Ma la politica italiana può ancora dirsi clientelare?

Italian politics is often accused of catering to the restricted interests of small-scale clienteles, which makes it particularly chaotic and prone to suboptimal decision-making. The literature has conventionally insufficiently distinguished between clientelism, corruption and patronage and often equated particularism with the pursuit of the personal vote. We know from the comparative literature, however, that there are completely legitimate forms of particularism which bank on the personal and policy record of the candidate and that attract to parties large shares of votes. Balancing the quest for the personal vote with alignment with party lines is a puzzle that all party leaders need to solve. Instrumental in striking this balance is the electoral system, which in varying degrees can favor the pursuit of the personal vote and, more specifically, a programmatic or rather a particularistic strategy for obtaining it. By referring to the theorization of particularism by Carey and Shugart (1995) and Seddon-Wallack et al (2003), the article offers conjectures on the relative space afforded to particularism by the various electoral systems that have characterized the “First Republic” – a proportional system with multiple preferences (1948-1993) – the “Second Republic” – a mainly majoritarian mixed system (Mattarellum, 1993-2005) and a proportional system with various coalition-forming incentives (Porcellum, 2005-2013) – and the “Third Republic” – a mainly proportional system with fewer coalition-forming incentives (Rosatellum bis, 2017-). It suggests that the space for clientelism-prone particularism has shrunk in time, that the more conventional personal vote has known a brief season but has never been given a chance to get institutionalized, and that lately the space for particularism has shrunk again perhaps giving rise to populistic clientelism.