This book provides the first detailed analysis of its kind of political and economic reform in Italy since the early 1990s. The authors explore the root causes of bad governance in Italy, and explain why attempts to renovate the system have so far failed.

Martin Bull is Professor of Politics at the University of Salford, UK.

Martin Rhodes is Professor of Political Economy in the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver, USA.

1. Introduction - Italy: A contested polity Martin Bull and Martin Rhodes 2. A long quest in vain: Institutional reforms in Italy Martin Bull and Gianfranco Pasquino 3. Government under Berlusconi: The functioning of the core institutions in Italy Salvatore Vassallo 4. Electoral change and its impact on the party system in Italy Luciano Bardi 5. The Italian centre-right and centre-left: Between parties and "the party" Ilvo Diamanti 6. Italy's dysfunctional political economy Marcello De Cecco 7. Eppure, non si muove: Legal change, institutional stability and Italian corporate governance Pepper D. Culpepper 8. Industrial relations and the welfare state in Italy: Assessing the potential of negotiated change Oscar Molina and Martin Rhodes 9. Corruption and anti-corruption: The political defeat of "Clean Hands" in Italy Donatella Della Porta and Alberto Vannucci 10. Mafia and organised crime in Italy: The unacknowledged successes of law enforcement Letizia Paoli 11. Conflicts of interest and media pluralism in Italian broadcasting Matthew Hibberd 12. The domestic foundations of Italy's foreign and development policies Maurizio Carbone 13. Italian politics and the European Union: A tale of two research designs Lucia Quaglia and Claudio M. Radaelli