Silvio Berlusconi's party of only children: the organizational model of Forza Italia

Abstract

Since it was founded in 1994, Silvio Berlusconi’s party, “Forza Italia”, turned over the traditional shape of the Italian political system. Its structure doesn’t fit any of the classifications which have been created from the time of Duverger on, except perhaps for Angelo Panebianco’s definition (1982) of charismatic party. The object of the paper is the parliamentary class of Forza Italia, which can be almost totally overlapped to the party class, differently from what happened in mass ideological parties. This overlap has two main reasons: the gain for the party in having its executives paid directly from public institutions, and above all – the degree of control that the party leader achieves, having the power to choose the candidates and - as a result - a huge direct power on the party structure itself, making party statutes actually uneffective. The research, conducted by interviewing 50 members of the Parliament of Forza Italia with the methods of vignettes and open interviews, tries to explain the power relationships between party executives, members of the Parliament and the leader.