Patterns of Uncertainty: Security and Quality of Democracy in Italy

The chapter reviews the characteristics of the relationship pointing out distinctive structural aspects, but also considering whether recent developments – such as the those resulting from the mentioned major political realignment in Italy’s regime, but also in the international context – can be identified as an effect of the crisis that the country has been marred with over the last decade on its democratic quality. The aim is to access whether and under what conditions Italy – from the specific perspective of the security/democracy connection – is to be considered, alternatively, a “backward” country, a political and institutional laboratory of future trends, an anomaly compared to other European democracies or, finally, a specific variation of common trends already characterizing other European democracies