Perceptions of Populist Parties in Government: Lega Nord & Swiss People's Party Study, Dispense di Scienza Politica

Scarica Perceptions of Populist Parties in Government: Lega Nord & Swiss People's Party Study e più Dispense in PDF di Scienza Politica solo su Docsity! 7 Members’ and representatives’ reactions to government participation In the previous two chapters we have considered the consequences of government participation for populists in electoral terms ( Chapter 5 ) and the extent to which they managed to deliver on their key election pledges while in office ( Chapter 6 ). Given the aims of our book, we now examine how the experience of populist parties in government was perceived by their representatives and members. 1 In doing so, we are aware that this means entering a rarely explored terrain within political science. Indeed, despite some renewed interest in party members during the 1980s and 1990s (discussed by van Haute, 2011 : 10), the micro level of parties remains very much neglected. As Knut Heidar ( 2007 : 8) observed, ‘what is known about peoples’ motivations for joining a party is scattered; there is no generally acknowledged typology for peoples’ motivations’. Likewise, there are few studies available that investigate ‘the reasons for remaining a member or for leaving a party’ (van Haute, 2011 : 21). 2 Both Emilie van Haute ( 2011 ) and Heidar ( 2007 ) have therefore called for more comparative research to be done on party members so that we can better understand both what drives them and how they conceive of their experiences within their parties. More specifi cally, scholars have proposed ‘typologies’ for activists of ‘extreme right parties’ (a category that only partially overlaps with our own), accord- ing to political backgrounds and the extent to which activists adhere to the party’s ideology (Klandermans and Mayer, 2006 ; Linden and Klandermans, 2007 ; Goodwin, 2010 ); however, we still know very little about how members and representatives of populist parties view their parties and what they think of their parties’ experiences in government. As far as Italian and Swiss popu- list parties are concerned, this chapter goes some way towards fi lling that gap by examining: (a) what members and representatives thought of their party in offi ce, especially whether or not they believed it had delivered on its key pre-election promises; (b) what they thought of their government partners and how well they believed their party had related to them. Exploring these questions will allow us to insert a crucial piece in the larger puzzle of how government participation is experienced and perceived within populist par- ties. As we will see, and perhaps not unexpectedly, our own assessment of the 132 Members’ and representatives’ reactions extent to which these parties were able to deliver on their pre-electoral pledges while in government (see Chapter 6 ) diverges considerably from the views of their members and representatives. An important conclusion of this chapter is therefore that the three parties were generally successful in convincing their members and representatives that they were delivering on their promises and that government participation could, in the end, pay off (regardless of their very different degrees of success in fulfi lling their pledges). To discuss all this in detail, we will now cover the three parties in turn – fi rst the LN, then the PDL, and, fi nally, the SVP. In each case, we will start by discussing what members and representatives thought of the experience of their party in gov- ernment, and then we will consider how they assessed its relationship with its government partners. Populists in government: the view from within The Lega Nord As the junior component of a two-party coalition, the Lega Nord (LN – Northern League) was faced with the important task of convincing its larger partner, the Popolo della Libert à (PDL – People of Freedom), to make concessions on policy when they renewed their electoral alliance, eventually leading to the formation of another Silvio Berlusconi-led government in 2008. These concessions were necessary to show that the LN had not ‘sold out’ for the sake of accessing power and that there were limits to the extent to which it was willing to sacrifi ce its policies for the sake of offi ce. Moreover, in order to justify making the inevitable compromises of offi ce, the LN needed to remain vigilant during its time in government, ensuring that the agreements negotiated with the PDL were implemented. As we have discussed in Chapter 6 , the LN was indeed successful, not only with respect to putting its key themes of greater northern autonomy and immigration and law and order fi rmly and consistently at the centre of government actions (particularly during the fi rst two years in offi ce), but also in being seen to constantly lead the executive on these themes. In short, having specialized in a few key policy areas which were not the main concern of its ally– a strategy that Nicole Bolleyer ( 2007 : 123) suggests should be adopted by all small parties taking part in coalitions – the LN was then successful in reinforcing its ‘issue ownership’ over these themes while in government (see Budge and Farlie, 1983 ; Petrocik, 1996 ; van der Brug, 2004 ). In this section, we rely on data collected through a combination of quan- titative and qualitative methods to assess the extent to which LN representa- tives and members: (a) were satisfi ed with the experiences of their party in power; (b) thought it had managed to deliver on its pledges; and (c) believed the relationship it had established with the PDL was benefi cial to it (or not). We will therefore consider the results of a questionnaire we distributed to a Members’ and representatives’ reactions 135 put it. Others, such as member 5 from Piedmont, also expressed satisfaction with what the party had achieved on immigration, and cited an agreement signed with Libya in 2008 (designed to reduce the number of attempted cross- ings from Africa to Europe) as proof of the LN’s effectiveness in government. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 0 3 28 69 No t a t a ll No t v er y Re as on ab ly Ve ry P er ce nt ag e of r es po nd en ts Figure 7.3 ‘How happy are you with what the Lega has done in government in the last year?’ Note: Tot = 100. Total valid responses out of 206: 202. 0.5 18.9 54.2 26.3 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 No t a t a ll No t v er y Re as on ab ly Ve ry P er ce nt ag e of r es po nd en ts Figure 7.4 ‘How happy are you with what the Lega did in government between 2001 and 2006?’ Note: Tot = 99.9. Total valid responses out of 206: 190. 136 Members’ and representatives’ reactions According to member 10 from Veneto, therefore, the image of the leghisti (‘those of the Lega Nord’) was starting to change because of the skills dem- onstrated by LN representatives in government: this rock-solid image of the leghista who is a bit ignorant … not very cul- tured, not fi t and able to be a politician has collapsed. This wall of hyp- ocrisy which all the mass media built around our movement has collapsed … precisely because we have someone like Maroni, Castelli, and lots of other people here in Veneto … like Luca Zaia who has been phenomenal for this region and has performed miracles for the farming community. People have seen that our representatives are credible, they have seen that when they begin a battle, they follow it through to the end as they have promised. In their interviews, representatives sang from the same hymn sheet concern- ing the LN’s place in government, the quality of its ministers, its effective- ness in driving the government’s agenda and its ability to get what it wanted. According to Marino Finozzi, President of the Veneto Regional Council Chamber, Maroni had understood how worried Italians were about criminal- ity (particularly in the North) and had acted swiftly, thereby allowing people to start hoping that things would eventually get better. Federico Razzini, a regional councillor in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, saw the fi ght against illegal immigration, of which Maroni was the undisputed symbol, as no less than ‘essential for the survival of the social and cultural identity of Italy, and particularly of Padania [i.e. Northern Italy]’. Representatives were also in agreement with members concerning the new-found respectability of the LN. For instance, Pietro Fontanini (president of the Province of Udine) said to us that the actions of LN ministers, whom he termed ‘very effective policy- makers’: have transformed our image into one which is increasingly that of a mature party. And the people now see in us a party which is not just about protest and opposing, but which can govern. Federal reform was the other main area in which members thought the party had achieved success. When talking to us, members praised the import- ance of the legislation on fi scal federalism passed in 2009 (defi ned by member 6 from Piedmont as the realization of a ‘dream’) and the speed with which it had been approved (that is, within a year of the government taking offi ce, as member 3 from Piedmont reminded us – see Appendix 1 , year 2009). Representatives made similar claims when talking about this subject. Hence, for Finozzi, federalism was no less than the party’s ‘mission’, while for Oreste Rossi (a regional councillor from Piedmont), it was the objective justifying the party’s very existence. Furthermore, Razzini argued that the introduction of the principle of ‘standard’ costs and ‘standard’ expenditures (see Chapter 6 ) Members’ and representatives’ reactions 137 was essential to achieving a decrease in the future burden of taxation on northerners (an important objective for the LN since its foundation). Besides being successful in government, interviewees felt that the LN had also been very effective in managing its relationship with the PDL – despite respondents generally expressing a very unfavourable judgement about this party in interviews. Although, for reasons of space, we are unable to expand here on what respondents thought of the PDL (but see Albertazzi, 2013 ), a very brief discussion of this is necessary in order to shed light on how the rela- tionship between the two parties was seen to work by their members. Criticism was levelled at the PDL by LN interviewees mainly for the follow- ing reasons: fi rst, it was said to lack the organization of a ‘proper’ party, as well as genuine roots at local level (thereby allegedly relying on the resources of its leader rather than on the commitment of a well-organized network of members); 6 second, it was said to lack a clear ideological identity; third, too many within the PDL were said to have been members of the ‘old’ First Republic political class, which was not to be trusted. In other words, as far as its weaknesses were concerned, the PDL was said to be the very opposite of the LN (and interviewees did not fi nd anything positive to say about it, except, as we will see below, that it had given their party what it wanted). For instance, Fontanini said to us that the PDL would end up ‘exploding’ with- out its leader, while member 12 (from Veneto) talked of its ‘implosion’, say- ing that ‘after Berlusconi, there will be nothing left’. For Lorenzo Fontana, a city councillor from Verona, the PDL was ‘a plastic party, which does not exist on the ground’, while LN members similarly defi ned it as: ‘a chaos, a minestrone’ (member 14, from Veneto), a ‘mixture’ (member 3) and a ‘hotch- potch’ (member 5 from Piedmont). As for the PDL’s relationship with the old political class, Franco Manzato (vice-president of the Veneto regional government) bluntly stated that the PDL was ‘the First Republic’, a view that very much tallied with that of grassroots respondents, many of whom made frequent references to the party which had been the fulcrum of the political system for over 40 years before Berlusconi’s decision to enter politics, i.e. the Democrazia Cristiana (DC – Christian Democracy). For member 3, there- fore, ‘Forza Italia [from which the PDL originated] carries the DNA of the old DC’, while member 18 from the Veneto region argued that ‘they think they are still like the old DC’. Being associated with the PDL was thus something LN respondents admit- ted to resenting; however, interestingly, they deemed it as essential in order to achieve the party’s goals (especially federalism). Indeed, interviewees appeared to have fully embraced the idea that working with Berlusconi’s party – and accepting the painful compromises that this entailed – was the only way to get results. In our view, this is a clear indication that the LN’s internal com- munications concerning the gains and compromises of offi ce – a thorny issue for a party that claims it is very different from the traditional political class – were effective and persuasive in this period. 7 From MPs and senators right down to local grassroots members, the argument used by LN respondents to 140 Members’ and representatives’ reactions gaining more votes than the PDL in some areas of the North. Since, for the reasons explained above, the relationship between the two parties was widely judged to have worked by LN respondents, in the end – and despite more LN members believing that the Lega had had to make diffi cult compromises between 2008 and 2009 than during the previous experience in government (see Figures 7.5 and 7.6 ) – the same members were also more satisfi ed with 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 Yes No Don't know 66.8 23.8 9.3 P er ce nt ag e of r es po nd en ts Figure 7.5 ‘Has the Lega Nord had to make diffi cult com- promises (or “swallow bitter pills”) in the last year?’ Note: Tot = 99.9. Total valid responses out of 206: 193. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Yes No Don't remember Don't know 57.3 10.4 18.8 13.5 P er ce nt ag e of r es po nd en ts Figure 7.6 ‘Did the Lega Nord have to make diffi cult compromises (or “swallow bitter pills”) when in government between 2001 and 2006?’ Note: Tot = 99.9. Total valid responses out of 206: 192. Members’ and representatives’ reactions 141 what the LN had achieved in the post-2008 period in government than in the preceding one, as we have shown above (see Figures 7.3 and 7.4 on page 135). It is therefore fair to conclude that a majority of leghisti whom we spoke to considered the relationship with the PDL to have been benefi cial to their party and cause. As we will see in the next section, the alliance between the two parties was also regarded as advantageous by PDL respondents. Despite expressing reser- vations about the LN (as well as admiration for the way it communicated and was led), PDL interviewees appeared to believe that the relationship between the two parties had worked well overall, and that the LN had behaved as a very loyal ally. The Popolo della Libert à The PDL, we have argued, was a personal party (see Chapter 2 ; also McDonnell, 2013 ) which belonged to its founder Berlusconi and whose appeal relied heavily on the claim that he could do for Italy what he had done for himself: in a word, make the country prosperous. Even more important than the PDL’s key themes of low taxation and being ‘pro-business’, therefore, was the idea that Berlusconi was offering to put the management and leadership skills he had acquired in the private sector at the disposal of the nation. As Berlusconi himself claimed, a year after returning to power: ‘you have a government led for the fi rst time by a businessman and a team of Ministers that are so effi cient they seem like members of a board of directors’ ( La Repubblica , 2009a ). Usefully for the PDL, after the 2008 election it emerged as by far the largest party in what was fundamentally a two-party coalition; as such, it held key posts within government, including the premiership and the Ministry of Finance and the Economy. Moreover, the LN–PDL coalition enjoyed a large majority in parliament (see Chapter 5 ). The fi nancial crisis notwithstanding, therefore, the PDL certainly could not claim it lacked the numbers or the freedom of manoeuvre within the coalition to fulfi l the campaign pledges it had made. 9 However, as we have seen in Chapter 6 , it utterly failed to deliver. Consistent with what we did in the preceding section, here we discuss whether that failure was perceived to be such within the PDL itself and how respondents saw their party’s relationship with the LN. We do so on the basis of a rich series of one-to-one and group interviews with PDL members and representatives. As we will see, and contrary to our own assessment, the tendency was for interviewees to speak highly of what they thought their party had achieved in government. However, when they were asked to discuss what had not gone to plan for the PDL (i.e. the setbacks and the compromises), we found that, unlike the case of representatives and members of the LN, a coherent narrative appeared to be lacking. To start with, there was widespread agreement among our respondents concerning the government’s ability to handle successive emergencies and manage a series of crises. These were, in particular: the waste-management 142 Members’ and representatives’ reactions emergency in Naples, peaking in the summer of 2008, the powerful earthquake that struck the Abruzzo region in April 2009, and the acute fi nancial crisis of 2008–2009, leading to global economic decline (concerning these events, see the respective years in Appendix 1 ). 10 Particularly in the period leading up to the 2009 EP election (which, as we have seen in Chapter 5 , went well for the centre-right), very high-profi le members of the government, including the PM, had regularly appeared on national television to defend the government’s record in dealing with these crises. 11 In our interviews, we found that the argu- ments put forward by PDL leading fi gures concerning the alleged successes of the government in this period had been fully accepted within the party. PDL respondents felt that, in addition to handling crises well, the govern- ment had been especially effective in two areas: the management of the econ- omy, cited by almost half of the representatives and a quarter of members, and the alleged reduction of the burden of taxation, mentioned by roughly half of the representatives and members. Among the latter group of respond- ents, 70 per cent of representatives and 50 per cent of members referred spe- cifi cally to the removal of a property tax paid by local residents, the municipal property levy ICI. 12 However, as far as taxation is concerned, we also found some discordant opinions within the party (see below). Interestingly, these mirror the discordance of views among different organizations which provide offi cial data on the Italian economy (see Chapter 6 , Table 6.2 ). Let us consider the views of our respondents in more detail, beginning with their responses about how the government had handled emergencies and cri- ses. According to member 27 from Piedmont, whose views are emblematic of the answers we got more generally, Berlusconi had always had the misfortune to become PM at the worst possible times, since all his governments had been affected by crises immediately after taking offi ce: unfortunately, we have been quite unlucky, because every time we have got into government, all sorts of things have happened. When Berlusconi entered government for the fi rst time in 1994, they hit him with the fam- ous notifi cation that he was under investigation. Then he was forced to resign because the Lega withdrew from the coalition. He entered govern- ment in 2001 and 9/11 happened; he returned to government in 2008 and a terrible international crisis occurred … we can say that the trend is for him to always take offi ce … in the worst moments. Despite the government fi nding itself operating in unfavourable circumstances, according to our respondents it had conducted itself very well, achieving considerable results (for instance, in the aftermath of the 2009 Abruzzo earthquake). For example, member 3 from the Liguria region said: even though he [Berlusconi] has been criticized and so on … provid- ing people with homes in just three months [following the earthquake] is something that probably nobody before has done, because there are Members’ and representatives’ reactions 145 referring specifi cally to the abolition of ICI. This was a measure of great sym- bolic importance, as it had been the subject of a much publicized pre-electoral commitment originally made by Berlusconi on national television before the 2006 general election ( Corriere della Sera , 3 April 2006) – which he lost by a very narrow margin – and repeated in the 2008 campaign. Member 6 from the Liguria region saw the abolition of ICI as the most prominent success of the government, while for member 23 and the MP Nunzia de Girolamo (both from the Campania region), it had also provided proof of Berlusconi’s willingness and ability to fulfi l his pledges: ‘the President made a commit- ment: that he would abolish ICI. And he did it!’ (member 23). However, as the fi nancial crisis in Italy deepened from 2010 onwards, Berlusconi started lowering expectations, and the pledge to reduce taxation was downgraded to a promise not to raise it. Our interviewees appeared to believe that the govern- ment was fulfi lling this pledge and often simply repeated the PM’s exact words when talking about the issue. 16 An emblematic example is that of Piergiorgio Cortellazzo, who said to us: having kept a promise to the voters not to increase the tax take, despite the fact that at the same time we have faced a global crisis and lots of banking institutions have defaulted … we did not put our hands into the wallets of the Italians (our emphasis). As we have seen, therefore, and with the partial exception of taxation, PDL interviewees put forward a consistent narrative concerning the govern- ment’s successes when talking to us, which appears inspired by claims made by Berlusconi and other PDL leaders in the national media. The same can- not be said of the evaluation by respondents of the problems the party had encountered in government, as well as their analysis of the setbacks. On the contrary, these topics generated a great variety of responses, since not only did the areas that were said to have posed challenges vary according to whom we talked to, but interpretations concerning why these areas had been diffi - cult to tackle also lacked consistency. In short, unlike the Lega Nord, whose representatives and members were almost always ‘on message’, the PDL did not appear to have invested in ‘teaching’ its members and representatives how to address questions of this kind. Although, as we have shown, when talking about the executive’s alleged successes, respondents could draw on a reper- toire of arguments that were being rehearsed by their leaders in the national media, there were simply no corresponding sources of ‘inspiration’ they could use when discussing the failings of the government, the compromises the PDL had had to make, and what had not gone to plan. In short, a party that relied entirely on its leader to put its message across, and was used to ‘defl ating’ after elections, did not appear to be interested in whether its members and repre- sentatives were able to defend the government’s record. (In fact, the party had not even put in place the necessary structures at local level to explain political developments to its representatives and members – see Chapter 2 ). 146 Members’ and representatives’ reactions As for the last topic to be covered in this section – the relationship between governing allies – PDL respondents appeared to share the LN’s view that this had worked well. To start with, even the LN’s advocacy of the need for federal reform (which had the potential to harm poorer southern Italian regions) seemed widely accepted by PDL interviewees. Fiscal federalism was apparently something that everyone wanted, as member 24 from the Campania region (in the South) said to us. This is not to say that south- ern PDL respondents did not resent the LN’s allegedly exclusive focus on the North and what interviewees saw as its radicalism. They did. However, they also seemed to feel that the PDL had been able to ‘contain’ the LN’s excesses. Thus, the president of the Province of Lecce, Antonio Gabellone, commented that: ‘the Lega protects the interests of a particular area and it is clear that … this implies a loss for the South’, while for Walter Liaci, a member of the Lecce city government, the LN would have split the coun- try in two had it been allowed to do so. Importantly, however, very few respondents were willing to question the relationship between the two par- ties, and no one was able to provide concrete examples of government initia- tives promoted by the LN that had penalized some of the PDL’s southern constituencies. Besides focusing too much on the needs of the North, the LN was criticized for its radicalism on issues such as immigration. For instance Mariangela Cotto, the vice-president of the Piedmont Regional Council Chamber, argued that the differences between the two allies were ‘clear to everyone! Beginning with the discussion on immigration, which the PDL tries to talk about in terms of greater integration’. Enrico Musso, a Senator from the Liguria region, also criticized the LN’s (media-driven) approach to immigration, particularly its fi xation with the turning back of boats from Africa. As he observed: ‘if some- one thinks that security problems are only related to immigrants, well then we’re off to a bad start’. Notably, however, critics only spoke in private about these themes and some revealed that they had been dissuaded by those in the party hierarchy from openly criticizing the LN. As the quick approval of the ‘security pack- age’ by parliament clearly showed (see Chapter 6 ), the government was happy to follow the LN’s lead on this issue and reap the benefi ts of being seen to be ‘tough’ on crime and immigration. Therefore, in public, the PDL was always keen not to differentiate itself too much from the LN on policy, beyond occa- sional calls for it to moderate the tone (but rarely the substance) of what it said. In short, as far as the business of governing and passing legislation was concerned, the two parties appeared to work well alongside each other, some- thing that was recognized by respondents within both of them. In addition, the LN also elicited feelings of admiration within the PDL (feelings that were not reciprocated, as we have seen above) especially due to the Lega’s unity and strong roots at local level. There is no need for us to dwell on this here; how- ever, the following quotes are both emblematic and revelatory of views within the PDL concerning its ally: Members’ and representatives’ reactions 147 Instead of demonising the Lega, we should take a leaf out of its book, even here in the South. What I mean is this: if all the MPs and people with responsibilities in the South focused on what to do for the area, in a responsible manner and leaving aside their own interests, and if they fought a battle inside the institutions with some determination, as they [i.e. LN representatives] do, working as a team for the benefi t of the area, it would be much better. De Girolamo Well, look, the Lega is a real party, a true party, one of those parties in which members are given training and kept up-to-date. I mean, a real party! (Laughs) One of those parties which existed once upon a time. member 24 In the end, all but one of the respondents from the PDL who commented about the relationship between the two allies claimed to be optimistic concerning its future, and argued that the LN could be trusted. As member 4 from the Liguria region told us, the LN was: a faithful ally. Always. Even in the past. It has always been faithful. Whether things go well or not [within the alliance] is not for me to say; however you can always count on a leghista [i.e. a LN member]. There is no doubt about this. In order to make the alliance work smoothly, ensuring agreements were respected and that the LN’s excesses could be ‘contained’, many respond- ents said they were relying on their leader Berlusconi, with help from less senior members of government who were power brokers in their own regions. Interestingly, this view mirrored the opinion of LN interviewees concerning the role of their leader, Bossi. In the South, Luigi Mazzei (a Lecce city coun- cillor, and president of the PDL group within the Union of Communes of the Salento area) said to us: This government is coming under a lot of pressure from the Lega which, since it holds the balance of power, can have a big infl uence over deci- sions. Here we rely on the capacity of the Prime Minister who is beyond reproach in terms of how he mediates and is able to calm the more out- landish requests [of the LN]. As proof of Berlusconi’s power of persuasion, Mazzei cited the LN’s abandonment of separatism and argued that the Minister for Regional Affairs, Raffaele Fitto (the PDL power broker in the region of Puglia), was also standing up for the South in government. Nunzia Brandi (a city councillor from Lecce) expressed the same views, arguing that members of government from the region were ‘a big guarantee for us! … to prevent everything going 150 Members’ and representatives’ reactions well in its own right, emerging as the third largest category, mentioned by 47.3 per cent of respondents. It is also signifi cant that ‘agriculture’ was only men- tioned by 22.2 per cent of respondents, given the party’s origins as a ‘Party of Peasants, Craftsmen and Burghers’, and its strong roots in non-urban areas ( Chapter 4 ; Albertazzi, 2008 ). Just like the case of the LN, therefore, there appeared to be clear corres- pondence between the themes the party had stressed in its communication of recent years and what respondents said attracted them to it. In addition to this, and again similar to the LN, the overwhelming majority of SVP respond- ents (81.5 per cent) said that the party had achieved ‘important successes’ in government between 2003 and 2007 (i.e. when Blocher was a minister). This is shown by Figure 7.8 . Interestingly, when asked to state what these successes were, 58.5 per cent of respondents mentioned specifi cally the party’s initiatives on asylum (including the amendments to the relevant legislation sponsored by Blocher as Minister of Justice and the Police). Not unexpectedly, therefore, 70.6 per cent of respondents said they were either ‘reasonably’ or ‘very’ happy with the performance of the SVP in government during the 2003–2007 period, as opposed to only 55.5 per cent who said the same about the most recent period, i.e. between the end of 2008 and mid-2011 when Ueli Maurer was the party’s sole federal councillor (see Figures 7.9 and 7.10 ). In summary, not only did we fi nd that many members/sympathizers had been attracted to the party for the ‘right’ reasons, but a majority of them also appeared to believe that the SVP had been particularly successful in government during the 2003–2007 period and were satisfi ed with its performance. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 Yes No Don't remember Don't know 81.5 5.3 7.9 5.3 P er ce nt ag e of r es po nd en ts Figure 7.8 ‘Did the SVP achieve important successes in government between 2003 and 2007?’ Note: Tot = 100. Total valid responses out of 203: 189. Members’ and representatives’ reactions 151 That the reform of asylum legislation initiated by Blocher was so popular among questionnaire respondents testifi es to his importance (in their eyes) for the party’s success in government. This view was confi rmed by our inter- views with representatives and members. Indeed, not only did a majority of 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 9.6 19.8 38.4 32.2 No t a t a ll No t v er y Re as on ab ly Ve ry P er ce nt ag e of r es po nd en ts Figure 7.9 ‘How happy were you with the performance of the SVP in government between 2003 and 2007?’ Note: Tot = 100. Total valid responses out of 203: 177. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 No t a t a ll No t v er y Re as on ab ly Ve ry 23.6 20.9 28.3 27.2 P er ce nt ag e of r es po nd en ts Figure 7.10 ‘How happy are you with the performance of the SVP in government in the last four years (2008–2011)?’ Note: Tot = 100. Total valid responses out of 203: 191. 152 Members’ and representatives’ reactions party representatives identify the same areas cited by the survey respondents as those in which the SVP had been successful in government, but two-thirds of them claimed that the introduction of new legislation on asylum had been the most important success of all between 2003 and 2007. Moreover, repre- sentatives were also adamant that Blocher had set an example to other federal councillors. For Ulrich Schl ü er, a Zurich member of the National Council, the 2006 referendum which had approved the asylum legislation reform devised by Blocher had been ‘the most important item and the most important votation we had in that period [i.e. the 2003–7 years]’. As he said to us, it was: a great victory of Mr. Blocher, because it was the fi rst time that a stronger regime was adopted and was adopted even by a very large majority of the population. That was important and it is important to this day. As already mentioned, this assessment was echoed by the majority of SVP representatives. Interestingly, some of Blocher’s opponents interviewed for this book, including those who were very critical of his behaviour in government, conceded that Blocher had been successful in forcing other parties to accept his proposals on asylum and foreigners. Asked whether her party had had to compromise with the SVP in the 2003–2007 period, for instance, Chiara Simoneschi-Cortesi, a member of the National Council from Ticino representing the Christlichdemokratische Volkspartei der Schweiz (CVP – The Christian Democrats), said that this had indeed been the case and cited precisely the legislation on foreigners and asylum seekers as evidence. According to her, the CVP had ‘made too many concessions’ to Blocher. Besides sharing the view that Blocher had pushed through the legislation that he (and his party) wanted, SVP members and representatives also credited him with reducing the number of asylum seekers through his actions as federal coun- cillor (something which, as we have seen in Chapter 6 , is open to discussion). The opinion of Rolf Siegenthaler (a member of the Zurich City Assembly) on this topic was emblematic, and was shared by several others (for instance, member 3 from Vaud canton). For Siegenthaler, the decrease in asylum claims was due to the effectiveness of the amendments to the legislation sponsored by Blocher and the changed approach to these issues that Blocher had forced the Federal Council to adopt. It was, to put it simply, a Blocher success: We are aware of the fact that people who migrate on economic grounds on the asylum track are very much aware of the political wind that blows. For instance, when in Denmark some minister said, or the prime min- ister even said, that they wanted to reduce immigration substantially, it dropped immediately. Blocher was also said to have set an example to other ministers since he was believed to have been able to show them that it was possible to shrink Members’ and representatives’ reactions 155 for instance, Blocher openly advocated letting the public know when there were disagreements between government ministers: I really do not understand how a Federal Council can state that the gov- ernment ‘unanimously’ supports a decision, when this decision has not been unanimously approved. This is what has happened in the press con- ference about Schengen […]. As a result, I feel free to say here: the vote in the Federal Council on joining Schengen was not unanimous and the Federal Council does not unanimously support this project. Any other account of this does not correspond to the truth. Blocher ( 2005b ) Helped by the increased mediatization of politics in Switzerland since the 1990s, and the media’s eagerness to report disagreements between gov- ernment members (Albertazzi, 2008 : 114–115), Blocher nurtured the pub- lic image of a challenger who, although in government, wanted to retain close ties with his party – a ‘subversive’, as he famously described his role as a federal councillor (Blocher, 2004 ), and one who was not there to seek ‘compromises at all cost’ (ibid.). This was a decisive factor compli- cating the relationship between the SVP and its governing partners – the Freisinnig-Demokratische Partei der Schweiz (FDP – The Free Democrats), the CVP and the Sozialdemokratische Partei der Schweiz (SPS – Swiss Social Democratic Party). Blocher’s (often successful) attempts to steal the spotlight – Marina Carobbio, then the SPS vice-president, told us that ‘the government revolved around Blocher’ in that period – and his way of approaching the rules of concordance, were thus widely credited both inside and outside Blocher’s party as an important reason why he failed to be re-elected in 2007. According to Tim Frey from the CVP, for example, the attempt to moderate Blocher by giving him access to power evidently did not work, while for Chiara Simoneschi-Cortesi, also from the CVP, Blocher’s inability to adapt to the system of concordance was due precisely to his ‘businessman-like’ approach to politics: He [Blocher] upset the apple cart straight away because, since he was not a politician, but a businessman fi rst and foremost, and a successful busi- nessman, I should add, and therefore someone who always thinks he is right, who thinks he knows everything … he upset the apple cart also in the Federal Council. INTERVIEWER: In what way? SIMONESCHI: There were more leaks, he used to go in front of the press and openly contradict his colleagues. Importantly, while accepting that Blocher had at times been confrontational in government, SVP respondents seemed to regard this as a signifi cant achievement of that period, as it provided clear proof that ministers could do 156 Members’ and representatives’ reactions their job without necessarily betraying their values and beliefs in the interest of ‘concordance’. As Bruno Amacker, a member of the Zurich City Assembly, put it to us: his greatest success was that he became really an active member of the group [the executive] and that he wasn’t just in this group to be nice with the others and not stand on the feet of the others. He wasn’t afraid of confrontation. Amacker contrasted this with the behaviour of previous SVP ministers – traditionally from the moderate Bernese branch (see Chapter 4 ) – saying that these had been much more accommodating towards the other parties. Similar to Amacker, Jedidjah Bollag, another member of the Zurich City Assembly, said that, once in government, Blocher ‘didn’t quieten down, calm down … It was good to have somebody like him in the government with his ideas’, while for Rolf Siegenthaler, also a member of the same assembly, Blocher’s approach led to ‘real discussions in the Federal Council, not just rubber-stamping, but really discussions about contents’. Finally, according to Amacker, Schl ü er, and Eric Bertinat (a member of the Geneva Cantonal Assembly), Blocher’s unorthodox and confl ictual way of dealing with his government partners was very much part of the explanation of their party’s success, insofar as it had confi rmed some important and unique features of the SVP, such as the strength of its identity and its willingness to unashamedly and forcefully defend conservative values. The way Blocher’s experience had ended, however (see Chapter 4 ), had provided proof of the existence of a common front created by all the other governing parties (left, centre, and right) against the SVP, according to our respondents. The reasons for this, we were told, were twofold. First, since support for the CVP, the FDP, and even the SPS had been eroded by the SVP in successive elections (see Chapter 5 ), these parties were now simply trying to weaken the SVP. For instance, both Jan Koch, a member of the Graub ü nden Cantonal Assembly, and member 1, put their party’s clashes with the FDP down to this. As member 1 said to us: if things go well for someone, this happens in every circumstance in life, then envy emerges, and envy poses more dangers than anything else. And the SVP has grown so much, has become large so quickly, and this has generated envy… and no doubt a certain amount of fear, too. Second, the SVP’s competitors were said to have been unable to control the political agenda, as this had been dominated by Blocher’s party for some time, and thus allegedly needed to get rid of the key man responsible for the radicalization and extraordinary electoral success of the SVP. Interestingly, even functionaries and representatives from the other governing parties (e.g. Frey and the FDP President Fulvio Pelli) conceded to us that the SVP had Members’ and representatives’ reactions 157 indeed held control of the agenda in the country for a long time, especially as far as immigration policy and the EU was concerned. For instance, Frey said that the SVP had forced them to talk about ‘issues that we don’t like to talk about’ (such as immigration and the EU). SVP representatives and members also stated in interviews that their party had been very consistent in pursuing certain strategic objectives and in focusing on key themes. As we were told time and again in exchanges that reminded us of our interviews with LN respondents, this was because the SVP knew what it wanted and was not going to let opposition from the other major parties get in its way. On this point, Casper Baader, a member of the National Council for Basel- Landschaft, argued that SVP supporters and members were perfectly aware of the key ideas and proposals made by their party, and that this strongly distinguished them from the supporters of other parties: We have a goal and this goal we have communicated in the course of many years down to the voters; the people know that. We stand for safety [law and order], for independence against entry into the EU, and we are for less taxes; the people understand this. […] [T]he other par- ties have problems because they always tackle issues in an isolated way. They do not have founding principles that are known by their voters. […] [T]he identifi cation with the party [the SVP] is very strong; this is also very important, this is also the cornerstone upon which the party is built. On this basis the representatives in the canton and the members know what to do and what the party stands for. They follow these three points as well. Despite its alleged coherence and the many qualities that were widely attrib- uted to the party by its members and representatives, it was widely accepted by our interviewees that the SVP had not always gained what it wanted (a situation similar to the case of the LN, as we have seen). Not surprisingly, when asked for examples of setbacks, our respondents often mentioned those concerning Switzerland’s relationship with the EU (see Chapter 6 ). For instance, Fabienne Despot, a member of the Vaud Cantonal Assembly, termed the approval of the Schengen agreements by Switzerland ‘a failure’, while Hans Ueli Vogt, a member of the City of Zurich Assembly, said it had been a ‘huge disappointment’. As we have seen previously, on this occasion both SVP ministers, Schmid and Blocher, had offi cially sided with the execu- tive (although the latter had not been consistent in his support), thus causing what the party had defi ned as a ‘split’. Unwilling to criticize Blocher about this matter, our respondents often stressed that the split had simply been inevitable, since all ministers were forced to follow the rules of concordance. As Hans Fehr, a Zurich member of the National Council, said to us, in the end: ‘everybody could see that he [Blocher] did not agree, that he was against Schengen’. Similar claims were made by several other interviewees, such as Moscheni, Durisch, and Koch. The latter said to us: 160 Members’ and representatives’ reactions from both parties, as the one that was driving the agenda, punching above its weight, and eroding support from its partner. Nonetheless, PDL respondents appeared convinced that their party had also benefi ted from being a member of the right-wing alliance, and that Berlusconi had been able to ‘tame’ the LN’s most radical proposals, such as fi scal federalism (see Chapter 6 ). In fact, according to some interviewees, Berlusconi did not even see the LN as a com- petitor during those years. As for the SVP, given the nature of the Swiss political system, it was forced to collaborate with parties that were very distant from it in ideological terms and with which it had no pre-electoral agreement (unlike the case of the LN and the PDL). In the end, the SVP ended up paying a price for challenging the logic of consociationalism, given that Blocher failed to be re-elected to the Federal Council, as we have seen. The SVP may have privileged policies and electoral results over government participation in recent years; however, there is no escaping the fact that Blocher’s failure to be re-elected can hardly be ‘sold’ as a victory and further underlines the SVP’s isolation within the Swiss system. Moreover, it is also clear that the SVP’s attempt to redefi ne the rules of the game while Blocher was in government failed. However, importantly for us here, even this setback was not perceived by the party’s representatives and members to be the result of major strategic errors. Moreover, it certainly was not widely perceived to be the result of Blocher’s own shortcomings. Therefore, in the end, SVP interviewees were still satisfi ed with their party’s performance and achievements in government during the 2003–2007 period, and more specifi cally with the performance of Blocher. Notes 1 We employ the following defi nition of ‘party membership’: ‘an organizational affi li- ation by an individual to a political party, assigning obligations and privileges to that individual’ (Heidar, 2006, cited in Heidar, 2007 : 6). We defi ne ‘party representa- tives’ as ‘those sitting in party groups in representative institutions at subnational (above the borough level), national and EU levels and/or those nominated by the party to governing institutions at subnational (above the borough level), national and EU levels’. Finally, we defi ne sympathizers as ‘those who support the aims of a political party, without formally applying for membership of it’. 2 Specifi cally on the UK, however, see Paul F. Whiteley and Patrick Seyd ( 2002 ). 3 A more detailed description of the methodology can be found in Chapter 1 . 4 These two questions did not follow each other on the questionnaire. One important reason why the LN was successful in being seen to ‘own’ the key themes of federal reform and ‘immigration/law and order’ was the fact that it held the corresponding ministries of Federal Reform and the Interior. 5 According to monthly surveys conducted from May 2008 to December 2009 by IPR Marketing for the newspaper La Repubblica , Maroni – widely regarded as the driving force behind the government’s initiatives on immigration and law and order (see Chapter 6 ) – was consistently the highest-scoring minister, with over 60 per cent of Italians each month saying they had ‘suffi cient’ or ‘a lot of’ faith in him (see http://www.iprmarketing.it/fi le/image/FidMonitor/2009_12_21_FidMonitor_Min. jpg , accessed 20 January 2010). Members’ and representatives’ reactions 161 6 As shown in Chapter 2 , this is a view that the authors of this book, and indeed many PDL members and representatives, also share. In short, the party model adopted by the PDL’s founder Silvio Berlusconi is such that active members are not really needed to guarantee its electoral success (McDonnell, 2013 ). On the contrary, as Gianluca Passarelli and Dario Tuorto ( 2012 : 107–201) convincingly show, and as the authors of this book have also argued in Chapter 3 , the LN fos- ters a very close relationship between its elites and members. LN members thus feel valued, informed, and much relied upon by the party for its success. 7 As Passarelli and Tuorto ( 2012 : 176–177) show, and as our own interviews con- fi rm, LN grassroots members are often heavily involved with the life and activities of the party (indeed, full members have to be, according to the party’s statute). As part of this, they regularly meet with party representatives and leaders at all levels (see Chapter 3 ). 8 We cannot discuss this legislation here, but see Albertazzi and Mueller ( 2013 : 357– 359) for an analysis of the extent to which it challenged fundamental principles of liberal democracy. Throughout the years, the LN has provided essential backing in parliament for such legislation in all but a handful of cases (a list of the most important laws can be found in La Repubblica , 2009b ). 9 During his previous stints in government (i.e. in 1994, and again during the 2001– 2006 period) Berlusconi had justifi ed the meagre results achieved by his executives precisely by claiming that his allies ‘were not letting him work’ (see, for instance, Giannini, 2004 ). 10 It must be noted that, in these interviews, respondents rarely seemed able to dis- tinguish between the performance of their party in government and that of the government as a whole, perhaps given the key role played by the PDL within the executive. 11 See, for instance, the Minister of the Economy Giulio Tremonti interviewed on 19 April 2009 for the RAI Tre programme ‘In Mezz’Ora’, and Berlusconi’s appear- ance on the RAI Uno current affairs programme ‘Porta a Porta’, broadcast on 3 June 2009. Indeed, two years later, not long before resigning to give way to Mario Monti, Berlusconi was still arguing that his government had been able to perform ‘miracles’ as regards the economy (see Il Corriere della Sera , 9 September 2011). 12 For the purpose of this quantifi cation, we have taken into account only members who were interviewed individually, since the dynamics of group interviews make it problematic to assess how many people should be counted as having mentioned a specifi c theme during a group discussion. 13 In the already-cited episode of ‘Porta a Porta’ of 3 June 2009 (see note 11), the PM said he had taken it upon himself to oversee the reconstruction effort in l’Aquila, down to the smallest detail (such as taking charge of the procurement of the con- crete needed to rebuild the city, thereby drawing on his prior expertise as a prop- erty developer). At the fi nal press conference of the G8 held in l’Aquila in July 2009, Berlusconi reiterated this claim once again (see http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=gIBeHhvTYQ8 , accessed 20 June 2013). The interview with Cassinelli quoted in this chapter took place in November of the same year. 14 The offi cial title of the PM in Italy is ‘president of the Council of Ministers’, not to be confused with the Head of State – the president of the Republic. 15 See, for instance, the statements made by Berlusconi and Tremonti at the end of the European Council on 20 March 2009 (Ministero del Tesoro, 20 March 2009), and the claims repeated by the PM in 2010 (e.g. Il Corriere della Sera , 7 February 2010). Furthermore, both Berlusconi and Tremonti prematurely stated that the crisis had ended well before the fi nancial markets turned against Italy in mid-2011 (see, for instance, Governo Italiano, 16 May 2009; La Repubblica , 29 June 2010). 162 Members’ and representatives’ reactions 16 In reality, Berlusconi was just repeating the slogan that had originally appeared in the PDL’s 2008 manifesto, i.e. the commitment ‘never to put our hands in people’s pockets’ (for examples of the PM’s use of this expression, see Il Corriere della Sera , 28 May 2010 and Il Fatto Quotidiano , 30 August 2011). 17 See Blocher’s decision in 2004 to merge two previously separate administrative divisions of his ministry (see Appendix 2 , year 2004). 18 In his speeches, Blocher has always emphasized his background as an entrepre- neur, just as Berlusconi has always done (e.g. Blocher’s declaration of 7 November 2003, following his selection as the SVP candidate for the 2003 election of the federal executive alongside the previously sole SVP councilor Samuel Schmid: see Blocher, 2003 ; also Blocher, 2005a ). 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