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From: giua@ecse.rpi.edu (Alessandro Giua)
Subject: L'Italia vista dagli USA
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Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY
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Date: 29 Apr 91 02:04:01 GMT
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Il seguente articolo e' apparso sul New York Times di 
domenica 26 aprile 1991 nella sezione "The World: the week in review".
Lo riporto senza autorizzazione.

Poiche e' molto lungo, non ho tempo di fare alcun commento. Se suscitera' 
interesse, spero di unirmi alla discussione.

*************************************
Italy's Political Circus Maximus Is Becoming
A Luxury the Nation Finds Harder to Afford

by Clyde Haberman

Italian politics has long meant grand theater - not as diverting 
perhaps as a good soccer match and more repetitive than a pornographic
movie, but an eye-filling extravaganza just the same, with heroes and
villains and sound and fury, all wrapped in tantalizing promises of countless
sequels.

Evidence is mounting, however, that Italians have grown weary of lo
spettacolo. Although Italy has had a period of unparalleled prosperity,
almost daily there are calls in high places for a fundamental
restructuring of the political system. President Francesco Cossiga,
a stern critic, sounded fresh alarms last week by declaring that
"something isn't working" in public life here.

This is hardly the first time that Italians have pronounced themselves
fed up with their governments, which rise and then quickly fall, or with
their politicians, who seem endowed with an infinite capacity for rattling
on about everything under the sun except issues that matter to their 
constituents. But demands for institutional reform, as it is called,
are now in full cry from all quarters. There is even bolder talk
about what is described as the advent of a Second Italian Republic to
supercede the existing one, born in 1946 amid the ashes of fascism
and wartime devastation.

As many influential Italians see it, public institutions that may have
once worked well enough for a poor, agricultural society no longer serve
a modern nation with an economy that, depending on the indicators one
chooses, is No. 5 or No. 6 in the West. These people worry about Italy's
ability to keep pace with Germany, France and even its close rival Britain
after the European Community becomes a unified market at the end of 1992.

It is because of political stagnation in Rone, they argue, that Italy
has yet to deal squarely with its most deep-seated problems:
enormous budget deficits, inadequate public services, persistent economic
imbalances between north and south and expanding networks of organized
crime all along the Italian boot.

The inability to whip the budget into shape is conspicuously troublesome.
The national debt just about equals the country's annual economic output,
roughly $770 billion. For months, the Government has struggled vainly to
work out a combination of tax increases and spending cuts worth $9 billion,
intended to bring this year's deficit not down to zero, for that is impossible,
but to the original target of $100 billion. Now, Moody's Investor Services
warn that this political inaction might force it to lower Italy's
triple-A rating, a testament of creditworthiness that has been so favorable 
because it covers only the relatively small Italian foreign debt of
$2 billion.

Of course, one could argue that Italy has always lived with deficits and
overblown politicians, with phones that sputter and trains that run late.
Yet it prospers. Why, some ask, worry now?

Because, comes the reply, the bubble may be about to burst with Western
Europe's economic integration. It is one thing, they say, for Italian
industries to have thrived in Italy, where they are often protected against
foreign competition by torrents of regulations and miles of burocratic
red tape. It is quite another to compete on a Europe-wide basis, playing by
the same rules as everyone else, when your cargo sits in a strikebound
railroad yard, or when your phone line to Paris repeatedly goes dead, when
your Mafia frightens off potential foreign investors or when your European
partners grow tired of financing special projects for the Italian south
that go nowhere.

Beside, it is argued, there is a matter of national pride: a big-time
economy should not be running such a large deficit.

To get Italy moving on this issues, the growing band of would-be rformers
wants a less frantic political system. Basically, this means a stronger chief
executive and fewer pressure groups clamoring for attention than the
forest of parties that now prevails. In a sense, Italy reacted to its
fascist party with an excess of democracy. Its system of strictly proportional
representation has produced a Parliament littered with at least 14 parties,
none of them remotely capable of winning a majority on its own. That
necessitates coalition governments, shaky creations that produce considerable
noise but frequent political paralisis as well.

Some parties, notably the Socialists, propose a forceful, popularily elected
president to replace the existing figurehead chosen by Parliament. Others, 
including the dominant Christian Democrats, would rather thoughen the 
prime ministership. There are similar differences over how to weed out many
of Italy's tiny, resources-sapping parties. However the details are ultimately
pounded out, there is little disagreement that the nation must overcome its
phobia against vigorous central leadership.

And yet to dismiss existing Italian politics as a quaint joke, as many 
outsiders do, is to fall into a cliched trap. Yes, the government collapses
on average every 11 months or so and, yes, Italy has had 50 Cabinets sit(nce
World War II. No. 50 was formed this month by Prime Minister Giulio 
Andreotti, basically by remolding No. 49, which he also led. But governments
have been allowed to fall so frequently because Italians know that lo
spettacolo - the spectacle or the show - is a luxury they have been able to
afford. It hasn't had a devastating impact because, at root, the society
and its systems have been quite stable. Many government failures have
amounted to little more than Cabinet realignments. In many respects, Italy's
consensus-seeking, decision-avoiding politics has been very similar to Japan's,
and yet the Japanese are generally perceived as models of stability. Tha fact
is that only 18 Italians have served as prime ministers since the war,
including Mr. Andreotti seven times. Japan is now only on its 19th postwar
premier.

As for the politicians, they have proved quite adaptable in the face of
powerful challenges. They have fostered prosperity, beaten back urban
terrorism and dissipated a once-serious Communist challenge. Now the
Italian Communists, rechristened in February as the Democratic Party of the
Left, are in disarray, searching for an identity to go along with their new
name. "By many of the common tests of how things are going politically,
economically or otherwise, Italy seems to be doing quite well," Prof. Joseph
LaPalombara of Yale University writes in his book "Democracy, Italian Style."

Still, many Italians are not convinced. If Italy is doing well, they say,
it is in spite of its political leadership. More of them than ever say they
are angry after the latest Government collapse and regrouping because it all
seemed so pointless. Nothing of consequence changed, only a few Cabinet
assignments.

The clearest sign of voters fatigue is the rapid and recent rise of
regional parties whose unifying theme is disdain for Rome as a bloated
wastrel. The most successful of these groups is the Milan-based Lombard
League, which mixes tax-revolt rhetoric with raw anti-southern bigotry to
create a political threat that has the estabilished parties in a sweat. If 
one takes the votes received last year in nationwide local elections by the
Lombard Legue and its cousins in other regions, and adds to them the ballots
tha were left blank or otherwise invalidated, the result is an effective
protest vote of about 30 percent. "This is a strong warning bell," said
Giuliano Amato, a Socialist Party tactitian.

Yet few Italians expect much to happen before the next parliamentary elections,
which must be held by June 1992. The unflappable Mr. Andreotti gives no
sign of rushing toward change, and the country has a habit of lollygagging
when things seem normal. But it also responds brilliantly to crisis, as
it did last year with a last-minute flurry of construction to get ready for
the World Cup soccer finals that were held in Italy. When the sense of
urgency finally strikes, reform cannot be far behind.


