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The Hello and welcome to Politics Theory Other. My name is Alex Doherty and this week I'm joined again by David Broder to discuss the never-ending crisis of Italian politics. You can listen to the podcast on SoundCloud, iTunes and ACAST,

and you could also follow on Facebook and Twitter at Poll Theory Other. Apologies to listeners

expecting an episode last week. There were a couple of last minute guest cancellations,

but to make up for it, there will be two episodes this week. Later in the week, I'll be

talking with Wendy Lou about Silicon Valley, the platform economy and the

democratization of technology. But first here's an interview with David Broder on

the crisis in Italy. I spoke to David in episode four so do check it out for a

more in-depth discussion of the political background. David is a historian of

French and Italian communism and he's currently writing a book on the crisis of Italian democracy

in the post-Cold War era for Verso Books.

Yeah, so David, I wasn't expecting to be talking to you quite so soon,

but here we are.

So, on Monday, the Italian president, Matarella, rejected the Lega's choice for finance minister

on the basis that Palo Savona is to Euro-sceptic. That decision seems to have taken a lot of people

by surprise. I mean, when I sort of first heard the news, my first thought was that, you know, even from the perspective of a centrist like Savona or the EU institutions, that it would make much more sense to just allow the Laguan and the Five Star to form some kind of government hope that it wouldn't go well and that this might allow for some sort of revival of the political center,

even though that doesn't seem especially likely, but this, you know, does seem a very dangerous

decision. Why do you think Matarella made this decision and to what extent do you think it was

his own decision, you know, do you think it was pressure coming from the Italian state or even

from the EU institutions and so on. Well, I think everyone was

kind of surprised when Matarella did refuse Savona because the Lega and Five Star had taken a very

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