Agreement on electoral reform in Italy?

Repubblica and the Corriere both report that the centre-left majority has reached agreement on electoral reform. The reform will replace the current law with a system similar to that used for regional elections. The text therefore is close to joint position of the centre-right, which augurs well for its chances of quick passage. By including constitutional reforms in the reform package, however, the centre-left ups the stakes.

On the basis of the coverage in Repubblica, we can say the following:

• The reform is a type of bonus-adjusted proportional representation system


• Candidates will be elected in constituencies (at least greater than 26)


• There will be a national bonus in both the Senate and Camera on a national level

The precise details of the bonus, and details on the threshold, are unclear. Repubblica claims that "la soglia deve essere tanto minore quanto maggiore e` il premio di maggioranza" [the threshold will be smaller the greater the majority premium]. I don't understand why these two aspects of the system need to be linked. In any event, if the size of the constituencies is substantially reduced, the effective threshold based on constituency size may be more significant than the legal threshold. Again, though, details of the constituencies are not clear.

Additional constitutional reforms are included in the agreement:

• Reduction from 630 to 400 deputies, and from 315 to 200 senators
• end of perfect bicameralism
• formal recognition of the Prime Minister's right to nominate and fire ministers
adoption of constructive vote of no-confidence

The agreement comes a day after the two main parties - DS and Margherita - agreed on a Spanish style electoral system as the only possible model. Members of the Udeur were apparently opposed to such a reform. According to a recent poll, the UDC's vote-share hovers around 2%, making it vulnerable to the higher effective thresholds of small constituencies in the Spanish style.

• There are two stimuli for the reform:
  
• the wish to avoid the possibility of conflicting majorities in the Camera and Senate, as almost happened last year; and
• the wish to avoid a referendum promoted by Giovanni Guzzetta and Minister of Defence Arturo Parisi, which, in giving the majority premium to the largest single list (instead of the largest coalition of lists), would accelerate the formation of large single forces on left and right.
  

The reform text seems to be the smallest step capable of avoiding both of these possibilities. Given the effective veto power of all members of the coalition, who have vastly different electoral profiles, this is not surprising.

The best 'Dear Joergen' letter ever

Jeppe alerted me to a brewing storm in the Danish media. Former director of Danmarks Radio (DR) Christian Nissen has, in his new book about his time with the broadcaster, reproduced an email from Culture Minister Brian Mikkelsen complaining about DR's coverage of the Iraq war, and threatening to private DR instead of already announced plans to privatise the second broadcaster TV2. The text of the letter, and a cleaning up machine translation, follow:

Blot til orientering saa blev DR's daekning af regeringen og speciet Irak krigen taget op paa ministermoedet i dag foerst under morgenmaden af mange ministre og dernaest under det formelle moede. Der er en meget stor utilfreshed med DR's daekning som er meget ensidig - de har specielt set sig sure paa et par kvindelige vaerter og Ole Sippel (some mange naevnte som ekstrem i sine udtryk mod koalitionen). Det kom derhen til at udenrigministeren mente at vi ikke burde privatisere TV-2 som var fair i daekningen, men snarere DR. Netopdet forhold et det staerkende borgerlige argument mod privatiseringen af TV-2. Mange borgerlige mener at vi burde privatisere DR, some er anti regeringen, mens de ikke forstaar at vi privatiserer TV-2 som er positiv over for regeringen. Jeg ved godt at det er svaert for dig - i morgen var jeg saa i skudlinien for det var pludselig mit ansvar - men du skal have besked om regeringens holding. Jeg naevnte henvendt til statsministeren, at jeg loebende havde en fortrolig dialog med dig om tingenes tilstand. Og at jeg havde indtryk af at bestyrelsen og nissen tog det meget seiroest, men problemet laa hos Lisbeth Knudsen

If only to [inform you] then DR's covering of the government and specially the Iraq war was gone up on the meeting of ministers today only under the breakfast by many ministers and next during the formal meeting.

There is a very large utilfreshed with DR's covering that is very onesided - they have especially seen themselves cross with a couple of female hosts and Ole Sippel (some many mentioned as an extreme in their expressions against the coalition).

That came there to that the [Foreign Minister] thought that we ought not to privatise Tv that was fair in [its coverage], but rather DR.

The Netopd conditions an it starling-a little [bourgeoi] sargument against the privatisation of Tv.

Many [members of the bourgeois party] think that we ought to privatise DR, some is anti- the government, while they do not understand that we privatise Tv that is positive face to face with the government.

I know well that it's difficult for you - tomorrow I was in the line of fire for it suddenly my responsibility was - but you have to have message about the government's holding.

I mentioned turned for the prime minister that I had a confidential dialogue with you about the state of things.

And that I had impressions of that the management and Nissen took it very seriously, but the problem lay with Lisbeth Knudsen [director of news]

More coverage from the Copenhagen Post.

Reading list on Rai

I haven't blogged in some time. In part, that's because I've been in the Biblioteca Nazionale (sede di Firenze) reading books about Rai. A tentative bibliography of essential reads is below. There are some I haven't included, some of which I've cited in my M.Phil thesis, some of which I am certainly ignorant of :)

Abis, M.; Bossi, V. & Carullo, A. (1999), Lo spettatore attivo: 10anni di Osservatorio Rai e Mediaset sulla televisione, Mursia, Milano.

Balassone, S. & Guglielmi, A. (1995), Senza rete. Politica e televisione nell'Italia che cambia, Rizzoli, Milano.

Balassone, S. & Guglielmi, A. (1993), La brutta addormentata, Theoria, Roma.

Biscardi, A. (1978), L'impero di vetro : la prima grande indagine sulla RAI-TV, SEI, Torino.

Cardini, F. & Riccio, G. (1995), Il cavallo impazzito. Una stagione di polemiche alla Rai, Giunti, Firenze.

Cesareo, G. (1970), Anatomia del potere televisivo, F. Angeli, Milano.

Chiarenza, F. (2002), Il cavallo morente. Storia della Rai, Franco Angeli.

Curzi, A. (1996), Il compagno scomodo, Mondadori, Milano.

Curzi, A. & Mineo, C. (1994), Giu le mani dalla Tv, Sperling and Kuper, Milano.

Deaglio, E. (1995), Besame mucho. Diario di un anno abbastanza crudele, Feltrinelli, Milano.

Ferretti, C.; Broccoli, U. & Scaramucci, B. (1997), Mamma Rai, Le Monnier, Firenze.

Gisotti, R. (2006), Dalla tv dei professori alla tv deficiente. La Rai della seconda Repubblica, Nutrimenti.

Jacobelli, J. (1996), Cento no alla Tv, Laterza, Bari.

Jacobelli, J. (1992), Per una nuova riforma della Rai, Laterza, Roma.

Listri, P. F. (1994), I segreti dell'informazione: stampa e TV nelle parole dei protagonisti, Camunia, Milano.

Marconi, P. (1998), Stato e televisione, SEAM, Roma.

Mazzanti, A. (1991), L'obiettivita giornalistica: un ideale maltratto, Liguori, Napoli.

Moratti, L. & Jacobelli, J. (1996), Io e la Tv, Rizzoli, Milano.

Morrione, R. (1978), La rai nel paese delle antenne : uomini e vicende del piu discusso dei mass media : dall'era Bernabei all'era della riforma, R. Napoleone, Roma.

Murialdi, P. (1994), Maledetti . Diario di un anno alla Rai, Rizzoli, Milano.

Novelli, E. (1995), Dalla TV di partito al partito della TV 1960- 1995, La Nuova Italia, Firenze.

Pini, M. (1978), Memorie di un lottizzatore, Feltrinelli, Milano.

Ripa di Meana, C. (1973), Il governo audiovisivo : riforma e controriforma della radiotelevisione, Edizioni di note politiche, Milano.

Siliato, F. (1977), L'antenna dei padroni. Radiotelevisione e sistema dell'informazione, G. Mazzotta, Milano.

Borri, A., ed. (1992), Verso un'altra televisione, Eri, Torino.

Zaccaria, R., ed. (1984), Rai. La televisione che cambia.

Iseppi, F., ed. (1980), RAI-TV: il malinteso della riforma, F. Angeli, Milano.

Lopez, B., ed. (1972), Informazione e democrazia. La Rai TV in Italia, Dedalo, Bari.

Turati, C., ed. (1970), TV e liberta` in Italia: una riforma urgente, Milano.

Twin fallacies of Italian institutional reform

Recently, the debate about electoral reform in Italy has begun to move quite quickly. A number of parties - including the pivotal UDC - seem to favour the German mixed-member system. Rocco Buttiglione, in yesterday's Repubblica, claimed that such an electoral system would leave Italy with four parties - radical left, centre-left, centre, and respectable right.

Buttiglione's comment - and support for the German system in general - demonstrate one of two fallacies of institutional reform commonly seen in Italy.

The fallacy of composition is where one takes two institutional features, which are believed to have certain independent effects, and where one seeks to reach a half-way point between these two effects. Instead, the two institutional features, when put together, interact and cause unforeseen outcomes.

An example of this is the combination of single member districts (SMDs) and a proportional tier in the Italian electoral reform of 1993. Giovanni Sartori criticised the choice as leading to a vogue for 'bastard hybrids'. If the intent was to reduce the effective number of parties (ENP) through introducing SMDs, the reform failed; the ENP increased after 1993.

The fallacy of abstraction is where one takes a particular institutional artefact, which is believed to have a particular effect within a wider context; and replicates it without that wider context.

If Italy adopted the German electoral system because it has historically produced stable and alternating governments, legislators will have succumbed to the fallacy of abstraction. The stability and alternation of German government was due first to the gradual instauration of the electoral system, and also to the cleavage structure. The more complex cleavage structure in Italy - including clerical/anti-clerical and communist/socialist left cleavages - will most likely make any reductive effect of the electoral system much less likely.

The deeper malaise that bedevils the Italian electoral system

Today's FT publishes a letter written by David Hine, Alan Renwick and me, on the issue of the Italian electoral system, recently the object of much debate:

Sir, Alexander Stille's analysis of Italy's current troubles focuses on the electoral reform rushed in by Silvio Berlusconi ahead of last spring's election ("Prodi and the problem of Italy's electoral system", February 23). He calls it proportional representation. It isn't. In the lower house it gives a working majority to the coalition with the largest national vote share. In the Senate, there are also bonuses, but they are allocated regionally and the outcome is a lottery.

The problem with the recent reform is the same as with its 1993 predecessor. In trying to create majoritarian coalitions, it creates an irresistible incentive to cram in the most improbable range of parties, giving everyone a post-election veto: a fatal combination of apparent bipolarity built on a sub-structure of extreme party fragmentation.

Recommending the abolition of PR will not fix anything until that deeper problem is addressed. After the 1993 reform, the small parties won their seats in the 75 per cent of contests that were allocated under first-past-the-post principles, not in those allocated by PR. It happened because the larger parties felt forced to widen the coalition through stand-down agreements. A similar incentive operated under the 2005 "return to PR", albeit by a different route.

Interestingly, the electoral system that small parties seem most afraid of is the French second ballot, perhaps modified to prevent second-ballot stand-downs. The run-off, as with the French presidency, would then be just between the two leading candidates from the first ballot. Nothing else has done the trick, and there are few options left.

Croatia's HRT to get new boss...sometime

Legal uncertainty about procedure for replacing PSB boss. So much for the quality of the draftsmanship of media legislation, the object of much comment from EU 'experts'. (Of course, the idea of eliminating interpretative uncertainty is chimeric).

State funding of Italian newspapers

Following a tip [thanks Costanza], I found a wonderful transcript of an episode of Report on the state funding of Italian newspapers. The state spends 667 million euros a year to subsidize newspapers; the intention behind the subsidies was originally to help struggling 'newspapers of ideas'. Instead, with a 1987 law permitting two deputies to certify that such-and-such a newspaper is the in-house newspaper for a political movement, the subsidies blossomed. The transcript does a wonderful review of some of the less credible newspapers:

NEWSPAPER VENDOR
What, 'L’opinione'?

INTERVIEWER
You've never heard of it?

NEWSPAPER VENDOR
No, if it's a newspaper it doesn't arrive here

INTERVIEW [to EDITOR of L'Opinione]
How many copies do you sell?

ARTURO DIACONALE-EDITOR L’OPINIONE
Our circulation is... limited, let's say. We're at about three, four thousand copies.

INTERVIEWER [off-screen]
Three, four thousand copies, and you receive two million euro