Suchergebnisse

Church-state relations in Italy have concerned the role of the Catholic Church in the failure of successive regimes to consolidate themselves & a triangular relationship involving the Christian Democrat (DC) Party, 1943-1994. Despite a historic ambivalence about Christian Democracy, the Church supported the party not least because of its concern about the challenge of the Communist Party. By the 1970s, the church was engaged in redefining its position vis-a-vis the state, leading to the renegotiation of the 1929 concordat in 1984. The demise of the DC in 1994 finally broke the myth of Catholic political unity. 2 Tables. Adapted from the source document.

Radical change in the representative dimension of Italy's political system was expected to bring a transition to a 'Second Republic' in Italy. That has not happened. Nevertheless, after three consultations using the new parliamentary electoral system, studies focusing on the 'input' side of Italian politics are beginning to agree that substantial change has occurred. It is, however, too early to identify the extent of change in public administration and centre–local government relations, whilst even in parliament it is argued that consensual decision-making continued at least into the late 1990s. The impact of party system change on policy-making has thus been shown to be less direct than many expected, providing rich material for research into the relationship between institutional and policy change. Nevertheless, institutional change continues, particularly with regard to the decentralisation of government, and some studies suggest that this is the key to Italy's political transformation, rather than electoral reform or even change in the form of government. Still, the election of Italy's first right-wing majority government in 2001 may yet bring change in parliamentary practice and policy-making more generally.