Democracy and Parties in Italy after the 2013 Legislative Elections

The roots of the February 2013 elections are to be found in a vicious circle connecting political instability and the crisis of the public debt at the end of 2011. In between, the mutually reinforcing bond of law and democracy was strongly called into questions in a climate of harsh polarization; reciprocal allegations of oligarchic and even authoritarian deviances came along. More specifically, the low level of trust in both politics and justice, along with the mistrust in the capacities of the Italian economy, fed a climate of anti-politics, a perfect breeding ground for ”purifying” and messianic populist discourses arguing forcefully for ”a redemption” of Italian democracy so that it would better conform with a narrow definition of democracy: the power of the (genuine) people. In brief, regularly portrayed as the source of all evil, politics (political parties and politicians, but also the judiciary and the public administration) became tantamount to a rotten arena looking for immediate salvation solutions or leaders