As part of our series covering Italy’s constitutional referendum, scheduled for 4 December, Marco Simoni outlines a case for a Yes vote. He argues that the proposed reform would address a number of key institutional weaknesses in the country, and that by improving the functioning of Italian democracy, it would help establish proper accountability and trust in the political system

Simoni, Marco

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22/11/2016Italians should back the constitutional reform – there is noguarantee this opportunity will arise againblogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2016/11/22/italians-should-back-the-constitutional-reform/As part of our series covering Italy’s constitutional referendum, scheduled for 4 December, MarcoSimoni outlines a case for a Yes vote. He argues that the proposed reform would address anumber of key institutional weaknesses in the country, and that by improving the functioning ofItalian democracy, it would help establish proper accountability and trust in the political system.Interested in other points of view? Check out EUROPP’s full coverage of Italy’sconstitutional referendum.Why are Italians going to vote on a referendum on their Constitution? I will start from answering this question, aswell as putting forward a disclaimer. Formerly an Associate Professor at the LSE, I am currently an economicadvisor to the Prime Minister of Italy. I hope, however, that my writing is as transparent and objective as it can be: inthe end I accepted my position because I support the current government’s policy, and not vice-versa.The need for constitutional reformIn the last approximately three years, the Italian government has pursued a wide-ranging agenda of reforms, fromnew labour and banking laws, to civil rights for gay and lesbian citizens, as well as tax cuts and an increase in thenumber of teachers hired for state schools. While pursuing its agenda, it has also been instrumental to a significantreform of the Italian Constitution.The latter did not come out of the blue. Since the early eighties, there have been four major attempts at modernisingthe Italian constitution, and several additional minor attempts. The former all resulted in nothing, despite years ofdiscussions, reports, votes in Parliament and even one referendum. A few minor reforms were instead approved,most notably a reform passed in 2001 which granted greater powers to regional governments without alsoattributing larger responsibility for tax collection, so that in the last 15 years, local governments have become vetoplayers on any decision of national importance which also had political traction at the local level – a situation whichpolitical entrepreneurs could exploit.1/4In other words, discussions on how best to change the section of the constitution that articulates the institutionalconfiguration of Italy have been a key topic during the last forty years of Italian democracy. As a consequence, inItaly, constitutional debates have not been confined to specialists, but rather have been widely discussed. Thecurrent government has pledged, since its first confidence vote, to be instrumental in finally bringing this discussionto a positive conclusion.The core reason for this centrality of the constitutional debate is the peculiar parliamentary system of Italy wherebyboth chambers have exactly the same powers, but are elected through slightly different mechanisms. This systemwas designed in the post-war era to embolden minority checks and establish strong checks and balances to preventthe re-emergence of fascism.The effects of “perfect bicameralism”, as it is called, were essentially twofold. First, it has generated extremeinstability of governments: Italy has had 63 governments in the last 70 years. Second, it has promoted extremefactionalism within the chambers, emphasising rather than mitigating, Italian political factionalism. Each law has tobe approved by both chambers utilising exactly the same text, with no conciliatory mechanisms available to helpsolve disagreements, creating the potential for an endless series of votes.This naturally generated a strong incentive for the creation of small, or ad-hoc, interest groups, with the additional bi-product of having too much legislation and out-of-control public spending, also generated through parliamentarypork-barreling. Only sharp crises, in the early 1990s and in 2011-12, allowed a number of unpopular, and quiteimprovised, remedies to control or decrease the very high public debt that was accumulated during the 1980s andpersisted in later decades. Indeed, even after the introduction of quasi-majoritarian electoral laws in the early 1990s,the institutional configuration prevented the sought-after governmental stability.Why Italians should approve the proposed reformThe current reform, which is now pending the referendum, successfully passed six votes in the Parliament, i.e. threein each of the chambers. The end product addresses the two main issues I have highlighted above: bicameralismand the distribution of competences between the regions and the state. If the reform is ratified, the Senate will beradically reduced to 100 representatives, including members of regional assemblies and mayors of the largest cities,and its power will no longer include providing a confidence vote for the government, but will only extend to limiteddomains (constitutional, methods for adopting European laws, and on the organisation of sub-nationalgovernments). The Senate will also be able to voice disagreement to the other chamber, and suggest (but notimpose) legislative changes. In short, the Senate will only provide a check on the power of the majority asencompassed by the Chamber of Deputies, while the latter will keep all law making prerogatives. Additionally, thereform clarifies the distribution of powers between the State and the regions, mainly re-centralising competences ona number of strategic areas (e.g. energy, trade, and others).Beside the two core changes, the reform adds some checks and balances to the majority power and it does somehousekeeping by capping the (incredibly high) stipends of regional councillors, and abolishing the post-war Councilfor Economy and Labor (CNEL) whose function has remained unclear to most Italians for the last seventy years.Overall, the reform will make institutions leaner by cutting 215 elected senators, completing the elimination ofprovincial governments (while keeping regional and city governments) and abolishing the CNEL. In my view, keyside effects are likely to be the reduced power of single interest groups in lawmaking, and the reduced clout of localpolitical entrepreneurs.Given the last paragraph I just wrote, it is not a surprise that this reform was able to gather considerable opposition,given also that the reform is advocated by a government that, in the last few years, has reformed a number ofsacred cows: labour, banks, the rights of gays and lesbians, just to mention a few of the largest ones. However, Iwant to take seriously what I consider to be the main argument against the reform (albeit one of the least used) andprovide a counterpoint to explain why it may instead be a positive development for Italy. I will then conclude bydescribing the two contending camps in favour of and against the reform.2/4It is likely that the reform, if passed, will make governments more stable and more effective. Governments may losevotes of confidence and be replaced before the end of their fixed term, as happens in most parliamentary systems,but it will be less likely to happen than now. One could say that, even though the power of ministers and of the primeminister is left unchanged, the reform indirectly makes governments stronger. Some Italians consider the latter to beundesirable. Some suggest that we need more, not less, counter-powers to governments at times in which populiststend to dominate public debate. In his argument against the reform, Valentino Larcinese in this blog explicitlylaments that “we need more than ever those restrictions on executive power” such as perfect bicameralism, as arestraint to the majority power.This argument is based on a misconception of parliamentary systems – e.g. in the UK, Germany or Spain thegovernment is always an expression of the parliamentary majority, and the power of the party leader to fill parliamentwith loyal MPs is substantial everywhere, in both majoritarian and PR systems. But let’s ignore technicalities andfocus on the idea, which is core to this argument in Italy, that the parliament should act as a counter-power to thegovernment, making its actions more deliberate and hence better. Instead, there is a strong argument to be madethat it is precisely the weakness of governments in Italy and elsewhere – their inability to respond to the demands ofthe citizenry in an efficient, effective and transparent way – that has fuelled the rise of populists and “post-truthpolitics”.In other words, I believe that at the source of the current distrust on public institutions mounting across westerndemocracies is the incapacity of governments to address the reasons for public malaise and offer solutions todeeply felt issues. This incapacity to respond, such as for example the EU’s slowness in dealing with the economicand migrant crises, or the Italian government’s inability to pursue any meaningful change in the twenty years prior tothe current government, also has institutional roots. This certainly applies to Italy, where small groups can blocklegislation for years, but probably applies to other countries, too. One can have the most transformative andenlightened political vision, but institutional failure to deliver will end up feeding distrust in democracy. The relevanceof effective democracy in order to regain accountability (and hence trust) in the political system is in my view the keyargument in favour of a Yes vote.The two campaignsTo conclude, it is worth briefly describing the two camps currently debating in Italy. The government and itsparliamentary majority are in favour of the reform. This includes the Democratic Party (PD) and its leader MatteoRenzi, and two smaller centrist parties. A number of highly regarded political figures such as Emma Bonino, a formerEU commissioner and civil right activist, or Walter Veltroni, former mayor of Rome, are supporting the reform. Themain industrial federation, main farmers’ association, and the second largest trade union confederation are also infavour. Notable public figures, for example, academy award winner Roberto Benigni, or Fiat-Chrysler CEO SergioMarchionne, have also publicly supported the reform.First in line against the reform are a few of those who voted in favour as Members of Parliament, but have nowchanged their mind and decided to vote no in the referendum. These include former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconiand his centre-right party, who decided to flip flop on their support of the reform because the current President of theRepublic (who is elected indirectly, by the parliament), was not their first choice. Also Mario Monti, the formertechnocratic Prime Minister and a senator for life, decided to vote no, despite previously voting yes in the Senate,because of his sense that the latest budget law is not austere enough.Third, a small minority of the PD, including the PD’s former leader, Pierluigi Bersani, are voting no because they donot like the combination of the constitutional reform and the electoral law for fear it further empowers majorities. It isworth noting that the electoral law is not part of the reform, that it was already passed when this segment of the PDvoted “yes” in the parliament, and that it is likely to be changed anyway after the referendum. The motivations Isummarised do seem quite inconsequential and removed from the content of the referendum, but I wish to underlinethis is a summary of described motivations, not my interpretation.3/4Second, opposing the reform since day one, is the main populist opposition party, the Five Star Movement, whorejoiced at Trump’s victory alongside the anti-EU Northern League party (which is also opposing the constitutionalchange). Additionally, the large left-leaning trade union confederation CGIL; the small “Italian Left” party; and all thefringe extreme left and right movements are against the reform. Some of this opposition is motivated by disapprovalof the Prime Minister – either from a left-wing or right-wing perspective – other motivations are less coherent.Finally, a relative majority of the old political leadership from the 1980s, 1990s and the early 2000s, is also againstthe reform.A good summary of the criticisms from this latter group of former politicians is found in a blog post previouslypublished by EUROPP, co-authored by Emeritus Professor Gianfranco Pasquino from the University of Bologna,who was a member of the Italian parliament three times in the 1980s and 1990s. The article concludes by arguingthat once this reform fails (following three years of discussions and deliberations, which followed 40 years of failedattempts at reforming the constitution), a new space will open for much better-crafted and more useful reforms.In my opinion, Italians should not miss this opportunity for a real reform, which addresses a number of keyinstitutional weakness in Italy, rather than relying on a leap of faith that something much better will one day magicallyarrive.Please read our comments policy before commenting .Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy, norof the London School of Economics. Featured image: both Chambers of the Italian Parliament gathered in a plenarysession, February 2015. Credits: Presidenza della Repubblica.Shortened URL for this post: http://bit.ly/2gfaOIr_________________________________About the authorMarco SimoniMarco Simoni was previously an Associate Professor at LSE and is currently an economic advisorto the Prime Minister of Italy.4/4

Italians should back the constitutional reform – there is no guarantee this opportunity will arise again

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