21810801 - ITALIAN PARTY LAW IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

The aim of the course is to provide the students with the critical tools needed to understand the party phenomenon in Italy and in other constitutional systems, making use of legal comparison.

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Programme

Syllabus

Part one: General theory
Early and Late Constitutional Genesis of Political Parties; parties in the historical evolution of states and systems of government: parties and forms of government, a party criterion in the classification of forms of government, with particular attention to the realities of France, United Kingdom, United States; parties and classification of state forms.

Part Two: The parties in the constitutional orders of the post-war II period
Introduction to the Italian case: the debate on the Constituent and the art. 49 of the Constitution.
Protected and semi-protected democracies: Germany, Spain, Portugal, Greece.
Democracies of Eastern Europe: Poland, Czech Republic.
The parties in the multicultural state: the case of the Indian Union.

Part Three: The parties in the Italian republican system
Article. 49 and its enduring inactuation.
The clashes on internal democracy before the judges, in art. 49 unactuated.
The first implementing legislation of 2013-2014, the "statute norm" of Italicum and ongoing reform.
Analysis of the statutes of existing (and past) parties.
The distinctive signs of the parties: regulations and decisions concerning names and symbols.
Party financing: regulatory developments in Italy (and references to foreign experiences).
Discipline of political communication and electoral propaganda.

Part Four: Political Parties at European Level
The formation and consolidation of European political parties.
The ”parliamentarization process".
The Spitzenkandidaten method.
Regulation No. 1141/2014.

Core Documentation

Students that will attend the lectures must study:

S. Bonfiglio, G. Maestri, R. L. Blanco Valdés, I partiti politici. Teoria e disciplina, Wolters Kluwer-Cedam, Padova, 2022.

Type of delivery of the course

The course will be mainly based on frontal lessons and combined with online sessions, aimed at further exploring constitutional matters with Professors from the main Italian and foreign universities. During the course there will be at least three group exercises.

Type of evaluation

Students progress will be assessed through an oral examination. Three questions will test knowledge on main constitutional systems. Furthermore, at least two questions will concern the special section of the exam programme and will assess reflection and evaluation skills.