Italy

The Republic of Italy was established on 2 June 1946 following a constitutional referendum in which women voted for the first time. The head of state is the president of the Republic who acts as a representative of national unity. The democratic structure of the state allows for a division of powers: the government has executive power whereby the prime minister and ministers are nominated by the president of the Republic on the basis of electoral results. Ministers can be both elected in parliament or non-elected ‘experts’. Legislative power falls within the realm of parliament which is divided into the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate; both chambers are responsible for putting forward and approving bills or laws. The Chamber of Deputies is composed of 630 deputies (71 or 11.3 per cent of which were women in 2001); the Senate is composed of 321 senators (26 or 8.1 per cent of which were women in 2001). The Senate also consists of life-long senators such as former presidents of the Republic and senators who have been nominated for the presidency: these include the only woman, the Nobel Prize winner Rita Levi Montalcini. An unusual feature of the Italian parliamentary system is the power of the Senate – the government is equally responsible to the upper and lower house and a bill must pass the Senate as well as the lower house in order to become law. Thus, the Italian parliament is more truly bicameral than most two-house parliaments. The average number of women elected to the Chamber of Deputies over the fourteen legislatures has been 7.6 per cent, with an all-time low of 2.7 per cent in 1968 and an all-time high of 15.1 per cent in 1994 (Table 4.1). Women’s representation in the Senate has been significantly lower, averaging 4.6 per cent across this period. Up until the 1990s, the Italian political system was entirely dominated by one major party, the Christian Democrats (DC), with left or right wing swings, depending on the formation of the governing coalition. In the early 1990s, a series of political events further eroded the already slim chances that women had of reaching positions of political authority. The fall of the Berlin Wall led to an internal crisis in the Italian Communist party (PCI) resulting in its exclusion from governmental decision-making (a position it had otherwise held since 1946). Subsequently, the party fragmented, reforming in 1991 as the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) which later became Democrats of the Left (DS). In addition, the party system underwent a major period of crisis which took two forms: a corruption scandal that rocked the political system and the emergence of

new right parties. The ‘Clean Hands’ (Mani Pulite) corruption scandal touched all the major parties, leading to the virtual disintegration of the DC and the Socialist party (PS). Many believed that the 1992-1993 ‘Clean Hands’ judicial enquiry into political corruption would renew the political class, perceived by the general public as inadequate and untrustworthy. However, new political personnel were not recruited from the scandal-free circles of female politicians. Rather, changes were made by recruiting new male political leaders from different social, professional and political categories. These included industry leaders, representatives of Italy’s north-east ‘local’ movements, businessmen and politicians, who entered the political scene and secured political success simply by virtue of not being under investigation for corruption. Despite the fact that very few women were being investigated at the time, the gender prejudice remained firmly in place and was used to prevent women from climbing the political ladder. Had this not been so, it is fair to assume that they would have been considerably well represented.