The many political legacies of Silvio Berlusconi

ABSTRACT

Silvio Berlusconi’s enduring influence on Italian politics is profound, marking a transformative era that reshaped the nation’s political, institutional, and communicative landscapes. As Italy’s longest-serving prime minister since World War II, Berlusconi’s tenure and actions have left indelible marks on the country’s governance and political culture. His leadership of Forza Italia, a party he founded in 1994, epitomizes his central role in fostering a political environment characterized by personalized leadership and media-centric campaigning. This analysis explores Berlusconi’s multifaceted legacy, from his party’s organizational and financial strategies to his impact on Italy’s political system and media landscape. It discusses the challenges and transformations within Forza Italia and the broader right-wing coalition in the post-Berlusconi era, assessing the party’s future and Berlusconi’s lasting imprint on Italian politics and media.

KEYWORDS:

• Silvio Berlusconi
• Forza Italia
• Italian politics
• Italian right
• Giorgia Meloni

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. S. Berlusconi, ‘Che cos’è Forza Italia’, in La Stampa, 5 July 1994. The idea of abandoning the mass party model was theorized by Giuliano 1994, who took up the ‘In Search of Good Government’ project (with the association of the same name) that led to the foundation of the party’s first local branches, the Forza Italia Clubs, in 1993. A significant innovation was proposed, not only in communicative style but also in terms of means and, more importantly, in terms of aims. The liberal revolution, outlined in what would become the guide for candidates standing in the 1994 elections, was inspired by the legacy of the Reagan and Thatcher era. It promised ‘less bureaucracy, a reduction of the tax burden on citizens, economic deregulation, defence of the market and individualism, budget discipline, reduction of the public debt, and rationalization of welfare, along with injections of managerial culture into the state machine’ (Campi and Varasano 2013). See Orsina (2023) for a more comprehensive evaluation of the social dynamics and numerous limitations of the Berlusconi experience, notably the greater importance of the populist as compared to the liberal component.

2. Letizia Moratti, mayor of Milan from 2006 to 2011, joined the PdL (2009–2011) but did not join FI until October 2023 when, among other things, she was asked by Tajani to lead a consulting committee in preparation of the congress.

3. Space constraints prevent us from addressing the changing electoral geography of the party, which it will be possible to analyse more profitably after the 2024 European Parliament elections and (given that the latter will be second-order contests) especially after the general election at the end of the 19th legislature.

4. Translator’s note: These allow taxpayers, when filing their tax returns, to channel 0.02% of the tax they owe to a political party of their choice.

5. Cf. ‘Forza Italia a corto di liquidità: i debiti sono quasi 100 milioni, il tesoriere corre ai ripari con le banche’, la Repubblica, 24 November 2023, where we read, ‘Coming to the aid of the party’s meagre finances is the Cavaliere’s brother, Paolo. In the guarantees section (pledges and mortgages), it is revealed that those of Forza Italia amount to €7 million, with €3 million issued by Silvio Berlusconi and €4 million by his brother Paolo. These guarantees were deemed necessary “in view of the credit facilities granted by a banking institution” to the party […] In his quarterly report, Roscioli gives assurances that from July to October 2023, “indebtedness to the banks was reduced by about one million euros”. From this it can be inferred that, as of today, “liabilities” to the credit institutions amount to €4,642,000. At present, it remains unclear whether the five sons of the former premier have also inherited the party’s debts and will take responsibility for them’.

6. With a similar number of ministries, the League secured the Economy portfolio (Giancarlo Giorgetti) and the appointment, as Interior Minister, of Matteo Piantedosi, an independent technocrat with ties to the party and formerly chief of staff at the ministry during Salvini’s tenure in 2018 and 2019. In 2023, in addition to Tajani at Foreign Affairs, Forza Italia had four other ministers, including two with portfolios – Gilberto Pichetto Frattin (Environment and Energy Security) and Anna Maria Bernini (Universities and Research) – and two without portfolios: Paolo Zangrillo (Public Administration) and Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati (Institutional Reform and Administrative Simplification). Throughout 2023, Tajani’s popularity among ministers significantly exceeded that of his party colleagues.

7. At the end of 2023, in the average of all polls, FI’s support compared to a year earlier rose from 6.9 to 7.1%, YouTrend/Agi Supermedia: the 2023 of parties, Dec. 29, 2023, available at: https://www.youtrend.it/2023/12/29/supermedia-youtrend-agi-fdi-al-288-pd-al-194-2-2-2-2-2/.

8. https://www.camera.it/leg19/1083.

9. Cf. P. de Caro, ‘Forza Italia, ribaltone ai vertici. Gasparri capogruppo al Senato’, Corriere della Sera, 21 November 2023. Actually, since the departure from the party of the more ‘centrist’ or ‘institutional’ component, whose members (i.e. Renato Brunetta, Mara Carfagna and Mariastella Gelmini) had been Cabinet ministers during the Draghi government, identifying ideological divisions within the party has been quite complex.

10. Interview with Antonio Funiciello, executive, former policy official and then chief of staff to prime ministers Paolo Gentiloni and Mario Draghi, essayist, 1 December 2023 (see also Funiciello 2019).

11. Interview with Luigi di Gregorio, professor of Political Science at the University of Viterbo, communications consultant to the president of the Lazio region, 1 December 2023.

12. ‘I numeri del governo Meloni a un anno dalla nomina’, http://www.openpolis.it, 25 October 2023.

13. Disegno di legge costituzionale. XIX legsilatura, No. 935, available at https://www.senato.it/service/PDF/PDFServer/DF/428967.pdf.

14. See the 3 November 2023 press conference, https://www.governo.it/it/articolo/conferenza-stampa-del-consiglio-dei-ministri-57/24164.

15. Interview with Prof. Stefano Ceccanti, full professor of Comparative Public Law, former Democratic Party parliamentarian, PD group leader in the Chamber of Deputies’ Constitutional Affairs Committee in the 18th legislature (2018–2022), 1 December 2023.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gianfranco Baldini

Gianfranco Baldini, 2022 is Associate Professor in Political Science at the University of Bologna and Research Associate af the University of Surrey (UK). Beyond Italian politics, his research interests include Democracy and populism in a comparative European perspective (in journals such as West European Politics, Government and Opposition, International Political Science Review, amongst others). He has published widely on Brexit (last book, The Brexit Effect, Routledge, 2022, with E. Bressanelli, E. Massetti) and is now working, among other things, on a monograph on the Brothers of Italy.

Sofia Ventura

Sofia Ventura is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Bologna and Adjunct Professor at the School of Government – LUISS in Rome. Her specializations include Italian and French politics, political communication, and leadership. Among her main recent publications: The Italian Democratic Party: the explanation for a ‘quasi-failure’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 5, 2023; The Italian Government’s Pandemic Communication from Giuseppe Conte to Mario Draghi’, in Manufacturing Government Communication on Covid-19 (Springer, 2022); I Leader e le loro Storie (Il Mulino, 2019). In 2012 she wrote Il racconto del capo: Berlusconi e Sarkozy (Laterza). She has authored reports on Italian right e radical-right for two prominent political foundations in France and Germany: Fondapol - Fondation pour l’innovation politique and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.