solidly rooted in society. Remarkably, at present all
major political parties are deeply rooted in society. The
UDF’s formidable organization, when combined with
the staying power and enduring unity of the BSP and
the loyalty of the MRF’s followers and activists, is
giving rise to a polity in which parties—rather than
spellbinding leaders, the state apparatus, independent
local strongmen, the military, or private oligarchs—are
the central actors in political life. As the Italian experi-
ence demonstrates, pluralistic partyocracy can engender
clientelism, dysfunctional politicization of parts of the
private sector, and political sclerosis. The Italian expe-
rience also shows that pluralistic partyocracy can spur
consolidation of democracy and progress toward
prosperity in a poor, peripheral, and demoralized land.
M. Steven Fish is an associate professor of political science at the
University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of
Democracy from Scratch: Opposition and Regime in the
New Russian Revolution (Princeton University Press, 1995).
Robin S. Brooks is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of polit-
ical science at the University of California, Berkeley. She is writing
her dissertation on ethnic self-identification and nation building in
postcommunist Europe.
