ABSTRACT
This chapter evaluates the impact of 1989 and subsequent developments on the Italian political party system as a whole. Hundreds of party politicians, including many members of Parliament, are in prison awaiting prosecution for crimes involving bribery and the provision of succor to the Mafia and other criminal organizations. The Italian Communist Party (PCI)/Democratic Party of the Left (PDS) nemesis, Bettino Craxi, resigned his post as Socialist party secretary after falling under suspicion. The changes underway in Italian party politics really involve two dimensions. The first concerns the overall strength of the party system taken as a whole that is, partitocrazia, rule by the parties. The second dimension refers to the long-term dominance of one party, the Christian Democrats. The chapter uses the case provided by the impact of the collapse of communism on Italian politics, the PCI/PDS transformation especially, in order to illustrate a more general phenomenon, the linkage between international developments and domestic party politics.
