ABSTRACT
In the previous chapters, we have seen that somewhat different logics appear to apply in different policy areas. While the approach favoured in the Introduction, German derivationism, did indeed account well for the monetary policies of the Bank of Italy, we called on the concept of Bonapartism, a centrepiece of Poulantzas’ theory of the capitalist state, to explain the eventual resolution of the issue of government debt, while a version of his approach modified to include institutional and economic factors also best fitted the facts of industrial relations policy. Bonapartism, furthermore, appears to do justice to the historically autonomous role of the state in Italy. Does this mean that theoretical eclecticism is the only possible stance to take vis-à-vis the Italian political economy? Is the search for a unified theory a hopelessly modernist endeavour anyway? Or can the different threads be woven together into a coherent whole?
