By Joseph Solomita, NYU class of 2014

Like most politics majors I can’t help but get excited when election time rolls around.  Obsessively checking the preliminary polls, watching every hilarious campaign ad, and contributing in every possible way to the candidate of choice. Unlike most politics majors however, I have had the rare fortune of living through two general elections in the span of four months.  Doesn’t seem possible? Think again.

Soon after the 2012 United States general election in which President Barack Obama decisively defeated former Governor Mitt Romney, I departed for Florence to begin my semester abroad.  I arrived in Florence on January 29th 2013, just one month before the 2013 Italian general election.

I have to admit I knew nothing about Italian politics.  I mean I knew who the former Prime Minister was but that was more due to my closet addiction to TMZ then my knowledge on international relations. Like any other student with a thirst for knowledge and a love for politics would do, I started doing as much research as possible on the Italian political system.  What I found out is that any American that complains about the bureaucracy, gridlock and bi-polarism in American Politics should take a glance at Italy’s system and I guarantee they’d sleep a little easier.  Italy has one of the most complex parliamentary systems in the world and the results of the 2013 general elections did not bring any more clarity to the matter.

Unable to form a governing majority, Italy remained under the rule of technocratic leader Mario Monti, until April 23, 2013, when President Giorgio Napolitano appointed Enrico Letta, member from the lead vote getting coalition, Prime Minister of Italy. For the first time in Italy’s Republic, a grand coalition has been formed.  Whether this unprecedented experiment will be a success is something that is yet to be determined just as history has yet to write the legacy of Obama’s second term.

The system of electing these leaders is something that is already being dissected.  In America, a rigid two party system has been the norm since the country’s existence.  Although social media has undoubtedly changed the game a bit, the core of American elections are fundamentally the same.  Both major parties go through a primary system in which they nominate the representative they hope to be elected leader of the nation.  In Italy it is much different, with just one party holding a round of primary elections, citizens are forced to vote for parties and coalitions rather than a representative.

To me, the biggest difference between the systems of Italy and America is that President Barack Obama has a mandate from the people to run the country.  We know that 51.1% of voting Americans directly selected Barack Obama to lead them and therefore any decision he makes is supported by the voting majority.  Granted, a president can be elected with less than 50% of the vote, it has happened 12 times in America’s history and the list is highlighted by some very popular presidents including Abraham Lincoln and Bill Clinton.  Either way, in America we know that the man leading our nation is the guy the most Americans have directly voted for, with just four other exceptions in our country’s history in which the losing candidate received a plurality of the popular vote but lost in the electoral college.

In Italy, the Prime Minister is never directly elected.  The Prime Minister is dependent on parliament’s approval to give him a vote of confidence, and just as we saw in this current election, once Pier Luigi Bersani, the man whose party the people voted for, couldn’t get a vote of confidence , the president was able to simply selected any member of the top vote getting coalition to lead the country.  We saw a similar case in 2011 when former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi resigned, President Napolitano selected a technocrat with no political experience to lead the country and the citizens did not get a say, only parliament.

No electoral system is perfect, we see flaws with every system, the goal of any government, however, should be to best protect and represent the view of the people.  And I truly believe America does that better than any country in the world.

1) Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Angelino Alfano announced that in its next meeting the Council of Ministers will focus on measures against violence against women. Minister Alfano declared that the government “will find the money to take the necessary measures, because the protection of women is an invaluable priority”. Corriere della Sera reports on violence against women in 2013, demonstrating that this phenomenon is a real concern in Italy: since January 1st, almost every day a woman was killed by her husband, her son, her boyfriend, or her father. We hope that this negative trend will stop.

2) Prime Minister Letta announced that this weekend all the ministers of his cabinet will spend two days a retreat at Sarteano’s abbey (recently transformed into a hotel) in Tuscany, to “set the political agenda, to know each other and to become a real group”. Prime Minister Letta also underlined that each minister will bear his or her own costs.

3) Yesterday all the party members proposed by the Democratic Party and the People of Freedom Party for the presidency of the parliamentary committees were elected by the parliament, except for Nitto Palma (PDL), proposed by Silvio Berlusconi for the presidency of the Justice Committee in the Senate. Immediately after the voting, many PDL members denounced the fact that the PD has not honored the agreements they made during the negotiations. Another session of voting will take place today. We’ll see how the situation evolves.

Yesterday seven-time Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti died at 94. Worldwide newspapers have dedicated articles to this man (check out the New York Times and The Washington Post), who has been one of the leading figures of Italian politics for more than sixty years, beginning at the foundation of the Italian republic in1946, immediately after the Second World War.

While expressing condolences, many politicians have also pointed to the fact that Andreotti was also a very controversial political figure, often at the center of the power games that characterized Italian politics until the beginning of the 1990s.

But today, following the appointments of the presidents of the various parliamentary committees, the feeling is that the old power games haven’t died: the general impression is that both the Democratic Party and the People of Freedom Party are trying to fill the parliamentary seats with the party members who have been excluded from the cabinet and from other prestigious positions. We’ll see if these appointments will be made on the basis of personal competence or if they will just be made to maintain political balance.

Enrico Letta’s cabinet is paving the way to essential reforms, setting the issues that must be at the top of the political agenda. While Letta declared that one of the top priorities of his cabinet is the reform of the electoral law, Berlusconi steadily repeats that the abolition of property tax is crucial.

Though apparently the cohabitation between the Democratic Party and the People of Freedom Party seems is very difficult, Letta reaffirmed that the collaboration continues.

Laura Boldrini, President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, yesterday declared that “Violence against women is an emergency”. President Boldrini said that in Italy women’s conditions are becoming more and more difficult, and that Italy has one of Europe’s lowest percentages of women’s employment. Laura Boldrini then praised Minister of Equal Opportunities’ initiative to create a task force against feminicide.

Scott Cairns, NYU ’15

Where I come from, the average under-20-year old on the street finds politics to be a daunting and dreary subject. The highest level of interest comes around election time, when politics becomes synonymous with a boxing match between two candidates and debates produce quotes that dominate the watercooler talk for the next week. However, without knowing it, these same under-20-year-olds follow the political conversation in America all year round when they turn on ‘Comedy Central.’

Political satire is an art form that has been perfected in America. The same person who professes to be bored by politics will bend over backwards in laughter over the stylings of Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert, wildly popular satirists with their own shows that air nightly. These men, with thousands of followers and fans, are not without their own political opinions. In fact, they are more than happy to spill their opinions each night on the air, with a comedic spin of course.

These are the ‘power users,’ figures with the ability to influence large groups of people with their Twitter accounts and blogs, that professors Cristian Vaccari and Augosto Valeriani allude to in their upcoming paper: ‘Follow the leader! Dynamics and Patterns of Activity among the Followers of the Main Italian Political Leaders during the 2013 General Election Campaign.’ As expected, the professors find that ‘most of them are celebrities in realms other than politics or people who are already highly visible in the politics-media ecosystem.’ My question for the authors when they come together at the upcoming LPD conference on Social Media and Political Participation is this: how does this quasi-interest in politics that is channeled through political satire translated into actual interest? Do people ever find themselves wanting to learn more, or are they just tuning in to crack a joke in the direction of a Silvio Berlusconi-esque politician?
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Now that we have a new cabinet there is a widespread feeling that we have won a battle, but there’s still a war to be fought.

Enrico Letta’s bipartisan cabinet won the vote of confidence in the Chamber of Deputies last night, and most likely it will also get the vote of confidence in the Senate, where voting will take place today.

Asking for the vote of confidence in parliament, Prime Minister Letta outlined the political agenda of his cabinet: there are many economic and institutional reforms that can no longer be postponed.

In addition to that, The Democratic Party following the unfavorable situation during the presidential election, and the Five Star Movement following the publication of the contents of the mailbox of Giulia Sarti, a M5S deputy, are struggling to stabilize their internal situations. The PD has started identifying the next party leader after Pierluigi Bersani’s resignation, while M5S is trying to overshadow the internal struggles and to focus is attention to citizens’ real needs.