ABSTRACT
The huge budget deficits of the late 1980s, and the need to compete in wider markets, had dramatic political consequences. Italy’s post-war political system, based on constant concessions and on patronage, could no longer be funded. And the end of the Cold War deprived Italy’s post-war rulers of vital foreign support. In 1992–93 the old parties collapsed, leaving much political uncertainty and threatening even the unity of the country. Subsequently tenuous coalitions of new parties of the ‘Centre-Left’ and of the ‘Centre-Right’ alternated in government, but neither provided effective policies nor even stability, and new international factors left Italy even more exposed.
