Defining Party and Government

Abstract

An examination of the relationship between government and party implies that the meaning of the two concepts and the two phenomena is made clear. It also means that we must have the instruments enabling us to discover variations across countries and over time with respect to these phenomena. We are still far from having reached this point. Most discussions which take place in this respect are based on oversimplifications. There is a strong temptation for instance to use holistic interpretations: both phenomena are commonly analysed as if they were unitary actors — values, perceptions, goals, actions are ascribed to them. While this view may be close to reality in some cases, though probably for only one of the two phenomena at a time, this is not true in most cases. Party and government are more likely to be either arenas where a variety of actors compete or cooperate among themselves or systems, that is to say composite entities, which result from interactions among their components. Which view best fits reality cannot be decided in advance: it is, rather, an empirical matter.

The work for this chapter was supported by a grant of the Italian Centro Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR 97.00650.ct09) and by the foundation Monte dei Paschi di Siena — Istituto di diritto pubblico. I also want to acknowledge the suggestions offered by Wolfgang Müller and the help of Dr Luca Verzichelli in many stages of the research and in elaborating and drawing the figures.