THIS BOOK explores some fundamental questions about civic life by studying the regions of Italy. It is written with two very different audiences in mind—those who share my fascination with the subtleties of Italian life, and those who do not, but who care about democratic theory and practice.

The research itself began in conversations with Peter Lange and Peter Weitz in the spring of 1970, while we were all three in Rome studying various aspects of Italian politics. Unexpectedly, the Italian government agreed to implement a long-neglected constitutional provision for regional governments. Since these new institutions were to be built from scratch in each of Italy's diverse regions, the experiment offered an unusual opportunity to begin a long-term, systematic study of how institutions develop and adapt to their social environment. Had I realized, however, that the subsequent inquiry would last nearly a quarter century, or that it would eventually lead me into the farther reaches of game theory and medieval history, I am not sure that I would have had the good sense to embark.