Compare and Explain the Political Instability Experienced by France, Germany and Italy

"Compare and explain the political instability experienced by France, Germany and Italy"

In order to compare and explain the political instability experienced by the three countries in question it is important to assign a suitable model to the case. In this scenario Sartori's1 typology of party systems is perfect as all three of the countries fall into the category labelled polarised pluralistic party systems. Characteristics include five or more relevant parties, anti-system parties, bi-lateral oppositions, highly ideologically polarised parties with the political centre ground being occupied and a strong centrifugal force present. The system will also be ideologically over-heated and oppositions are usually irresponsible which leads to the politics of outbidding where parties begin to try and out do each other concerning their electoral promises. Secondly all three fall into the same category of Almond's2 model in that they have fragmented political culture and that there is a high degree of differentiation in the political role structure placing them firmly into the continental European category. During this essay I will show how the three countries fit the models and what factors contributed towards their political instability, but also how other factors unique to each country helped to create political instability.

To begin with it is important to point out that all three of the regimes in question had been born out of the turmoil of a World War. Indeed, as far as politically unified countries go, both Italy and Germany were very new. Italy was only reunified in 1861 and experienced intense economic, political and social modernisation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries dampened by the offset of Wor...

... middle of paper ...

...ld argue that all were fundamentally flawed from their offset whether through the voting system or Constitution. Roberts adds that the Weimar Constitution `has been blamed by many analysts for the failure of the Weimar regime to survive for longer than fourteen years.'11 However the amount of significance placed on the multi-party system must not be exaggerated. To this day France and Italy still have very large numbers of parties competing and though Germany has implemented a five percent minimum vote for parties to achieve any power in the Reichstag it too has a multi-party system that works. It is true that multiple small parties were a trait of all three periods but evidence would seem to suggest that it was the presence of large anti-system parties on the left and right that really undermined the power of these systems by weakening the power of moderate parties.