Suchergebnisse

This article aims at explaining the success of the center-left coalition in the Italian regional elections in April 2005. Does it express voters real discontent with the government of the House of Freedoms? Or, alternatively, are the results due to the fact that in the so-called second-order elections governing parties are regularly punished & opposition parties preferred? This article takes into consideration the concept of second-order elections & explains on this basis the recent electoral results. References. Adapted from the source document.

The collapse of the Italian "partitocrazia" in the early 1990s was followed by the emergence of a completely new party system. All but one of the relevant parties from the previous regime were affected by corruption scandals & had to struggle for survival. This situation created opportunities for the originally protest parties (LN), for transformed parties (AN, PDS) & for new political actors (FI). Forced by the logic of the mixed electoral system, these parties quickly started to form pre-election coalitions that were intended to guarantee political relevance for the small parties & to secure electoral victory for the bigger parties. The center of the political continuum has consequently been deserted in the last three elections. Any political actor situated between the two principal coalitions would be mercilessly squeezed or absorbed by them. Therefore, the Italian party system has gradually become a bipolar one. This means that the system has turned into a competitive one & has opened a possibility for alternation. Graphs, References. Adapted from the source document.

This article presents a qualitative and empirically oriented analysis of the Italian political discourse which took place in response to the immigration wave that appeared after the outbreak of the Arab Spring in the first half of 2011. Using the concept of securitization introduced by the Copenhagen School, the author seeks to deconstruct the discursive strategy of Silvio Berlusconi's government at the time, which was intended to legitimize extraordinary reactive measures at both national and supranational (EU) levels. The author also provides an interpretation of how the Italian cabinet presented the mass influx of African migrants while exerting instrumental pressure on the EU to provide appropriate assistance to Italy. The article concludes by showing how the discourse, which was accompanied by administrative and political practices, led to an escalation of the crisis within the EU and subsequently opened up the space for a fundamental revision of the rules regarding the Schengen area. Adapted from the source document.