From the bottom of the bottle: justice,prison and social control in the Italian transition

The ‘conflict between politics and justice’ has been a central feature of the Italian ‘transition’ for reasons that touch on the essence of the so-called Second Republic. Apparently dominating the political agenda, it also functioned as a cover for a resurgence of coercive forms of social control in Italy. In response to the social transformations taking place throughout the western world, from the late 1980s the Italian prison system had been expanding and was used to target social marginal groups, especially foreigners and drug addicts. This paper examines how these changes took place, the juridical measures that gave rise to them and their political motivations in the period from the crisis of the First Republic to the declaration of a ‘state of emergency’ in the prison system which (at least for now) seems to have brought to a close the openly populist use of the criminal justice system.     

The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the initial phase of the Italian Racial Laws: reactions and strategies (1938–1940)

ABSTRACT

This article aims to reconstruct the activities of the Board of Jewish Deputies, the central representative body of British Jewry, in support of the Italian Jews affected by the Fascist Racial Laws of 1938. By analysing the institution’s documents and examining the most widely read Jewish newspaper in the U.K., the Jewish Chronicle, this research investigates how the initial phase of the Italian anti-Semitic campaign was received in Great Britain, and what measures were put in place by British Jewry in their attempts to help the Italian Jews. The Jewish historian, Cecil Roth, played an important role during this phase, in active collaboration with the leadership of the Board and the staff of the Jewish Chronicle, gathering as much information as possible on Italy and its history in order to shed light on the events that were taking place during the first years of the Racial Laws and until the entrance of Italy into WWII (1938–1940). The involvement of certain members of the Foreign Office with links to the Board, and the shared goal of helping Italian Jewry, was also fundamental in this period.     

A colpi di cuore. Storie del sessantotto

This article attempts to tackle the problem of how a colonial culture that was elaborated through the written word may have impacted on an Italian society that was significantly more ‘backward’ than its western European counterparts. The Prima Guerra d'Africa (1885-96) has often been seen as a military campaign desired exclusively by an isolated Italian government in a society that was incapable of using the occasion to develop cultural themes that impacted on the desires and aspirations of the ‘real’ Italy. This supposed societal dysfunction meant that Italy failed to create a ‘culture of imperialism’ in the years of the Scramble for Africa in a way that has now come to be considered of such central importance for the histories of France, Britain or even Germany.

Through an analysis of the role played by primary schools in Italian culture in these years, this article attempts to reverse this view, arguing that even taking into consideration Italy's ‘backwardness’ there was not only a great awareness of what Italy was supposedly doing in Africa but also a serious attempt to load the events that occured there with a meaning that had a much more intimate relationship with Italy's population. Although defeat in Africa meant a major setback in this process, imperialism as a cultural phenomenon continued to be of fundamental importance to the progress of nation building and the development of nationalism in Italy and, Finaldi argues, it should therefore be assigned a place in Italian culture that is much more on a par to that which culture and imperialism are deemed to have held for other European nation-states.     

Between myth and reality: the euro crisis and the downfall of Silvio Berlusconi

In mid-November 2011, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi tendered his formal resignation to President Giorgio Napolitano. It was a humiliating ‘political exit’ for the controversial Italian leader who had been the dominant figure in Italian politics since the mid-1990s. With Italy in the throes of an unprecedented financial crisis, Berlusconi’s squabbling centre-right coalition had appeared increasingly incapable of dealing with the economic emergency engulfing the country. To restore credibility, Napolitano appointed Mario Monti who quickly put together an emergency government. Since then, the downfall of Italy’s longest-serving post-war prime minister has generated a good deal of controversy. Allegations that Berlusconi was pushed out of power by a cabal of domestic and international detractors have been rife both inside and outside Italy. But how plausible are these claims? Was Berlusconi brought down by a conspiracy orchestrated by Napolitano and instigated by Italy’s EU partners? This article will address these questions and, to do so, it will chart the dramatic events that led to his downfall and examine the international and domestic contexts in which these events took place.     

The transformation of the Italian party system

Abstract

This article analyses the political and social changes that occurred in Italy in the 1980s and 1990s in ways that bring economic and sociological models together in a historical perspective. It argues that the rise of the new Right following the disintegration of the Christian Democrats and the Socialist Party was the result not only of the changed international situation (which was none the less important) but of the changes that had been taking place within the Italian political parties and the growing importance of neo‐patrimonial tendencies over the previous fifteen years. Increasingly open forms of corruption (on the part of the political classes rather than the industrial bourgeoisie, even though they too were to some extent accomplices) are interpreted as a sign of the crisis and disintegration of the political system that had taken shape in the postwar period. Hence the nexus of anguish and politics for both the upper classes and the rest of Italian society that has become one of the most important features of the situation in Italy today.     

Italy 1990–2014: the transition that never happened

This introduction explains how the contributors to this special issue draw on interdisciplinary approaches to explain why after 1992–94 Italy never experienced a true transition and why the crisis has become systemic, affecting the entire Italian political, economic, financial and institutional system with far-reaching consequences for Italian society and its future.     

Signore e signori d'Italia: Una storia delle buone maniere

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the boycott against the Pentecostal presence and proselytism which took place in Italy between 1935 and 1955. The Italian State and the Roman Catholic Church were allied in opposition, worried by the increasing success of Pentecostal proselytism all over Italy and, in particular, in the south. In April 1935, the Fascist government issued a decree (the so-called Circolare Buffarini-Guidi) which banned all religious activities of the Pentecostals, arguing that their religious practises were dangerous for the safety of the population and for the continuity of the ‘Italian race’. This decree, despite the fact that it was clearly illiberal, was active until 1955, eight years after the signing into law of the Republican Constitution, which guaranteed full religious freedom. My article wants to look at how this continuity on such a crucial aspect was possible despite the profound changes that followed the Second World War in Italy.     

Introduction: Italy and the Euro–Mediterranean ‘migrant crisis’: national reception,lived experiences,E.U. pressures

The introduction discusses the origins of this themed section of the Journal of Modern Italian Studies, based on a 2017 interdisciplinary conference about migration and the migrant experience in Italy. The co-editors recognized early on that the U.S. media was paying inadequate attention to migrant landings in Italy during the so-called refugee crisis around 2015–16, and engaged scholars active in Italy, the U.K. and the U.S. to provide further nuance to this particular migratory flow, and in particular to question how the term ‘crisis’ was used in describing it. In response to a public debate increasingly prone to alarmism, the articles produced after the conference investigate the contradictions of the Italian reception system of migrants and refugees; the often glossed-over labour, race, and gender aspects of the flows; and the critical conditions of the Mediterranean crossing as represented in film and theatre. The contributions specifically bring forward the migrants’ voices to challenge the exclusionary practices adopted in Italy and Europe in favour of structured legal channels, and to reveal the growing crisis of E.U. democratic principles.     

Italian Colonialism in Africa as a Connected System: Institutions,Men and Colonial Troops

ABSTRACT

In the last two decades studies on Italian colonialism have shown remarkable vitality and many positive results. But in spite of this undoubted progress there still remain some limitations of approach that prevent any real outstripping of the interpretive schemes hitherto used. The research being conducted largely follows the nation state paradigm: the Italian colonies are viewed and studied as essentially independent entities, devoid of relations with the surrounding territories and, above all, between each of these and the others.

This article offers an interpretive scheme that stresses the intimate relationship among the Italian colonial possessions in Africa, their status as a system, by moving away from a representation that has always favoured a rigorously individualised treatment of Italy’s colonies. It emphasises three main levels of interconnection: administrative structures, officials and colonial troops. While the first two were also common to other colonial entities, the extreme recourse to the mobility of colonial troops was a distinctive feature of the Italian version and the main factor of interconnection among Italy’s territories.

Our analysis also enables us to better understand the place violence held in Italian colonialism. Along with analyzing the deportations, massacres and use of gas, we must consider the uninterrupted cycle of campaigns that from 1911 to 1941 Italy inflicted on its colonies. For the most part, wars were delegated to colonial troops who for thirty years, moving from one colony to another, made war and violence a fundamental aspect of the Italian colonial experience.     

Fascist Italy and German Jews in south‐eastern France in July 1943

Abstract

In the summer of 1943, a few days before the political crisis of 25 July, Italy decided to hand over to Germany German Jews (including those from the former Austria) in the French territory occupied by the Italians. The hand‐over never took place because the crisis of 25 July intervened. But the decision taken by the Italian Minister of the Interior on 15 July is nonetheless a historical fact that provides evidence of the progressive radicalization of Fascist anti‐Semitism before the establishment of the RSI (Salò republic).     

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.     

Italian foreign and security policy in a state of reliability crisis?

This article focuses on Italian foreign and security policy (IFSP). It looks at three examples of the country's policy-making which reveal its poor results as a security provider, namely: Italy's tardy reaction to the violence in Libya in 2011, its prompt reaction to the Lebanon crisis in 2006, and its efforts to be included in the diplomatic directorate, the P5+1, approaching relations with Iran in 2009. The article considers whether government action has bolstered the reliability of IFSP and also discusses the country's FSP in terms of its basic differences from that of its partners in the European Union, France, Britain and Germany, envisaging how Italy could react to build more credibility. Italy's policy is observed through a three-pronged analytical framework enriched by concepts of the logic of expected consequences. The article concludes that IFSP is predictable, but it must still reveal that it is reliable, and explains why this is the case.     

Italian immigration: the origins,nature and evolution of Italy’s migratory systems

This article reconstructs the historical development of foreign settlement in Italy. It shows how Italy is part of a number of different migratory patterns, some of which are interconnected, while others are quite strongly differentiated. This diversity means that the standard images that link Italian immigration with a high degree of social marginalization do not correspond to the more complex realities, and by focusing on short-term aspects simply conflate highly differentiated patterns of migration into one single type. The article begins by reconstructing the patterns of foreign settlement in Italy since the time of Unification and then goes on to analyze the mechanisms of contemporary migrant flows to demonstrate how these derive from very different sets of motives and expectations. The motivations also explain why different immigrant groups respond to the different forms of regulation adopted by the Italian state. The article concludes by reviewing the data presently available on the numbers of foreigners currently in Italy, which indicate that over the last twenty years those numbers have decreased.     

Between containment,confinement and dispersal: the evolution of the Italian reception system before and after the ‘refugee crisis’

In this article, I will analyse how the Italian reception system has been transformed after the ‘refugee crisis’, showing how the change cannot be reduced to a mere expansion of the reception capacity. I will do this by tracing a genealogy of the Italian reception system and highlighting its main features before and after the ‘refugee crisis’. My hypothesis is that the ‘refugee crisis’ and the sense of emergency it created has stimulated the emergence of distinct segments within the Italian reception system functioning according to radically different philosophies and objectives. This, in addition to increasing the overall lack of consistency of the system, is having a profound impact on the rights of asylum seekers, greatly increasing the risk of their spatial and social segregation within Italian society.     

Italy and the development of European energy policy: from the dawn of the integration process to the 1973 oil crisis

This article analyses the history of Italian energy policy as well as that of Europe from the beginnings of co-operation until the bust of the first oil crisis. The difficulties in realising a united policy as well as the energy status of Italy and Europe until the eve of the 1973 oil shock are underlined. Then, the answers to the crisis as well as the attempts to address the energy difficulties in a united way are analysed.     

Spying in the British Post Office,Victorian Politics and Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White

In 1844, the British public learned that the government was secretly opening exiled Young Italy leader Giuseppe Mazzini’s private letters and sharing information with continental authorities. For outraged citizens, espionage in that quintessential liberal institution, the reformed British Post Office, appeared un-English, despotic and criminal, the makings of a Gothic plot. Representations of the Post Office Scandal in Parliament and print predict the revision of the Gothic into the sensation novel that occurred with the publication of Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White. Attention to the fields of Anglo-Italian studies, mid-Victorian print culture and the development of narrative form in the mid-nineteenth century illustrates the historical and political implications of letter-opening for the emergence of a new fictional genre. The Post Office Espionage Scandal and The Woman in White share a central place in a mid-Victorian moment of evolution in the mutually constitutive relationship between Italian and British national identities, producing and reflecting a crisis in Britishness focused on the secret tyrannies concealed beneath the surface of Victorian liberalism. The letter-opening scandal reveals a crisis in Victorian liberalism in the political realm and the media, while The Woman in White translates this Victorian crisis of confidence into a literary genre defined by exposing the sordid undercurrents of British society: sensation fiction. Together, the espionage scandal and Collins’s novel respond to and generate a challenge to Victorian complacency that emerged out of the collision of British and Italian politics and culture in the mid-nineteenth century.     

Time to Grow Up? Canadian Understandings of Revolutionary Cuba to the Missile Crisis of 1962

The Cuban missile crisis was a moment during the Cold War when rhetoric, brinkmanship, and politics intersected with notions of masculinity, empire and colonization to nearly disastrous ends. The crisis occurred at a moment of transition in Canada in which Canadians were profoundly concerned over the state of Canadian–Cuban relations and Canada’s place in the world. This article examines how previous understandings and preconceptions of “Cuba”—such as feminized and infantilized images of Cuban leader Fidel Castro in political cartoons and editorials in newspapers – influenced how Canadians understood the crisis, their nation and how the Canadian government should interact with other powers. While both negative and positive images of Castro and Cuba were present in Canadian public discussion, Canadians utilized the same imagery to argue that their government should act in its own best interests after the missile crisis.     

Negotiating Place and Value: Geographies of Waste and Scavenging in Buenos Aires

Abstract: This article focuses on debates over the place and value of waste and waste scavengers in Buenos Aires during and following the economic crisis of 2002 in order to consider how waste functions as a fundamental category for organizing social space. I argue that conceptualizations of waste as both zero value and “matter out of place” need to be combined with a recognition of the commodity potential of waste in order to better understand how waste works to constitute social structures and space. I demonstrate that while the displacement of waste and waste scavengers associated with the crisis opened a space for the transformation of established social relations, in ongoing negotiations, waste continues to be defined as that which belongs elsewhere and is of no value, reinforcing the marginalization of garbage scavengers.     

Introduction: Reconsidering Futurism

The financial crisis hit Italy harder than many other Eurozone countries. In part this was due to the fact that the crisis came upon a system that was weakened by years of sub-par economic growth. One of the several endogenous factors that explain the stagnation of the Italian economy is the weak corporate governance in the industrial sector and parts of the financial one. A framework that was designed to maintain stability in the ownership of companies and of certain types of banking institution ultimately led to an inefficient allocation of capital and to a lack of investment, which contributed to the loss of competitiveness of Italian firms in a fast globalizing marketplace.     

Women's history in Italy (nineteenth and twentieth centuries)

This essay surveys the development of women's history in Italy since its origins, examining the principal questions that have driven research and debate from the 1960s to the present, the ways in which women's history in other countries (notably the US) has been influential in Italy, the impact of women's history on other branches of historical research in Italy and its place — or rather lack of place ‐ in Italian universities.