Berlusconi and the Power he Wields in Italy

Marco Werman talks to Alexander Stille about Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi and the power he wields in Italian society.

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a coproduction of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. Italy’s financial troubles got worse today. Less than 24 hours after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi promised to resign, the bond market signaled their displeasure. The interest rate on Italian government bonds rose to record highs. Investors seemed not to like the uncertainty about when Berlusconi will step down. Alexander Stille is a professor at the Columbia School of Journalism. He’s the author of the 2006 book, The Sack of Rome: How a Beautiful European Country with a Fabled History and a Storied Culture Was Taken Over by a Man Named Silvio Berlusconi. Alexander Stille, the title of that book shows just how long Berlusconi has been arranging his tenure as the head of Italy. You wrote that in 2006. He says he will resign, but he’s proven to be pretty slippery. Is there some way he might end up not resigning or you think this is for real?

Alexander Stille: Well, I think he’ll resign in the short term. Whether he actually removes himself from the political scene in a more lasting way is very much of an open question. The predictions of Berlusconi’s death have been premature many times, and he is a person of enormous energy and enormous conviction in himself, and unbelievable power. Even if he is no longer prime minister he will still be the most powerful person in the country by a ratio of about 100 to 1 of anybody who’s going to come afterwards because with his enormous personal fortune and the media access that he controls.

Werman: Right, talk about that a bit. I mean Berlusconi told Italian newspaper, La Stampa, that he won’t run for office in future elections. Let’s suppose he does mean it. He resigns, even after leaving office, being the richest man in Italy, how will he use that power?

Stille: Well, the party that he founded and controls would presumably be one of the parties competing in the election. The person he has designated as his successor is a young lawyer who owes his entire career and fortune to Berlusconi. It’s not like a normal political party where you have competing leaders who were vying for control. You have some of that, but they all work for Berlusconi essentially, so that even if he’s not the guy on the ticket he will be the power in that party. That party right now because of the current government’s poor record appears likely to lose if polls taken now whenever elections are actually held. But he will still, Berlusconi will still have an enormous veto power in society. He can create a lot of noise very quickly with the media machine that he has, and so…

Werman: Right, tell us more about that. I mean media is part of the reason Berlusconi became such a powerful figure in Italy. Tell us what he has under his control.

Stille: Well, he has the three largest private TV networks, so imagine that you ABC, NBC and CBS all owned by the same person. Imagine that that person was rather like Rupert Murdoch and used those networks the way Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch used Fox News. Imagine if that person also controlled the other three national networks, which were the state TV networks; and also had the biggest publishing house, the biggest magazine publishing empire, you know, fidelity mutual funds, and all sorts of other business interests and you begin to get an idea of how much power this person has.

Werman: Doesn’t Italy have any antitrust laws that could’ve controlled Berlusconi for the last 20 years?

Stille: They’re hopelessly weak. And Italians were very slow to wake up to this problem of conflict of interest. I remember as an American observer to this scene, I had endless conversations with people in the early to mid-’90s about this and stress how important was, and I tried to explain that it wasn’t just an ethical principle. He would actually make governing impossible, and that’s in fact what has happened.

Werman: You know, Berlusconi’s personal behavior is a stark counterpoint to Italy’s fabled history and storied culture that you reference in the title of your book. I’m wondering if Berlusconi showed the world though a little known tawdry side of Italy that was always there and will always be there, or he Berlusconi now been around so long that he’s actually eclipsed Italy’s storied paths that the country is now permanently stained with his not terribly pleasant reputation?

Stille: Well, Berlusconi took things that were already existing in Italy. We mentioned before, the lack of antitrust laws, the lack of conflict of interest rules, there’s a long history of corruption before Berlusconi, government interference in the economy…all these things exists. He took them to a whole new level and turned them almost into a philosophy of life that it was somehow okay to grab what you could, but regardless of the rules if you could make it stick and beat the wrap.

Werman: Alexander Stille of the Columbia School of Journalism. His book is The Sack of Rome: How a Beautiful European Country with a Fabled History and a Storied Culture Was Taken Over by a Man Named Silvio Berlusconi. Alexander Stille, thanks very much indeed.

Stille: Thank you for having me.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.