The article is an attempt to analyze the current strategy of the Italian Communist Party ("compromesso storico") in the light of consociation theory. It is divided into two parts. Part I explores the foundations and operational traits of consociational democracy as a system which has historically prevailed in countries characterized by strong bourgeois hegemony. Part II explores the applicability of the model to polarized systems. The main argument is that in countries like Italy, political convergence is likely to occur, if at all, through a struggle for hegemony and would result in a pattern of politics both more participatory and dynamic than classic consociational democracy.
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