war, the dispute over the Trieste territory created
some agitation until it was resolved in the
mid-1950s. An agreement with Austria in 1969
settled the only other problem affecting its own
territory, the Alto Adige region or South Tyrol,
with its predominantly German-speaking popula-
tion, though irredentist terrorism still upsets
internal law and order in this region from time to
time. Post-war Italy has not aggressively sought
any special areas of influence in the Mediter-
ranean. In a revulsion against wartime experience
and imperial vainglory, the Italian people wish
to be left in peace and to leave others in peace.
Italy’s policy has been to maintain good rela-
tions with all its neighbours and to keep out of
conflicts in the region, whether in the Middle East
or over Cyprus. There is, indeed, a strong neutral-
ist tendency noticeable in the attitudes of the
major political parties. But successive Christian
Democratic-led coalitions have remained firm in
the Atlantic orientation, the alliance with the US,
the membership of NATO and the European
Economic Community. For four decades Italian
foreign policy has been strikingly consistent.
Consistent would not be an appropriate descrip-
tion of Italy’s policies at home. Italian democ-
racy’s unique feature is that government has not
alternated between a party in power and a party
in opposition. The communists and their allies,
the Nenni Socialists, polled between 31 and 36
per cent of the votes at general elections. Even
after the Socialists had broken away from the
communists in 1963, the communists polled
more than 30 per cent of the vote on their own.
Only the Christian Democrats could also claim to
be a mass party, attracting some 38 per cent of
the votes. None of the many other parties even
reached 10 per cent.
Since neither the Christian Democrats nor the
various small parties from the centre to the fascist
right would accept communists in the national
government, the communists formed a virtually
continuous opposition, while the Christian
Democrats remained permanently in power, form-
ing various opportunistic alliances with smaller
parties in order to carry the necessary vote of con-
fidence in parliament. But there were constant
conflicts between the coalition partners, as fre-
quently over personal differences as over questions
of policy, the distribution of ministerial posts
being an especially rich source of animosity. Party
discipline hardly exists outside the Communist
Party; indeed, because voting in parliament is
secret, party members can vote with impunity
against their own ministers in office. Personal
ambition became a major cause of instability.
Between 1944 and 1988 forty-seven Italian gov-
ernments came and went. After a short-lived
period of stability from 1983 to 1986, the pattern
of frequent change resumed. Another important
feature of Italian politics is the strength of grass-
roots organisations and dependent interest
groups. Decades of uninterrupted power have
enabled the Christian Democrats to look after
their clients through patronage, from high civil
service appointments to postmasterships.
Italian Christian Democracy, which contains
elements of both left and right, has no distinct
ideology of its own and represents no single inter-
est group. It is not the party of industry and big
business, but industry and big business have no
other mass party to turn to. Moderate conserva-
tives also support the Christian Democrats. At the
same time state intervention in industry has been
a consistent feature of Christian Democratic gov-
ernment, coexisting with private enterprise and,
of course, private property in the mixed Italian
economy. In its early years particularly, the party
had the advantage of the support of the Vatican.
Through the parish priests, especially in the
south, the support of the peasants was won for
Christian Democracy, to set against the support
of the urban workers for the communist–Socialist
alliance. But the conservative landlord also votes
Christian Democrat. Yet Christian Democracy,
though avowedly dedicated to Catholic values, is
not simply a confessional party. Its unifying spirit
is a virulent anti-communism, and since the
1950s it has sedulously contrasted communist
policies with its own pro-Western European and
Atlantic ties.
Alcide De Gasperi, prime minister from
December 1947 to August 1953, headed eight
successive governments. His anti-fascist creden-
tials were impeccable. One of the founders of the550 THE RECOVERY OF WESTERN EUROPE IN THE 1950s AND 1960s