The institutionalisation of the referendum in the Italian political system: from the national to regional and local levels

Abstract

The first modern examples of the referendum phenomenon in Italian political history date back to the end of the 18^th century. The constitutions of the Cispadane and Ligurian republics were put to a popular „vote“ in so-called „ comizi primari “, or town meetings (literally: „primary meetings“). Just as with similar experiences in the Batavian Republic in the Netherlands and the Swiss Confederation, the first Italian experiences (1797-1805) were the fruit of both the influential political ideas of the French revolution and the power of the Napoleonic troops which were to occupy part of the Italian peninsula for a number of years (Uleri 2003: 115-122). These consultations were set up as votes to ratify constitu¬tions. The first such experiences had been those in Massachusetts and New Hampshire (1778-1781), and for this reason referendums of constitutional ratification have been considered a „pure product of the American constitutionalist movement of the revolutionary period“ (Auer 1989: 8). Nevertheless, such votes, in France and in other countries occupied by French troops, were rapidly transformed into Bonapartist plebiscites.