With Mario Monti’s technocratic government, it is not just the idea of party government which is being damaged in Italy, but the very idea of the political party’s role as an indispensable agent of democracy.

Silvio Berlusconi was Italy’s longest-serving prime minister since Benito Mussolini, and his resignation was a turning point in modern Italian history. Duncan McDonnell argues that his successor Mario Monti’s government marks an era of ‘democracy without choices’. He believes that Monti’s technocratic government damages the very idea of the political party’s role as an indispensable agent of democracy.