The disentanglement of interest politics: Business associability,the parties and policy in Italy and Greece

Abstract. The article explores changes in the politics of business associability in Italy and Greece, focusing in particular on a set of comparable domestic and European developments that have played the roles of stimuli for the slow but unmistakable transformation of interest politics. Against a background of intense politicization, changes that are taking place since the 1980s suggest that organized interests become disentangled from the linkages which sustained party colonization and state dominance. Changes in interest politics were facilitated by the transition to a majoritarian system (in Italy) and party alternation (in Greece). The disentanglement we refer to would be difficult under conditions of sharing–out government; conversely, alternating governments facilitate changes in the relationships between interests, parties and policy–making. Apart from the domestic sources of change, the article argues that shifts in interest politics are the combined outcome of wider challenges and of the impact of Europeanization. On the basis of this analysis, we speculate that the disentanglement of interest politics may be conducive to national policy adjustment in two possible scenarios. Either by enabling intersectoral agreements over policy issues or by freeing national policymaking from the burden of oligopolistic coalitions — a social democratic and a neoliberal scenario respectively.