Interpreting foreign institutions. How the Italian academic culture dealt with the French Fifth Republic, 1958-1998

The interpretation by Italian scholars of the institutions of the French Fifth Republic was directly linked not only to the new French constitution and to the evolving practice of power in France, but also to the scholars' own judgement on the Italian constitution and on their changing perception of the role of the political parties within Italian republican institutions. Three main phases in the development of the interpretation of the Fifth Republic by Italian jurists and political scientists can be identified. During the first - extending from 1958 to the late 1970s - it was strongly criticized by most as anti-democratic. The second phase - from the late 1970s to the early 1990s - was marked by the end of anti-democratic suspicions; but only during the 1990s - the third phase - were the Fifth Republic's institutions proposed by some scholars as a model to be imported in to Italy.