Haleigh Bavol
The
current Italian Republic constitution began its construction in the year 1943 and became
an effective law on January 1, 1948, (1). The process in which the constitution
was created appeared to be a fair and proportionately representative method and
widely included the voice of the people by holding special elections in order
to make decisions. This method of creating a constitution for the state was
performed in a very egalitarian and pluralistic approach by organizing a Constituent Assembly. Furthermore, this equal
opportunity constitutional writing process greatly reflects the consensual structure
of the constitution.
The
constitution writing process began in 1943 and a referendum was put up in order
to decide whether or not Italy should be a monarchy or a republic, (1). “After
some hesitation, the Committee of National Liberation, in which all major
national parties were represented, decided on a double election which should
determine both the fundamental form of the new political regime and the
composition of the Constituent Assembly which would give Italy a new
Constitution,” (1). The Constituent Assembly was the group that wrote the
Italian constitution and evidence confirms that the composition of the assembly
was voted in by the people. The popular vote allowed the citizens to choose the
form of the state, so it is clear that the people had a say in the formation of
the constitution by voting representatives into the assembly. “In the
referendum of June 2, 1946, the Republic was chosen over the Monarchy by 54 percent
of the electorate,” (1) and the members of the Constituent Assembly were voted
in by means of proportional representation, (2).
Considering that the Constituent Assembly who
wrote the constitution was voted in by proportional representation, all values,
groups, and cultures were able to be represented and incorporated in the constitution
writing process. “In the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the Christian
Democrats won a qualified majority (8,080,664 votes, a share of 35.2%),
followed by the Socialist Party (PSIUP) (4,758,129 votes, 20.7%) and the
Communist Party (4,356,686 votes, 19%). No other party obtained more than 10%
of the total,” (2). Therefore, minority views were not diminished by majority elites while drafting the document.
This method of constitution
crafting coincides very well with the consensual model because it contains a
variety of ideologies in the decision making process and has high citizen
participation. Though, the most influence belonged to the three major parties
mentioned above because they received the greatest proportion of votes. There are suggestions that there were
ideological divides among the top three selected parties while crafting the
constitution but they were all able to compromise and pass an agreed upon
constitution on December 22, 1947, (1).
This allowed for finding a middle ground and creating a structure that
represented a consensual democracy.
1: The CCW file for Italy on CTOOLS (The Italian Republic
Intro Folder)
2: http://en.camera.it/4?scheda_informazioni=24
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ReplyDeleteDennis Ball
ReplyDeleteThanks Haleigh that was a great start to the discussion!
I would like to begin my argument by stating that I agree with the vast majority of Haleigh’s claims. Particularly her claim, “This method of creating a constitution for the state was performed in a very egalitarian and pluralistic approach by organizing a Constituent Assembly”. Multiple actors were involved in the drafting of the Italian Constitution, all of which had been chosen by a proportionally represented election (1). The Italian example can be considered the epitome of a pluralistic approach to constitutional drafting.
However, I do not agree with the entirety of Haleigh’s argument. In the fourth paragraph of her post Haleigh stated, “This method of Constitution crafting coincides very well with the consensual model because it contains a variety of ideologies in the decision making process that has high citizen participation”. Following our blog discussion last week I believe we all came to the relatively similar conclusion that the Italian Constitution defines for the most part a consensual structure of democracy. And given the pluralistic approach to writing said constitution, it is very apparent how Haleigh could make the connection she stated above. However, given the post-war political climate in which the Italian Constitution was drafted I believe that even if that process had been significantly less pluralistic, the resulting document would still have been overwhelmingly consensual.
Rainer Grote stated, “The fact that the preceding Fascist regime had been able without difficulties to adapt the Statuto Albertino to its needs convinced the framers of the new Italian Constitution that they had to enact a rigid Constitution this time in order to effectively prevent the return of an authoritarian or totalitarian government” (1). Following the fall of the fascist authoritarian regime of Mussolini, one of the primary goals of Italy’s Constitutional drafters was to decentralize political authority and as Professor McElwain explained in the Lecture 8.2: avoid a powerful executive. Therefore, given the historical context, the only option of Italy would be to move away from a majoritarian model of democracy and more towards a consensual one. Johnson explained the sentiment rather well stating: “…reconstruction was strongly motivated by a desire to secure protection against past mistakes, and above all to establish conditions of stability and security…”(2).
The example of the Constituent Assembly’s structure of the Cabinet offers some solid evidence for my claim. In particular, within the parliamentary structure the Assembly had trouble deciding whether to make the Cabinet Collegial in authority or to have a dominate Prime Minister. Grote explained that “the Constituent Assembly finally decided not to take any clear decision and to leave the matter to the implementing legislation, a device often used by the framers of the new Constitution and one which ensured that many parts of the Constitution were only implemented with much delay and some not at all”(1). You could argue that if the consensual structure of the Italian constitution had been derived from the pluralistic drafters, they would have set out to make every aspect as consensual as possible, thus defining a collegial cabinet. However, because the consensual model of democracy was derived from the post-war historical context and not promulgated by the pluralistic drafters, many “details” that are inherently consensual were in fact left out.
1.file:///C:/DOCUME~1/User/LOCALS~1/Temp/Temporary%20Directory%206%20for%20Italy.zip/Italy/ita_intro-2006.htm.html
2. Johnson, Nevil. 1993. "Constitutionalism in Europe Since 1945: Reconstruction and Reappraisal." In Constitutionalism and Democracy: Transitions in the Contemporary World, ed. D. Greenberg, S. N. Katz, M. B. Oliviero and S. C. Wheatley. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nikhil Gulati
ReplyDeleteI would like to begin my response by saying that I agree with Haleigh’s claim that the proliferation of the Italian constitution was clearly pluralistic.
However, I want to address the actors involved in the referendum and the Constituent Assembly and their influence on the final Constitution.
By using both a referendum Constituent Assembly, the formation of the Italian Constitution was pluralistic. The referendum question at hand was for the new government to be either a Monarchy or a Republic. As Haleigh mentioned in her post, the people of Italy voted for a Republic. However, the vote did not produce an overwhelming majority, as there were many interests and parties involved in the vote. At the time, Italy was fractured and in disarray. Communism was flooding into the country as shown by their ability to secure 18.9 % of the votes in the Constituent Assembly election (2). As a result, the Allies supported the monarchy during the referendum because it provided the symbol of tradition and would hopefully discourage the Italians from returning to fascism or transitioning into communism (1).
The Constituent Assembly also had a number of different interests that affected the formation of the Constitution. Three parties won a majority of the votes: the Christian Democrats, the Italian Socialists and the Italian Communists. The Christian Democrats reside on the central part of the spectrum while the Italian Socialists and Communists are on the left side (3). The parties had very different political views and the formation of the Constitution was enabled by a compromise between the two sides. The compromise gave the left side progressive social concessions while the Christian Democrats were able to strengthen the government’s tie to Catholicism and secure strong checks and balances on the power of the Chamber of Deputies (4). This compromise, achieved by the popularly elected Constituent Assembly, added more to the consensual style government that they initially wanted in order to avoid the authoritarian and fascist nightmare of WWII. In addition, the commitment to Catholicism was important because it showed a commitment to tradition. The Allies supported this commitment to tradition and religion as well because it would reaffirm the anti-Communist position that ended up reigning supreme as the Christian Democrats stayed in power for almost 50 years after the ratification of the new government.
1. http://destinorepublicano.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/referendum-of-the-monarchy-in-italy-1946/
2. http://www.electoralgeography.com/new/en/countries/i/italy/italy-constituent-assembly-election-1946.html
3. http://modern_italy.enacademic.com/99/Constituent_Assembly
4. http://modern_italy.enacademic.com/100/Constitution
ReplyDeleteI agree with the arguments made by our leader Haleigh and the two other commentators, but I would like to elaborate a little more on a few of the topics discussed. Particular, I would like to explore the exact decision to maintain a monarchy in the presence of a highly consensual, pluralistic addition to the constitution-making process. The Constituent Assembly was a proportionally represented group of individuals created for the sole purpose of creating the constitution. Specifically, it was written that "the Committee of National Liberation, in which all major national parties were represented, decided on a double election which should determine both the fundamental form of the new political regime and the composition of the Constituent Assembly which would give Italy a new Constitution." (1) This gave power back to the Italian citizens who had been without it for so long. The fascist influences that controlled their government for so long throughout the war had immense influence.
What I found most interest in this, and is what Nikhil hinted at slightly, was the direct decision to maintain a monarchy. It was an interesting, strategic, and slightly paradoxical decision at the time. Having just faced a time of polemic politics, the traditionalists of the Italian communities and Church wanted to maintain some semblance of what they once were (2). By installing a republic, the Italian government would be allowing radical politics to once again permeate the new, fragile Italian government. And in doing this I believe they were incredibly correct. The power of the government was established in the writing of the constitution: place it with the people so that it can grow with them. They also knew to place the power with the traditionalists because they, using the Church and conformity of what practiced orthodoxies preach, can maintain order and avoid fascism.
1: The CCW file for Italy on CTOOLS (The Italian Republic Intro Folder)
2: http://destinorepublicano.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/referendum-of-the-monarchy-in-italy-1946/
Daniel Mulhall
ReplyDeleteI believe Haleigh was mostly successful in answering this week’s question regarding the pluralism of the constitution writing-process. However, I agree with Dennis regarding his critique of the post and plan on delving deeper into this critique.
Regarding the constitutive assembly, Rainer Grote states, “The Assembly thus contained the three big ideological “families” which would come to dominate postwar political life in Italy: the Roman-Catholic, the Marxist, and the Liberal school of thought” (1). This exemplifies the pluralism of the constitution writing process as the assembly included multiple interest groups. However, I do not believe it is fair to say that this pluralism in the constitution writing-process factored into the choice of a consensual democracy as Haleigh seems to imply in her final paragraph.
Rainer Grote further writes, “Given the ideological cleavages between these groups, it is not surprising that they were unable to agree on any radical institutional innovations” (1). With this, we see that the constitution writing-process of Italy was not an innovative time and it seems to imply that the choice of a consensual democracy was not based on pluralistic ideals. We see this exemplified in one of the three main institutions, the executive structure, that affects whether a constitution specifies consensual or majoritarian institutions. As Dennis described, one of the primary goals of this process for Italy was to avoid another leader like Benito Mussolini. One such way to achieve this is to provide limited power to the executive branch, which the Italian constitution implies.
The limited power in the executive branch becomes clear in Article 94 of the constitution. This article states, “The Government must receive the confidence of both Houses of Parliament” (2). The “Government” in this article refers to the Government of the Republic, which is composed of the President of the Council (Prime Minister of Italy) and the Council of Ministers (his cabinet). This exemplifies the weakness of the executive branch as it relies on a vote of confidence from the Houses of Parliament (legislature) to stay in power. With this limited power of the executive branch, we see executive-legislative balance of power, which is one characteristic of a consensual democracy (3).
Overall, Haleigh is correct regarding the pluralism of the constitution writing-process, but as we see it did not seem to affect the process very much if at all, as they could not come up with any “radical innovations.” Instead, the goal of these three separate ideological groups was to create a constitution that could prevent the mistakes of the past regarding Benito Mussolini and the Fascist government during World War II.
1. file://localhost/Users/dmulhall/Downloads/Italy/ita_intro-2006.htm.html
2. https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Italy_2012.pdf
3. Lijphart, 34.