Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

Italy's Election Was Quite Traditional, Actually

The nation's voters favor weak central governments for a reason.

March 5, 2018 at 5:21 PM UTC

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

A modern classic.
Photographer: Alessandra Benedetti/Corbis via Getty Images

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The Italian election was heartening for populist forces. Yet the results do not break with a venerable Italian tradition -- one that political scientist Giuseppe di Palma described in "Surviving without Governing: The Italian Parties in Parliament." Those who are suddenly overcome with anxiety for Italy and Europe might find solace in its pages.

Di Palma's work, published in 1977, emerged in the wake of parliamentary elections that look a lot like Sunday's results: