Author Archive

Marco Improta (Luiss, Rome)

Marco Improta is PhD Candidate in Politics at Luiss, Rome. He also served as visiting research fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and he is currently visiting research student at the DPIR, University of Oxford. His research articles have been published or are forthcoming in West European Politics, European Politics and Society, Italian Journal of Public Policy, Quaderni di Scienza Politica, and Italian Political Science, amongst others.

One of the most critical questions of modern comparative politics is: who governs? The first thing that would come to mind would be party politicians. However, transformations in several European countries’ governmental arena indicate that partisan presence in office, and, more broadly, the general model of party government, characterised by parties’ centrality in representing the needs and demands of citizens, is in decay. Such a decline owes much to the increased government involvement of technocratic personnel – i.e., ministers with no political affiliation. Indeed, while Italy established itself as the promised land of technocracy, currently led by Mario Draghi and by four technocratic prime ministers in the last two decades, technocratic ministers have also entered the last three partisan governments …