The Legislative Activity of the Government in Figures: The Prodi I, Berlusconi II, Prodi II and Berlusconi IV Executives Compared

This article evaluates the legislative activity of the fourth Berlusconi government, eighteen months after it took office, against other 'majoritarian' governments of the most recent past, namely Prodi I and II and Berlusconi II. It considers the overall volume of legislative activity of the four executives and the types of measures they sought to promote in Parliament (with particular attention being devoted to emergency decree-making). Moreover, it analyses the 'programmatic nature' of government initiatives, the use the governments have made of votes of confidence, and the rate of success of the governments' initiatives in Parliament. The medium-term tendency seems towards a certain degree of rationalisation of the legislative activity of Italian executives, yet a diachronic analysis of the data reveals that in itself the legislative process in Italy remains 'unbalanced', 'rationalised' to only a limited degree. In particular, the fourth Berlusconi government has been able to proceed promptly towards the realisation of its distinctive legislative objectives but it has done so essentially by by-passing the ordinary legislative process and by relying massively on exceptional procedures, such as decree laws and confidence votes.