Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 July 2018
Le elezioni politiche del 27-28 marzo 1994 si sono svolte in un quadro competitivo contrassegnato, rispetto al passato recente, da molteplici novità. Tali novità debbono attribuirsi essenzialmente alla concomitanza e all'intreccio di due fattori, fonte entrambi di incertezza e di (potenziale) trasformazione: (a) il cambiamento della legge elettorale e (b) il prodursi (nell'ultimo biennio) di un rapido quanto imprevisto processo di destrutturazione partitica. Come conseguenza della ridefinizione della struttura dei vincoli e degli incentivi competitivi degli attori (nuova legge elettorale) e/o per effetto del mutamento partitico e della transizione verso equilibri partitici non ben definiti ma sicuramente diversi da quelli tradizionali (processo di destrutturazione), ne è scaturita un'offerta elettorale dalla configurazione per buona parte inedita.
The general elections of March 1994 have been held under new conditions, mainly due to: (a) the new electoral system; (b) the destructuring and transformation of the party system. The essay points out the strategic adaptation of political forces to the new institutional and political conditions. The first section provides an overview of the transition from old to new political parties. The second and third sections deal with the feature which came out as the most important in this electoral competition: the emergence of electoral coalitions competing for plurality representation (3/4 of parliamentary seats according to the new electoral system). As to the politics of electoral coalitions, the analysis focuses on two points of view: the making of electoral alliances and their internal regulation. A national electoral aggregation (the progressive alliance) was easely built up by leftwing parties, led by PDS. On the opposite political side, the creation of an electoral aggregation was more difficult. The puzzle found this solution: two right-wing macroregional coalitions and one national coalition for the centre (Pact for Italy). The new movement founded by Mr. Berlusconi (Forza Italia) was the common partner within the right-wing coalitions: in Northern Italy (Pole of Liberties) with the federalist Northern League; in the South (Pole of Good Government) with the post-fascist National Alliance. The right-wing coalitions were more efficient with the adapting to the new electoral rules. The allocations of constituencies within each coalition depended mainly on: (a) the number of actors, (b) the degree of centralisation of the decision making process, and (c) the scope of agreement. These factors influenced the criterion of regulation within each coalition: the left-side adopted an almost complete proportionalisation of the agreement, the right-side adopted a more efficient compensative criterion, the centre based the agreement according to the regional organizational capacity. A final section gives aggregate data on territorial differences about both competitive conditions and typological characteristics of candidates.