ABSTRACT
As was the case in Germany, Italy also entered the phase of economic constraints with the same party system that had structured the politics of welfare expansion. Reform efforts started in the 1980s, but in the field of unemployment benefits any significant restructuring was blocked by persisting polarized pluralism. Party system change in the beginning of the 1990s subsequently opened the opportunity for more notable reforms. However, continuing centrifugal tendencies in the new party system prevented the structural reforms of unemployment compensation that most policy experts called for.
