Sartori’s party system typology and the Italian case: the unanticipated outcome of a polarised pluralism without anti-system parties

This article discusses Sartori’s party system typology and its eventual applicability to the Italian post-1994 party system. The first part of the article is devoted to an examination of the typology with particular reference to the case of the polarised pluralism which Sartori considered appropriate for the Italian party system until the late 1970s-early 1980s. In the discussion of the typology, particular attention has been attributed to the variable ‘ideology’, suggesting the relevance of the component ‘temperature’ which has been frequently mistreated compared to the other component, the more widely used ‘distance’. The final part of the article deals with a tentative assessment of the pertinence of polarised pluralism to the post-1994 Italian party system.