Introduction

The political life of Italy in 1994 was dominated by two major themes. The first is institutional. The second, and intimately intertwined, theme focuses on the meteoric rise, and perhaps ultimately the beginning of the equally meteoric decline, of Silvio Berlusconi as the dominating personality in Italian politics of the past year. All that has happened under the Berlusconi government suggests that the First Republic was not only reasserting itself even before the government fell, but that indeed it had never really disappeared. Berlusconi's entry into the political arena after having made numerous attempts at rassemblement lends him the aura of a "Savior of the Fatherland," forced to abandon the comforts of a millionaire for the good of the country. In any case, the truly new development of the Berlusconi government was the inclusion, for the first time in Europe, of a party directly descending from the fascist tradition.