The Future Mel­oni Gov­ern­ment and the Long Drift of Ital­ian Democracy

“Rome wasn’t build in a day” – and nei­ther is a rad­i­cal right-wing gov­ern­ment like the one now form­ing in Italy fol­low­ing the elec­tions held in Sep­tem­ber 2022. The result of the elec­tions, while sure­ly not unex­pect­ed, offers the oppor­tu­ni­ty to make some reflec­tions about the long-stand­ing drift of Ital­ian polit­i­cal and insti­tu­tion­al con­text. And its pos­si­ble – albeit how unde­sir­able – future(s).

I divid­ed this short piece of analy­sis in three moments. I begin with some brute facts about recent elec­tions in order to put the seem­ing­ly rise of the right back in its place. Sec­ond, I pro­vide for a short note on the his­tor­i­cal evo­lu­tion of Ital­ian polit­i­cal sys­tem in order to sit­u­ate this last elec­tion with­in the broad­er parabo­la of Ital­ian democ­ra­cy. Final­ly, I offer some ten­ta­tive con­sid­er­a­tions about what-to-expect from the per­spec­tive right-wing gov­ern­ment: actu­al­ly, while this short piece is being writ­ten (Octo­ber 2022), the gov­ern­ment has not yet been formed and the list of min­istries is not ready.

First the facts. The elec­tions have con­se­crat­ed the “post-Fas­cist” par­ty Fratel­li d’Italia (FdI), led by Gior­gia Meloni,as the first par­ty in the coun­try. It is part of a larg­er coali­tion com­pris­ing Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and Mat­teo Salvini’s The League, both in a phase of polit­i­cal decline. Over­all and impor­tant­ly, the right-wing coali­tion has not enlarged its total share of votes: rather, there is an inter­nal elec­toral flow from the two (declin­ing) par­ties to FdI – thus, most­ly a reshuf­fle towards a more right-wing ori­ent­ed polit­i­cal force. It is also worth not­ing that FdI, dif­fer­ent­ly from Forza Italia and The League, is the only polit­i­cal force that remained at the oppo­si­tion of the gov­ern­ment led by Mario Draghi and com­posed of both experts and politi­cians. On the oppo­site front, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (cen­ter-left) con­tin­ues to lose impor­tant shares of votes at every elec­tion and lives in a per­ma­nent iden­ti­ty cri­sis. The Five Star Move­ment, the oth­er main par­ty now at the oppo­si­tion, man­aged to reduce the enti­ty of its decline by los­ing “only” 6 mil­lion votes since the pre­vi­ous elec­tion (2018, when it obtained more than ten mil­lion votes and reached 32%), and set­tling at 15%. Final­ly, the wor­ry­ing ele­ment of this elec­tion, which def­i­nite­ly marks the cri­sis of trust in repub­li­can insti­tu­tions and in the polit­i­cal class, is absten­tion­ism. To be sure, absten­tion­ism is in a phase of sus­tained growth at least since the post-2008 cri­sis – but hav­ing this said, the elec­toral turnout has decreased by almost 10% since the pre­vi­ous elec­tion (72% in 2018 vs. 63% in 2022), with rates of absten­tion of about 50% in some south­ern regions.

Since the 1990s there has been a con­tin­u­ous process of cen­tral­is­ing deci­sion-mak­ing through the strength­en­ing of exec­u­tive pow­ers in the name of “sta­bil­i­ty”.

The over­all sit­u­a­tion emerg­ing from this elec­tion offers a quite bleak pic­ture, com­pris­ing a weak oppo­si­tion (espe­cial­ly the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty), large dis­trust of the cit­i­zen­ship towards State insti­tu­tions, and the future most right-wing prime min­is­ter in repub­li­can his­to­ry. Yet, if we focus our atten­tion only on the gov­ern­ment to-be-soon-formed, and not on the regres­sive his­tor­i­cal arc of Ital­ian democ­ra­cy, we would be com­mit­ting a fatal error of per­spec­tive. Indeed, to under­stand the con­text of these elec­tions and its “his­tor­i­cal-struc­tur­al” her­itage, so to speak, it is essen­tial to under­stand Italy’s insti­tu­tion­al and polit­i­cal tran­si­tion since the 1990s. Of course, it is by no means an easy task to sum­marise a long and com­plex his­tor­i­cal moment char­ac­terised by numer­ous con­tra­dic­tions and dif­fer­ent “inter­nal” phas­es – more­over, these occur­ring with­in the dif­fer­ent phas­es of the Euro­pean inte­gra­tion process, which clear­ly has an impor­tant influ­ence on nation­al pol­i­tics and polit­i­cal econ­o­my. In short, I would like to high­light three – inter­twined – ele­ments that (among oth­ers) have char­ac­terised the past thir­ty years of pol­i­tics in Italy. The first is the con­tin­u­ous process of cen­tral­is­ing deci­sion-mak­ing through the strength­en­ing of exec­u­tive pow­ers in the name of “sta­bil­i­ty”. For instance, the use of emer­gency decrees, which emerged strong­ly in the ear­ly 1990s, has become an ordi­nary gov­ern­ment prac­tice. This has sig­nif­i­cant­ly com­pressed the role of par­lia­ment, now squeezed between the strong nation­al exec­u­tive and Euro­pean insti­tu­tions, with a now very mar­gin­al role in pol­i­cy-mak­ing. After all, the mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion of the main insti­tu­tion of a rep­re­sen­ta­tive democ­ra­cy has effects on the entire polit­i­cal system.

The sec­ond ele­ment is the long-stand­ing cri­sis of polit­i­cal par­ties. This is a com­plex process that touch­es upon dif­fer­ent vari­ables: the men­tioned elec­toral absten­tion­ism, declin­ing par­ty mem­ber­ship and trust in polit­i­cal class, elec­toral volatil­i­ty, declin­ing rates of cit­i­zens’ sat­is­fac­tion towards insti­tu­tion­al per­for­mance, par­ty de-ter­ri­to­ri­al­i­sa­tion, pres­i­den­tial­iza­tion with­in par­ties and thus inner-par­ty de-democ­ra­ti­za­tion. While, of course, such dynam­ics influ­ence dif­fer­ent par­ties in dif­fer­ent ways, what we can broad­ly say is that these over­all con­tribute to increas­ing the inher­ent insta­bil­i­ty lev­el of the polit­i­cal sys­tem and of the demo­c­ra­t­ic standards.

The last ele­ment that should be men­tioned is the issue of tech­noc­ra­cy. In short, tech­noc­ra­cy refers to the fact that experts (peo­ple out­side polit­i­cal par­ties), usu­al­ly com­ing from insti­tu­tions such as cen­tral banks, Euro­pean insti­tu­tions or acad­e­mia, hold key roles in the gov­ern­ment. Roles such as min­is­ter of econ­o­my and finance, or even prime min­is­ter. In this respect, Italy offers a remark­able record of tech­no­crat­ic gov­ern­ments, tech­no­crat­ic-led gov­ern­ments (i.e. gov­ern­ments com­pris­ing of a mix of experts and politi­cians), and tech­no­crat­ic min­is­ters – a fac­tor that, clear­ly not coin­ci­den­tal­ly, has been emerg­ing since the ear­ly 1990s and recurs at every major cri­sis and turn­ing point (the last being Draghi gov­ern­ment formed after the Covid-19 cri­sis). While resort­ing to tech­nocrats is yet anoth­er sign of the demo­c­ra­t­ic malaise and of the short­com­ings of the nation­al polit­i­cal class, tech­noc­ra­cy, on the oth­er hand, con­tributes to the cri­sis of con­fi­dence in pol­i­tics and insti­tu­tions. A vicious cycle, there­fore, involv­ing sev­er­al nation­al and Euro­pean actors.

Final­ly, it is impor­tant to con­sid­er all these polit­i­cal fac­tors as occur­ring in a soci­etal con­text char­ac­terised by seri­ous and grow­ing imbal­ances and inequal­i­ties. The aus­ter­i­ty ther­a­py and fur­ther neo-lib­er­al­iz­ing poli­cies imple­ment­ed after the Euro­zone cri­sis have dealt a sig­nif­i­cant blow to the social resilience of the coun­try, espe­cial­ly in the south, where new mass emi­gra­tion, high unem­ploy­ment (of women and young peo­ple, espe­cial­ly), pre­car­i­ous­ness, black mar­ket labour and ris­ing pover­ty rates have become the hid­den face of nation­al and Euro­pean pol­i­tics. And yet, the polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion of Italy must be nec­es­sary read with­in this broad­er social context.

But, what to expect from Mel­oni gov­ern­ment? Mak­ing “fore­casts” does not mean, deter­min­is­ti­cal­ly, expect­ing them to actu­al­ly real­ize. Fore­casts, as cre­ative exer­cise, entail pro­vid­ing a map of pos­si­ble future direc­tions of a spe­cif­ic con­text. Yet the map – as Gre­go­ry Bate­son famous­ly put it – is not the ter­ri­to­ry: it only can help us to nav­i­gate in unknown waters. In addi­tion, future – whether short, medi­um or long term – is an open and unde­ter­mined space in which dif­fer­ent actors oper­ate con­crete­ly in the light of deter­mined rela­tions of forces and rel­a­tive hege­mon­ic strength.

In argu­ing about what could be poten­tial direc­tions of the first gov­ern­ment led by a “post-fas­cist” prime min­is­ter, it maybe use­ful to dis­tin­guish between sev­er­al ana­lyt­i­cal domains: polit­i­cal econ­o­my; cul­ture; for­eign pol­i­cy and the rela­tion with Euro­pean institutions.

(i) Begin­ning with polit­i­cal econ­o­my, from sev­er­al state­ments of Mel­oni and her entourage, it seems that a gen­er­al neolib­er­al direc­tion could be pur­sued. For instance, Mel­oni declared more than once her will to reduce or even erase the “cit­i­zens’ income” (red­di­to di cit­tad­i­nan­za), a wel­fare mea­sure intro­duced by the Five Star Move­ment; her state­ments also point to a rather rig­or­ous pol­i­cy con­cern­ing State bud­get and pub­lic finance, and seem to be def­i­nite­ly sup­ply-side ori­ent­ed. If we had to choose a sim­i­lar fig­ure, per­haps Mar­garet Thatch­er would be a use­ful com­par­i­son. On the oth­er hand, the prospec­tive gov­ern­ment will imme­di­ate­ly face an extreme­ly seri­ous sit­u­a­tion involv­ing ris­ing infla­tion and ener­gy prices, low salaries and pro­duc­tive stops. Over­all, giv­en the con­straints of Euro­pean eco­nom­ic gov­er­nance, it is rea­son­able to expect Mel­oni gov­ern­ment to con­tin­ue in the path­way of the EU “embed­ded neolib­er­al­ism”, to bor­row the def­i­n­i­tion coined by the polit­i­cal econ­o­mist Bas­ti­aan Van Apel­doorn. Final­ly, and inter­est­ing­ly, so far sev­er­al tech­no­crat­ic fig­ures have been designed as poten­tial min­istries of the econ­o­my and finance (thus, mark­ing a poten­tial con­ti­nu­ity in pol­i­cy choices).

(ii) The cul­tur­al field will like­ly be a ground of bat­tle for keep­ing or enlarg­ing con­sen­sus – as seen in many oth­er cas­es of right-wing forces in pow­er. This could mate­ri­alise in “anti-gen­der” cru­sades, fight against what they call “ille­gal immi­gra­tion”, plus anti-immi­grant dis­cours­es, defence of the so-called “tra­di­tion­al fam­i­ly” and of “Chris­t­ian val­ues”, maybe a greater empha­sis on nation­al­ist tones – note that Mel­oni and her fol­low­ers usu­al­ly self-declare to be “patri­ots” rather than nation­al­ists (and of course “fas­cists”). It is uncer­tain to what extent the prospec­tive gov­ern­ment will dare to talk about (or sub­stan­tial­ly change) the right to abor­tion, because there is the risk of a vio­lent back­lash by a huge por­tion of Ital­ian women and cit­i­zen­ship more gen­er­al­ly. How­ev­er, focus­ing obses­sive­ly on this field may prove to be short-lived (as seen in the case of Five Star Move­ments and The League) if it is not fol­lowed by real improve­ments of mate­r­i­al con­di­tions. The elec­toral volatil­i­ty tes­ti­fies of how dif­fi­cult it is to main­tain sta­ble polit­i­cal con­sen­sus nowadays.

Insta­bil­i­ty - the best pos­si­ble sit­u­a­tion for author­i­tar­i­an forces to reclaim their role in restor­ing “order”.

(iii) Final­ly, if in terms of for­eign pol­i­cy the posi­tion­ing into NATO is clear­ly not in ques­tion, the rela­tion with Euro­pean insti­tu­tions and the oth­er Mem­ber states rep­re­sent a ter­rain with sev­er­al pit­falls. Clear­ly, it is still extreme­ly pre­ma­ture giv­en the flu­id­i­ty and unpre­dictabil­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion. How­ev­er, in a very gen­er­al line, the nation­al­is­tic ori­en­ta­tion of Mel­oni, and her crit­i­cal stance towards the Euro­pean Union (more­over in a phase of inter­na­tion­al frag­men­ta­tions at least part­ly reflect­ed in the Euro­pean sphere), could pre­pare the ter­rain for increas­ing ten­sions. While it is rather unlike­ly that this will lead to a pos­si­ble “Italex­it” (Italy leav­ing the EU), on the oth­er hand Mel­oni may resort to the blame-game against the Union if things go wrong at the nation­al lev­el, or when nation­al inter­ests may col­lide with EU rules. For their part, Euro­pean insti­tu­tions will have to pay close atten­tion in how they deal with the prospec­tive Ital­ian gov­ern­ment, this also after more than a decade of increas­ing nation­al dis­con­tent towards the EU, which has tak­en Italy from being one of the most euro-enthu­si­ast coun­tries to high­er lev­els of euroscep­ti­cism. In this sit­u­a­tion many unknowns remain and con­cern rights, eco­nom­ic and mon­e­tary pol­i­cy, and polit­i­cal alliances with sim­i­lar forces in Europe. Only time will tell whether this real­ly rep­re­sents a pos­si­ble real break towards mild or advanced forms root­ed in grow­ing author­i­tar­i­an­ism in Europe.

If we were to choose just one word to describe Ital­ian polit­i­cal sys­tem, this would be insta­bil­i­ty. But such insta­bil­i­ty is part of a broad­er phase of tur­bu­lence root­ed in the con­tem­po­rary form–substance of cap­i­tal­ism and in intra-cap­i­tal­ist rival­ries, which brought the world and Europe in a long phase of sys­temic chaos: The best pos­si­ble sit­u­a­tion for author­i­tar­i­an forces to reclaim their role in restor­ing “order” – as we already know from the his­to­ry of Italy.

Also lis­ten to the episode of our pod­cast series Democ­ra­cy in Ques­tion on the resur­gence, his­to­ry and var­i­ous forms of pop­ulism fea­tur­ing Nadia Urbinati.