The foreign policy of First Republic Italy: new approaches

This introductory article deals with the most recent contributions by Italian historians on the Italian Republic's international role. It aims mainly to demonstrate that a new generation of younger Italian historians is successfully offering new views and interpretations on First Republic Italy's role in the international system, and is also focusing on aspects such as the culture of Italy's political parties, the economic dimension, the role of public opinion, and the influence of external actors on domestic Italian politics – in short, that there has been a turn away from traditional diplomatic history based upon the archives of the Foreign Ministry.     

The 2013 elections and the Italian political system

The February 2013 Italian general elections were characterized by the highest volatility to date. Although, thanks to the majority bonus, the Partito Democratico (Democratic Party) obtained the absolute majority of seats in the House of Deputies, it could not be considered the winner of the elections. Lacking a majority in the Senate, it was obliged to form a government with Silvio Berlusconi's party and with the rather small number of parliamentarians elected in former Prime Minister Mario Monti's list. In spite of his last-minute surge, Berlusconi was a clear loser, having lost almost six million votes in respect of his 2008 victory. Comedian Beppe Grillo's Movimento Cinque Stelle (Five Stars Movement) received the highest-ever number of votes for a new entry into any post-war European general election. Unwilling to play the coalitional game and made up of inexperienced and incompetent parliamentarians, Grillo's party has remained isolated and ineffective. The present Italian party system consists of three poles, the Movimento Cinque Stelle playing the role of anti-system party. Institutional reforms and especially reform of the electoral system, which has been struck down by the Constitutional Court, are again the focus of debate. Restructuring of the Italian political system is yet to come.     

Resisting Bodies: Narratives of Italian Partisan Women

The second part of 2015 Pulitzer Prize winning author David I. Kertzer's interview with the Italian political leader Romano Prodi covers the period from the fall of Prodi's first government in 1998. Starting with the causes of the 1998 crisis, the discussion follows Prodi's subsequent career as President of the European Commission (1999–2004), the introduction of the Euro, the expansion of the EU, and the attempts to introduce a new European constitution, before moving to the second Prodi government (2006–08). Describing his subsequent role as UN Special Envoy for the Sahel and his candidacy in the 2013 Italian presidential elections, Italy's former Prime Minister reflects more widely on the current state of European and Italian politics.     

Containing containment: rethinking Italy's experience during the Cold War

This article examines the impact of the Cold War on the Italian political system. It compares the relations of the two main Italian parties - the DC and the PCI - with their external interlocutors and allies - the USA and the USSR - during the first decade of the Cold War. By doing so, the article rejects traditional interpretations of how post-Second World War international constraints limited Italy's sovereignty. It argues instead that the main Italian pro-western party, the Christian Democrats, deliberately opted for a policy of containment of American pressures. Such a policy was functional to the twin objectives of consolidating DC hegemony, and safeguarding Italy's new republican constitution.     

Italy as a negotiator in the EU equal opportunities policy process

The creation of both a Ministry and a Department for equal opportunities has been Italy's main institutional response to EU pressures in the field of equal opportunities policy. Nevertheless, the impact of Italian negotiators in the EU depends not only on the institutional resources available to them, but also on the political credibility acquired by presenting well‐defined and clear preferences during the bargaining process in the Council. This article considers how the Italian position was presented, and how successful it was, in two recently approved Directives, one decided by qualified majority vote, the other on a basis of unanimity. The aim of the analysis is to assess Italy's capacity to influence EU social affairs. Information was gathered by conducting qualitative interviews with the main political actors involved in the decision‐making process at the national and European levels.     

The government,the opposition and the President of the Republic under Berlusconi

This article assesses the behaviour of three actors, the government, the opposition and the President of the Republic, in the first two years of Berlusconi's government. Though solidly controlled by Berlusconi, his government has already had to replace two important ministers and some under-secretaries and has often behaved like a traditional coalition government. Moreover, it has so far achieved virtually none of the promises made in the 'Contract with the Italians'. It is feebly challenged by a divided opposition, unorganized, leaderless, unable to create a shadow government and just waiting for Romano Prodi's return from Brussels. Precisely because of its weakness, the opposition has often tried to rely on the President of the Republic as a check on Berlusconi's exorbitant power. Indeed, Ciampi has intervened in a more or less controversial way in the drafting of some government bills and has sent a solemn message to parliament asking for a more impartial and pluralist information system; to no avail. However, Ciampi's role and behaviour suggest that the problem of the powers of the President of the Republic has not been solved. Berlusconi's own preference for a popularly elected president and his unsolved conflict of interests indicate that the political and institutional transition in Italy is not yet over.     

Italy's foreign policy toward China: missed opportunities and new chances

Abstract

This essay provides an account of the erratic and troubled history of the relations between Italy and the People's Republic of China since the 1950s. After reaching their highest point in the two years immediately following the Tiananmen events – when Italy, more than any other Western country, worked to break China's international isolation – they have considerably frozen for a long time. The reason has to be found not only in the crisis that, since 1992, has overcome the Italian political system, but even more so in the structural limits of Italy's economic foreign policy and in the lack of a coherent strategy aimed at promoting Italian goods in world markets that provide huge opportunities – opportunities mostly neglected by the political-economic Italian establishment. The Berlusconi government replaced this negligence with fear-mongering behavior and recurring and outspoken protectionist remarks of various centre-right leaders, who feared the potential damage caused by China's increased competitiveness (which represented, in their opinion, an unfair trade practice) to the national industry. Though too recent to say if it will bear fruit, Prodi has made a desperate attempt for Italy to make up lost ground by leading to China what has been emphatically defined ‘the greatest institutional and business mission ever organized by Italy’ just a few months after his comeback to Palazzo Chigi.     

A neglected chapter in Italy's transition from Fascism to the Republic: The Kingdom of the South (1943–1944)

Gallerano's paper examines the reasons why Italian historians have paid little attention to the political events that followed the liberation of the Italian Mezzogiorno and the brief life of the government established under the auspices of the monarchy during the period of what was termed the Kingdom of the South. He argues that this neglect derives in part from the brevity of the period of civil government in the south, but mainly from the fact that historians have been attracted above all by the history of the Resistance which has led them to consider events in the south to be of secondary importance. Gallerano argues that such a view is quite unjustified and shows how some historians ‐ from Chabod in the early 1950s ‐ have understood that events in the south bore very directly on the broader transition from Fascism to the Republic. Challenging Renzo De Felice's recent claims that Italy's defeat on 8 September 1943 marked the beginning of a crisis of national identity, Gallerano argues that the circumstances that obtained in the months that followed made the south an exceptionally rich terrain for exploring the very contradictory feelings and expectations that were aroused in Italy by the experience of military defeat and political reconstruction.     

Introduction: not a normal election: roots and consequences

The March 2018 Italian general elections can be described as a historic turning point, another watershed moment in the turbulent history of contemporary Italian politics. After a stormy and complex legislative term, characterized by a variety of institutional and political phenomena, Italy has faced one of the most important electoral challenges since the return of democracy in the mid-1940s. After examining the major political events that led to the latest general elections, this introductory article presents and analyses the rules, the actors and the outcomes of the electoral contest that has seen the victory of two anti-establishment parties: the Five Star Movement and the League. In the concluding section, the article discusses the potential tensions that may emerge from the clash between the populist attitude of the new governing parties and the constitutional constraints of a liberal democratic regime.     

25 April 1994 – 17 March 2011: symbolic dates of the past and Italy's transition

The twenty-year political period on which this paper focuses opened and closed with two highly symbolic commemorations. On 25 April 1994, just a few weeks after the electoral victory of the political alliance led by Silvio Berlusiconi (Pole of Liberty), more than 500,000 people took to the streets to commemorate the anti-Fascist foundations of the post-war Italian Republic: this was a timely reaction that ran counter to the climate of disaffection that since the 1980s had marked the annual celebrations of the Liberation. The second commemoration was on the night of 11 March 2011, when thousands of citizens took part in the ‘All Night Tricolor’ parties that marked the start of the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification. The scale of popular participation was in part a response to President Ciampi's commitment to re-launching a sense of ‘civil religion’, to the variety of ways in which the event was turned into a spectacle and the work of the organizing committee. But it also reflected the ways in which the significance of the commemoration of the distant founding of the Kingdom of Italy was considered to be ‘above’ (even ‘anti’) party politics. Both commemorations were rooted deeply in Italian history but took place in very different institutional circumstances: this essays compares the two commemorations and how they illustrate the changing political cultures in the time of the Italian transition.     

Behind the Cold War: rethinking the left,the state and civil society in Italy (1940s-1970s)

This article stresses the longue durée features of the Italian political system. It examines the role of two historical factors: (1) the existence of some peculiar (and quite 'sophisticated') state financial institutions; (2) the influence of certain long-enduring social traits (regional differences, family values, the Catholic Church, political religion) on the relationship between state and citizens. It discusses the specificities of the Italian political system (with its historical Fascist heritage and the biggest Communist Party in Europe) and the reaction of the political elite (especially on the left) to international developments in the 1940s and the 1970s, since these years (of the economic 'miracle' and the origins of Italy's political 'landslide') offer the best comparison of Italy with other European countries. These two periods also enable us to examine the Communist Party's (PCI) crucial contribution in the two worst times of national crisis: the post-war years and the years of terrorism. The first part of the article examines the heritage of Fascism and how Italy's new political elite exploited it to strengthen the country's political and economic position after the war. The second explores how behind the Cold War the mass parties helped the country to expand in the international market by controlling social conflict. The third draws some conclusions about the 'success' of the 1940s and the heavy legacies that contemporary Italy has inherited from the 1970s.     

In the footsteps of George Orwell: Patrick McCarthy as Italian correspondent for Tribune, 1978–1980

Abstract

This paper examines Italy's contribution to the United Nations (UN) and how effective this has been in protecting Italian interests. The first part outlines the areas where Italy's input to the UN has been most relevant in terms of ideas, policies and participation, such as for example the campaign to ban the death penalty and its participation in collective security through participation in UN peacekeeping missions. This paper also highlights the critical role that Italy's long-standing positions on UN reform and the enlargement of the Security Council have played in defining Italy's status in the international community, and asks whether there have been significant changes in the traditional Italian position and its loyalty to the UN and, more generally, to the multilateral system. The second part analyzes the origin and rationale of Italy's policies toward the UN and their effectiveness in defining and defending the national interest. It explores the idea that these policies have been determined by the ‘institutional multilateralism’ of the Italian Constitution, the ‘genetic multilateralism’ of the Italian society and the ‘forced multilateralism’ of Italy as a middle-range power. Italy's positions on the UN and its reform are examined in the light of claims that Italy's foreign policy reflects its ‘complex of exclusion’ and presumed lack of influence in the ‘major stakes’ in world diplomacy.     

Italy's political system since 1989

This essay follows the development of the Italian political system over the last twenty-five years, starting from the collapse of the principal political parties that had previously dominated the history of the Republic. In institutional terms, it seems legitimate to describe this as a transition, since the outcomes of initiatives to reform the electoral system, to abolish the previous system of ‘perfect bicameralism’, and reshape relations between the State and the regions are still unknown. But I argue that many fundamental changes in the relationship between the country and its political system were already evident in the 1980s.     

Re-examining a modern classic: does Putnam's Making Democracy Work suffer from spuriousness?

What makes democratic institutions work efficiently? Robert Putnam argued in Making Democracy Work that a mixture of political participation and immersion in associative and social networks in the community, conceptualised as ‘civic community’ or ‘social capital’, is the explanation. Ever since its publication, many questions have arisen about the validity of Putnam's theory. Among the most relevant concerns stands the influence of the Italian Communist Party on Putnam's empirical tests. This paper aims to fill the gap left in the literature by testing Putnam's hypothesis against the political party in the regional government and the PCI's electoral support. Supporting Putnam, this paper finds that variations in the quality of democratic governments in Italy's regions are a function of civic community even after adjusting for the presence of the Italian Communist Party.     

The 2019 European Elections: a ‘second-order’ vote with ‘first-order’ effects

ABSTRACT

In this article we provide a general interpretation of the results of the 2019 elections of the European Parliament in Italy. The Italian case contains several elements that are, at the same time, ambivalent and interesting, especially if observed in a larger, European-wide comparative perspective. Besides a general interpretation of the vote for the European Parliament, the article discuss also the consequences of the elections results for the transformations of the Italian party system and the patterns of government formation in a context characterized by an increasing process of political integration in a multilevel political system. Finally, we discuss the trend of Euroscepticism in the Italian public opinion and the role played by radical or ‘sovranist’ parties in promoting a feeling of distrust or detachment towards the European Union.     

Colonising Italians: Italian Imperialism and Agricultural ‘Colonies’ in Australia, 1881–1914

The historiography of Australian imperialism before the First World War has often neglected a context wider than the relationship with Great Britain. Yet this era also implicated non-British governments and their emigrants. Despite their small numbers, Italian settlers are significant for highlighting Italy's empire-building and Australia's struggles for national and imperial unity. Italy's foreign policies after 1901 opened commercial opportunities across its diasporic networks, which included subsidising agricultural ‘colonies’ in Australia. The contemporary discourses of sectarianism and racism voiced before Federation articulated political and popular resistance against Italian immigrants. The rhetoric shifted after Federation as state governments examined the issue of land tenure for closer settlements (small agricultural farms), appealing to an argument about serving unemployed Australians before approving foreign settler schemes. The history leading up to two Italian projects in Western Australia and Queensland in 1907 allows reflections on Italy's diaspora colonisation and Australian responses to foreign imperialism.     

Interpreting foreign institutions. How the Italian academic culture dealt with the French Fifth Republic, 1958–1998

The interpretation by Italian scholars of the institutions of the French Fifth Republic was directly linked not only to the new French constitution and to the evolving practice of power in France, but also to the scholars' own judgement on the Italian constitution and on their changing perception of the role of the political parties within Italian republican institutions. Three main phases in the development of the interpretation of the Fifth Republic by Italian jurists and political scientists can be identified. During the first – extending from 1958 to the late 1970s – it was strongly criticized by most as anti-democratic. The second phase – from the late 1970s to the early 1990s – was marked by the end of anti-democratic suspicions; but only during the 1990s – the third phase – were the Fifth Republic's institutions proposed by some scholars as a model to be imported in to Italy.     

Political and institutional constraints on structural reforms: interpreting the Italian experience

During 2011 Italy reached the verge of a financial default because of its huge public debt. Neither the centre-right nor the centre-left governments that alternated in power in the 2000s were able to introduce the reforms necessary for reducing the debt and promoting growth. The impotence of the government became incompatible with the requirements of the country's continued presence in the eurozone. In November 2011, under the pressure of financial markets and eurozone institutions and leaders, the incumbent centre-right government was obliged to resign, and was substituted by a government composed of technocrats and experts, the Monti government. This lasted until December 2012 and was supported in parliament by a cross-partisan coalition; it was able to introduce some of the structural reforms required, because of the threat of default but also because it did not need to seek the electoral support of powerful constituencies. This article advances an interpretation of the Italian crisis of November 2011, identifying the political and institutional structures and the specific political conditions that fostered a policy stalemate in the country in the 2000s and whose persistence makes the continuation of reforms after the February 2013 elections uncertain.     

Italian politics: no improvement in sight

Abstract

The victory of the center left in the April 2006 elections was the product of a small numerical majority that has been translated into a slim parliamentary majority in the Senate. However, the difficulties of Prodi's government have deeper roots. This article explores the structural factors of Italy's never ending political and institutional transitions, both in the political and in the social sphere. Electoral and institutional reforms may help, but the crisis runs deeper because it also affects the authorities, their origin, their quality, their performance and the political community, its fragmentation and its anti-political beliefs.     

Interview with Romano Prodi

On the occasion of the Conference on the State of Italy, held at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies on 29–30 October 2013, David Kertzer interviewed former two-time Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi. Their focus was on the evolution of Prodi's involvement in Italian government and politics. This first in what is planned to be two such interviews examines Prodi's initial move from an economics professor at the University of Bologna interested in the study of political economy and industrial policy, to a major figure in implementing industrial policy in Italy. It looks at his brief stint as Minister of Industry under Giulio Andreotti, his founding of the influential industrial study group Nomisma, and then his presidency of the Institute for Industrial Reconstruction (IRI), Italy's giant holding company. With the crisis of the Italian political system in the early 1990s, Prodi was central to the creation of a new centre-left coalition, named L'Ulivo (the Olive Tree), an experience he recalls here, along with his first experience as Prime Minister, from 1996 to 1998.