Archeologia del premierato. Studi per la riforma

The article offers a selective overview of the political science, legal, and historical studies that shaped the Italian debate on the reform of the form of government in order to reconstruct the genesis of the current constitutional reform proposal, promoted by the Meloni government and referred to in public debate as the «premierato». Starting with the debate in the Constituent Assembly, it highlights how the choice of parliamentarianism and the proportional electoral system in 1948 was primarily oriented towards the need to prevent authoritarian drifts, in a context marked by the prominence of mass parties. Furthermore, even in the positions taken by those who defended alternative solutions, the stability of the government was not an end in itself at the time, but rather a means subordinate to the protection of democratic pluralism. The contribution identifies 1975, with the report of the Trilateral Commission and the emergence of the category of «governability», as a theoretical watershed: from that moment on, decision-making efficiency and executive branch stability became priority objectives, fueling systematic criticism of parliamentarianism and proportionalism. This paradigm found wide acceptance in the Italian debate, from the studies of Mortati and Amato to the «Milan Group» and the works of Pasquino, which favoured and accompanied the season of electoral reforms in the 1990s, marking the progressive legitimization of majoritarian and personalized models of democracy. The proposal for a «premiership model» is therefore in line with previous attempts at reform (Berlusconi, Renzi), but it is set in a political context that is more polarized internally and more unstable internationally.