Antifascism, Anticommunism, Antipolitics: Delegitimation in Berlusconi’S Italy
Journal of Modern Italian Studies ISSN: 1354-571X (Print) 1469-9583 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmis20 Antifascism, anticommunism, antipolitics: delegitimation in Berlusconi’s Italy Giovanni Orsina To cite this article: Giovanni Orsina (2017) Antifascism, anticommunism, antipolitics: delegitimation in Berlusconi’s Italy, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 22:1, 7-26, DOI: 10.1080/1354571X.2017.1267978 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1354571X.2017.1267978 Published online: 06 Feb 2017. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 14 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rmis20 Download by: [93.54.66.23] Date: 13 February 2017, At: 06:40 JOURNAL OF MODERN ITALIAN STUDIES, 2017 VOL. 22, NO. 1, 7–26 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1354571X.2017.1267978 Antifascism, anticommunism, antipolitics: delegitimation in Berlusconi’s Italy Giovanni Orsina LUISS ‘Guido Carli’ University ABSTRACT Post-1994 delegitimizing discourses borrowed a lot from antifascism and anticommunism, which they updated to fit the new historical circumstances. Yet, with the events of 1992–94, the role, credibility, autonomy, and boundaries of the Italian political sphere entered a crisis, and this turned arguments about politics and antipolitics into new instruments of delegitimation. This article analyzes how delegitimizing traditions survived the end of the Cold War, and how they interacted with the new issues generated by Tangentopoli. Section 2 describes Berlusconi’s anticommunism, nurtured by the persistence of pre-1989 memories, but also by three present-oriented arguments: the fact that the communists had been able to survive the end of communism; their being professional politicians; and their statism.
[Show full text]