Page 149 - Communication and Citizenship Journalism and the Public Sphere

138 COMMUNICATION AND CITIZENSHIP

well as to the type of debate and exchange established between the
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majority and opposition. Since the end of the Second World War, even
though according to different formulas, the Italian political system has
produced coalition governments formed and supported by several
political parties. During the 1950s and early 1960s there were centre and
centre-right governments and, later, centre-left governments, according
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to different formulas and compositions. In all these years no party ever
achieved a majority in Parliament which would have allowed it to
govern alone. Even most of the local administrations were supported by
coalition governments formed, in many cases, by parties opposed to
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each other in the central government. Incidentally, it should be noted
that the coalition formula is the main cause of the many government
crises and therefore frequent changes in the make-up of the executive as
a result of the undeniably difficult, forced coexistence of parties (five in
the current formula) that compete with each other for the same
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electorate. As for extending this description to other countries, we note
that Israel, even though in a profoundly different political context, has
now been governed for several years by a coalition of parties that are in
strong, direct electoral competition; Germany too is governed by a
coalition, albeit of only two parties. Many other cases (e.g. Greece,
Norway, etc.) could also be mentioned.
But the term ‘coalition’ can also be applied to relationships between
the majority and the opposition. As Marletti states: ‘Political life in our
country is not dominated by a clash and continuing contrast between the
two major parties, the Christian Democrats and the Communists, but by
a constant search for various points of encounter, mediation, and
compromise’ (Marletti 1987:31). In most of the daily, routine legislative
activities, the majority tries to involve also the vote of the Communist
Party, at least to avoid a head-on confrontation which would make such
activities more difficult, subject to continuous voting and the consequent
risk of defeat and fall of the coalition formula. 9
From what has been stated above, it is easy to understand that the
Italian political system is highly complex because of the coalition formula
used in forming its governments and especially because of the large
number of political parties, currently eleven, represented in Parliament.
In addition, within each party there are various and different factions
competing with each other for the control of the party organization. To
these can be added a generous array of other institutions legitimized to
act within the public sphere, making the debate between the groups
described above even more complicated. We refer in particular to trade
unions, economic organizations, cultural organizations, etc. Among