Italy's economy and polity are considered to be continuously in turmoil. The recent multiplication of corruption affairs, the spreading of clientelistic practices, the internal economic crisis and the decline in the country's role on the European and international stages suggest that Italy is at a political and historical turning point. For the above stated reasons, it appears relevant to re-evaluate the state and quality of Italian democracy. On the basis of a comparative and interdisciplinary approach, this study aims to analyse the recent changes in Italian polity, economy and society in order to assess whether Italy can be considered as a 'deviant case' among European countries. In this article, we present a preliminary reflection on this research question and we outline the topics of concern that will be explored in this special issue. The first part of the article highlights the transformation of Italian democracy over the years with an emphasis on the persisting inconsistency between institutions and civil society. The second part of this article addresses the problem of the current political and economic crisis and the erosion of the democratic quality of Italian political and institutional settings. The third section addresses the question of whether Italy, in a comparative perspective, can be considered alternatively a 'backward' country in terms of democratic development, a political and institutional laboratory of future trends, an anomaly compared to other European democracies or, finally, a specific variation of common trends already characterizing other European democracies. © 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.