LUISS Guido Carli Dipartimento di Scienze politiche Economic Crisis in a Stalemated Democracy. The Italian Case Leonardo Morlino Daniela Piana Working Paper 1/2014 LUISS Guido Carli / Department of Political Science Working paper n. 1-2014 Publication date: April 2014 Economic crisis in a stalemated democracy. The Italian case © 2014 Leonardo Morlino; Daniela Piana ISBN 978-88-6856-007-2 This working paper is distributed for purposes of comment and discussion only. It may not be reproduced without permission of the copyright holder. LUISS Academy is an imprint of LUISS University Press – Pola s.r.l. a socio unico Viale Pola 12, 00198 Roma Tel. 06 85225485 e-mail
[email protected] www.luissuniversitypress.it Editorial Committee: Leonardo Morlino (chair) Paolo Boccardelli Matteo Caroli Giovanni Fiori Daniele Gallo Nicola Lupo Stefano Manzocchi Giuseppe Melis Marcello Messori Gianfranco Pellegrino Giovanni Piccirilli Arlo Poletti Andrea Prencipe Pietro Reichlin ECONOMIC CRISIS IN A STALEMATED DEMOCRACY. THE ITALIAN CASE Leonardo Morlino*1e Daniela Piana**2 Abstract In Southern Europe, the economic crisis (2008-2013) triggered a deeper political crisis, af- fecting a number of aspects of a representative democracy. Italy provides a particularly telling case of what happens when an economic crisis occurs in an unstable political context characte- - pation, fragmented and radicalized party competition, social inequality, high public debt, and otherrized byrelated low governmentfeatures, here effectiveness, summarized low in the efficiency, model of corruption, “stalemated decline democracy”. of electoral On the partici basis of a comprehensive data set developed along with eight dimensions of democracy assessment and taking into account the policies pursued during the years of the crisis, we analyze the dif- ferent effects of economic crisis—some of them expected, others more surprising—and how those effects characterize Italian political crisis and a new phase of great uncertainty.