Carolyn Forestiere - The Sources and Consequences of Christian Democracy in Italy

Introduction The purpose of this paper is to understand the sources and consequences of Christian Democratic dominance in Italy. As opposed to studies that postulate single cause and effect relationships among variables as the central explanation for a particular political outcome, the variables in this analysis will be treated as interrelated parts in a system where different types of patterns can be identified. Factors that might appear as single independent causes are modeled as endogenous components that have continual effects on other variables in the system, which can create different types of 'feedback loops'. This approach allows us to understand Christian Democratic (DC throughout) dominance more as a sustained and cyclical pattern rather than as a single outcome. In this specific case, as the model will show, political and institutional factors continually reduced the DC's governing capacity, which led to numerous crises and extreme government instability. As a result, the DC – in order to maintain its dominant position at the center of the political system – resorted to various forms of clientelism by systematically exploiting state resources to reward members, maintain its support base, and ensure its dominant position. Once these practices became the norm, the system of DC dominance was sustained through two reinforcing feedback loops. Furthermore, the paper argues that though DC dominance formally ended with the dissolution of the party in February 1994, the overall pattern within the loops remains in evidence. The rest of the paper is as follows. In the first section I discuss the origins of the DC and provide a brief history of its dominance. The second section borrows the concept of feedback loops from systems thinking to explain how the DC was able to stay in power. 1 The third section then describes the pivotal events in the early 1990s, when the entire party system imploded and single party dominance came to an end. In this section it is also argued that the two powerful reinforcing feedback loops established during DC dominance remain in effect. Specifically, governments remain weak and clientelism persists as an important mechanism through which support is maintained. The fourth section attempts to place Italy's experience with single party dominance in comparative perspective by suggesting commonalities in the experiences of single party dominance in other contexts.