MATTEO RENZI'S CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM: ITS ESSENCE AND POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES

Introduction: The article looks into an important event in the Italian political life – the constitutional referendum held in December 2016, The referendum was initiated by the government of Matteo Renzi (Democratic party). This reform is the most ambitious one in the entire Republican history of the country not only in quantitative terms (number of amendments to the Constitution), but also in qualitative terms (changes concerning the powers of the Senate). Materials and methods: the paper presents a theoretical analysis of the main provisions of the constitutional reform initiated by Matteo Renzi, a potential impact of proposed changes and causes of the failure of the referendum. Research results: the Renzi-Boschi Constitutional reform was primarily focused on changing (truncation) the powers of the Senate and its membership number. According to the reform, the senators were not only “suspended” from participation in the law making process on current political issues, but the Senate at large was deprived of the right of veto, while the government was subject to control only by the Chamber of Deputies. At its core, the Renzi-Boschi reform increased the power of the government and the  Prime Minister in particular. In combination with the electoral law (the”Italicum”), which provides for “the award of the majority,” the country was about to experience an authoritarian shift. The reasons for the failure of the referendum lie in the provisions of the draft reform of the Constitution and in the fact that the 2016 referendum was de facto a “vote of confidence” in the Matteo Renzi government and personally in the Prime Minister. Discussion and conclusions: the Renzi-Boschi Constitutional reform in its essence was an attempt to launch the “perestroika” of the Republic and its foundations. The transition from the First Republic to the Second, which began in the early 1990-s is still continuing.

1. Liubin V.P., 1998. Ital’ianskaia partiino-politicheskaia sistema v 90-e gg. (perekhod ot Pervoi ko Vtoroi Respublike) [Italian party system in the 90’s (the transition from the First Republic to the Second]. Mirovaia ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia [World Economy and International Relations]. № 3.

2. Maslova E.A., 2012. Ideologicheskie osnovy vneshnei politiki Italii perioda Vtoroi Respubliki: dissertatsiia na soisk. … kand. polit. nauk [Ideological basis of the Italian Foreign Policy during the Second Republic]. Moscow.

3. Sardarian G.T., 2016. Politicheskie problemy regionalizatsii Italii [Political Problems of the Regionalisation in Italy]. Moscow, 150 s.

4. Di Cosimo G., 2017. Le riforme istituzionali dopo il referendum [Institutional Reforms after the Referendum]. Fascicolo № 1.

5. Pasquino G., Valbruzzi M., 2017. Italy says no: the 2016 constitutional referendum and its consequences. Journal of Modern Italian Studies. 22:2.

6. Tsebelis G., 2017. Compromesso astorico: the role of the Senate after the Italian constitutional reform. Italian Political Science Review. 47:1.