ABSTRACT
Despite stereotypes, Italy is a relatively young nation: united only since 1861, and a parliamentary democracy since 1946. Between World War II and the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, the Italian people lived in a blocked political democratic system: a system which, on one side, had the largest communist party in the western world-therefore unable to participate in the government because of Italy’s membership of NATO-while, on the other side, it accounted for a varied number of small political parties (conservatives, liberals, republicans and socialists) alternating in successive coalitions with the huge, relative majority Catholic party (Democrazia Cristiana)—in an endless dance of musical chairs staged by short-lived cabinets satisfying the power anxiety of a tiny, elitist political clique. At the same time, however, Italy maintained for almost half a century a surprising and stubborn stability in its policies, centered on an indisputable pro-western allegiance, accompanied by a stronger than average active participation of the State in the national economy.
