gender parity and quotas in italy: a convoluted reform process

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Gender Parity and Quotas inItaly: A Convoluted ReformProcessElisabetta Palici di SuniPublished online: 27 Feb 2012.

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Gender Parity and Quotas in Italy:A Convoluted Reform Process

ELISABETTA PALICI DI SUNI

In 1995, two years after the adoption of gender quota laws, the Italian ConstitutionalCourt declared these laws to be unconstitutional. The Constitution was subsequentlyreformed in order to make way for new quota legislation. Such reforms came in late andin a contradictory way. The Constitution was first modified in 2001 to allow regions toadopt quota measures to enhance women’s political representation at the regional leveland then in 2003 to allow similar measures to enhance women’s political representationat the national and European levels. Thus far, quotas have been introduced only in someregions and for European elections. Consequently, the 2001 and 2003 constitutionalreforms have had a limited impact on legislative implementation measures and thus onthe percentage of women in elected assemblies.

Less than one year after their formal enfranchisement in 1945, the firstwomen elected to the 1946–1947 Constituent Assembly promoted theinsertion of some very innovative provisions on women’s rights into theItalian Constitution. Nevertheless, these constitutional provisions wereeither not enforced or enforced with much delay. Given the original wordingof the 1948 Constitution, Italy could have launched quota reforms withoutthe need for other ad hoc constitutional provisions. However, theParliament and the Constitutional Court’s narrow interpretation of therelevant constitutional provisions prevented Italy from spearheading suchreforms. Instead, Italy ended up tackling quota legislation not only laterthan other European countries, but also in quite a contradictory andambivalent manner.

To date, most of the literature on Italy’s quota reforms, constitutionalamendments, and national and regional legislation tends to be in Italian,1

with the exception of Della Porta’s (2003) and Guadagnini’s (2005; 2007)writings on the political debates surrounding these reforms. This article aimsat clarifying the political and, above all, legal aspects of the Italian reforms,

Correspondence Address: [email protected]

West European Politics,Vol. 35, No. 2, 380–394, March 2012

ISSN 0140-2382 Print/1743-9655 Online ª 2012 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2011.648013

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which are not very well-known among Anglo-Saxon researchers, andcomparing them with those of other countries that appear similar on thesurface, but where deep differences can also be found. In particular, thearticle focuses on the legal meaning of the constitutional and legislativereforms as well as the respective interpretations of the courts and policy-makers, who have to promote and pass legislation to bring aboutconstitutional provisions. In the end, the main argument advanced here isthat: (a) Italy’s reforms on gender parity are legally contradictory; (b) thiscontradiction is due to parties’ lack of political will; (c) as a consequence,Italy’s path to quota reforms has been quite convoluted.

From Suffragism to the Constitution

Italian suffragism began several decades before Italian women obtained theright to vote. For the first time in 1877 and then again in 1906, together withother women, Anna Maria Mozzoni presented a women’s suffrage petitionto Parliament. In 1906, Maria Montessori invited all women to register tovote because the electoral law did not expressly forbid it. Except for theCourt of Appeal of Ancona, all Courts of Appeal and the Corte diCassazione2 denied that women had this right.3 Several bills to extend theright to vote to women, including the Minghetti bill (1861), the Peruzzi bill(1863), and the Morelli bill (1867), had been introduced in the first years ofthe Kingdom of Italy. However, none of these were passed. In 1912, as thelaw enfranchising all men was adopted, some MPs pointed out thecontradiction of allowing ignorant men to vote and prohibiting learnedwomen from doing so.4 The 1925 law that recognised women’s right to votein administrative elections quickly became irrelevant when the fascist regimeabolished all elections. Following the demise of the fascist regime, decreeNo. 23 of 1945 provided for only women’s right to vote. The rights ofsuffrage and eligibility were recognised by decree No. 74 of 1946 regardingthe elections of the Constituent Assembly. By that time, women’senfranchisement was perceived as part of the natural evolution of societyrather than the outcome of suffrage activists’ efforts (Galoppini 1980: 143).Nonetheless, many people feared the prospect of the women’s vote,including Communist Party activists who blamed women for the electoraldefeat of the Left in 1946 and 1948 (Rossi-Doria 1996: 25–7).

In 1946, 21 women were elected to the Constituent Assembly (3.7 percent) (Morelli 2007). These women played a fundamental role in theformulation of innovative constitutional rules on equality and women’srights. As a result, the Italian Constitution ensures both the protection ofmotherhood and also equality between men and women. Traditional laws toprotect working mothers had been in place since the 1902 law No. 242,modified by the 1910 law No. 520 and by the 1934 law No. 1347. Muchmore innovative were the equality provisions, which some deputies founddifficult to accept. In particular, equality in the judiciary met with much

Gender Parity and Quotas in Italy 381

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resistance, with some observing that women were not cut out to becomejudges.5 Nonetheless, the women deputies were able to insert a balancebetween protection and equality into the Constitution.

Since Italy’s new Constitution came into force in 1948, Italian legislatorshave been much more committed to ensure the effective protection ofwomen at the expense of equality. For instance, new laws to protect workingmothers were passed in 1950 and thereafter (the 1950 law No. 860 and thenthe 1971 law No. 1204), but provisions on equality were not enforced for along time. While Article 51 prescribes that all citizens of either sex areeligible for public office on equal terms, women have been able to becomejudges only since 1963. Although Article 29 asserts the moral and legalequality of spouses, only in 1975 was the provision of the civil codeestablishing the husband as the head of the family repealed. Article 37 statesthat working women shall have the same rights and, for the same work, thesame wages as working men, but only in 1977 was a statute passed ensuringequal pay. In short, the innovative spirit of the Constituent Assembly,together with the pluralism and the mutual respect that prevailed among allthe parties that had taken part in the Italian Resistance to fascism, came toan end once the Constituent Assembly completed its work.

Electoral Law and Quotas

From 1948 until 1990, the Democratic Christian Party governed Italy withsmaller parties due to the unwritten agreement (conventio ad excludendum)which excluded the Communist Party, Italy’s second largest party, fromgoverning coalitions. In the early 1990s, following the fall of the SovietUnion and Tangentopoli, the investigation that uncovered many instances ofpolitical corruption, public opinion began to favour more alternation ingovernment, as in the other European countries. The only way to ensurealternation and put an end to both corruption and the political status quoappeared to be through a new electoral law.

After many years of proportional representation (PR), political partieswere not able to reform the electoral law. Due to the opposing interests ofsmall and large parties from both the majority and the opposition,agreement was extremely difficult to reach. The only solution was to holda referendum. According to Article 75 of the Italian Constitution, areferendum must be requested by 500,000 electors or five regions. Theoutcome of the 1993 referendum was quite clear: out of the 77 per cent ofeligible Italian voters who cast a ballot, 82.7 per cent voted in favour of theplurality system. Following the referendum, the electoral law provided for amixed system: three-quarters of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies andSenate were to be elected according to the plurality system, and one-quarteraccording to the PR system.

Women MPs, such as Christian Democrat and President of the EqualOpportunities Commission6 Tina Anselmi and Livia Turco from the

382 E. Palici di Suni

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Democratic Party of the Left, observed that the new electoral law couldactually reduce women’s representation (Guadagnini 2005: 140). Indeed,since there were already so few women in Parliament with the straight PRsystem, there would most likely be even fewer with the new quasi-pluralitysystem. Therefore, all new electoral laws at the national, regional, and locallevels introduced measures to ensure more gender balance, at least for theseats elected according to PR. While some laws required the alternation ofmen and women candidates on every list, others required lists to have nomore than two-thirds of the candidates of the same sex. The laws passedeasily in part because everybody expected the Constitutional Court to strikethem down (Guadagnini 2005: 141–2).

Unsurprisingly, the Constitutional Court did declare all these measures tobe unconstitutional in judgment No. 422/1995 of 12 September 1995,thereby confirming the fundamental role of the courts in the implementationof gender quotas (Baldez 2004: 234, 244–6). In the Court’s view, Article 51of the Constitution, which provides for women’s and men’s equal access topublic and elective offices,7 had an absolute value, meaning that equality didnot allow any gender considerations or differentiation in politics.8

It is interesting to look at this judgment in the light of the four models ofpolitical citizenship (liberal, republican, corporatist–consociational, andhybrid) identified in relation to gender quotas (Krook et al. 2009). Inparticular, the republican citizenship model embodies a philosophicalcommitment to universalism, where the political representation takes intoaccount only the interests of the universal citizen, who exists above andbeyond any particularistic group-based concerns. Consequently, countriesbelonging to this model do not usually provide for quotas. On the contrary,the corporatist–consociational citizenship model is grounded in socialpartnership and consensus. As a result, in this model, quota policies tend tobe favoured so as to promote group-based identities and interests (Krooket al. 2009: 789–90).

What is particularly worth noting is that Krook et al. (2009: 792, 798)generally consider Italy to belong to the corporatist–consociational citizen-ship model. Nonetheless, in judgment No. 422/1995, the Italian Constitu-tional Court did not adopt a corporatist–consociational model of citizenshipand political representation: instead, it emphasised the political right ofevery citizen as an absolute right that cannot be limited in favour of citizensfrom a disadvantaged group, thus following a republican citizenship model.

In judgment No. 109/1993 of 26 March 1993, the Constitutional Courthad previously ruled that affirmative action in the economic and social fieldswas constitutional. In judgment No. 422/1995, the Court specified thataffirmative action and special measures were admissible in the economicrealm, but not in the political realm. The Court’s opinion reflected thedoctrine of the double meaning of the equality principle, with Article 3.1prescribing formal9 equality and Article 3.2 prescribing substantive10

equality. Following that doctrine, substantive equality should be an


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exception to formal equality, from which, as a general rule, the legislaturecould not derogate with regard to political representation. Nevertheless, inkeeping with another, more convincing doctrine, substantive equalityconfirms and strengthens formal equality, thus making the equality principleone and only one (Caravita 1984; Cerri 1976; D’Aloja 2002: 269–74;Gianformaggio 1993; Mortati 1976: 1031–3; Pollicino 2005: 219–24).

It is also important to point out that Article 51 was not always intended insuch an absolute manner. Until 1963, women could not take the judgeshipexam because only men could be candidates, as per a 1941 ordinance andnotwithstanding Article 51 of the Constitution. Only the law No. 67/1963 of9 February 1963 established that men and women must have equal access topublic functions, including the judiciary. Since Article 51 allowed to rule inopposition to equality, why could it not allow to rule in favour of equality?However, following the Constitutional Court’s judgment No. 422 of 1995,special measures relating to elections were perceived to require a specialamendment to Article 51 of the Constitution.

Constitutional Reforms on Parity: Legal and Political Indecision

In 2001, just before the end of the legislative session, the centre-left majorityadopted an important constitutional reform that modified the relationshipbetween the state and regions (the constitutional law No. 3/2001 of 18October 2001). Many constitutional articles were amended. Due to thedifficulties inherent in reforming Article 51, a provision designed to ensuregender parity among candidates was included among the rules related toregional legislation. The new wording of Article 117, paragraph 7, of theConstitution states that ‘[r]egional laws have to remove all obstacles whichprevent the full equality of men and women in social, cultural, and economiclife, and promote equal access of men and women to elective offices’.

Nevertheless, this provision raised a legal puzzle. In the electoral arena,regional law must abide by the general principles provided for by state law.However, if Article 51 (according to the Court’s opinion in judgment No.422/1995) does not allow state law to adopt special measures to promotewomen’s representation, how could Article 117 allow regions to provide forsomething that the state could not provide for?

The only way to solve this contradiction, then, was to conclude that, afterits amendment in 2001, Article 117 already implicitly allowed specialmeasures to promote women’s representation also through state law. Inother words, Article 117 explicitly allowed quotas only at the regional level,but it could be argued that, since general principles at regional level aredictated by state law, Article 117 already allowed state law to provide forquotas when regulating elections at the state level (Palici di Suni 2001).

Notwithstanding this interpretation, according to which it would havebeen unnecessary to amend Article 51, this Article was in fact revised in 2003(the constitutional law No. 1/2003 of 12 June 2003). The new Article 117


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and the example of France, where a similar constitutional amendment waspassed in 1999, and European law (particularly with the Charter ofFundamental Rights of the European Union, proclaimed on 7 December2000) gave political support to the reform, which was adopted by a centre-right majority (Guadagnini 2005: 144–5). The provision added to Article 51specified that ‘the Republic adopts specific measures in order to promoteequal chances for men and women’. As a result of this amendment, theConstitution now mandates both parity and the enactment of affirmativeaction in the political realm. These measures therefore become admissible inareas other than the economic and social fields. The new Article 51 explicitlyallows for the insertion of gender-based affirmative action measures intoelectoral legislation, similar to those introduced after the 1993 referendumand declared unconstitutional in 1995.

The contradictory sequence of reforms – first, that relative to regional lawand then the general amendment – reflects an ambivalence that is not onlylegal, but above all political. The legal contradiction is the consequence of awill which was not strong enough at the political level. The first step of thereform was adopted by a centre-left majority and the second by a centre-right one: both needed to appear to be striving for greater gender balance inpolitics. In fact, while the reform was passed following other countries’examples, there was no public debate, as there had been in France(Guadagnini 2005: 146). Furthermore, with regard to the involvement ofwomen, Della Porta (2003: 53) notes, ‘[t]he Italian chapters of the women’slobby Emily pushed for parity-based access to representative institutions atthe different levels of government, while the women MPs often madetransparty pacts in favour of the implementation of equal treatment forwomen’. Nevertheless, there were different positions among women andwomen’s groups on parity, diversity, as well as the use of affirmative action(Della Porta 2003: 56–7; Guadagnini 2007: 178). In the 1990s, intensivecampaigns on abortion law and on laws against sexual violence werepromoted by women’s movements (Della Porta 2003: 58). Reformsconcerning women’s presence in public and political office did not bringabout the same level of mobilisation. Consensus among women leaders andwomen’s movements is one of the most important factors contributing tothe adoption of gender quota laws (Baldez 2004: 234, 237–43, 252; Krook2007: 370; Lovenduski 2008; Lovenduski et al. 2005). In Italy, due towomen’s lack of cohesiveness and the technical nature of the issue, it did notreceive the same level of visibility or have the same impact as other issueslike abortion or sexual violence.

The New Electoral Law

In the end, the enforcement of the 2001 and 2003 amendments encounteredas much resistance as that of the 1948 constitutional provisions on genderequality had. Indeed, as in 1948, legislation to ensure the implementation of


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the new constitutional amendments never came or came in late mainly dueto political parties’ lack of will.

Initially, political parties had agreed to establish only a generalconstitutional principle (Guadagnini 2005: 149). However, the consensusdisplayed by parties while drafting this principle evaporated when the timecame to formulate the legislative measures necessary for implementation.Some MPs of the centre-left and the centre-right (men and women,including Emma Bonino) opposed quotas and argued that women did notneed them. Others continued to view them as unconstitutional despite the2001 and 2003 constitutional amendments. In any case, first, law No. 90/2004 of 8 April 2004 on the election of the Italian Members of the EuropeanParliament, prescribed that no more than two-thirds of the candidates onthe lists could be of the same sex. Second, state law No. 165/2004 of 2 July2004, which provides for fundamental principles on regional elections, didnot include any requirements on women’s representation (Catelani 2008:251–2), as if the question did not exist and as if no constitutional reform hadbeen passed.

Furthermore, regional legislative measures of implementation came inlate. Principles on parity were inserted, in more or less detail, into manyregional statutes (Catelani 2008),11 as they had been inserted, at the nationallevel, into the Constitution. Only in recent years have regions adopted orbegun adopting more specific electoral laws instituting quotas. Someregional laws simply require electoral lists to include candidates of bothsexes.12 Nonetheless, most regional electoral laws provide that no more thantwo-thirds of the candidates on the provincial lists should be of the samesex,13 and in some cases they even prescribe the alternation of men andwomen candidates on the regional lists.14 Electoral law No. 226 of 1 March2007 of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region stipulates that no more than60 per cent of the candidates in the lists can be of the same sex (Article 23).Also, the electoral law of 12 March 2009 of the Campania region prescribesthat no more than two-thirds of the candidates on the lists can be of thesame sex and sets out that the voter can have one or two preferences whenvoting for a list. If the preferences are two, one has to be for a man and theother for a woman (Caielli 2009).15

By contrast, there is no rule on women’s representation in state law No.270/2005 of 21 December 2005, which amended the electoral law of both theSenate and the Chamber of Deputies and re-instituted PR 12 years after thereferendum in favour of the plurality system. Although nominallyproportional, the new electoral law contains many majority correctivesdesigned to foster major parties or coalitions (Bardi 2007: 712). Forinstance, the winning party or coalition obtains at least 340 seats (out of630) in the Chamber of Deputies, and the winning party or coalition in everyregion obtains at least 55 per cent of this region’s Senate seats.16

The 4 per cent national-level threshold that applies in the Chamber ofDeputies drops to 2 per cent for parties belonging to a coalition that receives


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more than 10 per cent of the vote. In the Senate, the 8 per cent regional-levelthreshold drops to 3 per cent for parties that are part of a coalition withmore than 20 per cent of the vote. Furthermore, there is no preferencechoice. The voter votes for a list, and the candidates are elected pursuant tothe order on the list previously determined by the parties.

In 2009, the Italian Parliament amended the law on the election of theItalian Members of the European Parliament (law No. 10/2009 of 20February 2009). While the law sets out a 4 per cent threshold, it stillprovides for the preference choice and stipulates that in every list no morethan two-thirds of the candidates can be of the same sex.

Italy’s constitutional and legislative reforms to enhance women’srepresentation in elected office are summarised in Table 1.

The Italian Path to Parity

Drude Dahlerup (2007: 74) observes that, generally speaking, politicalparties are the gatekeepers of elected positions and, consequently, they alsohave the power to alter the under-representation of women. According to

TABLE 1

SUMMARY OF ITALY’S LEGISLATIVE AND CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS ON

WOMEN’S ACCESS TO ELECTED OFFICE

Laws Elections Specific provisions

State laws No. 3/1993 and No.43/1995 DECLAREDUNCONSTITUTIONAL

Local and regionalelections

No more than 2/3 candidates ofthe same sex on the lists

State law No. 277/1993DECLAREDUNCONSTITUTIONAL

Election of the Chamberof Deputies

Alternation of men and womencandidates of the same sexon the lists.

Const. law No. 3/2001 Article 117, paragraph 7,of the Constitution

‘Regional laws have to . . .promote equal access of menand women to electiveoffices’

Const. law No. 1/2003 Article 51 of theConstitution

‘the Republic adopts specificmeasures in order topromote equal chance formen and women’

State law No. 90/2004 European Parliamentelection

No more than 2/3 candidates ofthe same sex on the lists

State law No. 165/2004 Principles on regionalelections

No rule on women’srepresentation

State law No. 270/2005 National Parliamentelection

No rule on women’srepresentation

Regional law No. 1/2005 Calabria region Candidates of both sexes on thelists

Some regional Laws (2004–2005)

Other regions No more than 2/3 candidates ofthe same sex on the lists

Regional law No. 226/2007 Friuli Venezia Giuliaregion

No more than 60 per cent of thecandidates of the same sexon the lists


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the Italian legislation, the number and position of women and men on thelists are up to the parties. The voter cannot choose a man or a woman, s/hemarks the list of women and men decided by the party. Consequently, thepercentage of women and men in the Senate and in the Chamber ofDeputies does not depend on the result of elections, but rather on whatparties decide before the elections.

There are two methods to ensure greater gender balance in politics. One ispolitical and the other legal. For instance, Scandinavian countries andothers have mainly used political means: parties self-impose greater genderbalance into their organisation and on the electoral lists. On the other hand,countries such as those considered in this symposium have resorted to legalmeans, namely constitutional and legislative reforms. Drude Dahlerup andLenita Freidenvall call the latter the ‘fast track’, as opposed to the‘incremental track’ to women’s parliamentary representation, typical ofmerely political measures (Dahlerup 2006; Dahlerup and Freidenvall 2005).

The 2001 and 2003 constitutional reforms would indicate Italy’spreference for legal means. However, the laws that were subsequentlyadopted, in particular the law No. 270/2005, would suggest that this is nolonger the case since all decisions on women’s and men’s representation arenow left to political parties. In brief, while the new constitutional provisionsentrusted the laws to promote women’s representation, the 2005 electorallaw entrusts this task to parties again.

Although the Italian parity reforms can be compared with the French ones(Guadagnini 2005: 144–5; Mateo Diaz 2008: 97–8; Mateo Diaz and Millns2004: 294–5), significant differences are nevertheless to be noted. (Palici diSuni 2004: 223–9; 2008: 604–7). First of all, the original wording of Italy andFrance’s respective constitutional equality provisions are quite different. Onthe one hand, the 1948 Italian Constitution prescribes gender equality ingeneral (Article 3), within the family (Article 29), in labour rights (Article 37),and in public and elective offices (Article 51). By contrast, the 1958 FrenchConstitution asserts the right to vote of citizens of either sex (Article 3), andthe preamble refers to the 1946 Constitution Preamble, which provides thatthe law must grant women rights equal to those of men in all spheres.

Furthermore, after a complex debate among women’s movements,political parties, and the courts on the concept of equality, parity, andquotas (Baudino 2005: 94–7; Krook 2009: 182–96, 217), the 1999constitutional reform in France (the constitutional law No. 99–569), whichstates that the law must favour the equal access of women and men toelective offices and positions (Article 3, paragraph 5), was viewed not as anapplication of, but as an exception to the principle of equality. The FrenchConstitutional Council declared as unconstitutional the two laws extendingquotas respectively to the Judiciary Council (Decision No. 2001/445 of 19June 2001) and public and private boards (Decision No. 2006/533 of 16March 2006) on the grounds that the Constitution allowed special measuresonly for political mandates. Instead the Constitutional Council (Decision


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No. 2000/430 of 29 June 2000) had found no objection to law No. 2000–493of 6 June 2000 on women’s and men’s equal access to elective offices andpositions that was passed immediately after the constitutional reform andthat prescribes 50 per cent of candidatures of either sex on PR lists. Withrespect to Italy, the original wording of Article 51 of the Constitution, whichprovides for men’s and women’s equal access to elective offices according tothe conditions established by the law, appeared to already allow for speciallegislative measures to promote greater gender balance, and this without aconstitutional amendment.

As mentioned earlier, the Italian Constitutional Court neverthelessadopted a different and restrictive interpretation. Indeed, constitutionalamendments passed, following the French model, but in a contradictoryway. Laws to enforce the reforms passed only partly or did not pass at allbecause of political parties’ lack of strong will to enhance the presence ofwomen in the Parliament and politics.

Even in France, political will to improve women’s representation is weak.Parties do just what the laws oblige them to do. Notwithstandingconstitutional and legislative reforms, the percentage of women MPs inFrance has not dramatically increased (Baudino 2005: 100–101; Murray2012) and still remains one of the lowest in Europe.17 However, since theadoption of the reforms, a number of significant developments have takenplace in France. The law No. 2007–128 of 31 January 2007 now requiresmunicipal and regional executives to be gender-balanced. For the first timein France’s history, a woman, Socialist Segolene Royal, qualified for thesecond and final round of the 2007 presidential election; she did not win, butmany women were appointed Ministers in the new centre-right government.While laws are not enough without political will, it is important to recognisethat they can nevertheless help to trigger important cultural and politicalchange (Murray 2012).

Change is perceptible in Italy as well. 11.5 per cent of deputies werewomen in 2001, and 17.1 per cent in 2006. Following the 2008 elections,women now hold 21.3 per cent of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies. Inregard to the Senate, women’s presence increased from 8.1 per cent in 2001to 14 per cent in 2006 and has been at 18.3 per cent since 2008. Table 2shows the progression of women’s representation in the Italian Parliamentsince the inception of the Constitution. The increase in women that the 1993quotas brought about vanished after judgment No. 422 of 1995 of theConstitutional Court. Since 2006, however, despite the legal and politicalcontradictions mentioned earlier, women’s representation has continued toimprove.

Legal reforms and quotas can engender and consolidate change: forinstance, the parallel use of legal and party gender quotas in the Belgianelectoral process entailed a mutual contagion effect (Meier 2004, 2012).

In Spain, organic law No. 3 of 2007 for the effective equality of womenand men requires gender-balanced lists of candidates for elections to the


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Congress of Deputies, municipal councils, European Parliament, andlegislative assemblies of the autonomous communities. Lists are deemedto be gender-balanced when the percentage is between 40 and 60 per cent.As early as the 1980s political parties had begun to impose greater genderbalance within their own organisations and on their electoral lists (ArandaAlvarez 2001: 89; Threlfall 2007; Trujillo 2000: 375; Valiente 2005). Now thelaw strengthens this effort and makes it binding.

The influence of other European countries, deeper and deeper within theEuropean Union, can support an actual change at the cultural, political, andlegal levels; such change could also ensure a less convoluted and more linearpath to gender parity in Italy.

Conclusion

The Italian Constitution contains a number of provisions prescribingequality between men and women in the family, at work, and in publicoffice. The first women elected to the Constituent Assembly played a keyrole in the adoption of these provisions. Nonetheless, legislators failed torespect the innovative spirit of the Constitution, and traditional thinkingprevailed over the concept of parity. From the 1990s onwards, the influenceof the EU institutions and the examples set by other European countriesbrought forth constitutional and legislative reforms aimed at ensuringgreater gender balance in politics, but their enactment reveals many legalcontradictions. These contradictions reflect a lack of will on the part ofpolitical parties. Great principles have been established, but the politicalconsensus is not enough to turn these principles into more specific measures;

TABLE 2

WOMEN IN THE ITALIAN CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES AND SENATE SINCE 1948 (%)

Year Chamber of Deputies Senate

1948 7.7 1.21953 5.8 0.41958 4.2 1.21963 4.4 1.91968 2.9 3.11972 3.8 1.91976 8.4 3.71979 8.7 4.31983 8.3 5.01987 13.0 6.51992 8.1 9.81994 14.8 9.21996 11.4 8.32001 11.3 7.92006 17.3 13.72008 21.3 18.4

Sources: Creperio Verratti (2005: 632); Inter-Parliamentary Union (2011).


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legislation to enforce the 2001 and 2006 constitutional reforms came in lateor did not even materialise.

Ensuring greater gender balance in Italian politics requires a change ofmindset on the part of politicians and citizens and a renewal of the politicalsystem, which in Italy has not really changed since the end of World War II,despite many electoral reforms. Deep renewal normally offers more chancesto women. Following the Scottish and Welsh devolution acts, women MPswere 37.2 per cent in the new Scottish Parliament (1999) and 41 per cent inthe Welsh Assembly (2000) (Innes 2003; Krook 2009: 147–9). The influenceof the EU and other European countries, along with a clarification of thelegal and political terms of the Italian experience, could encourage moremeaningful change.

Notes

1. This Italian scholarship includes Beccalli (1999), Carlassare (2002), Bin et al. (2003),

Guadagnini (2003), Palici di Suni (2004), Brunelli (2006), and Catalani (2008).

2. The Corte di Cassazione is the Italian equivalent of the Cour de cassation in France, the

Supreme Court, which rules at the highest level on legal and interpretative questions.

3. App. Ancona, judgment of 28 July 1906, Foro italiano 1906, I, 1060; Cass. Roma, judgment

of 12 December 1906, Giurisprudenza italiana 1907, III, 1.

4. In 1912 Ciccarone said: ‘Non sapro mai persuadermi che si debba negare ad una donna

colta quello che si concede ad un uomo ignorante’ (I will never be convinced that an

educated woman can be denied what is afforded to an ignorant man) (Pivetti 1996: 64).

5. Bettiol said: ‘San Paolo diceva: ‘‘Tacciano le donne nella Chiesa’’. Se San Paolo fosse vivo

direbbe ‘‘Facciano silenzio le donne anche nei tribunali’’ . . . Perche il problema

dell’amministrazione della giustizia e un problema razionale, e un problema logico, che

deve essere impostato e risolto in termini di forte emotivita, non gia di quella commozione

puramente superficiale che e propria del genere femminile’ (Saint Paul said: ‘Shall

women be silent in the Church’. If Saint Paul were still alive, he would say ‘Shall women

be silent also in the courts’ . . . Because administering the judicial system is a rational and

logical problem, which has to be set out and solved with strong emotionality, not with that

superficial emotion peculiar to the female gender) (Cicconetti 1970, V: 3708–9).

6. The Equal Opportunities Commission and Committees had begun to operate in Italy a few

years before. On the impact of women’s policy agencies on state decision-making, see

Lovenduski (2008). On women’s policy agency activities in Italy in the 1990s, see

Guadagnini (2007: 182–4).

7. ‘Citizens of one or the other sex have access to public offices and to elective mandates under

equal conditions, according to the rules established by law.’

8. On the judgment No. 422/1995, see Brunelli (1995), Cinanni (1995), De Siervo

(1995), Carlassare (1997: 82–6), Barbera (1999: 91–119), and Pizzorusso and Rossi (1999:

176–82).

9. ‘All citizens have equal social dignity and are equal before the law, without distinction as to

sex, race, language, religion, political opinions, or personal or social condition.’

10. ‘It is the duty of the Republic to remove those obstacles of economic and social nature that

in fact limit the freedom and equality of citizens, impede the full development of the human

person and the effective participation of all workers in the political, economic and social

organisation of the country.’

11. Regional statutes contain rules on the form of government and on the regional organisation

(Article 123 of the Constitution).

12. Law No. 1/2005 of the Calabria region (Article 6).


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13. Abruzzo Law No. 42/2004, Marche Law No. 27/2004, Trentino-Alto Adige Law No. 7/

2004 (referred to municipal elections), Puglia Law No. 2/2005.

14. Toscana Law No. 25/2004 (but only if there are at least two candidates), Lazio Law No. 2/

2005, Sicily Law No. 7/2005.

15. The solution of a double candidature was proposed by Carlassare (1997: 90–92). The law of

Campania was challenged by the government, but the Constitutional Court declared it to be

not unconstitutional with judgment No. 4/2010 of 15 December 2009 (see http://www.

cortecostituzionale.it/).

16. The Senate is elected on a regional basis (Article 57 of the Constitution).

17. 18.2 per cent in the lower house and 21.9 per cent in the upper house.

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gender parity and quotas in italy: a convoluted reform process

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