ABSTRACT
Coalitional behaviour is central to the Italian system of government but has been largely neglected by research. As a result, coalitions in post-war Italy have been viewed as simply unstable, short-lived and incohesive. In this book, the author corrects this one-sidedness by analysing Italian coalition politics as a continuous and dynamic process. His comprehensive, interpretative approach takes account of other new developments in coalition studies and relates his subject both to the literature on Italian politics and to the comparative study of party systems in liberal democracies. An introductory section places Italian coalitional behaviour in a theoretical and comparative context. This inductive framework is then used as a reference for examining the historical, institutional, motivational, internal, socio-political andenvironmental dimensions of the phenomenon.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |38 pages
Interpreting Italian Coalitional Behaviour: The Theory and the Practice
chapter |15 pages
Coalition Theory and the Case of Italy
chapter |7 pages
Italian Coalitional Behaviour in the Literature
chapter |6 pages
Inductive Theory and Research Methodology
part |141 pages
Italian Coalitional Behaviour: Multi-Dimensional Perspectives on National Politics
chapter |21 pages
The Historical Dimension: Patterns, Traditions and Conventions
chapter |70 pages
The Motivational Dimension: Problems of Power, Ideology and Strategy
part |128 pages
Italian Coalitional Behaviour: Sub-National Politics and Vertical Linkages
chapter |78 pages
The Horizontal/Vertical Dimension: A Case of Unity in Diversity?
chapter |48 pages
The Internal Party Dimension: Elite Control and Elite Constraints
part |64 pages
Italian Coalitional Behaviour in a Deeper and Wider Setting