History of the Italian Republic

The history of the Italian Republic concerns the events relating to the history of Italy that have occurred since 1946, when Italy became a republic after the 1946 Italian institutional referendum. The Italian republican history is generally divided into two phases, the First and Second Republic.

After the fall of the Fascist regime in Italy and the end of World War II, Italian politics and society were dominated by Christian Democracy (DC), a broad-based Christian political party, from 1946 to 1994. From the late 1940s until 1991, the opposition was led by the Italian Communist Party (PCI). Christian Democracy governed uninterrupted during this period, dominating every cabinet and providing nearly every prime minister. It governed primarily with the support of an array of minor parties from the centre-left to the centre-right, including the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), Italian Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI), Italian Republican Party (PRI), and Italian Liberal Party (PLI), and even far-right parties like the Italian Social Movement (MSI). The Communist Party was excluded entirely from government, with the partial exception of the short-lived Historic Compromise, in which the PCI provided external support to a DC minority government from 1976 to 1979.

The political situation was radically transformed in the early 1990s due to two major shocks: the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the wide-reaching Tangentopoli corruption scandal from 1992 to 1994. The former caused the dissolution and split of the PCI and splintering of the opposition, while the latter led to the collapse of nearly every established political party in Italy, including Christian Democracy, the PSI, PSDI, PRI, PLI, and others. Anti-establishment sentiment resulted in a 1993 referendum enabling the reform of the electoral system from pure proportional representation to a majoritarian-leaning mixed system.

Media magnate Silvio Berlusconi entered politics with his conservative Forza Italia party and won the 1994 general election, forming the short-lived Berlusconi I Cabinet. He went on to become one of Italy's most important figures over the next two decades, serving as prime minister again from 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011. The rise of the new conservative right saw the old centre and left consolidate into the Olive Tree coalition, comprising the post-Communist Democrats of the Left and Christian democratic The Daisy, which together founded the Democratic Party (PD) in 2007. They competed against Berlusconi's centre-right coalition, comprising Forza Italia, the right-wing National Alliance, and northern Italian regionalist Northern League.

The collapse of Berlusconi's fourth cabinet in 2011 resulted in the formation of the technocratic Monti Cabinet until 2013. Enduring dissatisfaction saw the rise of the populist Five Star Movement (M5S) and the Northern League (rebranded League, Lega). After the Italian general elections of 2013 and 2018, grand coalition governments were formed, this time with the participation of populist parties. The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated economic issues brought about a government of national unity led by Mario Draghi, the former president of the European Central Bank.

In the history of Italy there are several so-called "republican" governments that have followed one another over time. Examples are the ancient Roman Republic and the medieval maritime republics. From Cicero to Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian philosophers have imagined the foundations of political science and republicanism. But it was Giuseppe Mazzini who revived the republican idea in Italy in the 19th century.

An Italian nationalist in the historical radical tradition and a proponent of a republicanism of social-democratic inspiration, Mazzini helped define the modern European movement for popular democracy in a republican state. Mazzini's thoughts had a very considerable influence on the Italian and European republican movements, in the Constitution of Italy, about Europeanism and more nuanced on many politicians of a later period, among them American president Woodrow Wilson, British prime minister David Lloyd George, Mahatma Gandhi, Israeli prime minister Golda Meir and Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Mazzini formulated a concept known as "thought and action" in which thought and action must be joined together and every thought must be followed by action, therefore rejecting intellectualism and the notion of divorcing theory from practice.

In July 1831, in exile in Marseille, Giuseppe Mazzini founded the Young Italy movement, which aimed to transform Italy into a unitary democratic republic, according to the principles of freedom, independence and unity, but also to oust the monarchic regimes pre-existing the unification, including the Kingdom of Sardinia. The foundation of the Young Italy constitutes a key moment of the Italian Risorgimento and this republican program precedes in time the proposals for the unification of Italy of Vincenzo Gioberti and Cesare Balbo, aimed at reunifying the Italian territory under the presidency of the Pope. Subsequently, the philosopher Carlo Cattaneo promoted a secular and republican Italy in the extension of Mazzini's ideas, but organized as a federal republic.