Unusual Coalitions : The New Image of Far-Right and Evolution of Political Cleavages in Italy and Poland

This research focuses on a comparative analysis of governing coalitions between new conservative and far-right parties in Italy (1994) and Poland (2005). The aim is to show how the inclusion of the radical right in government coalitions for the very first time in their contemporary history reflected recent changes in Western and Eastern European party systems through the reformulation of the old and formation of new party cleavages. The rise to prominence of center-right coalitions in the two countries led by Silvio Berlusconi and Jaroslav Kachinsky represents not only a new dimension in the development of the right wing in Europe but also constitutes a model of political realignment where new cleavages are gradually substituting for the old cleavages described in the Lipset-Rokkan theory. The political breakthrough of the far-right parties became possible because of the development of new issues related to the process of European integration and based on the longstanding confrontation between the left and right parties from the beginning of the Cold War.