Italy's democratic quality and the role of political parties: comparative empirical patterns

Abstract Italy is considered a thorny case for comparativists, as its unique political and party system features often make it stand out among liberal democracies. A prominent tradition has been studying Italy's democratic quality. However, such analyses need to be improved and updated, especially to incorporate recent trends, systematically compare Italy with other liberal democracies over time, and fully exploit the recent wealth of empirical data. Additionally, the relatively poor quality of some components of Italian democracy needs to be explained. Many hypotheses have been advanced, although rarely tested through quantitative comparisons. Here, we limit our focus to the role of political parties. As fundamental gatekeepers performing functions of linkage and representation, parties are core tenets of a healthy democracy. Yet, if they operate poorly – for example, being too personalized or loosely institutionalized – they can negatively affect democratic quality. Therefore, we first describe the ups and downs of various dimensions of Italy's democratic quality compared to other liberal democracies, to examine whether and when Italy is a forerunner , latecomer , or outlier of specific tendencies. Next, we investigate via regression analysis how two party organizational features (personalization and institutionalization) relate to democratic quality. We show how Italy's democratic performance varies depending on the dimension analyzed, and most of its defects (among others, in rule of law, accountability, and competition) are linked to high party personalization and low institutionalization.