Casting light on the black hole of the amendatory process in Italy

The amendatory process is a hidden aspect of Italian law-making. All scholars and observers are perfectly aware of the importance of the complex, sometimes apparently chaotic, dynamics of the process of amending bills. However, despite this awareness, the amendatory process as such has rarely been the subject of empirical investigation: hence the present paper’s intention to try and fill this void, using a consistent, representative data-set to construct a substantial, quantitative description of the amendatory games played out in Italy’s Chamber of Deputies during the period from 1997 to 2006, and to compare the two legislatures covering that period. This is the first systematic attempt to shine a little light on the ‘black hole’ of the Italian legislative process.