Lobbying in Italy. A changing landscape for changing interest groups

This chapter provides a comprehensive and systematic review of the main debates and empirical evidence of interest groups’ lobbying in Italy. The insufficient academic attention on interest groups in Italy mirrors the enduring lack of a public regulatory framework of lobbying. The main legislative projects and sparse policy outcomes are reviewed, suggesting some explanations for the absence of a national regulation and transparency register as of 2021. The dynamics of party-interest group relationships are then scrutinized from the period of the so-called ‘First Republic’ (1948-1994) up to the profound transformation in the Italian political system in the early 1990s and the contemporary scenario, characterized by the rise of bureaucracy as the new fundamental target for lobbying and influence. Based on the data of the Comparative Interest Group Survey, the chapter thus offers a reconstruction of the main patterns of interest groups’ institutional access to the governmental, parliamentary, and bureaucratic arenas in recent years. Lastly, the main empirical results from an in-depth analysis of lobbying influence in recent policy processes (2005-2017) are discussed. In conclusion, the possible and desirable directions of future research on lobbying in Italy are outlined.