Italy

Sixty-eight governments in 78 years. Average tenure: 13 months. The Italian Republic has churned through more cabinets than any comparable democracy—not because Italians cannot govern, but because the 1946 constitution deliberately fragmented power to prevent another Mussolini. The safeguard worked. Perhaps too well.

Italy operates as a political siphonophore—a colonial organism like the Portuguese man-o-war where individual polyps retain veto-like autonomy. Each coalition partner can collapse the government; each regional interest can demand concessions. The proportional representation system, designed as an anti-fascist safeguard, ensures no single party dominates. The founder-effects of post-war trauma became path-dependence: what prevented dictatorship now prevents decisive action.

The north-south divide reveals source-sink-dynamics operating for seven decades. Lombardy generates €39,700 GDP per capita; Calabria manages €17,300—a gap equivalent to Germany versus Greece within a single nation. The Cassa per il Mezzogiorno channeled 60% of government investment southward from the 1950s, yet the income ratio between South and North has fallen from 70% in 1951 to 55% today. Resources flow perpetually from productive northern regions to dependent southern ones, creating what economists call "subsidized stagnation."

Political bistability defines the Italian system more than any ideology. When spreads spike or debt threatens, the siphonophore's polyps suddenly align: enter the technocrat. Mario Monti (2011-2013), Mario Draghi (2021-2022)—unelected experts installed to satisfy markets. Once the crisis passes, the coalition fragments, populists win, and the cycle resets. Italy has institutionalized the pattern: crisis creates temporary unity, stability enables fragmentation, fragmentation breeds crisis.

This fragmented political organism nonetheless produces industrial giants. Eni dominates European energy; Enel leads renewable infrastructure; Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit rank among Europe's largest banks; Ferrari remains the world's most valuable luxury brand per vehicle. Italian excellence concentrates where coalition politics cannot interfere—in family firms, regional clusters, and companies too successful to need government coordination.

The biological lesson is precise: organisms designed for maximum redundancy and minimum concentrated power achieve stability at the cost of adaptation speed. Italy survives every crisis but rarely leads the response. The siphonophore floats on—neither sinking nor swimming toward any destination.