The Role of the Italian Parliament during the First World War
The Role of the Italian Parliament during the First World War

Summary/Abstract: The paper examines the role of the Italian Parliament during the First World War, starting from a specific event, the crisis of the Salandra government (June 1916). The parliamentary debates reveal some changes in the relation between the legislative and the executive powers as well as in the parliamentary behaviour. The “patriotic collaboration”, to which the two Chambers were called, led to a substantial marginalization of the Parliament, more than in other European countries. No other Parliaments except those of Austria and Turkey were summoned as few times as the Italian one during this period. Also in other countries, like Great Britain, Acts provided the government with extraordinary powers. But these wide powers were balanced by a more strict control by Parliament than in the Italian case.

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