Democracy, Italian Style (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 289 Katzenstein's analysis is well organized and well focused, ifsomewhat redundant . The author's central point — that, regardless of governmental changes, incremental policy change is the rule in the Federal Republic because of Germany 's distinctive institutional arrangements — cannot possibly be missed. He supports his thesis by discussing the context, agenda, process, and consequences of the policymaking process in six broad areas of domestic politics: economic management, industrial relations, social welfare, migrant workers, administrative reform, and university reform. Only university reform failed to fit the pattern of small-scale, incremental change, Katzenstein notes. Finally, each chapter ends with readings highlighting key features of landmark legislation and relevant reports and speeches to provide a flavor of the contemporary debate on the policy issue. Democracy, Italian Style. ByJoseph LaPalombara. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987. 320 pp. $25.00/cloth. Reviewed by Daniel Gringauz, M. A. candidate, SAIS. In Democracy, Italian Style Joseph LaPalombara refutes the clichéd picture many have of Italy as an ideologically polarized country suffering from constant internecine political warfare and standing on the verge of total disintegration . The book is about democratic government as practiced in Italy, a form of democracy LaPalombara convincingly portrays as effective, stable, and highly successful, despite the fact that it often flies in the face of conventional theory. To understand its seemingly surprising success, according to LaPalombara, one has to look at Italian democracy in its "existential context." Taken in context , Italian democracy's success appears much less paradoxical. It is true, for instance, that Italians are combative and extremely vocal in their criticism, especially of la classe politica, or the political class that actually runs the country . They also tend to portray nearly everything— industry, religion, youth, agriculture, the lira — as in a state of crisis. Italian society is firmly divided into three historical subcultures: Catholic, the Left, and secular. Politics, almost always channeled through these subcultures, permeates all aspects of Italian life, including religion, the arts, education, mass media, and public employment. However, Italians, though perhaps more cynical than citizens of other democracies, are also notably more inclined to find a practical basis for accommodation and compromise. Their pragmatism and impressive degree of tolerance, necessitated by the divisions and mutual suspicions that are a fact of life in Italy, tend to be obscured by their often fiery ideological rhetoric. The apparent disdain for the political process, a result of the political saturation of society, does not translate into behavior dangerous to democracy. To LaPalombara, this antagonism toward politics actually serves to reinforce democratic structures and practices. A unique form of party government, sometimes accused of constituting a partitocrazia or partyocracy, has developed whereby all political parties are effectively brought into the policymaking process, including the Communist 290 SAIS REVIEW party or PCI. Political power is heavily concentrated in the political parties, and it is through these parties and their numerous factions that most of the representative aspects of Italian democracy operate. The factions, in fact, serve as effective channels for representing the interests of individuals and organizations not only within the parties themselves but in the legislative bodies and the bureaucracy as well. This system was set up with the realities of Italian political life in mind, and it has, therefore, worked well. Despite the sometimes theatrical quality of Italian politics — politics as spettacolo the system is effective, stable and highly democratic. The behind-the-scenes collaboration among the parties avoids open and direct ideological confrontation. LaPalombara argues convincingly that not only does this system not encourage political polarization, it actually helps dampen centrifugal forces within Italy. This highly pragmatic and accommodative approach to democracy in Italy is, for LaPalombara, the key to its success. That Italy is divided into subcultures and saturated by politics not only has failed to prove fatal to democratic development but in fact has most likely contributed to that development. The subcultures, for instance, serve to mobilize the citizens and bring them into the political process. Publicly, political leaders are mutually suspicious, partisan, and ideological. Yet in the less transparent arenas of politics, the political elites collaborate. These often-maligned political elites can truly be thanked for making the Italian democratic...