Institutional reform in Italy to respond to the EU challenge : Renzi’s constitutional reform project

Bull, MJ

Abstract

This paper evaluates Renzi’s constitutional reform programme by assessing it against the main reasons for its failure to be achieved in the past two decades. The first section outlines the scale of those failures against the expectations of the putative reformers of the early 1990s, while at the same time emphasizing the paradox of the scale of change that has nonetheless occurred to in the functioning of the political system in the same period. The subsequent two sections identify two main causes for failure: the intense politicization of the issue and the failure to find an effective process or procedure to carry through the reform. Renzi’s proposed constitutional reforms are then analysed from these perspectives to identify what is different about them and his approach generally. It is argued that Renzi’s programme of reform and its approach does differ to those of his predecessors in ways that increase the possibility of successful achievement, although the outcome remains highly uncertain.

Citation

Bull, M. (2015, January). Institutional reform in Italy to respond to the EU challenge : Renzi’s constitutional reform project. Presented at The 2014 European Elections: Italian Politics and the European Challenge, European Policies Research Centre, University of Strathclyde

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: The 2014 European Elections: Italian Politics and the European Challenge
• Conference Location: European Policies Research Centre, University of Strathclyde
• Start Date: Jan 14, 2015
• End Date: Jan 15, 2015
• Publication Date: Jan 15, 2015
• Deposit Date: Apr 1, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 5, 2016
• Keywords: Italy; institutions; institutional reform; political system; Matteo Renzi
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference