party bosses. For nearly a half-century, Codevilla observes, "cabinets have risen and fallen, policy has lurched left or right, careers and fortunes have been made and lost, strictly deals made among factional potentates. The voters have been spectators." Now, however, that seems to be changing.
On May 9, 1991, then-President Francesco Cossiga, a Christian Democrat who urged peo- ple not to fear the term second republic, de-clared that the government had become a "cosa nostra"...