Joseph LaPalombara

Italy's Socialist Party is center stage, brought there by political transformations at home and abroad. Internally, changes in the Italian electorate have caught the Communist Party and the Christian Democrats flat-footed, helping to plunge these major protagonists into crisis. Externally, the spectacular performance of the French Socialists, and the recent victory of the Greek Socialists, lead many to argue that in Italy too the Socialists represent the wave of the future.