July 2022.
Mario Draghi resigns as the Italian prime minister, throwing the country into political turmoil yet again.
And a snap general election is scheduled for September.
The government that emerges from that election
marks the country's 70th since the end of World War Two.
That is an average of one new government every 13 months,
far more frequent than the five-year election cycle the country is supposed to have.
So what is it about the Italian political system
that makes this changing of the guard happen so often?
To understand why Italy’s government changes so often,
we have to start with the democracy’s political system.
Italy has dozens of political parties at both the national and regional levels.
Even the major parties are difficult to count on one hand.
This means it is unlikely that any single party will have an absolute majority in Parliament.
Which is why it is quite common for different parties to form alliances –
or coalitions – before and after elections.
In order to encourage smaller parties to forge coalitions,
Italy passed a new electoral law in 2017 called the ‘Rosatellum system.’
Here’s how it works.
Italians get two ballots: One for the Chamber of Deputies and another for the Senate of the Republic.
Each vote is then counted for two types of seats: First-past-the-post and Proportional representation.
In total, about a third of seats – those in single-member districts -
are chosen directly through the “first-past-the-post” system, while the rest – those in multi-member constituencies
- are selected indirectly in proportion to the support their party receives nationally.
The remaining seats, also elected proportionally,
are reserved for representatives for Italians voting from abroad.
Andrea Ruggeri is an expert on Italian politics and international relations
at the University of Oxford.
The logic of coalition is based on this mixed electoral system.
It's quite unique, because in most of the other countries, we have fewer systems.
And also the unique aspect is that in Italy, has been changing a lot.
That means that we have not reached a sort of stable equilibrium
of stable different parties in coalition in the last ten years.
The “first-past-the-post” seats are won by the candidate
who gets the largest number of votes, even if they don’t have the majority.
It’s winner takes all.
This method, which is used in countries like the U.K., Canada and India,
tends to favor larger parties or those with strong regional bases.
Would you say that “first-past-the-post" therefore incentivizes these smaller parties
to get into coalitions because they have a better chance at getting represented?
Well, they do need to do that, otherwise it becomes impossible to be represented.
Small parties, they don't have a big logic to go alone.
The “proportional representation (PR)” seats are a bit more complicated – remember,
these seats are indirectly selected based on the nationwide performance of parties.
Because “first-past-the-post” candidates represent a party or a coalition of parties,
each vote for a candidate automatically binds it to the party list supporting that candidate, and vice versa.
For candidates backed by a coalition, each vote is extended proportionally
to all the party lists in the coalition.
So, a vote for a first-past-the-post candidate is also a vote for the party or coalition
that backs them, which in turn, decides the “proportional representation” seats.
These votes are then calculated at a national level before
being proportionally allocated back to the regions.
Coalitions with less than 10% of the vote and most parties with less than 3% of the vote,
however, are eliminated from representation.
Most European countries, including Belgium, Denmark and Spain,
use the “proportional representation" method.
Everyone studying electoral systems, suggest that PR brings to more parties
and brings to more, maybe fairer representation.
So, Italy’s hybrid system encourages political parties to form coalitions
and to do so sooner – pre-election.
While this is crucial to get a government up and running, it can also be a source of instability.
This is because, often times, these political parties will have different ideas
about governing or different political objectives.
For example, Mario Draghi became Prime Minister in 2021, largely because he was able to unite
so many different parties in his national unity government.
But the parties’ huge spread across the political spectrum eventually
led to the broad coalition’s unravelling.
Draghi was snubbed by his partners in a vote of confidence.
And even though he won the confidence vote overall, he offered his resignation shortly after.
Partially it does contribute to instability.
It is also a logic of being a leader within a small party,
playing a sort of veto role in a coalition.
One of the major issues is that the parliamentary system that we are living on, in Italy, is based
on a law where you can vote against an executive without proposing an alternative coalition.
So, this is one of the major differences with the German parliamentary system,
where every time you want to vote against the majority in executive,
you have to propose an alternative.
And while party loyalty runs deep in countries like the U.S.,
it’s far less of a concept in Italy.
Even the parties’ leaders themselves are fickle about changing allegiances.
Take for instance, Matteo Renzi.
After representing the Democratic Party as prime minister from 2014 to 2016,
he formed a new party called Italia Viva in 2019.
Luigi Di Maio, the former leader of the populist party Five Star Movement,
also broke away in 2022 and formed Together for the Future.
There have been several attempts to change Italy's electoral law and constitution
over the last few decades – but this hasn’t stopped the country
from seeing a constant change in power.
So, what will it take to make the political system more stable?
And is there a desire to change it?
The proportional system is important for representing different ideologies,
different preferences, different geographical areas.
Italy is a very diverse country.
However, democracy needs also policy and efficient policies.
So, one of the risks that Italy has been facing in the last few years
has been constantly to be not able to deliver policies.
So yes, PR is also bringing more representativeness and maybe more democracy.
But democracy needs also policies and effective policies.