The Italian Emergency Regime at the Covid-19 “Stress Test”: Decline of Political Responsiveness, Output Legitimation and Politicization of Expertise

Authors

  • Valerio Alfonso Bruno Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore; Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right; Center for European Futures.
  • Pierpaolo Ianni Senato della Repubblica; LUMSA
  • Giulia Pezzano University of Leiden

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1285/i20398573v7n1p35

Keywords:

Italy, COVID-19, Emergency regime, Politicization of science, Expertise.

Abstract

During the Covid-19 pandemic, public trust necessarily shifted towards science and technical expertise worldwide. In some liberal democracies, the Constitution and Parliament have been by-passed, with Executives using scientific and technical expertise to legitimate political choices within the crisis management process. In Italy (March-August 2020), the Executive set up expert teams (such as the comitato tecnico-scientifico) acting mostly by Decrees of the President of Council of Ministers (DPCM). The Italian Parliament was not sufficiently consulted. After reviewing the current research literature on constitutional changes during emergency regimes within representative democracies, and using insights from Italy, we try to frame the discourse concerning Executive’s choices during emergency regimes in terms of (i) decline of political responsiveness, (ii) prevalence of out-put legitimation and (iii) politicization of expertise (with the possibility for expertise, in turn, to influence policy making) to contribute to the overall debate on the reconfiguration of powers in times of crises.

 

Author Biographies

Valerio Alfonso Bruno, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore; Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right; Center for European Futures.

Senior fellow at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR), where he is deputy head of the Populism Research Unit and fellow at the Center for European Futures. Bruno cooperates with the Advanced School of Economics and International Relations at the Catholic University of Milan (cultore della materia) and the Observatoire de la Finance in Geneva. His online analyses have appeared on Al Jazeera, openDemocracy, Social Europe and LSE EUROPP. Bruno is currently working on a monograph on the populist radical right in Italy between 2018 and 2020, coauthored with J.F. Downes and A. Scopelliti, for Ibidem-Verlag/Columbia University Press.

Pierpaolo Ianni, Senato della Repubblica; LUMSA

Born in Carrara (1982), was awarded a Ph.D. in Institutions and Policies at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan. Ianni graduated with a 5-year master’s degree in Internationaland European Union Law at the University of Pisa. He has studied in the UK at the Faculty of Law ofBirmingham City University and in Spain at the Facultad de derecho of UCAM in Murcia. He was a Fellowof the “Silvano Tosi” Centre of Research and Parliamentary Studies of the University of Florence and iscurrently a legal adviser at the Senate of the Italian Republic.

Giulia Pezzano, University of Leiden

Born in Padova (1992), Giulia Pezzano is an Advanced LLM candidate in European andInternational Human Rights at Leiden University (The Netherlands). She is writing her thesis on theinterrelations between populism and human rights in Europe, with a focus on Economic, Social and CulturalRights and Minorities’ rights. She obtained a 5-years master’s degree in Law from Università degli Studi diTrieste. Her previous research in collaboration with Università degli Studi di Udine has concentrated onEuropean Law, specifically on European transport law and strategic infrastructures.

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Published

10-07-2021

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 1 (2021): Politics and Policies of Constitutional Reforms in Times of Crisis and Great Transformations

Section

Special Issue

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