The Italian Elections and the Problem of Representation

Contemporary political science assumes that the representative system, in addition to its influence on the formal structure of government, is functionally related to the internal cohesiveness and equilibrium of society itself. This fact takes on the greatest significance in the modern democratic state, in which the size of the population requires that the representation be indirect. For the political scientist, therefore, a challenging situation arises out of the following question: how can the modern democratic state insure the most adequate and accurate political expression of the elements and currents within it, while still maintaining a government which can function and a safe margin of stability for the society?That there are no simple formulae for resolving this problem is attested by the many theories of representation which have been propounded and tried during the last century. That a formula is almost desperately needed is demonstrated by postwar European experience. Italy is one of several countries in which the question of representation not only is significant but threatens to divide important segments of the society. The recent Italian elections point up this danger. But the elections, and the parliamentary experience which preceded them, also offer the political scientist a rich store of analytical raw material concerning the process of government and the group behavior which characterizes it.