Abstract

This special issue is focused on interest groups in contemporary Italy. For decades the mainstream political science looked at the dominant role of political parties in politics and policy-making, and the study of groups and lobbies has been neglected. Following the political crisis of the 1990s , interest groups redefine their role in policy-making and their relations with public actors. The hypothesis is that it happened differently in the different sectors of policy: changes are related either to institutional and political factors or to policy variables. This is the common framework of analysis for the contributions on interest groups in some Italian policies (pension, agriculture, local public utilities); the essay on Fiat-government relations and the analysis on Italian think tanks light up new dynamics in domestic politics and policy-making.