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- Back to Competitive Authoritarianism? Democratic Backsliding in Vučić’s SerbiaPublication . Castaldo, AntoninoDespite growing concerns expressed by international organisations about the deterioration of democracy in Vučić’s Serbia, the country has been neglected by the literature on the ‘crisis of democracy’. Using a combined qualitative/quantitative research strategy for detecting changes in regime types, including various V-DEM measures and over three dozen indicators provided by the competitive authoritarian framework, the analysis confirms the recent regression of Vučić’s Serbia to competitive authoritarianism. The peculiar features of the Serbian case—a double transition to and from democracy in less than two decades—appear to support a pessimistic outlook for the future of democracy.
- Technocratic Populism in Italy after Berlusconi: The Trendsetter and his DisciplesPublication . Castaldo, Antonino; VERZICHELLI, LUCANotwithstanding the speculations from the literature, the empirical analyses still neglect the convergence between populism and technocracy. The Italian case can be of some interest in this perspective, given the rise of technocratic populism since Silvio Berlusconi’s rise to power in 1994. By analyzing the style of leadership and the processes of ministerial appointment and delegation, we argue that Berlusconi has been a trendsetter, more than a coherent example of technocratic populist leader. On the one hand, he played the role of the entrepreneur in politics, promising to run the state as a firm. Moreover, he adopted an anti-establishment appeal, delegitimizing political opponents and stressing the divide between ‘us’ (hardworking ordinary people) and ‘them’ (incompetent politicians). On the other hand, however, his anti-elite approach was mainly directed towards the ‘post-communist elite.’ Extending the analysis to the following two decades, we introduce a diachronic comparison involving three examples of leadership somehow influenced by Berlusconi. Mario Monti represents the paradox of the impossible hero: A pure technocrat unable to take a genuinely populist semblance. Matteo Renzi represents the attempt to mix a populist party leadership with a technocratic chief executive style. Finally, Salvini represents the pure nativist heir of Berlusconi, as the new leader of the right-wing camp. The latest developments of executive leadership in Italy, and the re-emergence of other residual hints of technocratic populism, will be discussed in the final section of the article, also in the light of the evident impact of the 2020 pandemic outbreak on the practices of government.
- Behind the technocratic challenge: Old and new alternatives to party government in ItalyPublication . Castaldo, Antonino; VERZICHELLI, LUCAThe growing presence of technocrats in contemporary governments has emerged as a relevant phenomenon worldwide. Italy, once known as a paradigmatic case of party government and now identified as the promised land of technocracy, constitutes a crucial case to test the major short-term (critical junctures) and long-term (complexity of policy-making; party decline) factors identified to explain this phenomenon. Our analysis is based on two innovative tools: a new dataset updated to the current back-to-politics Meloni Italian government, including all the cases of the ‘technocratic decade’ (2010s); and a new typology combining partisanship and expertise, which allows us to overcome dichotomous categorizations equating technocrats and non-partisans. This more accurate and updated picture of minister profiles in Italy unveils unexpected dynamics and allows us to reassess both previous findings on the Italian case and the explanatory power of the tested theories on the growing diffusion of technocrats in contemporary governments.
- De-Europeanization in the Balkans. Media freedom in post-Milošević SerbiaPublication . Castaldo, Antonino; Pinna, AlessandraWhile the Europeanization literature has focused extensively on analysing progress towards the adoption of the European model, scant attention has been devoted to cases of resistance and contestation, which may lead to the emergence of a new phenomenon identified as de-Europeanization. In order to inquire on this phenomenon, a case study analysis will be applied to Serbian media freedom. Is this sector undergoing a process of de- Europeanization while the country is progressing toward full EU membership? The analysis demonstrates the recent consolidation of a de-Europeanizing trend, coinciding with the return to power of former Milošević ruling parties.
- External Democracy Promotion in Time of Democratic Crisis: Linkage, Leverage, and Domestic Actors’ Diversionary BehavioursPublication . Castaldo, AntoninoSince the 1990s, the literature on External Democracy Promotion (EDP) expanded exponentially. Despite widely supported conclusions on EDP (in)effectiveness in fostering democratization and preventing democratic backsliding are still lacking, the literature has generated sophisticated explanations of these processes. Among them, Levitsky and Way’s (L&W’s) linkage and leverage theory stands out as one of the most influential. According to Tolstrup, however, their underestimation of domestic agency constitutes a crucial lacuna, which he proposes to fill through the concept of “Gatekeeping Elite” that underlines a significant impact of local actors on the linkage dimension and, consequently, on EDP (in)effectiveness. I believe that Tolstrup’s intuition can be further developed, expanding even more the explanatory power of L&W’s theory. I claim that domestic actors may exert a crucial influence also on the leverage dimension, thanks to “diversionary behaviours” that local elites may use to change external actors’ interests and preferences, persuading them to limit their democratizing pressures and thus reduce their own vulnerability to EDP processes. To assess the plausibility of this claim, I perform a congruence analysis on the recent and crucial case of autocratization in Serbia (EU candidate country), which is not fully explained by the aforementioned models.
- Eredità dei Regimi Ibridi e Qualità Democratica. Il Caso della SerbiaPublication . Castaldo, Antonino; Pinna, Alessandra
- A crise da democracia: uma revisão seletiva do debate académico atualPublication . Castaldo, AntoninoA «crise da democracia» (CdD) tornou- se recentemente um dos temas mais debatidos na literatura sobre democratização. No entanto, esta literatura pode ser considerada embrionária por razões conceptuais, metodológicas e teóricas. De forma a oferecer uma visão sistemática e seletiva dos debates atuais, proponho uma tipologia descritiva que leva tanto em consideração as dimensões objetiva/ /subjetiva como nacional/internacional da CdD. Concluo que, apesar de o fenómeno existir, é visto hoje em dia como sendo mais preocupante do que aquilo que é sugerido realmente pelas evidências empíricas. No entanto, algumas alterações relevantes nas condições que conduziram ao sucesso da terceira vaga parecem justificar uma perspetiva moderadamente pessimista sobre o futuro da democracia.
- Government partisans: A practical typologyPublication . Camerlo, Marcelo; Castaldo, AntoninoThe party affiliation of cabinet ministers is a critical but neglected notion. While its application and theoretical centrality is indisputable in many research fields, explicit definitions are difficult to find, while operationalizations tend to rely on rudimentary categorizations. Departing from formulating a definition consistent with the party government model, we propose a flexible typology to categorize and rank variants of partisans both within and beyond consolidated parliamentary democracies. We show that the new approach can capture important unobserved dynamics well.
- Le elezioni regionali in Portogallo: Il caso di MadeiraPublication . Castaldo, Antonino; Camerlo, Marcelo
- O Debate Acadêmico Sobre A Crise Da Democracia: Uma Proposta TipológicaPublication . Castaldo, AntoninoA «crise da democracia» (CdD) tornou-se recentemente um dos temas mais debatidos na literatura sobre democratização. No entanto, esta literatura pode ser considerada embrionária por razões conceptuais, metodológicas e teóricas. De forma a oferecer uma visão sistemática e seletiva dos debates atuais, proponho uma tipologia descritiva que leva tanto em consideração as dimensões objetiva/subjetiva como nacional/internacional da CdD. Concluo que, apesar de o fenómeno existir, é visto hoje em dia como sendo mais preocupante do que aquilo que é sugerido realmente pelas evidências empíricas. No entanto, algumas alterações relevantes nas condições que conduziram ao sucesso da terceira vaga parecem justifi uma perspetiva moderadamente pessimista sobre o futuro da democracia.