In November 2011 the Italian government lead by a centre-right majority resigned, opening the door to a new “technical” executive headed by the economist Mario Monti. The collapse of the IV Berlusconi’s government was the result of a mix of both endogenous and exogenous pressures. On the internal side, the overwhelming parliamentary majority won in 2008 by PDL, LN and MPA had lost a significant portion of MPs; in addition, an impressive number of judicial and personal scandals involved the Prime Minister and relevant personalities who were close to his party and its allies. Exogenous pressures came mainly from EU institutions and were centred on the alarming conditions of the Italian public finance: the European Commission and the ECB showed an uncommon attitude to intervene in the Italian affairs, by explicitly providing the guidelines for an immediate financial recovery. More than one year later and in sight of the general elections to be held on February 2013, the Italian political scenario shows both patterns of changes and continuity. The aim of this paper is to analyse macro-variations in the Italian party system through a diachronic analysis of the results of 2008 and 2013 general elections. In addition, what we seek to verify empirically is 1) whether the relevant established parties (PDL, PD, LN) have modified their procedures of candidate selection and have effectively renewed their parliamentary offer; 2) whether new political actors (M5S, Scelta Civica Monti, Rivoluzione Civile) have followed innovative rather than consolidated methods of candidate selection and have showed tendencies to include/exclude candidates with a significant political/institutional profile. What we expect to find is a kaleidoscope of practices, with a rather fluid link with the traditional left-right divide.
