Giorgia Meloni’s cabinet is now one of the most stable governments in the history of the Italian Republic. This seems to disprove the widespread warnings of an impending decline in democracy that accompanied her election in 2022. However, considering the aftermath of Berlusconism, the situation in Italy is more subtle – and perhaps more disturbing – than expected. According to Daniela Caterina, Adriano Cozzolino, Gemma Gasseau, and Davide Monaco, the situation offers a sobering lesson for those who critically observe democratic regression worldwide.
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When discussing threats to democracy or authoritarian turns, images of tanks in the streets, occupied media networks or suspended constitutions often come to mind. Yet the story unfolding in Italy under Giorgia Meloni looks quite different – and warns us that we need historical grounding to understand the current conjuncture.
Long before Meloni, Silvio Berlusconi set in motion a transformation of politics that endures until today. Berlusconism was not just a personal brand, but a distinct neoliberal project that built social and political alliances anew, normalized radical-right forces and narratives, and entrenched neoliberal policies into the Italian political-economic landscape.
Its legacies persist in Meloni’s right-wing coalition in government, highlighting how today’s far-right forces have built on past political and economic transformations to navigate, consolidate, and exert their influence. At the same time, Meloni’s right is advancing gradual, incremental shifts which can be read as a process of molecular transformation, whereby individual measures accumulate, one by one, until they reach a critical mass of authoritarianism within a formally democratic system.
Organic crisis and morbid symptoms
“Bettino, do you want these too?”, the crowd jeered at Bettino Craxi outside Rome’s Raphaël Hotel, as his police escort rushed the Socialist Party leader and former Prime Minister into an armored car to shield him from a shower of coins. It was 30 April 1993. The scene became the symbol of Tangentopoli (Bribesville), the corruption scandal that hastened the demise of Italy’s post-war party system – and with it the so-called First Republic. Yet, dramatic though it was, the scandal represented only one element of a perfect storm gathering over Italy in the early 1990s.
Alongside the fall of its party system, the country faced a severe currency crisis rooted in deeper problems with industrial competitiveness, while committing to the supranational fiscal constraints of the Maastricht Treaty – a choice driven by segments of Italy’s capitalist and technocratic elites. This convergence of events hastened what Antonio Gramsci would call an ‘organic crisis’: a rupture shaking the economic, political and ideological foundations of a social order, undermining its legitimacy and creating the conditions for ‘morbid symptoms’ to emerge.
One such symptom materialized a mere nine months after the coin-throwing episode. On 23 January 1994, billionaire (and long-time Craxi’s associate) Silvio Berlusconi announced his entry into politics in a pre-recorded video broadcast simultaneously across his television networks. He would challenge a coalition led by the heirs of the Italian Communist Party in the forthcoming election, calling for a ‘new Italian miracle’ to pull the country out of its crisis. The solution? A societal renewal centered on belief in ‘the individual, the family, enterprise, competition, development, efficiency, the free market and solidarity’. It was the birth of Berlusconism: a neoliberal project that would profoundly reshape politics and society over the next two decades.
Berlusconism: a neoliberal trajectory
As any political-economic project, Berlusconism needed legs. In 1994, the media tycoon shrewdly built a coalition between his newly founded Forza Italia (FI), the regionalist Lega Nord (LN) in the North and the post-fascist Alleanza Nazionale (AN) in the Center-South. This alliance comfortably won the elections and, despite twists and turns, became the foundation of a nationwide right-wing bloc. Underpinning this political coalition was a diverse social base united by the discontent with the ‘old regime’ emerged in the 1980s: sections of the working class (especially in the South), petty bourgeoisie and Northern small and medium enterprises (SMEs), with ambivalent ties with large industrial capital.
This endeavor allowed Berlusconism to endow neoliberalism with popular consent, charismatic leadership and a stable socio-political bloc. The first short-lived Berlusconi government (1994-95) was underwhelming policy-wise, yet pivotal for the creation of a new right-wing political space virtually from scratch, relying on the normalization of far-right and anti-establishment forces. Following the 2001 electoral victory, Berlusconism entered its consolidation phase, with two successive governments deepening neoliberal trends in labor, pension and fiscal policy – all the while clashing with trade unions and social movements, centralizing executive power, and adopting anti-migration measures and narratives.
Paradoxically, Berlusconism reached its peak with the landslide victory in the 2008 elections, shortly before the 2009-10 Eurozone crisis triggered its decline. Pressured by EU institutions and international finance, the fourth Berlusconi government enacted harsh austerity measures and further neoliberal reforms, fracturing its socio-political alliance based on a compromise between state-assisted groups in the South and small and large capital in the North. This development accelerated the decline of Berlusconism more than personal affairs and bunga bunga parties. Thus, a clearly neoliberal project that grew out of, and proposed a solution to, Italy’s organic crisis, while normalizing once-marginal radical right forces, languished.
From Berlusconi to Meloni: A lasting legacy
The political demise of Berlusconism, however, should not be taken as the end of its influence. Even after Berlusconi’s electoral decline, the political culture he helped institutionalize did not disappear. Instead, it settled into Italy’s political landscape, creating conditions for subsequent leaders to use similar strategies centered around personal authority, direct communication via the media and promises of ‘efficient government’ – both on the left and on the right.
The legacy of Berlusconism is having a significant impact on the current polycrisis in Europe, particularly in discussions about the rise of the far right in Italy and elsewhere. In particular, two legacies – or afterlives – of Berlusconism stand out. First, Berlusconism became a focal point of neoliberal transformation of the political economy in Italy: it served as the central political vehicle through which neoliberal ideas, interests, and social forces were organized and legitimized. Berlusconism successfully aligned diverse constituencies – including SMEs, export-oriented firms, and segments of working and middle classes – around a vision combining market-oriented reforms, tax cuts, and strong leadership. This alignment created a durable social and political bloc that has continued to shape politics ever since and that today represents a key legacy for Meloni’s government.
Second, Berlusconism succeeded in an unprecedented, momentous restructuring of Italy’s right-wing political space. It normalized and integrated previously marginal or stigmatized forces, including post-fascist and regionalist parties, into a coherent and electorally viable coalition. By doing so, Berlusconism also mainstreamed the most xenophobic and inflammatory discourses against migrants and minorities. This process thus legitimized actors who had historically been excluded from government and established a stable right-wing infrastructure capable of winning and exercising power. Crucially, this restructuring lowered the barriers for successors such as Meloni, whose party could build on an already normalized and consolidated right-wing field rather than starting from scratch.
Together, these afterlives of Berlusconism created both the ideological and organizational conditions that facilitated Meloni’s rise. She inherited a political landscape in which neoliberal economic priorities, personalized leadership, and the mainstreaming of the radical right had already been established. In this sense, Meloni’s government represents less a rupture than a continuation and adaptation of structures forged during the Berlusconi era, demonstrating how past neoliberal political projects continue to shape present-day configurations of power in Italy.
Creeping molecular transformations
By now one of the most stable governments in the history of the Italian Republic, the Meloni cabinet seems to have rebuked the widespread warnings of a dismantling of democracy that accompanied its election back in September 2022. Yet, keeping in mind the afterlives of Berlusconism, what we are witnessing in Italy is something more subtle than expected – and perhaps more unsettling. Borrowing again from Gramsci’s vocabulary, what appears to be unfolding before our eyes is a “molecular transformation”: a slow, cumulative reordering of the political space happening step by step, reform by reform, decree by decree.
Instead of tearing down the constitutional architecture of the Italian Republic, the current Meloni government is reshaping it from within, incrementally, through reforms, legal adjustments, procedural shifts and discursive normalizations that, taken together, gradually consolidate executive authority while narrowing down the scope of political dissent. Two emblematic measures illustrate this dynamic.
The first is the proposed constitutional reform introducing the so-called premierato, which would establish the direct election of the Prime Minister accompanied by a majority bonus and the simul stabunt simul cadent mechanism – thus guaranteeing parliamentary majorities aligned with the executive. Framed as a much-needed solution to chronic governmental instability, the reform would in fact fundamentally alter the constitutional balance established after World War II in three main respects: by entrenching executive dominance, weakening the role of Parliament and hollowing out the discretionary powers of the President of the Republic.
The second is the 2025 Decreto Sicurezza – currently followed by a further decree in security matters – which expands criminal offenses, aggravates penalties for acts linked to protest, and enhances police powers in ways that blur the line between maintaining public order and managing political opposition.
Taken together, these measures form two sides of the same coin. At the top, constitutional reforms steadily shift power toward the government, weakening the role of the parliament and parliamentary oppositions. At the bottom, new security legislation raises the cost of dissent – making protest riskier, penalties harsher, and the boundary between public order and political opposition increasingly blurred. Thus, while power concentrates upward, space for democratic contestation shrinks downward.
That said, the political picture is not the whole story. Alongside the incremental consolidation of executive power runs an equally steady neoliberal continuity: fiscal austerity and compliance with EU budget rules. This is epitomized, among others, by the dismantling of the Reddito di Cittadinanza – Italy’s main minimum income scheme introduced in 2019 – now replaced by a far more restrictive program excluding a large number of poor households. In this reading, the authoritarian reconfiguration of the State runs in parallel with enduring neoliberalization.
Beyond exceptionalism
From this perspective, the current transformations under the Meloni government are not happening in a vacuum. They build on decades of political and cultural shifts that have redefined political leadership, legitimacy, and the role of dissent in democracy, all while maintaining fiscal orthodoxy and compliance with EU criteria. Along this authoritarian-neoliberal configuration, it would be a mistake to treat Italy as an exceptional case. Once again, the country serves as a laboratory of broader European tendencies, where the mainstreaming of radical-right agendas converges with entrenched neoliberal recipes. What began as a neoliberal political-economic project under Berlusconi has evolved into a broader reordering of political space under Meloni.
Looking at the current conjuncture from a historical perspective, this national case underscores a sobering lesson for those who critically observe democratic backsliding around the world. On the one hand, the erosion of democracy nowadays often proceeds not against the constitution, but through it – via technical-legal adjustments and securitization dynamics acting as molecular transformations. On the other hand, any credible political action against the radical right’s offensive must focus on reversing the decades-long process of neoliberal restructuring in Italy and beyond.