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Craxi’s Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Vincenzo Guizzi
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Extract

IT IS NOT EASY TO EXPLAIN THE REASONS THAT LED TO THE appointment of Bettino Craxi as Prime Minister. First of all, there was certainly the political fatigue of the Christian Democratic Party which had held the premiership for 35 years. AIdo Moro, a great man and leader, had tried to mediate between the various currents within the party, as well as between the party and other allied parties (the Republicans, the Social Democrats, the Socialists). But what Moro really dreamt of was a possible alliance with the Communist Party to solve at least the most serious issues, such as terrorism and economic decline. He thought of repeating with the Communists the experience the DC had had in the early 1960s with the Socialists: widening the democratic area with the view of transforming the PCI into a social democratic trend. In order to obtain this he even considered letting the PCI take part in the majority at least if not in the government itself. His disappearance had serious repercussions, especially in the Christian Democratic Party where internal friction grew even stronger than in the past. This resulted in a great drop in the party's power and ability to manage the country politically even if, at least in part, it regained in the 1979 and 1983 elections the votes lost in the 1976 elections.

Type
Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , 01 April 1985 , pp. 166 - 177
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1985

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References

1 For convenience of exposition, the following abbreviations are used in the text: PCI = Partito Comunista Italiano; PSI = Partito Socialista Italiano; PLI = Partito Liberale Italiano; DC = Democrazia Cristiana; PSDI = Partito Socialista Democratico Italiano; PDUP = Partito di Unità Proletaria per il Comunismo; PRI = Partito Republicano Italiano.

2 Guizzi, Vincenzo, ‘The Baffling “Political Game” in Italy’, Government and Opposition, Vol. 18, No. 4, Autumn 1983, p. 517.Google Scholar

3 Scalfari, Eugenio, ‘L’anno di Craxi (o di Berlinguer?)’, La Repubblicu, 6 11 1983.Google Scholar

4 In the newspaper Avanti!, 30 September 1984.

5 For the latter, see ‘Questo PSI da rifare’, L’Espresso, 7 October 1984.

6 Rocca, G., ‘Un leader bruciato’ in La Repubblica, 6 10 1984.Google Scholar

7 Pacifici, G., II costo della democrazia, Rome, 1983.Google Scholar