This book provides students with the most comprehensive and incisive introduction available to the intricacies of the Italian political system. Written in an accessible and student-friendly style, this up-to-date textbook features:

• an introduction to Italian political history from 1943 to the present day
• an explanation of the governmental system, the constitutional framework, the core institutions, the electoral system and the key parties
• analysis of the role of the contemporary pressure groups and social movements including environmental, labour and...

This is a book about European integration and mainstream parties of the left, the main underlying question driving it being: Given that the communist left was fatally wounded by the collapse of the Berlin Wall; given that, since then, the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ have not infrequently been attacked (especially by populists) as being no longer useful for making sense of politics; given that social democracy, understood as ‘national Keynesianism’ no longer appears to be viable (as reflected in its long-term electoral decline), what does it mean to be on the left in the early...