"There have been many reasons given to explain the reforming incapacity of the Berlusconi governments and I limit myself to mentioning the two that seem to me the most important.
The first concerns the interests and culture of the classes that electorally support the League and Berlusconi. Giulio Tremonti was perhaps the last to adopt Marxist (Gramscian) categories in electoral analysis and speaks of a productive and progressive "social bloc", largely based in the North of the country and made up of people who draw their resources from the market (small businesses, artisans, traders, VAT numbers, self-employed workers, professionals), which would be opposed by a different social bloc made up of civil servants and others who live off state intermediation, especially in the South. The first "bloc" would support the counter- right and the latter would vote predominantly to the left.
It is an interpretation that leaks from many sides and the reading of a serious work of electoral sociology is enough (for example the book by Bellucci and Segatti, already mentioned) to realize it. But even if we recognize what is true in Tremonti's analysis – it is true that in some regions of the North the bulk of the classes mentioned above vote primarily for Bossi and Berlusconi – it remains to be shown that this social bloc is productive and progressive, that it is willing to enthusiastically accept modernizing and liberal reforms. He's calling for lower taxes and better public services, and that's understandable. But it also calls for protection and defense against competition. It is a class that trudges along in the difficult economic conditions of the last two decades, which arrives to them largely unprepared, accustomed to the less competitive climate and lax policies of the First Republic, a class which to no small extent is now out of the game. And there are in fact relatively few (compared to the size of the country) small businesses that have managed to adapt to international competition, not to mention self-employed workers, traders, artisans and professionals, desperately clinging to their corporate and categorical defenses. If these were and are his voters, it is not difficult to understand why Berlusconi has not followed up on the liberal program heralded at the time of his "descent into the field".
But if he wanted to, could he? Thus I come to the second reason which could explain the lack of reforming impetus of the Berlusconi governments. I don't think that Berlusconi's request for reforms that adapt our Constitution to the bipolar situation of the Second Republic has much to do with the need to push through necessary but difficult reforms, which conflict with the interests, mentalities and the questions of his own constituents. In short, with real needs for governance and progress. But I believe that - if there were a political class that is sensitive to these needs - a constitutional reform would be necessary: the 1948 Constitution, with its equal bicameralism, with its parliamentarianism, severely limits the ability of a government to quickly implement the electoral program on the basis of which it won the elections.
In any case, passing a highly innovative program would be difficult, and even Reagan and Thatcher were having serious difficulties. But not as strong as it would have happened in Italy, one being facilitated by the American Constitution of divided government, which was then in its favour, the other by the Westminster system and by the powers it confers on the prime minister when his majority is united .”
