The political system survived with the assistance of the Communists, whose trade unions had helped to restrain wage claims after 1972 and who took a firm line against terrorism. In the face of the twin crises of the economy and terrorism, as well as the example of the recent military coup d’état in Chile that had toppled a Marxist government, the Communist Party, led by Enrico Berlinguer, adopted a policy in 1973 that he called the “historic compromise.” It entailed more or less formal alliances between the Christian Democrats and the Communists for the good of the country. The Communist Party won 34.4 percent of the vote and 228 seats in the Chamber of Deputies in 1976. However, Berlinguer’s “historic compromise” alienated many Communist supporters. Although the Communists never actually joined a coalition government, they supported (mainly by abstaining during votes of no confidence) ones led by the Christian Democrats from 1976 to 1979 and were given several key institutional posts, including speaker of the Chamber of Deputies. The Communists also accepted Italy’s membership in NATO. This period saw the elaboration of networks that spread patronage across the political system. It was these corrupt networks that were to cause a political crisis when they were exposed in the 1990s. Communist cooperation ended, however, in 1979 as international tensions increased, and in the elections of that year the party’s vote declined to 30.4 percent. After 1979 the Communists went into opposition again. By 1987 their share of the national vote had declined to about one-fourth.

Governments in the 1980s were usually four- or five-party coalitions in which the smaller parties played a more significant role than hitherto. The Christian Democrats, weakened by secularization, factional disputes, and successive scandals, also saw their vote decline from 38.3 percent in 1979 to 32.9 percent in 1983. In 1981–82 the Christian Democrats had to give up the prime ministry temporarily, for the first time since 1945. The forceful Socialist leader, Craxi, was prime minister from 1983 to 1987.

Socialists, in fact, secured many key posts in the 1980s, not only in government but also in economic agencies, broadcasting, and health services. The Socialist vote rose, but only to 11.4 percent in 1983 and to 14.3 percent in 1987. Disputes among and within the leading parties over the allocation of jobs and resources became more prolonged and often paralyzed effective government. Public debt rose to unsustainable levels. All this fueled popular resentment of partitocrazia, increasingly frequent corruption scandals, and the clandestine influence of Masonic or other shadowy pressure groups. The system could no longer deliver the patronage that once sustained it, and the state-dominated economy was falling behind those of other European countries.

The 1980s were also a decade of a general “withdrawal” (il riflusso) from politics and political activism after the upheavals of the 1960s and ’70s. All the parties and unions began to lose members, and election turnouts dropped. Protest movements attracted far fewer people than in the previous two decades. The ideologies that had held the Cold War system together—communism and anticommunism, fascism and antifascism—began to lose their appeal.

While even the Communists had accepted Italian membership in NATO in the 1970s, Italy frequently stood apart from U.S. overseas military actions from the Vietnam War onward. The continuing strength of the Roman Catholic Church in Italian society and the power of the Communist Party made active participation in “American” wars a political impossibility. Only after the Cold War did the Italian army actually participate in a NATO military intervention, with its involvement in the conflict in Kosovo in 1999.

Regional government

During the 1970s, elected regional assemblies and governments, which had previously existed only in the five outlying regions given special powers at various times (Sicily, Sardinia, Friuli–Venezia Giulia, Trentino–Alto Adige, and Valle d’Aosta), were finally set up throughout Italy, as the constitution had required. They acquired extensive devolved powers of legislation and administration, especially over agriculture, health, social welfare, and the environment. Many national agencies were dissolved in 1978, and their powers were allocated to the regions. In 1984 even the Southern Development Fund was abolished and its planning and investment powers transferred to a complex set of institutions, including the southern regional governments. Elections were held at five-year intervals, and after 2000 the president of each region was elected directly under a new law.

The effects of regionalism were profound. The regions became the main bodies responsible for welfare and for organizing the health services, which, in turn, decreased the influence of central politicians. (The political nature of appointments to these services in the regions, however, often drew much criticism.) In the north politicians became more conscious of regional interests and more intent on running their own affairs without interference from Rome. This was less true in the south, where continuing poverty ensured a steady need for subsidies from the central government. Conflicts began to emerge between local and national interests, especially in the large and rich regions of the north.