Abstract
This chapter deals with the phenomenon of technocratic ministers in a country where the ‘abdication’ of political parties from the key executive positions has been particularly manifest during the crises which have characterised the past three decades. However, this is not a totally new phenomenon: Non-partisan ministers had been appointed since the early decades of the Republic, when parties were strong and the coalition governance largely based on powerful partisan elites. The analysis demonstrates, therefore, a variety of reasons that have justified the appointment of different personalities, particularly from the bureaucratic elites, from the academic ranks and from the financial establishment. If the special case of the short-term ‘technocratic-led’ cabinets can be explained mainly by the presence of economic and political emergencies, the increasing number of non-partisan ministers in some specific key positions seems to be connected to the reduction of the scope and power of party machineries and to the process of personalisation of the executive, whose leaders proved more and more able to impose small ‘task forces’ of technocrats within the cabinet.
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Notes
- 1.
We follow a slightly different perspective from that indicated by McDonnell and Valbruzzi (2014). Focusing on the number of partisan ministers, besides the type of delegation, they correctly classify the Ciampi government (April 1993–April 1994) as a technocrat-led partisan government, while the governments of Dini and Monti fall in the same class of the full technocratic government. We confirm here the different nature of the Ciampi government that has been usually described as a ‘government of the president’ (i.e. a government guided by the President of the Republic both with regard to the selection of the PM and to the definition of its main programmatic points). However, we note the difference between the type of delegation provided to Monti in 2011 and that provided to the Dini government (January 1995–May 1996). The latter was surely an authentically non-political team of ministers and junior ministers, formed during a phase of political impasse after the failure of the first Berlusconi cabinet in 1994. As in the case of Ciampi, the limits to governmental autonomy were evident from the short list of actions pledged during the inauguration speech. Dini was indeed asking the support of the parliament for a limited period, in order to assure a number of necessary reforms already announced and to some extent discussed, but it was clear to any political actor that early elections were to be called in about a year. However, as we will see later, the characteristics of the technocratic figures involved in these two executives are rather similar.
- 2.
The expression is from Mattei Dogan (1989) who enumerated ten unwritten rules in the process of ministerial recruitment. Here we refer more generally to the broader process of government formation including the different institutional roles (from the head of state to the parliamentary leaders and obviously the formateur), the logic of the portfolio allocation game (Verzichelli 2008) and even the development of a series of policy pledges.
- 3.
One should remember that a law regulating the office, the powers and the resources directly controlled by the PM, as requested by article 96 of the 1948 Constitution, was enacted only in 1988.
- 4.
One should remember here that the chief executives at the local level, especially the mayors from big towns, became much stronger after the introduction of the direct election of mayors and provincial presidents in 1993 and of regional presidents in 1999.
- 5.
Some of the first examples of pure politicians not recruited from the parliamentary ranks, like the influent regional Christian Democratic leaders Gianni Prandini and Giorgio Bernini, emerged during the 1980s. A more recent example of such a career trajectory is the past leader of the Democratic Party, Pierluigi Bersani, who left the office of president of the region Emilia Romagna (1996) to serve as minister of economic development in the Prodi cabinet. Similar examples are provided by two important politicians from the Lega Nord (Luca Zaia) and the People of Freedom (Giancarlo Galan). back and forth between the top position of the Regione Veneto and ministerial offices without serving in parliament.
- 6.
Guido Carli had already served as minister of foreign trade in 1957 (Zoli Government).
- 7.
Gianni Letta was junior minister three times with Berlusconi, Enrico Micheli and Ricardo Levi were recruited by Prodi.
- 8.
A vice minister can indeed take part to the meeting of the cabinet when his/her delegation is somehow involved in the discussion, but cannot vote on any item.
- 9.
More precisely, the Dini cabinet had to keep the line of financial and economic convergence in order to respect the timing of entrance to the EMU, while the Monti government, at work during the peak of the economic crisis, was tasked with avoiding the breakdown of the Italian public finance which probably would have been fatal for the whole Eurozone.
- 10.
We refer to the scandals involving minister Cancellieri (Interior, Letta cabinet) and minister Guidi (Economic development, Renzi cabinet). The latter resigned, notwithstanding no formal accusation had been moved against her.
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Verzichelli, L., Cotta, M. (2018). Shades of Technocracy: The Variable Use of Non-partisan Ministers in Italy. In: Costa Pinto, A., Cotta, M., Tavares de Almeida, P. (eds) Technocratic Ministers and Political Leadership in European Democracies. Palgrave Studies in Political Leadership. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62313-9_4
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