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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy

Oxford Handbooks Online
Electoral Systems in Context: Italy
Gianluca Passarelli
The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Systems
Edited by Erik S. Herron, Robert J. Pekkanen, and Matthew S. Shugart
Subject: Political Science, Public Administration, Comparative Politics
Online Publication Date: Jan 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190258658.013.35

Abstract and Keywords
Italy stands out among advanced industrialized democracies because of its frequency ofmajor electoral reforms. In the postwar period, Italy has experienced four major electoral
systems: the proportional representation (PR) system of the First Republic (1948–1992),
mixed-member majoritarian (MMM, 1993–2005), and two varieties of PR with majority
bonus (2005–2015, 2015–). In addition, there have been many failed attempts at electoral
reform through legislation or referendum. The frequency of electoral reform makes Italyan important case for investigating the causes and effects of electoral system change.
However, the path to each change has been somewhat idiosyncratic: the major reform of
1993 came against the backdrop of revelations of massive corruption, while the 2005
reform can be understood as an attempt to engineer divided government by an incumbent
coalition expecting losses in the next election. The effects of the electoral reforms havealso not always been as expected.
Keywords: Italy, electoral systems, electoral reform, governmental stability, party systems, preference votes,
majority bonus

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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy
Italy stands out among established democracies because of multiple reforms of its
electoral system. Established democracies generally tend to retain their electoral systems(Katz 2005), and the total number of electoral reforms over the last seventy years inestablished democracies stands at approximately twenty. Among the worldwide reforms,
Italy is remarkably well represented, with three main electoral system changes during its
democratic experience (and a fourth1 reform has now come into operation, as we shallsee). After the end of fascism and the dictatorship, a new democratic regime wasestablished and a parliamentary republic initiated in 1948. Since that time, Italy’s
electoral law has been amended several times, and many other attempts to reform it wererepelled. What were the triggers of such reforms? In Italy, the “causes” for electoral
reforms were a mix of conjunctures: leadership initiative, judicial action, mass pressure,and international change and constraints. Moreover, if triggers of reform are “unlikely tobe predictable from systemic characteristics” (Katz 2005, 74), in Italy it is not easy togeneralize about the causes of reform. Thus, in the presence of such a mix of variables, itis necessary to analyze both the characteristics of each electoral reform in Italy and thecontext in which it is generated.
A diachronic study of the Italian case is opportune both for an in-depth analysis and for ageneral test of theory. As we know, electoral systems matter: they “may make a big
difference to the shape of the party system, to the nature of government (coalition or
single-party), to the kind of choices facing voters at elections, to the ability of voters tohold their representative(s) personally accountable, to the behavior ofparliamentarians” (Gallagher and Mitchell 2005, 4). The next sections detail each of thesesystems and the reasons for their adoption, before turning to an assessment of theconsequences.

Italy’s Electoral Systems: Provisions andOrigins
Italy has formally had four different electoral systems between 1948 and 2015, notcounting the proportional representation (PR) system used to elect the Constituent
Assembly in 1946. The provisions of each law to be discussed in this section aresummarized in detail in Table 1.

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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy
Table 1 Electoral Systems in Italy (1946–2017) (Chamber of Deputies)
Electoral

ElectionlawnumberElectoral

Formulasystemand Quota

Open-list
PR (OLPR)

LR–quota(+1 or +2,

ThresholdPreferencBonuse voting

NumberAssemblyofDistricts

Sizeand dateofapproval
1946, n.
74, March

1946

10

-

up to 2-3 (1)

no

31

556

1 seat (8)up to 3-4 (2)

no

31

574

1 seatup to 3-4

380 seats
to winning
party orcoalition >50% (5)31590

dependingon districtmagnitude)1948, n. 6,
January 20

1948

OLPR

1948, n.
26,
February 51953, n.
148, March
31

LR–
Imperiali(+3)

1953 (7)(did notcome into
operation)

OLPR with
bonus

LR–
Imperiali(+3)

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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy
1954, n.
615, July

1958

OLPR

LR–
Imperiali

1 seat and
300.000

(+2)

votes

31
1956, n.

1963

493, May
16

1968

630

1957, n.
361, March

1972

630

30

1976

630

1979

630

1983

630

1987

630

1991, n.
200, July 3

1992

OLPR

LR–
Imperiali(+2)

1 seat and
300.000
votes

1993, n.
277,
August 4

1994

MMM

Plurality(475) + LRHare (155)4%national

1996

up to 3-4

no

32

596
630

up to 1

no

32

630

475 SSD +1 national
no

no

630

2001

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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy
2005, n.
270,

2006

PR withbonus

December
21

2008(closedlists)

LR-Hare4% party;10%

no340 seats
to thecoalition;
2% party inwinning
party orcoalition

coalition

26

630 (4)100

630 (4)2013
2015, n.
52, May 6none

PR withbonus

LR-Hare3%
national(open lists
withup to 2 (3)340 seats
to party
with > 40%(6)protection
for listheads)
Source: Author’s own elaboration on Italian Minister of Interior data.
(1) In 1946 voters could cast three preferences votes in constituencies returning to up 16 members, and four preferences votes inlarger constituencies.
(2) Voters could cast three preferences votes in constituencies returning to up 15 members, and four preferences votes in larger
constituencies.

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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy(3) If voters cast their first preference to choose a woman, the second vote must go to select a man, and vice versa. Otherwise, thesecond preference will be considered void.
(4) 12 seats attributed to representatives of Italians living abroad, and one seat for the Aosta Valley region.
(5) 380 of 590 seats in the Chamber of deputies would be given to any alliance of parties that won at least 50 per cent of the votes
plus one vote. It must be underlined that two different quotas were indicated. First, if the bonus would be assigned, then the quota
will be calculated on two different bases: votes / 380 seats for the winning party(ies), and votes / 209 for the loosing parties. Viceversa, if no party had obtained the 50% plus one vote, then the 1948 system would have worked with a quota plus 3.
(6) On January 25, 2017 the Constitutional Court dropped the second-ballot to allocate the majority bonus for the Chamber of
Deputies in order to make “more similar” the two electoral systems for the two Houses, albeit the Senate would still have a regional
allocation of seats. However, the supreme judges kept the provision of a majority bonus allocated to the party with 40% of votes.
(7) The total score for the coalition parties was 49.2% with the DC being the pivotal party (40.1%).
(8) The allocation of seat by large remainders method with Hare quota was allowed to parties able to obtain at least one seat (entire
quota) in one of the districts. Since 1957, in addition parties had to obtain also at the least 300,000 votes nationally.

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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy

The PR Electoral System of the Italian First Republic (1948–1992)
For the first democratic parliamentary election in 1948, a PR formula (Imperiali quotawith largest remainders)2 with preference voting was adopted. The system of proportional
representation was introduced before the approval of the constitution,3 and was neverincluded in it, so that reforming the rules does not require a constitutional amendment.
The system combined comparatively high proportionality with intraparty competition.
From 1946 to 1992, Italy had thirty-two electoral districts.4 It was a two-tier “remainder
pooling” system (for a general definition, see Gallagher and Mitchell’s chapter) in which
remainder seats were allocated in an upper tier. The number of seats allocated in theupper tier depended on the number of votes not used by parties to elect members ofparliament (MPs) in the districts (typically about 10 percent of the total). Nevertheless, toparticipate in the allocation of seats by remainders, parties had to satisfy two
requirements: to have obtained at least three hundred thousand votes at the national
level and to have succeeded in electing at least one candidate in one district, which meant
having a geographically concentrated electoral support of about sixty thousand to seventy
thousand voters.5
The PR open-list system emphasized intraparty competition among candidates (Carey andShugart 1995) and also generated—or at the very least did not impede—party
factionalism. Between 1946 and 1991, voters were allowed to cast up to four preference
votes depending on district magnitude (Passarelli 2017).6 Therefore, the way in which
candidates were elected from a list was completely determined by the individual
preference votes cast by the party’s voters in a given district.7 During that period, theonly reforms of the electoral system involved changes in the denominator used in
calculating the quota (Passarelli 2014).8
Although it never actually came into operation, the legge truffa (swindle law) of 1953
could be counted among Italy’s electoral reforms. This system aimed to ensure aparliamentary majority.9 The Christian Democrats (DC) won an absolute majority of seats(53.1 percent in 1948) with 48.5 percent of votes. This was the only election in which asingle party obtained a parliamentary majority. Nevertheless, the DC’s decline in local
elections and the fear of a neo-fascist resurgence induced the ruling party to seek asystem that would secure a stable majority. Eventually approved over the vehement
opposition of the Communist and Socialist parties, the law stated that after the elections,
380 of 590 seats in the Chamber of Deputies would be given to any alliance of parties that
won over 50 percent of the votes (Katz 2001, 59; Renwick 2010). The coalition wascomposed of four parties: the DC, the Social Democrats (PSDI), the Liberals (PLI), andthe Republicans (PRI). The total score for the coalition parties was 49.2 percent, with the
DC being the dominant party (40.1 percent). However, this good performance was not
sufficient for them to reach their goal. In fact, although they lacked only 204,742 votes toreach a majority and consequently the bonus of seats, the legge truffa did not come into
operation. The law was repealed in 1954, restoring the 1948 system until the 1990s.10

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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy

Electoral Reform of 1993 from Proportional Representation to MixedMember Majoritarian: Mani Pulite, Tangentopoli, and Scorporo
The major change to the Italian electoral system that was introduced in the 1990s started
with a citizens-initiated referendum held on June 9, 1991. This measure modified one
critical component of the electoral law, although only partially. Voters were asked
whether the clause relating to the law on the number of preference votes available to thevoter should be reduced to just one. The result was 95.6 percent in favor, with a turnoutof 65.1 percent. The catalyst for this change was the government’s refusal to introduce a
new electoral law to accompany the local government reform introduced in 1990. The
referendum of 1991 represented the first step on the path away from proportional
representation in the Italian system, although only partially, as we shall see.
In the early 1990s, Italy’s established political system collapsed amid dramatic changes in
the international political system with the end of the Cold War, judicial activism andinvestigations, and a widespread popular disaffection, culminating in several
referendums. The judiciary, especially in Milan, laid bare the widespread links between
politicians and illegal activities. The so-called mani pulite (clean hands) investigations
targeted many MPs and party secretaries such as those of the DC and the PSI. The
Tangentopoli (bribe city) scandal finally discredited the Italian ruling class among a
public fed up with rampant corruption.
Among other consequences, these events led to the adoption in 1993 of a new electoral
law. Although a referendum (based on the citizens’ initiative) on the Italian constitution
does not allow the initiation of new laws—it merely allows the abrogation of a bill or partof it—the referendum of April 1993 clearly represented a breakthrough in the politicalsystem and the electoral framework. The overwhelming result undoubtedly paved the way
for the successive complete reform of the electoral law. The parliament could not ignore
the “popular will,” namely, the demand for a significant and real change that would
especially emphasize the role of voters in determining the formation of the government
and the choice of its leader. The long-standing phenomenon of prime ministers chosen via
a bargaining process among the party leaders was an established ritual that wasparticularly disliked by voters. More than eight voters in ten (82.7 percent, on 77.1
percent turnout) decided to answer yes to the question posed by the referendum on thedesire to modify the rules for the election of the Senate, in particular by eliminating the
proportional part of the seat distribution11.
The consequences of the referendum were significant institutionally and politically. The
result was a Senate in which 75 percent of seats were allocated by plurality in single-seat
districts (SSDs), and the rest by PR. Had the new system been applied to the following
general elections, it would have meant there was a real chance of having a “divided”
government between the two chambers. Such division would be a particular problem
because the chambers have equal power to confer or withdraw their confidence in the

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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy
government. Although popularly discredited, the parliament was thus forced to legislate
electoral reform before eventually going to early elections (which are called by thepresident of the republic).
The new electoral law introduced a mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) system (Shugart
2001; Shugart and Wattenberg 2001) in which three-quarters of the Chamber seats (475)
were allocated in SSDs via plurality, and the remaining one-quarter (155) via party lists
through proportional representation. The PR seat allocation formula was changed to Harequota and largest remainders (LR) with a nationwide threshold of 4 percent, now withclosed lists instead of the open lists that had prevailed in the preceding PR period (seeTable 1). The MMM system was in operation between 1993 and 2005.12
The plurality and PR tiers were linked through a complex mechanism of “negative votetransfers (scorporo)” (D’Alimonte 2005, 257). The aim of this mechanism was to reducethe disproportionality typical of plurality elections by deducting votes from those parties
that win SSDs. In the assignment of PR seats, the first step is the calculation of the“effective vote” for each list in each constituency. This is done by subtracting, from a list’s
total vote, a number one greater than the votes received by the second-placed candidates
in all the SSDs where candidates affiliated with that list have won seats. The “effective
vote” then becomes the tally used for determining the number of PR seats that go to eachlist. Once this calculation has been made, the second step is to determine which lists havereceived more than 4 percent of PR votes at the national level (regardless of the
scorporo). These lists will get seats on the basis of their “effective vote” according to the
LR-Hare method (D’Alimonte 2005, 257).
The biggest parties were more likely to win in the districts and thus would tend to suffer
scorporo transfers. As a result, these parties sidestepped the negative vote transfer rule.
They created “fake lists” that no voter knew about, and the surplus votes were subtracted
from that list, avoiding the penalty to the real list.13 The result of the scorporo was torender the system only partially compensatory, which is why it is properly considered atype of MMM system, rather than mixed-member proportional (Shugart and Wattenberg
2001).
The system hardly differed for the two houses: as noted earlier, for the Chamber of
Deputies, the proportional seats could go only to those parties that had received on a
separate ballot at least 4 percent of the national vote. Such a nationwide threshold was
not introduced for the Senate, where the PR seats were allocated on a regional basis. In
addition, the Senate system allowed the best losers in regional constituencies to join theparliament. However, the scorporo negative vote transfer also operated in the Senate,albeit with a significant difference from the Chamber of Deputies: subtracting all the
votes gathered by the winner in each district, and not just the vote difference between
the winner and the first loser. This greatly limited the majoritarianism in the system,
relative to that of the Chamber.

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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy

The Electoral Reform of 2005: Back to Proportional Representation
but with a Majority Bonus
Another electoral reform took place in 2005. In this case, the system was changed as adefensive mechanism in response to anticipated potential electoral losses by thegoverning center-right coalition, headed by Silvio Berlusconi and his Forza Italia party.
The new law scrapped the mixed-member system and was touted as a possible“simplification” of the party system structure. The law stipulated a proportional systemwith closed lists that allocates a sizable seat “majority bonus”—guaranteeing 55 percent
of seats—to whichever pre-electoral coalition of parties obtained the highest number ofvotes. The new law introduced a defined rule for these coalitions, obligating lists toadhere formally to them by specifying the name of the political leader of the coalition
from the outset. It thus introduced a strongly majoritarian element, by prioritizing preelectoral coalitions that could obtain a plurality. The proportional element came in only
after the majority bonus was applied, allocating seats among the component parties of
the winning and other coalitions.
Berlusconi’s government changed the electoral rules in advance of elections scheduled ayear later (Massetti 2006; Benoit 2007). The leading advocates for changing the law were
the smaller parties of the center-right coalition, such as the Union of the Centre (UDC)
and the National Alliance, with strong support by the Northern League, whose leader was
the principal rapporteur and author Roberto Calderoli. The law was approved only a few
months before the 2006 election (Law 270, December 21, 2005) (Bardi 2007; Pasquino2007). The center-right coalition explicitly wanted to reintroduce a PR system given its
better electoral performance in that tier vis-à-vis the SSDs in the past electoral system.
However, the often-evoked implicit goal of the law to attempt to impede the likely successof the center-left resided in three aspects: (1) the nationalization of electoral competition,
which was thought to be advantageous to Forza Italia, because of the gap between theappeal of its candidates and that of its party leader; (2) the way that the majority bonus
was conferred (see next paragraph) and the geographic concentration of center-rightsupport in two large districts in the north; and (3) differentiating the basis of allocation ofseats in the two chambers. To elaborate on the last point, the likelihood of different
coalitions winning each chamber would be increased through the differentiation of theirrules for allocating seats, combined with the different geographical pattern of theelectoral strength of the parties. In other words, Berlusconi’s goal was, in part, toengineer divisions among his opponents, as well as enhance his own party’s prospects ofseat maximization.
The peculiarity of the 2005 electoral reform is the way the majority bonus was attributedin the Senate: the majority bonus was allocated region by region. Therefore, eachelectoral plurality in each region obtained 55 percent of seats attributed to that specificregion. Consequently, winning in the most populous regions with the largest districtmagnitude would increase the possibility of obtaining a majority of seats in the Senate.14
Given the different parties’ electoral strongholds, the possibility of having a “divided
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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy
government” was very likely. The consequence is that this mechanism does not guarantee
clear majority for any block in the Senate, unlike the national majority-bonus provision in
the Chamber of Deputies Thus, the result of the Senate became a sort of lottery. In fact,
the center-left obtained a sizable majority of seats in the Chamber, but not in the Senate,
where it was in the majority by only two seats.
Together with the majority bonus to the winning coalition and closed-list PR, the newelectoral law introduced a complex set of thresholds for seat allocations: 617 out of 63015
Chamber seats were allocated among the parties that passed thresholds of the total voteon a national basis. The thresholds were as follows: (1) 10 percent for a coalition,(provided that at least one list within the pre-electoral coalition got 2 percent);16 (2) 4
percent for single parties; and (3) 2 percent for any party in a coalition, except for the
first party below 2 percent in the coalition. For the Senate, the thresholds were thefollowing, on a regional basis: (1) 20 percent for a coalition (provided that at least one list
got 3 percent); (2) 8 percent for any party not in a coalition; and (3) 3 percent for any
party in a coalition (there is no exception for the first party in a coalition below thisthreshold, unlike the Chamber).17 These systems were in place for three elections, 2006,
2008, and 2013.
In 2014, the Constitutional Court entered the electoral-reform fray when it declared
unconstitutional the previous electoral law of 2005. In particular, the Constitutional Court
ruled inapplicable the majority bonus, and specified that the voter must be allowed tocast a preference vote (Constitutional Law n. 1/2014). The court thus reintroduced theelectoral system in operation between 1991 and 1993, but also modified the law by also
introducing preference voting for the Senate (Ceccanti 2016). In response, parliament
approved a new electoral system in 2015.18

The Electoral System Reform of 2015 and the Italicum
The new electoral law came into force in July 2016 (D’Alimonte 2015; Chiaramonte 2015;
Pasquino 2015). However, it has not been used in any general election, and it waspartially modified by the Constitutional Court in 2017 (detailed in the chapter postscript).
The main political actors involved in the process were the Democratic Party and its
leader, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. Basically all other parties were against the reform,
except Forza Italia, which had voted in favor initially and then later withdrew its support.
At first glance, the 2015 system shows similarities with the 2005 laws. Both have bonus
provisions. However, the new bonus adjustment mechanism—the so-called Italicum—
differs in that the majority bonus is allocated to the most voted list, unlike in the 2005
system where it was allocated to a coalition of parties. The list receiving the plurality of
votes is to be allocated 340 MPs out of 61819 deputies, provided that it reaches 40
percent20 of the valid votes at the national level (no further bonus is awarded if the list
already had that quota through proportional distribution). If no list gets this many votes,
the law provided that a runoff would be held two weeks later between the two most voted
lists.21 This is highly unusual, as there are few examples of runoffs in list systems forPage 11 of 29

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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy
national assemblies.22 As it happened, the Constitutional Court invalidated the runoff
provision in a ruling in 2017. The peculiarity of the Italicum is that it will only be infunction for the Chamber. For the Senate, the electoral law is PR without a majority
bonus, which was the 2005 law after the changes introduced by the Constitutional Courtin 2014.
The Italicum foresaw only one legal threshold to enable access to the distribution of seats.
Such access was allowed solely for those lists that reach at least 3 percent of valid votes
nationwide. Once the majority bonus is assigned (in this sense the system is majority
assuring, whatever the result of the first round), the rest of seats are allocated with PR(Hare quota and largest remainders) to the lists that have met the national threshold.
The new electoral law reintroduces a feature of the 1948–1993 system, the open list, butwith features protecting list heads and encouraging gender balance. Voters will bepermitted to cast up to two preference votes for candidates of their party by writing thecorresponding names on the ballot. The first provision limiting the openness of the list isthat parties may protect their list head in each of the hundred districts (ranging inmagnitude from three to nine). Any list head can run in up to ten different districts but
must opt for one if elected in more than one.23 This provision potentially expands thenumber of seats allocated via preference votes due to the fact that in other districts
where the list head has been elected, seats will be allocated to candidates solely via
preference votes.
The second limitation on openness is that any voters’ second preference is void if cast fora candidate of the same gender as the first one.24 Further provisions intended to promote
more balanced gender representation are (1) each party list must contain equal numbersof men and women; (2) in publishing their lists, parties must alternate men and women;and (3) no more than 60 percent of the list heads for any party across districts may be of
the same gender. However, because the list is completely open other than for the list
head, the final order of election from a list will not necessarily be gender balanced. Onbalance, these features mean that if a party wins only one seat in the district, it will beallocated to the list head, while from the second onward, seats will be allocated solely
according to preference votes.

Consequences of Electoral Systems in Italy
Having now reviewed Italy’s electoral systems of the postwar period, we turn to theirconsequences. For almost fifty years the political system had featured highly unstable
governments in part due to the fragmentation of the party system, albeit with stability inpolitical and governmental personnel (Cotta and Verzichelli 2009). This was aconsequence of a pure proportional electoral system, which offered several chances tosmall parties to be represented (Ignazi 2002). Neither of the two biggest parties was able
to govern alone, and the Christian Democrats were prone to forming oversized coalitions
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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy(Newell and Bull 1997). Dissatisfaction with the performance of the PR system led to thefirst major electoral reform, that of 1993. This section will consider several indicators ofelectoral system impacts on the party system, for each of Italy’s electoral systems overtime.

Electoral Reform and Governmental Stability
As a result of the introduction of a polarizing political actor—Silvio Berlusconi—the party
system and electoral competition moved toward a bipolar framework. Beginning with the
1994 general elections, there were three power turnovers between center-right andcenter-left coalitions. However, the fragmentation of the coalitions and the weakness andheterogeneous nature of the parties affected governmental stability and ability to
implement programs and policies. In essence, Giuseppe Di Palma’s (1977) words from
more than forty years ago still rang true, in that Italian parties continued to survive
without governing. Moreover, a new party, the Five Star Movement (M5S), which won thehighest percentage of the vote for any individual party in the 2013 elections (albeit with
only 25.6 percent), may be generating a tripolar party system as an unexpected outcomeof electoral reform.
The electoral law first adopted in the general election of 1994 did not produce
governmental stability. The paradox is that it generated identifiability without stability(durability of governments). In the space of less than twenty years, Italy experienced
twelve governments (two of which were technocratic), six different prime ministers, twooversized coalitions, and two changes of parliamentary majorities during the samelegislature. The first Berlusconi government collapsed—due to the defection of the Lega
Nord (Northern League)—after just over half a year in office (Cento Bull and Gilbert
2001; Passarelli and Tuorto 2012; Passarelli 2013b). The early dissolution of parliament,
the change of prime ministers, the lack of support by a parliamentary majority, and theensuing instability and party fragmentation have remained the main characteristics of the
Italian political system despite the 1994 and 2005 reforms.25 Such tendencies weredetectable in the political and institutional dynamics, which are exemplified by both the
1994–2001 and 2006–2008 periods, lasting through both “majoritarian” and a“proportional” electoral law, respectively (Capano 1997; Bull and Pasquino 2007; Donovan
1995; Hine 1996; Gilbert 1998).

The Party System and the Electoral Reforms
Italy’s electoral reforms also offer an opportunity to explore the effect of the electoral
system on the party system. Table 2 shows several indicators of the party system, byelection and by period means, representing Italy’s different electoral systems. For theeffective number of seat-winning parties (NS) (Laakso and Taagepera 1979; see also thechapter in this volume by Shugart and Taagepera), we can observe the following: during
the First Republic (1948–1992), the average was 3.71, while during the majoritarian
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Electoral Systems in Context: Italyelectoral system for the Second Republic, the average was 6.35. For the majority-bonus
PR system, 2006–2013, it was 3.87. Thus, surprisingly, NS was at its highest during theperiod of the MMM electoral system. We see the same pattern with NV, the effective
number of vote-earning parties.

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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy
Table 2 The effects of electoral systems on political and electoral outcomes in Italy (1948–2013)
LegislatTwo biggest parties

ure

Electoral

year

Gallaghe

Eff Nv

Eff Nsr index

votes

seats

Parties

Electoral

Index of

with
seats

Volatility

nationali
zationsystemOLPR (up
to 4

1948

79.5

77.5

3.64

2.95

2.57

10

-

0.833

votes)

1953

62.7

64.4

3.68

4.18

3.54

9

14.1

0.836

1958

65.0

65.6

2.74

3.87

3.45

12

5.2

0.856

1963

63.5

67.6

2.58

4.16

3.74

10

8.5

0.864

1968

66.0

70.3

2.66

3.94

3.53

9

7.8

0.870

1972

65.8

70.6

3.25

4.08

3.55

9

5.3

0.866

1976

73.1

77.8

2.75

3.53

3.16

11

9.1

0.888

1979

68.7

73.5

2.69

3.91

3.47

12

5.3

0.874

1983

62.8

67.1

2.57

4.52

4.02

13

8.3

0.861

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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy
1987

60.9

65.2

2.52

4.62

4.07

14

9.1

0.859

OLPR (1
vote)

1992

45.8

49.7

2.51

6.63

5.71

16

19

0.785

MMM

1994

41.4

35.2

7.81

7.58

7.67

7 (9)

36.7

0.749

1996

41.6

46.8

6.91

7.17

6.09

8(10)

13.0

0.798

2001

46.0

52.4

10.22

6.32

5.3

5 (6)

22.4

0.830

2006

41.5

41.7

3.61

5.69

5.06

13

9.5

0.865

2008

70.6

76.7

5.73

3.82

3.07

7

9.7

0.836

2013

51.0

63.5

17.34

5.33

3.47

10

39.1

0.836

1948–
2013

59.2

62.7

4.89

4.84

4.20

10.3

13.9

0.841

1948–
1992

64.9

68.1

2.87

4.22

3.71

11.4

9.2

0.854

1994–
2001

43.0

44.8

8.31

7.02

6.35

6.7 (8.3)

24.0

0.792

Majoritybonus PR

periodmeans

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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy
2006–
2013

54.4

60.6

8.89

4.95

3.87

10.0

19.4

0.845

Sources: Author’s calculations from data from the Italian Ministry of the Interior; Passarelli (2014).
(*) For the MMM period, data refer to the PR component except the numbers in parentheses for parties with seats, which refer to
SSDs.

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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy
The reason for the seeming anomaly of party system fragmentation peaking under MMM
lies in a peculiar complexity of the system identified earlier—the establishment of fakelists to benefit from the scorporo process of partial compensation. While many newparties thus entered and won votes and seats, these parties were grouped into alliances,which were coordinated in the SSDs of this system, and generated “fake lists” tominimize their negative vote transfers from the SSDs to the PR component. In fact, when
we consider the actual number of parties that won at least one seat, we find that number
declined in the MMM period, but—strikingly—it was greater in the SSDs (8.3, on average)
than in the list component (6.7). This is due to the alliances being represented bydifferent parties in different districts, and also to ethno-regionalist parties being able towin (very few) seats in their strongholds.26 The number of seat-winning parties washigher in the pure-list periods (1948–1992 and 2006–2013), as we might expect. However,many of these parties were very small, as revealed by the lower effective numbers duringthat period.
As reported in Table 2, in 2008, there was a significant reduction in the number of parties
winning seats, compared to 2005, the first election under the majority-bonus list PR
system. However, that was due to the birth of two new parties, each resulting from themerging of two existing parties. The merger between Forza Italia and the National
Alliance created the People of Freedom led by Berlusconi, while the Democrats of the Leftand the Daisy formed the basis of the Democratic Party on the center-left. These parties
obtained approximately 75 percent of votes and as many seats, the highest top-2
percentage since 1976. Nevertheless, the power acquired by the two parties eroded, notleast due to their joint participation in the unity government “rainbow coalition” they
formed after Berlusconi’s resignation due to judicial and financial troubles.
Regarding the proportionality of the system, we can use the Gallagher (1991) index ofdisproportionality (see also the chapter by Shugart and Taagepera) to compare acrosselectoral systems. The lowest index value was recorded in 1987 and 1992 (2.5), when thepurely PR system was in place. The average during the initial PR period was 2.87,
whereas the two “majoritarian” periods have had high values, as we would expect fromeither MMM (average 8.31) or the majority-bonus system (8.89). The election of 2013,
when the party system fragmented again due to the arrival of the Five Star Movement,
saw an extraordinarily high value for a “PR” system, 17.3. This resulted from the bonus
provision awarding nearly half the seats to a party with barely a quarter of the votes—the
Democratic Party—as the main partner in the alliance that won the plurality.

Electoral Reform and Voters: Accountability and Volatility
Although we might detect a general shift toward a bipolar structure since 1994, and aquasi-two-party system in 2008, Italy has also seen substantial electoral volatility. This
includes the eruption of new parties such as the populist Five Star Movement. In part,
this comes as an unintended consequence of electoral reform, as discussed next.

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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy
Especially with the 2006–2013 period and the presence of a majority-bonus proportional
system, without preference voting (closed list), the party (in central office) greatly
strengthened its power in recruiting party personnel. This increased the voters’
disaffection due to the diminishing ability to affect the choice of candidates and, to someextent, to determine social representation (especially in terms of gender, expertise, andgeneration). The frustration felt by citizens was, in the end, one of the main factors
favoring abstentions, the rise of populist parties such as the Northern League, theflourishing of new (and significant) parties such as the Five Star Movement, and so on.
Most interestingly, if we consider electoral volatility, it is possible to observe that the
1994–2001 elections registered a different score: they obtained the highest period
average in terms of volatility (24.0, as shown in Table 2). In the 2013 election volatility
was even higher (39.1), mostly due to the extraordinary success of the Five Star
Movement, as well as from retrospective voting on ruling parties’ performances (ITANES
2013).
Votes for a particular candidate were possible under the 1948–1993 electoral system,
because of the open lists. However, given the SSDs of the 1993 electoral reform, votersstarted to attach more importance to the characteristics of candidates than previously(ITANES 2001, 2006, 2008, 2013; Bellucci and Segatti 2011). Moreover, voters havegenerally become increasingly accustomed to bipolar competition and the expectation of
having a government that is a reflection of electoral results, and not, as in the past, basedon parliamentary bargaining. The collapse of the pre-1989 party system further opened
the door to different electoral behavior, in tandem with new parties that were not linked
to historical political traditions. The success of the M5S in 2013, attractive to younger
voters (about 44 percent according to ITANES 2013), and the Northern League since
1992–1994 highlights the need for parties to focus on a few regions where the number ofseats allocated to the Senate was greater, as in Lombardy, Campania, or Veneto. This wasparticularly true for the Senate and especially after the 2005 electoral reform.
This brings us to a brief examination of electoral nationalization, shown in Table 2. Thereexists the possibility that electoral laws can affect the ratio between what parties obtainat a regional level and the numbers they achieve throughout the entire territory. The
index of nationalization, which varies between 0 and 1—the lower the index, the higher
the parties’ concentration of votes in a few areas, and the higher the index, the higher thenationalization of the vote (Caramani 2004; Bochsler 2010; Passarelli 2013a)—has beenquite homogenous during the entire period. The lowest level was registered in 1994
(0.749), and the highest in 1976 (0.888). In terms of the effects of electoral systems, we
can observe a lower nationalization during the mixed-member period (0.79), when the
SSDs meant that parties with regional base were privileged, vis-à-vis quite similar higher
values in the other two periods (about 0.85).

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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy

Conclusions
Italy has experienced three major electoral reforms in the last twenty-five years andmultiple elections under quite different systems: PR, MMM, and majority-bonus PR. The
chapter’s review of the main political results in the Italian context and electoral reforms
has partially confirmed our knowledge of the effects that electoral systems have produced(Gallagher 1975, 1992; Shugart 2005). However, not all the political expectations wererealized. For example, the effects of the 1993 reform on both parties and voters were
important, even if it did not achieve the political goals of strengthening parliamentary
majorities, prolonging governments, and increasing accountability. In particular, theabsence of big, cohesive national parties has mitigated the effects of electoral reforms,
especially in the case of the mixed-member majoritarian system (1994–2001), as thedecline of the percentages of votes and seats allocated to the two biggest parties has
confirmed. Beyond the electoral laws’ technicalities and details, the important lessons
from the Italian case is that so much system change compared to other countries ismostly explained by party system fragmentation and governmental instability. From atheoretical perspective, then, the Italian case perfectly fits with the research question on
the effects of electoral systems. The case has empirically demonstrated that the electoral
system alone cannot change the political system if the electoral reforms are not coupledwith other features. Consistent with an observation made over forty years ago by Sartori(1976; see also Renwick 2010; Baldini 2011), the most important contextual reason thatelectoral reform in Italy has disappointed its advocates is the absence of strong national
parties.

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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy

Postscript: Recent Developments
Following the outcome of a referendum and a ruling of the Constitutional Court, theelectoral system of Italy remains in flux. This postscript will review some developments
since the passage of the electoral reform of 2015. Beyond the technicalities andarguments for and against the reform, the ability of the reform to take effect wasconditional on the approval of the constitutional referendum in 2016. On December 4,
2016, Italian voters expressed their vote on a referendum about constitutional reforms.
The electoral results led to Prime Minister Renzi’s resignation and, a week later, a new
government headed by Paolo Gentiloni, former minister of foreign affairs under Renzi.
Because it failed, the country was left for several months in a situation of potential
stalemate.
This was the third referendum of its kind in Italy, with the other two having been held in2001 and 2006. The two options presented to voters in 2016 were related to the approvalor rejection of the reform promoted by Renzi’s government and his center-leftparliamentary majority.27 The result of the referendum was both clear and decisive.
Approximately 60 percent of voters cast a “no” vote in opposition to the proposed
reforms. Perhaps the most striking result was voter turnout. Nearly 70 percent of eligible
voters cast a vote, a percentage that is similar to that reached in general elections in Italy(e.g., 75 percent in 2013). This figure also confirms that Italy remains a democracy with
one of the highest electoral participation rates in the world. Despite this high turnout
figure, one of the most notable features of the referendum is the persistent north–south
divide in terms of turnout and the level of rejection of the reform. Rejection of thereferendum was particularly high in southern regions, with peaks in Sicily, Sardinia, andCampania. Support for the referendum was limited and prevailed in only two regions (i.e.,
Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna), as well as in the province of Bolzano.
The elimination of Italy’s “perfect” or symmetrical bicameralism was central to thereform. Such bicameralism is unique among contemporary parliamentary democracies
and is a subject of much debate by politicians and scholars alike. It has contributed topolitical instability, especially after 1994, as the risk of different majorities in the two
branches has increased due to differences in who selects deputies and how.28 These
different electorates have divergent electoral behaviors that are further accentuated by
the regional allocation of seats for the Senate versus the national allocation for the
Chamber.
The law approved in 2015 did not change the Senate’s electoral law, because the reform’s
supporters thought the referendum would pass. Therefore, similar majorities cannot beensured. The possibility of having two very different electoral laws for the two Chambers
in a context of symmetric bicameralism may generate uncertainty and political weakness.
A first clarification came from the Constitutional Court decision on January 25, 2017. The
court intervened by invalidating parts of the law. In particular, the decision dropped thesecond ballot to allocate the majority bonus for the Chamber of Deputies to make “morePage 21 of 29

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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy
similar” the two electoral systems for the two Houses, albeit the Senate would still have aregional allocation of seats. However, the supreme judges kept the provision of a majority
bonus allocated to the party with 40 percent of votes.29 After the 2016 referendum,
another (!) electoral law has been approved,30 even beyond the changes theConstitutional Court made. Under the Italian electoral sky, it seems that many things
happen and nothing changes. Theoretically, if the parliament would not approve any otherchange, it could also be possible to have general elections with two different systems for
the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.
It remains true that Italy still lacks a coherent electoral law and still has two chamberswith the same powers, and it cannot be taken for granted that parliament will approve a
new electoral law. Electoral uncertainty continues in Italy.

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Notes:(1) Renwick (2010, 111) reports five reforms, including the first electoral law introduced
in 1946 after the end of fascism, and the 1954 law that reintroduced that of 1948 after
the 1953 change. See also Clementi (2015). In fact, Italy had five electoral laws: 1948,
1953, 1993, 2005, and 2015, to which we could add the electoral law—albeit neverapplied—generated by the 2014 constitutional judgement that abolished the 2005 law.
(2) The calculation of the quota is as follows:, where V is valid votes, M is the
district magnitude, and n varies with the specific provision of the system. In the 1946 law,
the provision was for n = 1 (equivalent to Hagenbach-Bischoff or Droop) in districts of M
≤ 20 seats, and n = 2 in higher-magnitude districts. As explained later, and in Table 1, thedefinition of the quota was changed in subsequent laws of this period.
(3) A constitutional referendum was held on June 2, 1946, and the Constituent Assembly
was elected at the same time: the choice was between the republic or the monarchy,
which was the existing Italian form of state. The republic obtained 54.3 percent of votes,
whereas the monarchy obtained 45.7 percent. The law allowed for only one preference
vote in 1946. The proportional system was used by the DC to divide the left field,
especially the PSI from the PCI. In that way, the hegemonic role of the DC was not indanger, as it was guaranteed by the Cold war system (Clementi 2015).
(4) Specifically, thirty-one multiseat constituencies and one single-seat constituency for
the Valle d’Aosta.

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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy(5) The thresholds applied to the remainder seats only. Parties could thus gain access tothe parliament through district seats, as in the cases of regionalist parties such as Union
valdôtaine or the Svp (Südtiroler Volkspartei), which won their seats in a district but do
not have access to the distribution of the remainder seats.
(6) According to Article 59 of the presidential decree (n. 361/1957), voters could cast up
to three preferences in a district with a magnitude equal to or less than fifteen. In bigger
districts, four preference votes were allowed.
(7) The steps to assign the remaining seats were as follows: (1) all votes not used to win aseat were collected together at the national district (collegio unico nazionale); (2) at thislevel the number of seats to each party was calculated; (3) to decide where those seats
would be allocated, a rank among the districts was made—therefore, party X would have
won its seats in the districts with the highest remainders in percentage (e.g., if party X
obtained a 50 percent remainder out of the quorum, then the first seats will be allocated,etc.); and (4) finally, in terms of which candidate will be elected, that with the highest
number of preferences will be considered first.
(8) In 1948, the definition of the quota was changed to, and in 1956 back to. The 1948–1953 formula generated an extraordinarily low quota, which would
benefit the larger parties (Gallagher and Mitchell 2005, 587; Shugart and Taagepera
2017, 36–39). See Table 1 for a summary of these changes.
(9) A similar proposal was adopted during the fascist era, in 1924. The Acerbo law gave
the party that won the most votes two-thirds of the seats. However, the bonus was
possible only if the party got at least 25 percent of the votes.
(10) A minor change was approved in 1956: it slightly increased the proportionality of thesystem without changing its identity (Renwick 2010, 119). The value +2 in the Imperiali
quota formula was introduced at the district level together with the provision of obtaining
at the least three hundred thousand votes.
(11) The choice to call the referendum was motivated by the fact that the Senate had adual formula. It would function as an SSD system wherever a candidate obtained 65
percent of votes; seats not filled in SSDs were instead allocated at the regional level via
the D’Hondt method. In fact, few seats were filled as SSDs: on average, only 3.6 senators
per election (out of 315) were elected this way. Therefore, the referendum calling for theabrogation of the 65 percent clause implied shifting the Senate to a plurality system. In
contrast, the Chamber had a strictly PR system.
(12) For the election of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, in 1993, Italy was divided into
twenty-seven districts (circoscrizioni). However, given that the distribution of the PRseats was calculated at the national level, as in the PR system previously adopted,
districts served only to choose individual candidates inside the party lists. In contrast, for
the Senate, each region is a separate district and votes are not pooled nationally. The

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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy
meaning of “the Senate is elected on a regional basis” provision (Article 57) remains
subject to debate by scholars.
(13) For example, if the “RED” candidate won an SSD with 45,000 votes and the runner-up
got 42,100 votes, as a consequence, the vote to the PR list linked to the “RED” candidate
was reduced by 2,901. The logic was to “drop” the vote surplus used to win the SSD.
Moreover, if a party was connected to more than one list, then the “excess votes” (2,901
in our example) were partitioned among the affiliated list on the basis of the PR vote ofeach list.
(14) In 2006 and 2008: Lombardy (forty-seven seats; forty-nine in 2013), Campania (thirtyseats; twenty-nine in 2013), Lazio (twenty-seven seats; twenty-eight in 2013), Sicily(twenty-six seats; twenty-five in 2013), Veneto (twenty-four seats), Piedmont (twenty-twoseats), Emilia-Romagna (twenty-one seats; twenty-two in 2013), Tuscany (eighteen seats),
Apulia (eighteen seats; twenty in 2013), Calabria (ten seats), Sardinia (nine seats; eight in2013), Liguria (eight seats), Marches (eight seats), Umbria (seven seats), Basilicata(seven seats), Abruzzo (seven seats), Trentino Alto Adige (seven seats), Friuli Venezia
Giulia (seven seats), and Molise (two seats).
(15) Additionally, one MP is elected from the Aosta Valley (SSD) and twelve are elected bya constituency consisting of Italians living abroad.
(16) Among coalitions that do not satisfy this requirement, the list that passes 4 percent
on a national basis has access to the seat distribution. The same provision applies to thecoalition running for the Senate, where the threshold is equal to 8 percent for single listin the coalition.
(17) The law also allowed multiple candidacies in different districts, thus placing a
supplementary power in the hands of the central party in choosing candidates.
(18) Together with parliamentary reforms, one must also consider the series of popular
attempts to change the electoral system. Coherently with the tradition of 1991 and 1993,
two referenda were called: in 1999 and in 2000. Although both obtained more “yes” votes
than “no” votes, meaning that voters supported the changes (basically dropping the
proportional part of the 25 percent of seats as established by the 1993 law), bothreferendums failed because they did not clear the required threshold of voter turnout of
50 percent +1 of voters (in part because the voter list was outdated).
(19) In the Chamber, 630 deputies are divided into 618 members elected from the national
territory and 12 members elected by Italians living abroad, elected through PR.
Therefore, it is highly likely that the winning list would gain a few additional seats.
(20) Different proposals were presented during the parliamentary debate: in particular, atthe beginning the threshold was placed at 35 percent and then at 37 percent.

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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy(21) No formal alliances (the so-called apparentamento) are allowed for the runoff
between lists that competed in the first round.
(22) See the chapter on France by Hoyo for examples of runoffs among lists at the
subnational level.
(23) The Constitutional Court changed this provision to determination by lot.
(24) The preferences are not ranked, but there are two lines for a voter to cast preference
votes by writing in candidate names. If the candidate written on the second line is not of
a different gender from the one on the first line, the second preference vote is invalid.
(25) The average government tenure was eleven months during the First Republic (1948–
1992).
(26) For another prominent example of multiparty alliances coordinating on nominations
in SSDs, see the chapter in this volume by Ziegfeld on India.
(27) The reform was approved earlier by an absolute majority in both houses ofparliament, but the proposed changes required a two-thirds majority in parliament to be
implemented without a referendum according to the Italian constitution (Article 138.3).
Since this threshold was not met in parliament, the referendum was called (by thegovernment) by collecting the required number of voter signatures, as stated by Article
138.2, while the opponents to the reform were not able to get the minimum number ofrequired signatures (five hundred thousand).
(28) Chamber: minimum voter age is 18 years old. Senate: minimum voter age is 25 years
old.
(29) The Constitutional Court has changed another aspect related to the party list heads.
Since list heads can be candidates in up to ten different districts, if they are elected in
more than one district, then the allocation to the “district” will come by lot, rather than at
the list head’s option.
(30) In Autumn 2017 the Italian Parliament approved a new electoral law expected to laterpass the Senate. The MMM system features 37% SSD seats and 63% elected by closed
list PR (Hare) with a maximum M of 7 or 8, and no linkage between the tiers. The
threshold is set at 3% for party/list or 10% for coalition, with a lower threshold for lists
representing linguistic minorities. Parties can nominate no more than 60% of theircandidates from the same gender.

Gianluca Passarelli

Gianluca Passarelli, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy

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Electoral Systems in Context: Italy

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