The Constitution of Italy was first enacted in 1947, following the end of World War II and fall of fascism in the nation. Unconventionally, the constitution does not contain a preamble, which customarily contains the constitution’s ideals and goals. This does not affect the overall framework of the constitution, but does create some ambiguity as to how the constitution intends to specify its institutions. However, through examination of the constitution, with a focus on the articles regarding executive structure, the electoral system, and federalism, it is apparent that the Italian Constitution generally specifies consensual institutions.
The electoral system of the Italian Constitution differs
between the two bodies of the legislature, the Chamber of Deputies and the
Senate of the Republic. Italy’s bicameral legislature is in itself a consensual
institution, which the electoral system only furthers through its
differentiation between the two houses (1). The electoral system in the
Chamber of Deputies works by dividing the number of inhabitants of the
Republic by the number of Deputies (618) and distributing the seats in
proportion to the population in every electoral district (Article 56). The
electors vote by party list, meaning they are not allowed to alter the list or
choose an individual candidate (2). These two factors exemplify a closed-list
proportional representation system, which is a consensual institution.
Senators,
on the other hand, are elected on a regional basis with the division of the
seats as a proportion to the population of the regions
(Article 57). This election is also done by closed list ballot (2). These
factors once again exemplify the use of proportional representation and as
Lijphart describes, an electoral system based on proportional representation is
one of the ten characteristics of the consensus model (3).
Despite the
clearly consensual electoral system, the executive structure defined in the
Italian Constitution is slightly more muddled in terms of which form of democracy it
falls under. Although the title given to the Head of State of Italy is
President of the Republic, it is a mix between a parliamentary and presidential
system as they are elected by Parliament, not directly by the voters, but have
a fixed term length (Article 83). It is then the role of the President of the
Republic to appoint the President of the Council (Prime Minister), who acts as
the Head of Government. The President of the Council and his appointed
Ministers form the Council of Ministers (Cabinet) (Article 92). The current
Cabinet of Italy is composed of five separate parties (4). This "broad-coalition cabinet" is a characteristic of a
consensual institution (5).
Along with
this, the powers of the executive branch are rather limited within the
constitution. It goes so far as to state that the Government (the Cabinet) must
receive the confidence of both Houses of Parliament (Article 94). This implies
a balance of powers between the legislature and executive branches, and even an
indication that the legislature is more powerful than the executive. This is
yet another characteristic described by Lijphart as he writes, “the consensus
model is characterized by a more balanced executive-legislative relationship” (6).
Overall, despite the parliamentary nature of this branch, all indications point
to the Italian Constitution specifying a consensual executive structure.
Lijphart
defines federalism as “a guaranteed division of power between central and
regional governments” (7). Despite the fact that the Italian Constitution
establishes twenty regions (Article 131), very little power is actually given
to these regions. In Article 117, the constitution provides the exclusive
legislative powers that the State has, a list of seventeen powers. These powers
include broad-sweeping categories such as immigration, currency, and foreign
policy among others. This article also establishes a long list of
subject matters with which “concurring legislation” applies. Through this article,
it is apparent that Italy is a centralized, unitary government, as it provides
few powers for the regional governments to legislate on their own. According to
Lijphart, this is a characteristic of a majoritarian institution, which implies
that the Italian Constitution is not entirely composed of consensual institutions
(8). Despite this, it is still observable that the Constitution of Italy
generally specifies consensual institutions such as its executive structure, bicameral legislature, and electoral system.
1) Lijphart (p. 38)
2) Elections to the Italian Parliament. http://electionresources.org/it/.
3) Lijphart (p. 36)
4) Cabinet of Italy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_Italy.
5) Lijphart (p. 33)
6) Lijphart (p. 105)
7) Lijphart (p. 175)
8) Lijphart (p. 23)
Haleigh Bavol
ReplyDeleteI agree with the leader that the constitution of Italy has some combination and variations of majoritarian and consensual, but is it evidently mostly a consensual constitution. However, I found in further research that there is a preamble to Italy’s constitution, which states,
“The Provisional Head of the State, Having seen the resolution of the Constituent Assembly which, in the meeting of 22 December, 1947, approved the Constitution of the Italian Republic; having seen the XVIIIth final disposition of the Constitution; promulgates the Constitution of the Italian Republic in the following text:” (1)
Though the preamble is rather short it does indeed give insight to the authors’ intentions when writing the Italian constitution. The preamble acknowledges the Constituent Assembly, which is what provided the inclination and motivation to create the document. As noted by the leader, the constitution was implemented in 1947, right after World War II so there was a clear motive for a deeply anti-fascist revolution. The Constituent Assembly was a meeting to choose a new form of government and create a constitution. The decision on a form of government and the members of the assembly were put to popular vote directly by the people and they selected a Republic, (2). The vote produced three major parties to be the majority, the Christian Democrats, the Socialist Party, and the Communist Party, (2). This resulted in an agreement on increasing legislative power rather than executive. From there, the elected Constituent Assembly members gathered and wrote the Italian constitution.
Therefore, with this in mind as the preamble of the constitution, it acts as a reminder to the people of Italy of the horrible memories of World War II and the Fascist government their people voted to stay away from. It represents the accomplishments that took place during the Assembly and the people turning out and voting to make a change.
1-- UM: World Constitutions Illustrated: “heinonline.org.proxy.lib.umich.edu”
2-- http://en.camera.it/4?scheda_informazioni=24
Amelia Zak
ReplyDeleteI agree with much of the analysis of our leader, Daniel; however, I am not fully convinced that there is a lack of encouragement of federalism in the Italian Constitution. Federalism and decentralization of the government is an important tendency for consensual government systems. The establishment of a larger overarching State with smaller Regions of control is immediately an indicator of some federalism. Upon analyzing Articles 117-119 of the Italian Constitution, I found it to be similar to that of the Belgian government described in Lijphart's "Patterns of Democracy." The Belgian government was used as an example of a complicated form of federalism that contains "three geographically defined regions" and another "three non-geographically defined cultural communities" with independent and specific controls for each. (1) In Article 117, the legislative powers that belong exclusively to the state are described. The list, I admit, is pretty comprehensive, but the powers given exclusively to the state are not a surprising variety. The State is given ruling power in foreign policy, immigration, defense, currency and taxation, elections, legal and administrative organization of the state, and several other overarching governmental requirements (2). The list includes 17 items, and although they appear sweeping the Regions do have there own areas of control and maintenance.
A longer, more specific list of Regional control follows the 17 items given to the states. They are described as forms of "concurring legislation", meaning that "in the subject matters covered by concurring legislation legislative powers are vested in the Regions, except for the determination of the fundamental principles, which are laid down in State legislation."(3) In this the State is decentralizing itself, providing powers to the regions in all other areas not described in the first 17 items.
Continuing into Article 119, the abilities of the Regions, municipalities, provinces, and metropolitan cities are specified and expanded. They are given autonomy in their expenditure and autonomy, have independent financial resources, and are allowed to set and levy taxes as well as collect revenues of their own as long as they follow the principles of coordination put forth by the State. (4)
There are some specific restrictions placed on the Regions that most other consensual governments. However, mild variation was given because of the history Italy had just endured. Fascism had poisoned the country and the new constitution was one of the first steps to legislative revamping and recovery. The country is noticeably more centralized because of a necessary fear for a similar revolution. This constitution to date has prevented any such revival. However, I will not concede to the statement that the government is centralized when it does in fact make a genuine effort in expanding some powers to the Regions.
1- Lijphart (pg.109-110)
2- The Constitute Project; https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Italy_2012.pdf (p. 24)
3- The Constitute Project; https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Italy_2012.pdf (p.25)
4- The Constitute Project; https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Italy_2012.pdf (p.25)
5- The Constitute Project; https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Italy_2012.pdf (p.26)
Nikhil Gulati
ReplyDeleteI agree with much of our Leader’s post in regards to Italy’s constitution being mainly consensual. After further review, the Italian Constitution matches most of the components of a consensual government. There is a balance of power between the executive and legislative branch, strong bicameralism and constitutional rigidity among others. Federalism is also another component of a consensual government, however, there is disagreement regarding if the Italian Constitution directly allows for federalism. As previously stated by Amelia, there are some aspects of federalism detailed in the Constitution. Title V of the Constitution discusses the power of regions and municipalities and the list of regions and powers is in Article 117(1). I think that the debate regarding federalism in the Italian government is clouded because we tend to compare things to the USA. In the US, we have very detailed and specific powers for each level of government and a relatively strong federalist government. However, the Italian Constitution does not do this, which creates the illusion that there is, no distribution of powers.
The line from the Constitution regarding Regional power is: “The Regions have legislative powers in all subject matters that are not expressly covered by State legislation”(2). This is a vague and overarching statement that does not specifically define the powers, rather it is much more suggestive and open to interpretation. As a result, the strength of this federalism is called into question and harder to determine. I think that Italy’s wariness of fascism and future revolutions created a government that doesn’t give too much power to each individual Region. As a result, we see a weak federalist system that places much more power into the Central Government to maintain control of the country. Ultimately, the lack of distinct and listed Regional power does not mean that there is no federalism. In fact, the ambiguity provides other power to the Regional governments outside of the seventeen defined powers of the central government. By comparing the Italian Constitution to that of the US, we can lose sight of what constitutes federalism and forget that Italy does indeed separate powers among the different levels of government.
1 - https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Italy_2012#430
2 - https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Italy_2012#440
Dennis Ball
ReplyDeleteHey folks, this looks like an excellent start to the discussion on the Italian constitution we will be having for the upcoming few weeks, I look forwards to working with all of you. Before I start I just wanted to mention to Haliegh that I was having a bit of difficulty with your first citation, when I copied it, it only took me to the title page of the World Constitutions database that we are using and not the specific page, just wanted to let you know for future reference.
To begin I would like to highlight Amelia's primary argument that the Italian government is inherently Federalist. I understand how Daniel could view Italian political authority as particularly centralized, in fact after my initial read of the constitution I came to a similar conclusion. This is an important differentiation that can be made about the Italian Government. Upon a closer examination I would have to argue in favor of Amelia; particularly that the Italian government is by definition Federalist state.
The evidence used by Amelia in which she highlights the fiscal autonomy of the independent regions poses a strong argument of "fiscal federalism", which Professor McElwain mentioned in lecture is rather rare (1). We can see rather clearly laid out in article 119 of the Constitution that the regions have independent autonomy in both aspects of revenue and expenditure.
Another interesting question Amelia didn’t bring up but I would like to discuss is why would Italy need a Federalist system due to their ethnic homogeneity? You could make the argument, and I think Haleigh would agree, that a Federalist system would provide a check on centralized power that would have been necessary in the post war climate.
1. PS337-4.2Federalism_2014-ctools