A second argument, also used by Ginsborg, is that they didn’t do more because they were afraid it would be unpopular. That is, many centre-left politicians reasoned something like this:
anyone who would support our taking action against Berlusconi is likely to vote for us anyway; but
there are a large number of people who would oppose […]
Assume that the left hasn’t done that much to tackle the issue of Berlusconi’s conflict of interest. Why not?
One explanation might be that many parties within the broad left-wing coalitions, and many individuals within Italian politics more generally, are inclined to forgive past crimes in order to make life easier or to avoid division.
This is […]
The Italian communications watch-dog Agcom has told Rai and commercial broadcasters to give more coverage of the campaign to call a referendum on the current electoral law. The instruction is binding, though any penalty could easily be evaded; but what possible (non-normative) justification can Agcom give for this? Let’s say Agcom finds out that […]
More analysis on the weekend’s referendum. A number of hypotheses:
Voters judged that the referendum would worsen the position of economically disadvantaged regions relative to economically advantaged regions; we should expect the referendum to be lost most heavily in the most economically disadvantaged regions
Voters judged that the referendum would worsen the position of the South and […]
After yesterday’s referendum defeat for the centre-right, Repubblica.it reports some scuttlebutt that may signal a very poor future for the parties that supported the reform:
Berlusconi dopo la sconfitta “Ora proveranno a farmi fuori” - Politica - Repubblica.it: “Al Senato, ad esempio, è già scattato l’allarme. Un plotone di 6-7 senatori potrebbe trasferirsi armi e bagagli […]
Well, the results are out in today’s referendum on the constitutional revision programme of the centre-right. Take-away points:
the proposal was rejected convincingly, with more than six in ten voters disapproving of the law
the South & Islands rejecting the proposal most strongly, followed by Central Italy, then the North
Forza Italia strongholds (Lombardy and the Veneto) were […]
