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Mediatization and Personalization of Politics in Italy and France: The Cases of Berlusconi and Sarkozy:

In contemporary democracies, the construction of political leadership is driven by communication strategies with greater emphasis on image over substance and personality over ideology. This article analyzes two countries, Italy and France, that have been recently characterized by a remarkable increase in the personalization and mediatization of politics. First, the article intends to identify some key features of the leadership that emerge and prove to be successful in mediatized democracies. Second, the article makes a comparison of Italian and French electoral campaigns, paying special attention to the role of the media in the construction of leadership. Finally, the article examines the cases of two leaders who have left their mark on recent electoral campaigns and are credited with remarkable expertise in political marketing and news management: Silvio Berlusconi and Nicolas Sarkozy.

Leadership in Italy: The Changing Role of Leaders in Elections and in Government

Since 1994 Italian politics has undergone a radical transformation involving all the institutions, the parties and the party system and the major political actors. The meaning, the scope and the role of political leadership are among the aspects most affected by the change. Following reform of the electoral law, the creation of two main coalitions and the emergence of bipolar competition, the leaders of the two coalitions have acquired a crucial political and institutional role. Moreover, the above-mentioned developments have encouraged a remarkable personalization of politics. The character factor, i.e. the emphasis on personal characteristics and political styles, has had a considerable impact on a political system that, from the end of the war until the 1980s, had been entirely dominated by the parties. In the space of a few years the profile of Italian politics has completely changed and appears now to be characterized by highly personalized campaigns where coalition leaders play the most central role. Why have the centre-right and centre-left coalition leaders in particular acquired so much importance? Why have election campaigns increasingly become competitions among leaders rather than arenas for discussing programmes and policy platforms and for reassuring and mobilizing party supporters (Campus, 2002a)? Why have the functioning, the survival and the achievements of governments become in the voters’ mind so strictly associated with the Prime Minister’s personal performance? Our main contention is that in the Second Republic coalition leaders have assumed a plurality of roles. That is, they are campaigners and often party leaders; heads of government; mediators between their respective coalition partners; communicators-in-chief. Such a concentration of powers and tasks leads to considerable visibility and potential popularity, as well as bestowing upon them a large number of responsibilities. At the same time, contradictions and tensions emerge when the objectives of the different roles enter into conflict with one another. The overlapping of several different roles can be a source of institutional weakness, as is shown by the many problems that have affected all the post-1994 Italian coalitions and governments.

Political Discussion, Views of Political Expertise and Women’s Representation in Italy:

Italy is one of the advanced industrial democracies with the smallest number of women elected to public office. Current literature has focused on several structural, institutional and cultural factors to explain such a gender gap in political participation and representation. However, one of the most basic forms of political participation, political discussion, has not received a thorough investigation. This article analyses gender differences in the attitudes and the habits of talking about politics with relatives, friends and social acquaintances during the Italian 2006 electoral campaign. The main argument is that the analysis of political discussion may shed new light on how Italian women approach politics and help explain their reluctance to be involved in political activities in terms of elected office and party membership.

The 2006 election: more than ever, a Berlusconi-centred campaign

Abstract The article offers a review of the most salient events of the 2006 electoral campaigns. It argues that with exception of 1994, the recent 2006 electoral campaign has been more focused on Berlusconi than the previous campaigns. As a matter of fact, Berlusconi, trailing in the polls, made all possible efforts to set the campaign agenda. He resorted to a massive overexposure of himself on the television stage and gave rise to a number of ‘media events’ that have dominated the electoral narratives, like the Vicenza speech at the Confindustria conventions and his final announcement of abolishing the municipal tax on homeowners. All that was not enough to gain re-election, but his frantic campaign activity allowed him to re-acquire a clear leadership of the House of Liberties, which had been previously challenged by his own coalition partners. The article analyses also the Berlusconi – Prodi debates, and the reasons why electoral debates promise to become a fixed feature of the Italian politics.

Party system change and electoral platforms: A study of the 1996 Italian election

Comparative research suggests that parties regularly campaign by emphasizing issues on which they are advantaged and by ignoring topics that are traditionally associated with other parties. Focusing on the 1996 Italian elections, this article discusses whether such a generalization holds when the party system is affected by radical changes such as those that occurred in Italy in the mid-1990s. Moreover, the analysis of the party electoral platforms highlights some basic features of the new parties, and identifies either innovations or continuities with the past. I present evidence that in 1996 the Italian parties mostly competed on a similar range of issues. Especially regarding economic policy, there was not a polarized ideological debate: also the centre-left parties converged on a moderate position by playing down typical socialist themes such as state intervention and the expansion of social services. I also analyse the degree of internal programmatic cohesion of the two main coalitions, the Ulivo (Ol...

How to lose a mayor: the case of Bologna

In June 1999 Bologna elected its first non-Communist mayor. This article identifies three major reasons for an extraordinary event that ousted the Left from power after fifty-four years. First, the struggle for purely career motives within the dominant party, the Leftist Democrats (heirs to the Communist Party), weakened the incumbent mayor and in the end produced the candidacy of a not very appealing female party functionary. Second, long-term demographic changes, already negatively though gradually reflected on the electoral strength of the dominant party, affected the preferences of the voters who above all wanted more personal security and political change. Third, the outcome was decisively affected by the personality and the campaign of the challenger. A former butcher and President of the Association of Shopkeepers, Giorgio Guazzaloca, who created his own list, was capable of keeping a distance from Centre-Right parties, projecting the discreet image of political independence and closeness to Bolognese civil society. By so doing, he overcame his lag at the first ballot and succeeded in being elected mayor on the second ballot.

Campaign Issues and Themes

The most important Italian political scientist, Giovanni Sartori (2008), wrote in the influential newspaper, Corriere della Sera, recently that the 2008 campaign had been ‘a strange election without a real fight’ (strane elezioni senza battaglia). The core of Sartori’s argument is that the leader of the Partito Democratico (Democratic Party, PD), Walter Veltroni, adopted a style of campaigning expressive of a commitment to fair play – leading him to avoid directly attacking his adversary, Silvio Berlusconi,1 or replying aggressively to the centre right’s attacks. Rather, by emphasising the novelty of the PD and its programmatic platform, he chose to focus on and encourage ‘prospective voting’. This, Sartori objects, is a curious strategy to adopt ‘when one is trailing in the polls by seven percentage points’.

La comunicazione politica di Berlusconi. Percorsi di lettura

This article explores the entire scientific production concerning Berlusconi’s political journey, pausing especially on contributions that focus on political communication. The author identifies three main thematic areas, which have been extensively looked at by the scholars and political observers. The three areas are: 1) Berlusconi and Forza Italia’s contribution to the transformation of political communication during the 1990s; 2) the effects of Berlusconi’s political communication on voters’ political behaviour; 3) the analysis of Berlusconi’s language. compol1/2004 25-02-2004 19:28 Pagina 195

The Personalization of Politics: A Study of Parliamentary Democracies, by Lauri Karvonen

Should we really be convinced of the emergence of candidate-centered politics as argued by some research literature? Or is the process of personalization less developed and widespread than commonly...

Pregi e limiti di un sistema elettorale problematico

L’articolo illustra il sistema elettorale americano e analizza, in particolare, il funzionamento e l’impatto del collegio elettorale nelle elezioni presidenziali del 2004. Il saggio argomenta che l’esistenza del collegio elettorale ha una notevole influenza sulle modalita della campagne elettorali. Poiche le moderne tecnologie permettono oggi di definire con grande precisione quali sono gli stati indecisi, il sistema del collegio elettorale comporta che la maggior parte delle risorse e dell’impegno dei partiti e dei candidati si concentri sugli stati incerti. Questo crea una disparita che ha sollevato perplessita sull’utilizzo del collegio elettorale. Il saggio si chiude analizzando i pro e i contro delle proposte di riforma avanzate per abolire o modificare il collegio elettorale.