Political Parties and Interest Groups in Italy, 1990-1994
Ted Perlmutter Center for European Studies New York University
Paper for the international conference “Explaining Changes in Migration Policy: Debates from Different Perspectives”, University of Geneva, 27-28 October 2000.
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Title: Political Parties and Interest Groups in Italy, 1990-1994
In the mid-1990s, the political advocates for immigrants in Italy became sufficiently autonomous from political parties to justify analyzing them from an interest group perspective.* This transformation provides an intriguing challenge both to scholars concerned with comparative immigration politics and those concerned with Italian public policy. To analysts such as Gary Freeman, whose comparative framework has emphasized the role of interest groups in immigration policy formation, this case would seem to offer confirmation. To those, following the dominant tradition of Italian political science, who have emphasized the role of political parties as the agents of policy formation, it would seem at best anomalous. As the conventional wisdom has it, immigration is an issue that mainstream political parties would prefer to avoid or at least not to make the issue a subject of partisan debate. The costs are potentially high and the benefits slight. First, parties are more likely to downplay the issue because they face crosscutting cleavages that affect their core constituencies. Liberal mainstream parties face conflicts between unions who favor restrictive policies and liberals and ethnic groups who favor expansionist policies. Conservative parties are divided between employers who favor expansionist immigration policies and cultural conservatives who favor restrictive policies.1 Second, playing too close to the restrictionist edge can also bring forth charges of playing to the baser and more xenophobic political instincts. Third, given that immigrants are often ineligible to vote, and even when eligible,
3 reluctant to take up citizenship, there is no obvious constituency whose support would justify taking up the issue.2 Starting from this analysis of party reluctance, Gary Freeman argued for a general model in which interest groups are the central agents of immigration policy in advanced industrial democracies. These groups, primarily business and ethnic associations, can successfully advocate the development of expansionist policy. He sees this model as most fully developed in the settler societies (United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia), being approached by the states that experienced substantial migration after World War II (Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Sweden), and a likely outcome for the recent immigration states (Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece). Italy, in Freeman's analysis, is the most critical case for discussion of the recent immigration states.3 From a national perspective, scholars of Italian politics have emphasized the centrality of parties to all aspects of policy development. This article will draw on the party government framework, originally developed by Richard Katz and R. Wildenmann for the comparative analysis of party systems, and since used extensively by Italian scholars to analyze the changes in their party system.4 The party government literature has focused on the parties’ capacities to control the policy content and to nominate those responsible for making it. In Morris Fiorina's formulation, party government can be defined by "the degree to which decisions are made by elected party officials or those under their control; the degree to which policy is decided within parties which then act cohesively to enact it; and the degree to which officials are recruited and held responsible through party". 5 At a normative level, strong parties are regarded as a pre-requisite for democracy. The Westminister model of a two party system, with regular alternation between parties, has been seen as the purest form of party government,
4 and as shall be seen, was the ideal to which the Italian party system aspired in response to the breakdown of the First Republic. In Italy, the focus on parties as central to policy-formation has eclipsed interest group studies. Joseph La Palombara's magisterial study of Italian interest groups has found few successors.6 This article will use the methods of studying interest groups--the focus on their organizational forms, legislative activities, and relations with other political actors--to show the extent to which their influence is circumscribed by the political system. The focus will be on Italy during a time of party decline and transformation.. From 1990 to 1994, the period between the first effort at comprehensive immigration legislation and the turn to a new electoral system, Italy experienced as profound a delegitimation of its traditional parties as has occurred in Western Europe since World War II. An entire political class was discredited, parties that had dominated the political system all but disappeared, and the government passed an electoral reform that changed the proportional representation system into a largely majoritarian one. By contrasting the most striking moment of party decline (1992-1994) with those that preceded and followed it, this article will show how changes first in party strength and then in the party system affected the pro-immigration groups' influence and the policy outcomes. First, it will analyze the legislative and electoral conflicts over the initial comprehensive immigration legislation (39/90 known as the Martelli Law) to establish a base-line of party influence and interest group activity. Second it will focus on new advocacy organizational forms that emerged in 1992 and 1993 to contest and propose legislation to complete the policy agenda left unfinished after the Martelli Law. Third, it will describe advocacy groups' efforts at mobilizing under the center-right Berlusconi government, showing how tactics developed for an unraveling proportional representation system proved insufficient under a
5 majoritarian system where parties would again take the initiative. Finally, it will show what light this case casts on the party-dominated Italian debates and the interest group formulation made by Gary Freeman in his comparative framework. Immigration under the First Republic: The Martelli Law and the Primacy of Party Politics Within the comparative framework of party government, Italy has always been seen as a solid, if eccentric member of the strong party government club. Throughout the history of the First Republic, Italian political parties played a hegemonic role in the public sphere. Their purchase over a large public sector including numerous state-run industrial holdings and their penetration of the bureaucracy and civil society have been vast, in fact greater than any other liberal democratic regime in Western Europe.7 This extensive control has not contributed to the creation of coherent policy. One indication is the extent to which, during the process of government formation, Italian political parties have always demonstrated greater concern with the allocation of offices than with policy content.8 The grounds for these policy difficulties lie in a low-threshold, proportional representation system with dual voting and the exclusion of the Communist party (PCI) from government. The proportional representation system where a party needed only about 1.5% to attain membership in parliament has produced a situation where seven parties often divided the vote. The dual voting system, where voters marked both a party and an individual candidate preference, made the system more permeable to interests groups and weakened central control. The national governing coalitions always excluded the Communist Party, even though it represented a substantial part of the nation's working class and received between 1/4 and 1/3 of the vote. By preventing coalitional alternation, this exclusion made for fragile, litigious governments. It lowered the cost of constant government crisis, since there
6 would be little difference between one government and its successor. As Pasquino, one of the primary proponents of the party government position, put it, “Obviously multi-party coalitions cannot be expected to exhibit a very high degree of cohesion, especially when the perceived consequences of the fall of a governmental coalition is a similar coalition with few changes in the factional alignments and the ministerial offices.”9 The permeable structure of the parliamentary and executive institutions also contributed to the difficulties of coherent policy formation. In response to the fascist experience, the architects of Italy's constitution dispersed power in ways that made governing institutions permeable to outside influence. The Parliament was particularly open: its bicameral system, where both bodies have identical powers, and where committee chairs have considerable discretionary powers, allows for numerous points of entry.10 In the 1980s and early 1990s, when the first immigration legislation was passed, Italy was governed by five party (pentapartito) coalitions dominated by the Christian Democrats (DC). The Christian Democratic party was a highly factionalized mass party, which had a substantial working class constituency in addition to the traditional Catholic base. With its bedrock of a third of the electorate, the DC had participated in every governing coalition since the origins of the Italian Republic after the fall of fascism. Of the four minor parties in the alliance, the Republican (PRI) and particularly the Socialist Party (PSI) were the most visible and powerful. Both these parties were able to place their leaders in the Prime Minister's office for a time during the 1980s, interrupting Christian Democratic hegemony over the position. Of the two, the more powerful was the Socialist Party, which in the course of the 1980s managed to increase its vote from 10% to 15%. The PSI and the PRI were also the parties that would
7 take the most outspoken stands in the 1990s immigration debates. These parties, whose politics were to the left of the DC, occupied similar electoral terrain and sought to mobilize from the newly emergent professional and managerial classes. This competition intensified conflict within the five-party coalition.11 Legislative Background
By 1980, Italy had begun its gradual, almost unacknowledged transformation from being a country of emigration to one of immigration. In comparison with other countries in Western Europe such as France and Germany, the number of immigrants was not high and public consciousness of the phenomenon was limited. Before 1986, there was no comprehensive regulation regarding immigration, a lacuna that meant that the rules governing entry dated back to the fascist decrees of June 18, 1931 (n. 773) and May 6, 1940 (n. 635) and were concerned primarily with public order. These laws gave priority to the state's interest in surveillance, in knowing where foreigners were at all times. The 1986 legislation (943/1986) regulated the entry of immigrants seeking employment, and provided an amnesty for immigrants who could prove such employment. Despite three successive decrees that extended the deadline until September 30 1988, only a small percentage of undocumented foreigners legalized their status. The law did not regulate the self-employed, a category that encompassed a growing number of immigrants. By the late 1980s, increased awareness of the deficiencies of the 1986 legislation made clear the need for new legislation. The process of developing new legislation was arduous, since the Interior and Foreign Ministries were uncooperative. In early 1988, Ciricao De Mita, the Prime Minister assigned Rosa Jervolino (DC), the Minister for Social Affairs, the task of formulating a new policy. In testimony before a congressional investigating committee, she would complain that, “They [these ministries] could only see this assignment
8 in terms of interference and limits on their authority, that is to say, with attitudes very different from those of the President of the Council of Ministers and myself”.12 The killing of Jerry Esslan Masslo, a black South African political refugee employed as an agricultural laborer in Villa Laterno, in August of 1988 was the catalyst for the new legislation.. Although the motive was apparently robbery, the murder crystallized an Italian concern about the ill treatment and the legal limbo that many immigrants experienced. Riding this wave of public sympathy and concern, Claudio Martelli, a Socialist leader who was the deputy Prime Minister, proposed new, expansive immigration legislation. Martelli sought out the support of the left, particularly the Communist Party. In opening to the left, he dismissed the concerns of conservatives, particularly the Republicans (PRI) within the government. Although the unions and voluntary sector were consulted, they were not the impetus behind the process. With the exception of the union-sponsored October 25 demonstration, in which 200,000 people came to Rome to march for immigrants' rights, these organizations did not play a major role in defining the issue. This lack of "public opinion leading" can be seen in a study of television time allocated to specific actors during the debates over the Martelli legislation. Of the 59 minutes and 11 seconds allocated to interviewing public figures by the three public stations on this issue, only 5 minutes and 47 seconds, or 10.2% of that time was allocated to union (2’51”) and church (2’56”) officials. The rest went almost exclusively to politicians from the various governing and opposition parties.13 The original intention was to pass a series of laws regulating all aspects of immigration, including health services and access to high schools and universities. However, after bitter internal battles in late December, the governing coalition decided on a more narrowly focused emergency decree that required passage by both houses of parliament in sixty days. The unresolved policy disagreements within the
9 coalition resulted in the continuing politicization of the issue, first in a ferocious legislative conflict and then in an electoral conflict. The PRI publicly attacked the government, particularly the PSI, during the parliamentary debates and then made an issue out of immigration in the 1990 administrative elections. While the conflict in parliament was public and divisive, their deliberation had marginal effects on the policy outcomes.14 The limited role for parliament, discouraged by the decree law process, meant that the inter-party agreement arrived at in the cabinet debates would be sustained. Despite its substantive deficiencies, the Martelli Law, has been regarded as a success. It is certainly one where party influence was central, and the role of pro-immigrant interest groups was marginal.15 The Anti-Racist Pact: Interest Group Success during Party Crisis Following the 1992 election, the decline of the First Republic that had begun two years earlier became increasingly evident. The vote of the three main supporters of the Martelli Law, the DC, PSI and PCI, had decline from 75.2% in the 1987 national elections to 59.4% in the 1992 national elections. Electoral volatility, a measure of voters’ disposition to switch parties, had virtually doubled.16 In the aftermath of the collapse of Communism and the rationale for excluding the left from government, investigations into the political scandals involved in party-finance, called Tangentopoli, brought the old party system into crisis. Major leaders were forced to resign their posts. At one point, 1/3 of all parliamentary leaders were under indictment or suspicion (“avviso di garanzia”).17 1992 was also the year when the Christian Democratic Party went through its organizational crisis. In the spring of that year, Mino Martinazzoli, a left Christian Democrat, was elected general secretary, with the task of reconstructing the party. Another indicator of the decline in party government was the change in government formation and in cabinet composition. As the political class came under greater assault, the two governments of
10 the eleventh legislature became increasingly “technical”, and the direct control that parties had maintained over the creation of governments became more attenuated. In the first government, Giuliano Amato was chosen as Prime Minister. Although a close associate of Bettino Craxi (PSI), he was seen as above the political corruption that had made Craxi the subject of ongoing investigations and thus unable to lead the government. As ministers of Amato's cabinet resigned for judicial or other reasons, he would replace them with technical appointees, that is ministers chosen because of professional competence and reputation and without regard for party connection. The subsequent government, was headed by Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, a former President of the Bank of Italy, who was regarded as above partisan competition.18 His cabinet would consist entirely of technical appointees, who Ciampi chose without seeking the traditional approval from the General Secretary of the political parties. A third sign of party decline, and one that would have the effect of further hastening it, was the growth of party “pacts” or parliamentary caucuses that cut across traditional party lines. The most famous of these was the Segni pact, which would lobby for change in the electoral system.19
The group which served to develop an autonomous pro-immigrant lobby was in fact called the Pact for an Anti-Racist Parliament ("Patto per un Parliamento Anti-Razzista"). Its origins were in an alliance of voluntary sector groups that had been previously active in this sector and it soon sought political support for its goals.20 Before the 1992 elections, the Anti-Racist Pact assembled a list of demands primarily concerned with passing legislation that would "sanctify the complete equality of social and civil rights" for immigrants and refugees in Italy. If candidates agreed to these demands, they could join this Pact. For the House and Senate 208 candidates signed up, 69 of whom were elected. After the elections, 20 more joined, with the result that the Pact’s membership comprised almost 15% of the
11 parliament. Although it was a cross-party (trasversale) coalition, the overwhelming majority of its membership came from parties of the left.21 The most powerful organizations were the trade unions and the Caritas, a Catholic Charity organization that was one of the main service providers for immigrants. Others that played an important role include religious organizations such as the Comunità di San Egidio and the Federation of Evangelical Churches, diverse institutions within the Catholic Church, and secular advocacy groups such as “Without Borders” (Senzaconfine) and “Black and not Alone” (Neroenonsolo). Both of the main unions had substantial immigrant membership. The CGIL, the CommunistSocialist union, had 40,000 immigrant members and the CISL, the Christian Democratic union, had 30,000 immigrant members. In its national headquarters in Rome, the CGIL had established an immigrant coordinating organization (Coordinamento Immigrati) which gave a particular visibility to immigrant issues. Both organizations were concerned with assuring immigrants had adequate representation at local levels and with promoting immigrants’ rights. The unions were also capable of mobilizing public demonstrations--local ones in pursuit of specific issues, and national ones to convince the government to confront the legislative problems associated with immigration. Twice in the last six years, they have mobilized over 200,000 people to march in support of immigrant rights. While the unions have contributed the most to organizing these marches, they have been broadly inclusive events. As the newspaper il Manifesto described the 1995 march, "Only in Italy could a Catholic prelate talk on a union stage to a crowd of workers, who were primarily black and Muslim."22 Judging from newspaper accounts and public meetings, the Pact and its members had developed a reputation as the spokespersons for immigrants. Just as in the United States, where representatives from FAIR and the National Immigration Forum are more likely to engage in public
12 discussions of immigration than the Democratic or Republican party leadership, so too during this period in Italy, the union, church, and voluntary sector activists were more likely than party leaders to comment on immigration. This public status of the Pact represented a substantial change from the Martelli law debates, which had been dominated by party leaders to the virtual exclusion of any interest group representatives. The Caritas, particularly in Rome, played a growing role in this shaping of public opinion. As the organization most responsible for providing services to immigrants, the Caritas has a practical as well as moral credibility in these debates.23 Last and most important for our purposes, the Pact was an active lobbyist. As its fax correspondence reveals, a dozen organizations actively participated in (or were at least kept abreast on a daily basis of the Anti-racist Pact's intervention in) lobbying legislators. This lobbying took place with parallel networks. The unions and other progressive groups sought to influence the left parties; the Catholic activists sought to influence the Christian Democratic legislators. The Pact lobbyists were able to provide technical information, concrete proposals, and pragmatic advice that came from being most directly involved in providing services and assistance to the immigrants. In the Maoist phrasing of one Pact activist, they had become "the fish in the sea". 24 This technical knowledge was particularly important since the Italian parliament has limited research capacity and depends on lobbyists for technical expertise.25 If the Pact's strength rested in its knowledge of the issues and the range of organizations it represented, its weakness resulted from the paucity of material resources and its internal policy divisions. The Pact could only lobby on a restricted number of issues, since most of its lobbyists had other responsibilities within their organizations, and few besides Agostino Bevilacqua, the leader of the
13 Pact, could be considered a full time lobbyist. The Pact’s electoral support to candidates was symbolic, since it had no monetary resources to offer. There were also divisions within its broader church and union constituencies, particularly regarding the policy responses to illegal immigrants. While the CGIL supported amnesty for undocumented workers, the CISL was vehemently opposed the idea. Even within the church, some of the northern congregations were not sympathetic to the outspoken defense of the rights of the undocumented taken by the Roman Caritas and other Southern bishops.26 What is striking is the Pact’s success given its limited resources. While it is difficult to quantify its impact, one sympathetic DC legislator estimated that, at the height of its influence, the Pact had a base of 30% within the DC, and could persuade another 30% on specific issues.27 With additional support from the left parties in opposition, it played, as shall be shown, a critical role in determining the outcome of immigration legislation in 1992 and 1993. The Pact’s Lobbying Campaigns, 1992-1993
The lacunae in the 1990 Martelli legislation and the problems with its enforcement would provide the terrain for subsequent legislative conflicts. Although the legislation had provided amnesty for a large number of people, many could or would not legalize their status. Legislation originally envisioned as necessary to complete the process, particularly to regulate seasonal labor, never passed. A further gap in the legislation was the difficulty of deporting those in the country illegally. Consequently, there remained a large number of undocumented foreigners, primarily in the South, whom Italy could neither legalize nor expel.28 With the exception of the 1991 Albanian crisis, the issue had dropped from sight. The cabinet politics of the Amato administration reflected the general neglect of the issue. In shrinking
14 the size of the cabinet, Amato stripped the immigration ministry of its cabinet status and relegated its responsibilities to an "obscure and understaffed" cabinet office.29 The Amato government's most significant immigration initiative was the July re-issuing of the Boniver decree (named after the previous immigration minister), which had first been submitted shortly before the elections. Virtually all the immigrant advocacy groups opposed this proposal, because it restricted the rights of immigrants facing deportation. The first major success claimed by the Anti-racist Pact was its contribution to defeating this proposal. This decree, which was re-issued three times, was finally defeated when amendments put forward by an alliance including the Pact and the a proimmigrant, lawyer’s organization, the Association for Juridical Studies on Immigration (Associazione per gli studi giuridici sull'immigrazione) cast doubt on the decree’s constitutionality. 30 The Pact's most daring proposal was its effort to regularize most of the undocumented immigrants. At a meeting in Assisi on March 19, 1993 the Pact decided to propose an amendment to the general employment legislation (D.L. 57, March 10) that would regulate seasonal labor and provide an amnesty for illegal immigrants, whether they were working as seasonal workers or not. This amendment, based on a draft worked out by its members and signed by thirty deputies, was submitted to the public and private works committee on March 23. The committee voted overwhelmingly in support of the measure, but the chair then ruled it non-germane. After the President of the House, Giorgio Napolitano (PDS) reversed this decision, these amendments were passed by a large majority in the House on April 21, 1993.31 The amendments never came to a vote in the Senate as the Amato government fell. The Pact sought to convince the next technical government, led by Ciampi, to support its proposal. Despite the Pact's public demonstrations and private meetings, it could not persuade the new
15 labor minister Gino Giugni to include its amendments in the re-issued employment decree (D.L.148, May 20). Ministerial testimony at subsequent hearings would indicate the grounds for the government's reservations about the Pact's proposals. The Minister of Social Affairs, Fernanda Contri, claimed that it was a surreptitious general amnesty and would jeopardize Italy’s relations with its European neighbors who were concerned with tightening the border controls.32 The Ciampi government addressed seasonal labor in a new decree law, (D.L.200, June 22), a response which the Pact saw as inadequate. 33 In response, legislators sympathetic to the Pact proposed an amendment to the employment legislation that was similar to the one submitted to the spring employment legislation. After this amendment was approved by a large majority on July 2 in Senate Labor Committee, it appeared likely that the entire Senate would do the same.34 The amendment was derailed when the government called for a vote of confidence on the employment legislation, a tactic that eliminated all amendments. The Pact then sought to insert this amendment into the seasonal labor decree (D.L. 200). When this strategy appeared as though it would succeed, the government withdrew its decree, with the intention of setting up a commission to produce a comprehensive bipartisan program.35 The Anti-racist Pact's legislative record was mixed. It defeated the proposals, such as the Boniver decree on expulsions, and the seasonal labor law that it found overly restrictive. Although it managed to convince several committees and one house of parliament of the validity of its approach to the issues of amnesty and seasonal labor, the anti-racist Pact in the end was incapable of passing legislation. The “space” for these politics was enhanced by the decay in the party system. While the “natural” constituency of the Pact came from the opposition parties, the Democratic Party of the Left
16 (PDS) and the Refounded Communist Party (RC) that emerged from the old Italian Communist party, this legislative activity also drew critical support from Christian Democratic (DC) legislators. The DC support for the Pact’s immigration proposals was the result of two processes. First, General Secretary Martinazzoli was more sympathetic to liberal positions within the party than his predecessor. While his tenure in office was marked by a reluctance to choose between the reformers and the traditionalists, he did allocate party responsibilities to the progressive wing of the party.36 An example of this shifting priority was the appointment of Lucia Fronza as the parliamentarian responsible for Social Policy. Representative Fronza had been identified with pro-immigrant constituencies and the Caritas and would become a focal point for lobbying. Second and more importantly, the weakening hold of the party over its parliamentarians gave the Anti-racist Pact more room to maneuver. Although the DC was the most important member of both the Amato and the Ciampi governments, it was unable to maintain discipline over its parliamentarians, who in both the House and the Senate voted repeatedly against government positions.37 Compared with the politics of the 1990 Martelli Law, the differences in the actors and the venue stand out. The absence of party leadership, the strength of the pro-immigrant lobby, and the importance of individual parliamentarians represent a striking change from the 1990, where party leadership had decided the shape of legislation in cabinet meetings, and little had changed during the parliamentary debates. The Majoritarian System and the Marginalization of the Pro-immigrant Advocates The unusual formula of the Pact--electoral endorsements and a mix between parliamentary caucus and an alliance of pro-immigrant advocacy groups--proved quite adept at exploiting the opportunities that emerged during this period. It would, however, prove difficult to sustain. The most
17 obvious complication was that under the new majoritarian political system, the endorsements of individual candidates would prove counter-productive. Under the old system, where multiple candidates ran in single districts, and the governing coalition was known in advance, a change of a few seats would make no difference. Under the new system, where the progressive alliance as a whole chose the candidates for each electoral district and the outcome was in doubt, supporting candidates from the right-center alliance, however sympathetic to immigration they might be, would undermine the left-center coalition. Secondly, the mixed interest group--parliamentary caucus would compound the difficulties of its relations with the ministries. The fact that it was not simply an interest group provided the ministry of Social Affairs a justification for ignoring it during its formal round of interest group consultations.38 Third, the group's flexible organizational structure made for difficulties. On occasion, unpopular decisions were taken without consulting important members. In the spring of 1993, the release of a document harshly criticizing a government official set off an unsuccessful pursuit of more formal procedures for internal consultation.39 The turn to a new electoral system would return the policy initiative to the political parties. A majoritarian system was chosen in order to give rise to a bipolar political system, which, according to the claims of the party government model, should produce more coherent and less corrupt forms of policy making. In March of 1994, Italy voted for the first time with a majoritarian electoral system. An unwieldy coalition of the center-right, led by Silvio Berlusconi, won by constructing an alliance in the north with the Lega, a radical, populist party that had explicitly exploited immigration in previous elections, and in the South with the National Alliance (AN), a post-fascist party, whose predecessor the Italian Social Movement (MSI) had fought the Martelli law and supported restrictive legislation.
18 The government did not confront the issue until the fall. Initially reluctant, it responded to popular concern over prostitution and boats of illegal immigrants landing on Italian shore. Both the Lega and the National Alliance proposed restrictive legislation.40 The proposals of the National Alliance were consistently restrictive, whereas the Lega presented an ambiguous policy posture. On the one hand, the law it proposed in parliament was restrictionist. Making a point of its “high content of public order”, the proposed legislation emphasized the long list of crimes for which immigrants should be immediately expelled, but was silent on provisions for integrating those already present in Italy. On the other hand, Roberto Maroni, the Interior Minister from the Lega, testified before Parliament that immigrants already working in Italy, who lacked only a “piece of paper”, should be entitled to legalize their status.41 Forza Italia did not present any legislation in parliament. The politics within the government reflected the parties' interests. When the issue re-emerged in the fall, responsibility was given to a special commission, headed by Elven Pastorelli, a representative of the Interior Ministry. After some injudicious statements and actions, the responsibility was placed into the hands of the Ministry for Family and Social Affairs, headed by Antonio Guidi, a prominent union supporter of Forza Italia. The immigration stance of this ministry was less restrictionist than either the ministry of the Interior or Justice.42 In September, prodded by public opinion and the legislative proposals of AN and the Lega, the Government announced its intention to develop legislation. The political conflicts were resolved in interministerial negotiations, which directly involved prominent party leaders. Undersecretary Maurizio Gasparri (AN) represented the Justice Ministry and Undersecretary Mario Borghezio (Lega) represented the Interior Ministry. This agreement would never be submitted to the cabinet for further discussion. However, the original proposals, which were circulated and then leaked to the newspaper il
19 Manifesto, and the public writings of Guido Bolaffi, the author of the government proposals, make it possible to analyze the political compromises involved in the legislation. Bolaffi sought to depoliticize the issue, by taking it out of the hands of the parties and making it an administrative question. He took as his guide the politics of the "settler states", that Freeman had indicated should be the model for these new immigration states. In the journal Il Mulino, Bolaffi explicitly took to task the "paladins of the ultra right" (with whom he was now negotiating) and "the ideologues of the most extreme left" (by which he meant the anti-racist Pact) for politically exploiting the issue.43 In the ministerial meetings, Bolaffi represented the more moderate political interests of Forza Italia. He succeeded in limiting the deportations that the conservative forces sought to apply broadly to those who had entered the country illegally and to exclude those who had entered legally and overstayed their visas. The proposal that emerged can be read as a compromise between the more open politics of Forza Italia and the restrictive ones of the AN and the Lega. Despite this agreement, this legislative proposal never made it beyond the ministry. It was, in the end, too low a priority for a government with an abbreviated termThis proposed legislation was in no way affected by the lobbying of the Anti-racist Pact, which had been effectively marginalized. Though the Pact continued its lobbying under a different organizational rubric, the regime shift left it with little space in which to operate. While it could still provide technical support and assistance for its allies, there was no longer a potential legislative majority to influence.44 It had little entree into the parties of government, far less than into the DC in the First Republic or during the period of party crisis and technical governments. It also had little access to the Family and Social Affairs ministry and found itself losing the battle over public opinion. The term for amnesty "sanatoria", which previously had enjoyed a positive or at least a neutral connotation, had developed a decidedly pejorative resonance.45
20 The internal dynamics of the immigration lobby changed as well. The parties in the Progressive Alliance sought to regain the initiative in the legislative arena that they had left to the Pact and its members during this period of collapsing parties and technical governments. They established a standing inter-party caucus on immigration, with two members of each sympathetic party, to which representatives of what had been the anti-racist Pact were invited as regular participants. From the parties' standpoint, the new structures had the benefit of making sure that deals made between the various parties can be reliably kept.46 From the lobbyists' standpoint, this new system meant less autonomy and initiative.47 The majoritarian rules produced more centralized parties and correspondingly less autonomy for individual parliamentarians than the proportional representation system where candidates’ success depending on how well they did on their party’s list. The old system had allowed candidates to develop appeals to different constituencies and limited party’s control over them. In the eyes of the lobbyists, the parties’ enhanced control (particularly in the PDS) over the nominating process has made parliamentarians less willing to support causes like immigration that did not provide immediate positive visibility or that could bring them into conflict with their party’s or coalition's leadership. Finding sympathetic legislators was made more difficult by turnover in the legislature. The lobbyists regarded those elected in the spring of 1994 as less movement-oriented and less sympathetic than those in the previous legislature. The large number of new faces led one activist to speak of the need to "educate" a new generation of parliamentarians.48 In sum, the strengthening of the parties has come at the expense of pro-immigrant lobby autonomy. Even though the Berlusconi administration's internal contradictions could not be overcome and its conflictual mode of governance would prove self-defeating, its member parties did re-establish
21 their initiative on immigration policy. The Pact's difficulty both in resisting these policy initiatives and in maintaining its autonomy within the Progressive Alliance further clarifies the link between the Pact's form of interest group politics and the crisis of the First Republic party system. Conclusion: Parties and Interest Groups Revisited The conclusion will draw out the implications of this research and suggest alternative national comparative cases. It will reflect on the implications of this case for Freeman's comparative analysis and speculate as to the future of pro-immigrant interest groups in Italy. For the past three decades, political parties have been seen as the dominant actors in the Italian political system, and, despite a history of precarious, litigious governing coalitions, as the major determinant of public policy. The interest group approach, where policy outcomes are determined by conflicts between different social groups, has rarely been posed as an alternative model. Even though the permeability of Italian parties and the governmental institutions, particularly in the legislative arena, would seem to accord these actors space to operate, this approach has received little attention. The reason for this neglect has been, as Salvatore Vasallo has argued, that "This particular type of interaction, traditionally less used in Italy than in other countries (particularly in relation to the case of the American political system) has been contained on the one hand by the strong integrative capacities of the same parties and on the other by the low level of organizational autonomy of interest groups". 49 The broad outlines of Italian government transformation in the 1990s represent a natural experiment for testing the effects of party system changes on policy outcomes. The disintegration of the parties, heralded by the emergence of technical governments, would provide interest groups more space, particularly in parliament, in which to operate. However incomplete and transitional the
22 Berlusconi phase proved to be, the move to a majoritarian form enabled parties to restrict that space and regain the initiative. In fact, the party government position, articulated most extensively by Pasquino and Vasallo, does account for the source of policy initiative. In the first and third phases, party leadership preferences clearly predicts the general policy outcome and forum. In the first phase, the stamp of Martelli was indelible on the 1990 legislation. In the final phase, the finger prints of party concern can be seen on the proposals discussed within the ministries. Only during the crisis of the First Republic in 1992 and 1993 were there markedly different politics. During this period, the pro-immigrant lobby formed an autonomous organization that skillfully exploited the weaknesses of the party system, and by dint of its ability to influence individual parliamentarians, frustrated government initiatives and advanced its own. The radicalism of this break from conventional practices can be seen by juxtaposing it with Raphael Zariski's assessment that it had traditionally made "much more sense for an interest group to approach a minister, an undersecretary, the secretary of an extraparliamentary party organization, or the leader of a party parliamentary group than to solicit the support of individual Mps". 50 Although its activities were circumscribed by the government's legislative proposals and the results of its initiatives limited by broader political and legislative conflicts, the Pact left its mark on the legislative process. It defeated government proposals and broadened the sphere of debate by raising the issue of how to incorporate undocumented workers, at a time that the government was proposing restrictive regulation and public opinion was largely unconcerned with the problem. Insofar as Freeman's comparative interest group analysis is concerned, this article suggests skepticism for the present and raises intriguing questions for the future. As to the long-term possibilities for self-representation, Italian immigrants are at a particular disadvantage since they represent an
23 enormous diversity of homelands. Their small numbers and internal divisions have to this point made it difficult for them to represent themselves directly.51 The business groups that have supported labor migration in other countries have been tended towards restrictionist policies, but have mostly remained uninvolved in the public debates.52 However, to tie their potential exclusively to the development of r internal resources and capacities for interest group self-representation is to neglect the role of broader transformations in the relations between parties and interest groups. Indeed, in the long term, the influence of pro-immigrant lobbies depends on how political parties structure their relations with interest groups that have been becoming increasingly autonomous and demanding within Italian society. The effects of the change in the party system are ambiguous. The hegemonic role that political parties traditionally played in the first Republic, where individuals maintained close ties to a party or a political subculture, seem unlikely to be duplicated. Over the past two decades, political polarization has declined, accelerated by the collapse of Communism, and voter loyalties have attenuated. In addition, the recent transformation to a majoritarian system has made enemies out of former allies and led to alliances between former enemies. Nonetheless, as the experience of pro-immigrant lobbies with the Progressive Alliance during the Berlusconi government suggest, the stronger, more disciplined parties of a majoritarian system might prove less permeable to interest groups.53 Nonetheless, if this boundary does not shift in ways that strengthen interest groups in their relationship with parties, it is difficult to see Italian immigration politics converging on the settler state model, in the way that Freeman suggests.54 Even though mainstream Italian parties have demonstrated a reticence to take on the issue, it is unlikely that the issue would escape party control to the extent that it has in countries with weak party systems. such as Switzerland and the United States. In the United States, the volatile coalitions independent of party and the aggressive lobbying of individual legislators
24 has been the rule. Particularly in the 1996 debates over immigration, interest group lobbying has had a substantial effect on the legislative outcome.55 As Freeman argues, Italy is in the vanguard of European immigration politics. It is the first of the “new immigration” countries in Europe, including Greece, Spain and Portugal, to confront politically the transformation from being a country of emigration to one of immigration. Only by carefully analyzing developments over the five years since the period of the transitional period, as the majoritarian system consolidates and as the policy questions left open by the Martelli law are confronted, can we see whether the politics of the anti-racist Pact were the harbinger of future interest group politics or the proverbial exception that proves the rule of party domination of the policy process
*
This project has been funded by a research fellowship from the J. William Fulbright Scholar Program that enabled me to do fifty interviews in Rome. It was greatly facilitated by the resources of the Agnelli Foundation, the Center for the Study of Emigration, and the Istituto Richerche Economico Sociale (IRES) in Rome. I would particularly like to thank the leaders of the pro-immigrant lobbies and government officials who were generous with their time, allowed me to attend meetings, and provided access to their records. Comments made on earlier drafts by Martin Schain, Leah Haus, Steven Hellman, Madeleine Tress, and Chiara Ferrari have been helpful.
1
As has often been noted, this can produce “strange bedfellow” coalitions. James F. Hollifield “The Politics of International Migration: How Can We “Bring the State Back in”?” in Carolina F. Brettell and James F. Hollifield, Migration Theory: Talking Across Disciplines, p. 172
2.
This line of analysis draws from Thomas Hammar, "Comparative Analysis," in Thomas Hammar, ed., European Immigration Policy: A Comparative Study (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1985), pp. 239-305.
3.
Gary P. Freeman, "Modes of Immigration Politics in the Liberal Democratic States," International Migration Review, xxix (1995), 881-97. For a critical response emphasizing the role of political parties, see Ted Perlmutter, "Bringing Parties Back In: Comments on 'Modes of Immigration Politics in Liberal Democratic Societies'," International Migration Review, 30 (1996), 375-88.
25
4.
Of the voluminous literature, see Richard S Katz, "Party Government: A Rationalistic Conception," in ed., F. G. Castels and R. Wildenmann, Visions and Realities of Party Government (New York: De Gruyter, 1986), pp. 31-71; Gianfranco Pasquino "Party Government in Italy: Achievements and Prospects," in ed., Richard S. Katz, Party Governments: European and American Experiences (New York: De Gruyter, 1987), pp. 202-42; Salvatore Vassallo, Il governo di partito in Italia (1943-1993) (Bologna: il Mulino, 1994); and Maurizio Cotta, "Il governo di partito in Italia. Crisi e trasformazione dell'assetto tradizionale," Mario et. al. Caciagli, ed., L'Italia fra crisi e transizione (Rome: Laterza, 1994), pp. 119-40.
5.
Morris F. Fiorina, "Party Government in the United States: Diagnosis and Prognosis," in Richard S. Katz, ed., Party Governments: European and American Experiences (New York: De Gruyter, 1987), p.273). This formulation is a concise restatement of Richard Katz’s variables.
6.
Joseph LaPalombara, Interest Groups in Italian Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964). On the neglect of interest groups, see Joseph La Palombara, "'Clientele e Parentela' rivisitato," in Mario Caciaglo et. al., ed., L'Italia fra crisi e transizione (Rome: Laterza, 1994), pp. 23-44 and Angelo Panebianco, "Le strutture di rappresentanza," in Leonardo Morlino, ed. Scienza politica: Guide Agli Studi Di Scienze Sociali in Italia (Turin: Fondazione Giovanni Agnelli, 1989), pp. 130-137.
7.
This discussion draws on an argument developed at greater length in Ted Perlmutter, “Immigration Politics Italian Style: The Paradoxical Behaviour of Mainstream and Populist Parties," South European Society and Politics, 1 (1996), 229-52.
8.
When contrasted with other European countries, Italian cabinet formation is more likely to be determined by "composition of coalition" and the "distribution of offices" than policy agreement in Michael Laver and Norman Schofield, Multiparty Government: The Politics of Coalition in Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 413-415.
9.
Pasquino "Party Government in Italy”, p. 213.
10.
Gianfranco Pasquino, Istituzioni, partiti, lobbies (Rome: Laterza, 1988), 126-132. On the parliament’s permeability to lobbies, see also David Hine, Governing Italy: The Politics of Bargained Pluralism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 182.
11.
On the grounds for competition, see Geoffrey Pridham, Political Parties and Coalitional Behavior in Italy (London: Routledge, 1988), pp. 168, 327.
26
12.
Camera dei Deputati, “Immigrazione e condizione dello straniero” Indagine conoscitiva Atti Parlamentari, 10th Legislature (novembre 1988-dicembre 1989), December 13, 1988, p. 36.
13.
Data derived from chapter 4 of ISPES, La Legge Martelli e i mass-media: analisi di contenuto (Rome: ISPES, 1991). For a detailed analysis of politicians willingness to speak on the Martelli law, see Ted Perlmutter, “Immigration Politics Italian Style”, 234-239.
14.
See Massimo Pastore, "La nuova legge sugli straniere extracomunitari: Disciplina innovativa o razionalizzazione dell'esistente," Questione Giustizia, (1990), 333-335. For the parliament's description of its effects on the legislation, see Camera dei Deputati, "Immigrazione e condizione dello straniero", pp. 301-311.
15.
It has similar characteristics, that is party agreement and dominance, and marginalization of bureaucrats and parliamentary officials, that characterize other policy successes in the First Republic. For an elaboration of these conditions and a discussion of previous cases, see Lange and Regini, pp. 261. On the bureaucratic constraints on the presentation of new legislation, see John W. P. Veugelers, "Recent Immigration Politics in Italy: A Short Story," in Martin Baldwin-Edwards and Martin Schain, ed., The Politics of Immigration in Western Europe (Essex: Frank Cass, 1994), pp. 33-49.
16.
Giacomo Sani, "Il verdetto del 1992," in Giacomo Sani and Renato Mannheimer, ed., La Rivoluzione elettorale: L'Italia tra la prima e la seconda repubblica (Milan: Anabasi, 1994), p. 56.
17.
A good picture of this period can be found in Donatella Della Porta, "Milan: Immoral Capital," in Stephen Hellman and Gianfranco Pasquino, eds., Italian Politics: A Review, Volume 8 (London: Pinter, 1993).
18.
On this period, see Vassallo, Il governo di partito, pp. 266-269.
19.
On Congressional caucuses as a sign of party weakness, see Roger H. Davidson, "New Forms of Interest Representation in the U.S. Congress," in Fred Eidlen, Constitutional Democracy: Essays in Comparative Politics (Boulder: Westview, 1983), pp. 376-95. On the Segni pact, see N. Zanon, "Il 'Patto Segni' e il diritto costituzionale della rappresentanza politica," Quaderni costituzionale, (1993), 195-209.
20.
Agostino Bevilacqua, a founder of the group, said that the organizers had, in fact, been inspired by the Segni Pact, which had succeeded in changing the electoral laws. Interview October 1994.
21.
Campagna ‘Nuovi diritti di cittadinanza per un parlamento antirazzista’, Per l'europa dei diritti, della solidarietà, della convivenza, (Rome: Editrice Promofim, 1993) p. 15-16.
22.
Il Manifesto February 26, 1995.
27
23.
The Rome Caritas publishes an annual report on the state of immigration that is one of the most authoritative and influential texts in the public debates. Caritas diocesana di Roma, Immigrazione: Dossier statistico 1994 (Rome: Anterem, 1994).
24.
Interview with leader of S.O.S. Razzismo, February 1995.
25.
Pasquino, Istituzioni, partiti, lobbies, pp. 126, 130-131.
26.
On the CGIL position, see the interview with Adriana Buffardi, the director of its labor market department, in Gianfranco Casale “E lo stato sta a guardare”, Nuova Rassegna Sindacale, 28, July 26, 1993, p. 18. On the CISL dissent, see Roberto Magni, Consiglio Nazionale dell’Economia e del Lavoro (CNEL), Commisione per la nuova rappresentanza (VI), May 19, 1993, p.2. On the divisions within the church, see Giovanna Zincone, Uno schermo contro il razzismo: Per una politica dei diritti utili (Rome: Donzelli, 1994), 21.
27.
Interview with parliamentary member of Pact, March 1995.
28.
Estimates vary as to how many illegal immigrants were in Italy, but the CENSIS figure of 525,000 from third world countries in 1993 is a reasonable one. Centro Studi Investimenti Sociali, Inventare una società neocompetitiva, (Milan: Franco Angeli 1994), pp. 318-319.
29.
Guido Bolaffi, “L'immigrazione sottratta alla logica dell'emergenza," il Mulino, 43 (1994), 1054-1055.
30.
Its claim of victory can be seen in a "Open letter to our allies" by Dino Frisullo of Senzaconfine, August 28, 1992. Its role was confirmed by an interview with Guido Bolaffi, February 1995.
31.
Napolitano testimony, Atti Parliamentari, 11th Legislature, Camera dei Deputati, p. 12803. The Undersecretary of Foreign Ministry requested the retraction of this amendment fearing repercussions on public order and relations with Europe. 11th Commission, May 4 1993, p. 28.
32.
Testimony before the 11th Commission, Senate, July 7, 1993 p. 66
33.
For a union analysis of the law sympathetic to government’s position, see Viscomi, Antonio “Una legislazione difficile per il lavoro degli immigrati” Lavoro Informazione, n.14, 1993 pp. 5-10. For a more critical interpretation from a representative of the Caritas, see Sergio Briguglio, "Linee per una nuova politica dell'immigrazione," Affari Sociali Internazionali, 21 (1993), 73-82.
34.
On the confidence of the Pact and its allies, see letter dated July 7, 1993 from Senzaconfine to the heads of the parliamentary delegations in the Senate.
35.
See testimony before 11th Commision, Senate, on July 7, 1993, p. 66 and July 28, p. 115. Interview with Guido Bolaffi, February 1995.
28
36.
On Martinazolli’s role as cautious reformer, see Douglas A. Wertman, "L'ultimo anno di vita della democrazia cristiana," in Carol Merschon and Gianfranco Pasquino, ed., Politica in Italia: I fatti dell'anno e le interpretazioni 1994 ed. (Bologna: il Mulino, 1994), p. 120 and Marco Follini, C'era una volta la DC (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1994), p. 87.
37.
This phenomenon of voting against one’s own government was not unknown in the politics of the First Republic. However, rarely was it as determinant on a consistent basis as it was on immigration questions during this period.
38.
Senzaconfine, "Il rapporto con il governo Ciampi: Un bilancio" March 1994 (document distributed at CNEL meeting).
39.
See open letter from Stefano Magnabosco, Giampiero Cioffredi, Annamaria Dupré, and Ali Baba Faye, to members of the Pact, March 24, 1993.
40.
For a summary of difficulties, see Tiziano Treu, "Cittadino e straniero nel diritto del lavoro," Iustitia, 46 (1993), 146. On the political climate, cf. Laura Balbo, "Passagio di fase [a partire dagli immigrati]," Politica ed Economia, (1994), 20-21.
41.
The Lega legislative proposal was No. 1327, September 26, 1994. On Maroni's position, see his testimony before the House Commission on Constitutional Affairs, 1st Commission, 12th Legislature, October 11 1994, pp. 96-97, and La Repubblica, October 12, 1994.
42.
"Via Pastorelli, tocca a Guidi" La Repubblica, September 17, 1994.
43.
Guido Bolaffi, “L'immigrazione sottratta alla logica dell'emergenza.”, 1055.
44.
The Progressive Alliance's immigration reform proposals for both the House (N. 1314, September 26, 1994) and the Senate (N. 1119, November 9, 1994) would be written by Pact members. Interview with SOS Razzismo leader, February 1995.
45.
See Guido Bolaffi, "Perché non dobbiamo cedere al partito della ‘Sanatoria’", La Repubblica, September 27, 1994. On the increasingly pejorative status of the term, see the speeches by Angelo Airoldi (CGIL) and Representative Luigi Manconi (Greens) at a national union conference, Nuova Rassegna Sindacale 3/95, x, xxiii.
46.
Interview with Democratic Party of the Left (PDS) representative on standing inter-party caucus on immigration, March 1995.
47 .
Interview with lobbyist from Caritas, March 1995.
29
48.
Interview with lobbyists from Caritas and Senza Confine, March 1995.
49.
Vassallo, Il governo di partito, 261.
50.
Raphael Zariski, "Italy: The Fragmentation of Power and Its Consequences," in Clive S. Thomas, ed., First World Interest Groups (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1993), p. 138.
51.
Daniela Gianetti, "La partecipazione politica degli immigrati: strutture di 'voice' ed di rappresentanza," in Elena Granaglia and Marco Magnaghi, ed., Immigrazione: Quali politiche pubbliche (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1990), pp. 215-36. See Tiziana Caponio, “Partecipazione politica” in Giovanni Zincone (ed) Primo rapporto sull’integrazione degli immigrati in Italia, (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2000), pp. 374-379.
52.
The most notable exception has been the Agnelli Foundation, supported by FIAT, which has made the case both in testimony before parliamentary commission and in its publications for a more restrictive immigration policy.
53
See Tiziana Caponio, “Partecipazione politica” in Giovanni Zincone (ed) Primo rapporto sull’integrazione degli immigrati in Italia, (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2000), p. 370.
54
Subsequent legislation does indeed show the marks of political compromise between parties . For a discussion of the 1997 legislative debates leading up the to 1998/40 law, see Francesco Zucchini “La genesi in parliamento della legge sull’immigrazione” in Fondazioni Cariplo I.S.M.U., Quattro rapporto sulle migrazioni 1998, (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1999) pp. 61-72. For a sense of the bitterness of the conflict, see the coverage in Caritas di Roma (Franco Pittau ed.) Immigrazione alle soglie del 2000 (Rome: Sinnos 1999), pp. 38-44.
55.
On Switzerland, see H-J Hoffman-Nowotny, "Switzerland," in Thomas Hammar, (ed.), European Immigration Policy: A Comparative Study. On the unions’ lobbying in the 1980s American immigration legislation, see Leah Haus, "Openings in the Wall: Transnational Migrants, Labor Unions, and U.S. Immigration Policy," International Organization, 49 (1995), 285-313. On the critical role of the software industry in limiting restrictions on the most recent legislation see John Heilemann, "The Netizen: Do You Know the Way to Ban José," Wired, 4 (1996), 45-48, 176-81. Perversely, the unpredictable and unstable coalitions caused by the centrality of interest groups make it unlikely that the issue would be exploited by parties. If parties are not able to anticipate outcomes, they are less likely to mobilize on the issue.
