ABSTRACT
It remains briefly to pull together the threads that ran through the preceeding chapters and then to show how the April election has influenced the subsequent course of Italian politics, for the vote represented a piece of unfinished business. The trends it revealed were confirmed in local elections of September and December, the parties have been trying frantically to adapt to—or to evade—its judgements, and many major developments such as the systematic revelation of political corruption would not have taken place without the April shock. Most important, the election was, as Pasquino puts it, a regime crisis which deepened over the next year and culminated in March 1993 when the ruling parties appeared to be attempting suicide. However, the election did not indicate what the new regime might be: No fresh set of policies and no alternative majority emerged from the vote. So it confirmed the thesis that the most pressing issue was institutional reform. It continued the process which the referendum of June 1991 had set in motion, and it led directly to the referendum of April 1993.
