Bull, MJ and Rhodes, M 2009, 'Introduction - Italy: A contested polity' , in: Italy - A contested polity , West European Politics Series , Routledge, Abingdon & New York, pp. 1-13.

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Abstract

As is now well understood from recent advances in historical institutionalism, change in complex political systems usually occurs either by way of 'punctuated equilibrium', in which long periods of stability in a political system are interrupted by sudden, and sometimes dramatic, shifts, before path-dependent development resumes; or via multiple processes that modify the nature of the existing order but only rarely overturn it. The equilibrium of Italy's post-war system was clearly 'punctuated' by the political and economic upheavals of the early and mid-1990s. But what followed was less a transition to something new, and more a post-crisis process of institutional (re-)stabilisation and negotiated change in which the 'new' (or at least substantial parts of it) looks remarkably similar to the 'old'.

Item Type:	Book Section
Additional Information:	This is book version of a Special Issue of West European Politics
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Italian politics; political change
Editors:	Bull, MJand Rhodes, M
Themes:	Subjects outside of the University Themes
Schools:	Colleges and Schools > College of Arts & Social Sciences > School of Humanities, Languages & Social Sciences > Centre for Democracy and Human Rights
Publisher:	Routledge
Refereed:	Yes
ISBN:	9780415472647
Depositing User:	Professor Martin J. Bull
Date Deposited:	15 Feb 2012 10:13
Last Modified:	15 Feb 2012 10:13
URI:	http://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/19522

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