 29, 70, 82, 138, 147 Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), 40, 72 Democrazia cristiana, Christian Democracy (DC), 87 Dempsey, Noel, 89 De Sio, Lorenzo, 72, 144 Die Linke (LINKE), 11 Di Gregorio, Luigi, 145 Dimokratiki Aristera (DIMAR), 4, 14 Di Pietro, Antonio, 26, 27, 41 Direzione Nazionale, 106 Di Virgilio, Aldo, 112 Doria, Marco, 46 Draghi agenda, xii, 138
163
Draghi, Mario, 29, 63, 93, 138 Drucker, Henry, 35, 118 Duflo, Esther, 146 Duverger, Maurice, 26 E economic and financial crisis, 14 Economic and Monetary Union, xi Emiliano, Michele, 56 End of History, xii, 87, 140 Engel, Friedrich, 140 Epifani, Guglielmo, 48, 119, 130 ethical party, ethical-egalitarian soul, 118–120 ethical-value issues, 114 EU Commission, x EU exit, 87 Eurocommunism, 33 European Central Bank (ECB), 63 European Socialist Party (PSE), 58 Eurosceptics, 86 Eurozone, 74, 78, 95 extreme loyalty, 34 F factional identities, 126 factions, 22, 50, 51, 55, 56, 126, 127 Fasano, Luciano Mario, 50, 127 fascism, 137 Fassino, Piero, 38 Fava, Claudio, 27 Federazione Giovanile Comunista Italiana, Italian Federation of Young Communists, xv Feijóo, Alberto Núñez, 15 Ferrera, Maurizio, 141 Fielding, Steven, 77–80 First Republic, 20–23, 34, 108, 137 Flores, Luca, 41 Floridia, Antonio, xiii, 90, 91, 139 Foot, Michael, 16, 80
164
INDEX
Forrest, Adam, 138 Forza Italia, 20, 53, 54, 64 Franceschini, Dario, 43, 46, 48, 59, 130 Fratelli d’Italia, Brothers of Italy (FdI), 61, 63, 64, 67, 101, 131, 137 French Communist Party (PCF), 11, 16 French Socialist Party (PSF), 3, 142 Fukuyama, Francis, 87, 140
G Gaitskell, Hugh, 77 Galasso, Alfredo, 27 Galli, Giovanni, 53 Gentiloni, Paolo, 29, 55, 56, 59 Gerhards, Jurgen, 141 Geringonça, 7 German Social Democracy, 9 Giachetti, Roberto, 57, 59, 125 Giddens, Anthony, 83, 84, 144 Globalisation, xi, 34, 73–75, 85, 95, 144 Gonzales, Felipe, 12, 13, 19 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 33 Gordon Brown, James, 16, 75, 91 Grand Coalition, 4, 15, 18, 48, 65 Great Recession, 14 Greens, Portuguese, 11 Grillo, Beppe, 29, 47, 101 Guterres, Antonio, 7, 17, 18
H Hall, Stuart, 79 Hickie, Desmond, 144 Hilpert, Ulrich, 144 Hinich, Melvin J., 139 historic compromise, x, xi, 12, 19, 32, 33, 87, 108
Hollande, François Gérard Georges Nicolas, 3, 13, 16, 18 I Ignazi, Piero, 103 immigration, 60, 92, 112, 114–116, 139 individualisation, 123 individualised mass society, xii, 144 individualistic values, 124, 127–129 Inglehart, Ronald, 121, 122, 144, 145 Institutionalisation, xiii International Union of Socialist Youth, Youth section of the International Socialist Movement (IUSY), 58 Italia dei Valori, Italy of Values (IdV), 27, 41 J Jacques Delors, x Jobs Act, 51 José Sócrates, Carvalho Pinto de Sousa, 7, 18 K Katz, Richard, 90, 106, 143 Keen, Richard, 89 Keynesianism, 141, 147 Kínima Allagís, Movement for Change (KINAL), 4 Kinnock, Neil, 80 Kohl, Helmut, 12 Kriesi, Hanspeter, 75, 144, 150 Kuenssberg, Laura, 138 L Labour Party (LABOUR), ix, 5, 6, 11, 13, 16, 17, 35, 71, 72, 76,
INDEX
80, 82, 87–89, 91–93, 95, 108, 136, 138, 150 La France Insoumise (PHI), 3, 16 Laity, Mark, 95 Lakoff, George, 82 La Pira, Giorgio, 52 la Repubblica, 88 La République En Marche (RE), 16 la Rete, the Network (RETE), 20 la Rosa nel Pugno, the Rose in the Fist (RnP), 26 leadership, xii, xiii, 3, 9, 13, 15–18, 20, 26, 28, 38–40, 43, 47, 48, 51, 52, 55–57, 59, 60, 63–66, 78, 79, 84, 87, 89–91, 94, 101–111, 116–120, 123–126, 130, 131 Left Bloc (BE), 7, 11 Left Party, Sweden (V), 11 Lega Nord, Northern League (LN), 20, 28 Leiss, Alberto, 88 Lengfeld, Holger, 141 l’Espresso, 138 Letta, Enrico, xii, 29, 46, 48, 49, 63–66, 107, 111, 119, 130 Levy, Carl, 71 LGBTQI, 76, 140 liberal-democratic party, liberal-democratic soul, 118, 119 Liberals, United Kingdom (LIB), 5 Liberi e Uguali, Free and Equal (LeU), 22, 56 Liga Veneta, Liga Front Veneto (LV), 26 light (or liquid) party, light (or surface) loyalty, 39, 43 Loft, Philip, 89 loyalty, 34 Ludlam, Steve, 80 l’Unità, 37, 40, 88
165
M Maastricht Treaty, x, 74 Macron, Emmanuel, 14, 16 Mair, Peter, 90, 106, 143–145 majoritarian vocation, xi, 39, 41, 47, 49, 67, 70, 100, 106, 148 Major, John Roy, 85 Mancuso, Carmine, 27 Manin, Bernard, 74, 143 mani pulite, x Mannheimer, Renato, 34 Maraffi, Marco, 103, 121 Margherita-Democrazia e Libertà, Daisy-Democracy and Freedom (DL), 9, 22, 24 Marini, Franco, 45, 47, 109 Marino, Ignazio, 109, 119, 124 Martina, Maurizio, 56, 57, 59, 119, 130 Martinelli, Alberto, 141 Martocchia Diodati, Nicola, 105, 111, 127 Marxism, 11, 35, 91, 140 Marx, Karl, 140 Mastella, Clemente, 26, 39 materialistic values, 122 Mattarella, electoral Law, 27 Mattarella, Sergio, 53, 63 Mediaset, x Melenchon, Jean-Luc, 104 Meloni, Giorgia, 29, 63–65, 67, 101, 131, 148, 149 Melucci, Alberto, 121, 145 merger party, 39 Merkel, Angela, 4, 5, 15, 18 Milesi, Patrizia, 126 Milliband, Ed., 16 Minniti, Marco, 92 Mitterrand, François, 3, 12, 13, 18 Moderate Party, 5 Modernisation, 82, 83, 85, 87 Montale, Eugenio, 34
166
INDEX
Monti, Mario, 29, 46 Moro, Aldo, 32, 108 motion, motions, 38, 112–114, 116, 117, 122, 124, 125, 127–129 Movement of Democratic Socialists, Kin¯ıma D¯ımokrat¯ on Sosialist¯on (KINIMA), 14 movement party, 64 Movimento Cinque Stelle, Five Star Movement (M5S), 21, 140 Movimento Repubblicani Europei, European Republican Movement (MRE), 27 Movimento Sociale Italiano, Italian Social Movement (MSI), 137 Munger, Michael C., 139
N Napolitano, Giorgio, 48, 50 Natale, Paolo, 34, 50, 104, 105, 111, 127, 140 National Assembly, PD, 56, 100, 102, 104, 105, 110, 112, 116, 117, 119–121, 123–125, 127–130 nationalism, 86, 92, 145 natives, native democrats, 110, 116, 120, 125 Nazarene Pact, 53 Néa Dimokratía, New Democracy party (NA), 12 neo-liberalism, x, xi, 79, 83 Neue Mitte, 13 Neundorf, Anja, 75, 76 Newell, James, 71, 82, 86, 92, 139, 142, 147 New Labour, ix, xi–xiii, 6, 16, 34, 70, 75–78, 80–89, 92, 94 Newman, Janet, 81–84, 95 Nixon, Richard, 82 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 33
Nouvelle Union populaire écologique et sociale (NUPES), 3, 16 Novelli, Diego, 27 O Occhetto, Achille, 40, 143 Old Labour, 81, 82 old style party, 43, 45 omnibus party, 57, 107, 131 Orlando, Andrea, 56, 119 Orlando, Leoluca, 27 P Paita, Raffaella, 54 Palme, Olof, 12 Panebianco, Angelo, 105 Panellinio Sosialistiko Kinima, Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), 3, 12 Paolucci, Caterina, 82 Papademos, Lucas, 15 Papandreou, Andreas, 4, 12–14 Partido Popular, Popular Party (PP), 5, 15 Partido Socialista Obrero Español, Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), 5 Partido Socialista, Portuguese Socialist Party (PS), 7 Parti Socialiste, French Socialist Party (PSF), 3, 142 partito "ditta","firm"party, 44 Partito Pensionati, Pensioners, Party (PENS), 26 Partito Popolare Italiano, Italian People’s Party (PPI), 52 Partito Socialista Italiano, Italian Socialist Party (PSI), 12 party in central office, 44, 57, 103, 106, 109, 126 party in public office, 44, 93, 94, 103
INDEX
Party of Communist Refoundation (PRC), 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 28 Party of Democratic Socialism, German (PDSG), 11 party on the ground, 59, 90, 93, 106, 126 Pasini, Nicola, xiii, 122 Passos Coelho, Pedro Manuel Mamede, 7, 17 Pastorino, Luca, 54 People’s Democratic Union (UDP), 11 perestroika, 33 Persson, Goran, 16 Piketty, Thomas, 145 Pisapia, Giuliano, 46 Poguntke, Thomas, 84 Poletti, Monica, 104 political culture, 2, 86, 103, 105, 108, 111, 120–122, 125, 126, 149, 151 political families, 104 political identity, 34, 103, 105, 109, 118, 126, 131 Politics XXI (P XXI), 11 Polo del Buon Governo, 20 Polo delle Libertà, 20 Popolo delle Libertà, People of Freedom (PdL), 27 populism, 122, 145 Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), 11 Possible, Possibile (Pos), 56, 66 post-communist, 19, 24–26, 38, 62, 107–110, 115, 116, 125 post-Fordism, post-Fordist, x, xi, 141, 143, 144 post-materialist values, 121, 122 Potere al popolo, Power to the People (PAP), 56 pragmatic party, 48, 50, 51, 54, 106, 131
167
presidentialisation of politics, presidential party, 43, 88 primaries, 38, 39, 43, 44, 46–48, 52–54, 56–59, 63, 64, 66, 101, 102, 105, 108–110, 114, 120, 130 pro-choice, orientation, 113, 115, 117, 118 Prodi, Romano, xi, 9, 24, 25, 27, 28, 32, 36, 38, 40, 47, 52, 65, 106, 107 pro-labour, orientation, 113, 114, 116, 117, 129, 130 pro-life, orientation, 113, 115–117 pro-market, orientation, 113, 115–117, 129, 130 Przeworski, Adam, 71 R Rainbow Left, Sinistra arcobaleno (SA), 22, 28, 41, 42 Renzi, Matteo, 29, 47–49, 52–53, 55, 56, 60, 66, 90, 100, 101, 105, 107, 116, 119, 123, 130 Renzi, Tiziano, 52 Republic of Parties, 29 Revolutionary Socialist Party (PSR), 11 Roche, Maurice, 141 Rokkan, Stein, 104, 150 Rossi, Enrico, 55 rottamazione, demolition strategy, 90 Rutelli, Francesco, 32, 38, 44 S Sala, Giuseppe detto Beppe, 54 Salazar, António de Oliveira, 11 Salvati, Michele, 35, 36 Salvini, Matteo, 29, 59, 60, 62, 67, 101, 131, 148 Sánchez, Pedro, 5
168
INDEX
Sanders, Bernie, 104 Santana Lopes, Pedro Miguel, 18 Scelta civica, Civic Choice (SC), 46 Schlein, Elena Ethel detta Elly, xii, 64, 65, 68, 94, 101–104, 111, 123, 125, 126, 130, 131, 139, 149 Schlein, Melvin, 65 Scholz, Olaf, 5, 15 Schröder, Gerhard, 4, 13 Schwartz, Shalom, 121, 122, 127 Scotto, Thomas J., 75, 76 Second Republic (so-called), 36 Segatti, Paolo, 103, 112, 121 self-placement, 114 self-realisation, 121–124 self-transcendent, 121–124, 127 Selznick, Philip, 103 Serracchiani, Deborah, 43 Sinistra ecologia e libertà, Left, Ecology and Freedom (SEL), 22, 28, 55, 56 Soares,Mario, 7, 17 social Catholicism, 71 Socialdemocratic Party, Portugal (SDP), 12, 13 Socialdemocratic Workers’ Party of Sweden, Sveriges socialdemokratiska arbetareparti (SAP), 5 Socialisti Democratici Italiani, Italian Democratic Socialists (SDI), 27 socio-economic dimension, socio-economic issues, 111, 114, 116, 117, 120, 125, 129, 130 Soru, Renato, 42 Soviet Union, USSR, 9, 19 Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, Socialdemocratic Party of Germany (SPD), 4 Spanish Communist Party, Partido Comunista de España (PCE), 11 Speranza, Roberto, 55, 105
Sprague, John, 71 Starmer, Keir, xii, 93, 94, 138, 143 Statute, PD, 38, 41, 90 Stegmueller, Daniel, 75, 76 swing voters, 80 Synaspismos Rizospastikis Aristeras , Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza), 11
T Tangentopoli, 19, 20, 22, 34, 87 technocratic government, 12, 29, 46 Thatcher, Margaret, 12, 79, 81 the Progressisti, 29 Third Pole, Terzo polo, 101 Third Way, 13, 81–84, 150 Toti, Giovanni, 54 trade unions, x, 48, 79, 91, 93, 102, 140 tri-polarisation, 22 Turci, Lanfranco, 45 turn out, 70
U Ulivo, Olive tree, xi, 29, 32, 33, 55, 106 Unified Socialist Party of Germany (SED), 11 United Democratic Coalition, Portugal (CDUP), 7, 11 Uniti nell’Ulivo, United in the Olive Tree, 26, 27, 36 universalistic values, 122, 124, 127 US Democratic Party, 13
V Van Berkel, Rick, 141 Vassallo, Salvatore, 137 Veltroni, Vittorio, 40
INDEX
Veltroni, Walter, xi, 26, 27, 37, 39–44, 47–49, 58, 59, 67, 87–89, 100, 109, 130, 148 Verdini, Denis, 54 Vignati, Rinaldo, 137 Viviani, Agostino, 65 vote of belonging, 34 W Warsaw Pact, 33 Watergate scandal, 82
169
Webb, Paul, 84, 104 working class, xi, 2, 35, 70, 73, 138, 141, 143 Z Zapatero, José Luis Rodríguez, 5, 13, 15, 19 Zedda, Massimo, 46 Zingaretti, Luca, 58 Zingaretti, Nicola, 57–60, 63, 92, 101, 111, 120, 130, 131