Author Archive

Vincenzo Emanuele (Luiss, Rome)

Vincenzo Emanuele is Assistant Professor in Political Science at Luiss, Rome. His research has appeared in Comparative Political Studies, Perspectives on Politics, West European Politics, Party Politics, South European Society and Politics, and Government and Opposition. His two monographs are Cleavages, Institutions, and Competition (Rowman & Littlefield/ECPR Press 2018) and The Deinstitutionalisation of Western European Party Systems (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, with Alessandro Chiaramonte).

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 …