title: The Transformation of the Democratic Party in Italy 1989-2000: A Case Sudy in Venice
Creators: name: Kennedy, Claire
Publisher: name: Griffith University
Year: 2006
Subjects: subject: Party of the Democratic Left (Italy)
subject: Left Democrats (Italy)
subject: Venetian federation
subject: Italian Communist Party
subject: Italian politics

description: The fall of the Berlin Wall and the announcement by the leader of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), Achille Occhetto, that the time had come to shed its communist name and identity inaugurated a decade of uncertainty and change for the party. As the Party of the Democratic Left (PDS), it faced the challenge of developing its post-communist identity amid the upheaval in the Italian political system that followed the Tangentopoli (Bribesville) scandal. The transition to the 'Second Republic', spurred by widespread anti-party sentiment, brought new electoral systems and forms of coalition-making, a changed array of allies and opponents, a personalisation of certain political roles, and changed relationships between the national and local dimensions of politics. In 2000, now called the Left Democrats (DS), the party was the largest component in the nationally governing coalition and even provided the prime minister. Yet the rise to the pinnacle of power had been accompanied by decreasing electoral support. In over ten years of post-communist life, the party had failed to achieve the real breakthrough hoped for by Occhetto: to unite the Italian left in a single party that dominated government or opposition, as in other Western European countries. The primary aim of this thesis is to contribute to understanding the party's fortunes through a case study of the way the turbulent years from 1989 to 2000 were experienced in the Venetian provincial federation. This decade of change has so far not been examined from a local perspective, yet local studies were particularly fruitful in the analysis of the PCI, as they allowed exploration of the ways party debates were perceived, and decisions made at national level were implemented, 'on the ground' in specific contexts. I have not chosen the Venetian federation as a microcosm of the experience in the periphery as a whole but as an interesting and relevant component of the full picture. The Venetian party enjoyed greatly increased responsibilities in government at sub-national levels in the second half of the 1990s, due to successful alliance strategies, but decreasing electoral support. I seek to explain the local party's electoral and power outcomes in terms of a combination of external and internal factors: on one hand, the opportunities and constraints presented by the changing environment; and, on the other, internal dynamics that hampered the party in responding to those challenges. In particular I stress the significance of the crisis precipitated by Occhetto's proposal to transform the party in 1989 and the constraints on the local party's legitimacy and visibility in the competitive environment that developed in the Second Republic. I attribute these constraints to the mixed electoral systems operating at sub-national levels, intra-coalition rivalry, and a striking case of an individual enjoying personal power and influence in the local political system. As a secondary theme, I analyse change in the party type that accompanied these outcomes, in light of theories on general trends in party transformations in Western Europe. I identify rapid changes in the local party's aims, functions and organisational roles and relationships, and in its relationship with the national leadership. I argue that this process of change, consistent with the transformation of a mass party into an electorally focused party, was accelerated at local level by the changing competitive environment and the sudden increase in government responsibilities. The introduction in chapter 1 sets the party's story in context and outlines the aims and argument of the thesis. Chapter 2 introduces the local case study in light of existing analyses of the party's development, the tradition of local studies of the PCI, and theories on party types and transformations. The central chapters are dedicated to the case study, which is based largely on interviews with members of the federation's leadership groups in various periods. The organisation of the material reflects my division of the federation's story into distinct phases, each reflecting a stage in the development of both the party's alliance strategy and the local political system. In the concluding chapter, I discuss the implications of the case study findings for the party as a whole and make a claim for the continuing validity of local studies of Italian political parties.