Institutionalization and De-Institutionalization of Italian Political Parties. Triumph and Challenges of Personal Politics

Party institutionalization is a core topic of research on political parties. Institutionalized parties are a necessary condition for an institutionalized party system, which, in turn, would be a basic requirement for stable and functioning democracies. Yet, notwithstanding its centrality when it comes to understand the working mechanisms of modern political regimes, there is no general agreement on the concept of party institutionalization. As a consequence, the concept lacks a proper conceptualization and debate is open on how institutionalization can be empirically evaluated and measured. Especially after the development of personal parties, which are those parties completely based on the figure of their leaders, it appears as extremely relevant to study what is istitutionalization, as new political parties often present peculiar modalities of institutionalization and de-istitutionalization. Moreover one may also question whether and how such parties continue living after the exit of their leader from politics. Italy is an interesting case in point when it comes to analyze party (de-)institutionalization. After the breakdown of the former party system in the 1990s, a new fragmented and unstable party system has emerged. This system has been characterized by the proliferation of both long and short-lived personalist parties with thin organizations and powerful leaders. In this sense, Italy has been the forerunner of deep changes of patterns of party competition that have been concerned many other modern democracies. In 2013, a new restructuration of the party competition has occurred in Italy: the Five Star Movement has emerged as one of the most important party players in terms of public support. However, the path towards its own institutionalization has met so far several challenges. This paper is made up of two main parts. First it tackles the issue of the conceptualization of party institutionalization, especially with regard to the formation process of new parties, their internal arrangements, and their electoral and parliamentary achievements. A particular focus is on the role of party leaders as agents of promotion or slowdown of party stabilization. Party institutionalization is conceived of as a multidimensional concept, defined by objective aspects, internal party features, and types of interactions between the party itself and its political environment. The dimensions are operationalized by means of different variables. This approach allows building a normalized additive index of party institutionalization, based on indicators and rank orderings along each variable. The second part of the paper provides a descriptive picture of the origins and the main characteristics of the Five Star Movement within the broader context of Italian politics. Moreover, it analyzes the Five Star Movement in accordance to the conceptual framework presented beforehand. This is particularly relevant because this party is supposed to follow a path of institutionalization after the 2013 general election, when it run for the first time by obtaining a quarter of parliamentary seats. The findings are examined in the light of the main existing explanations of party institutionalization. Possible implications in terms of both party stabilization and party system developments are finally discussed.