ITALIAN POLITICS & SOCIETY

THE REVIEW OF THE CONFERENCE GROUP ON ITALIAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY

No.62 Spring/Summer 2006

General Editor: Book Reviews Editor:

Jonathan Hopkin Eleonora Pasotti Department of Government Department of Politics London School of Economics University of California and Political Science Santa Cruz Houghton St 1156 High St. London WC2A 2AE Santa Cruz, CA 95064 Tel: +44 20 79556535 Tel: 1 831 459 2583 Fax: +44 20 79556352 Fax: 1 831 459 3125 [email protected] [email protected] http://personal.lse.ac.uk/hopkin/ http://people.ucsc.edu/~pasotti/

Italian Politics and Society is published twice yearly, in the spring and fall. Proposed contributions should be sent to Jonathan Hopkin at the above address.

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CONGRIPS OFFICERS:

President: Raffaella Nanetti, University of Illinois at Chicago [email protected]

Vice-President Tony Masi, McGill University [email protected]

Executive Secretary/Treasurer Dick Katz, Johns Hopkins University [email protected]

Program Chair Maurizio Carbone, University of Glasgow [email protected]

Webmaster Osvaldo Croci, Memorial University [email protected]

Executive Committee

Simona Piattoni University of Trento [email protected] Alan Zuckerman, Brown University [email protected] Franklin Adler Macalester College [email protected] Daniel Ziblatt Harvard University [email protected] Fulvio Attina, ( ex-officio ) University of Catania [email protected]

Former Presidents

Norman Kogan (1975-77); Samuel Barnes (1977-79); Gianfranco Pasquino (1979-81); Robert Putnam (1981-83); Joseph LaPalombara (1983-85); Sidney Tarrow (1985-87); Peter Lange (1989-91); Raphael Zariski (1991-93); Steve Hellman (1993-95); Alberta Sbragia (1995-97); Miriam Golden (1997-99); Richard Katz (1999-2001); Filippo Sabetti (2001-03); Carol Mershon (2003-05).

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CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE

Career Achievement Award: Joseph LaPalombara 4

News and Announcements 6

Forthcoming Events and Publications 8

Articles:

‘Chi vuole le primarie? Le opinioni degli attivisti di An e Prc’ 12 Rinaldo Vignati

‘Italian Fascism: Presenting a Special Issue of the Journal Telos ’ 19 Frank Adler and Danilo Breschi

Book Reviews 28

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CAREER ACHIEVEMENT AWARD IN THE FIELD OF ITALIAN POLITICS & SOCIETY

Presented in 2005 by the CONFERENCE GROUP ON ITALIAN POLITICS & SOCIETY

To: JOSEPH L APALOMBARA

For over half a century Professor Joseph LaPalombara has demonstrated how to use the investigation of Italian politics and society so as to enrich the understanding of comparative politics and of the social sciences more broadly.

It is of course impossible to summarize a career and a set of contributions as distinguished as that of Joseph LaPalombara’s in a few sentences. I merely highlight here some of the features of Professor LaPalombara’s professional life. A partial listing of Joseph LaPalombara’s books includes the following: The Italian Labor Movement ; Elezioni e comportamento politico in Italia ; Interest Groups in Italian politics ; Political Parties and Political Development ; Bureaucracy and Political Development ; Crises and Sequences in Political Development ; Politics within Nations ; Multinational Corporations and National Elites ; Multinational Corporations and Developing Countries; and Democracy, Italian Style (also published in Italian, Spanish, and French). Each work, in its own way, was path-breaking and agenda-setting. Joseph LaPalombara’s shorter monographs and article-length works are too numerous to cite here, but I will name just one in order to underscore the breadth of his scholarly interests and his commitment to truly comparative research: The title is, The Initiative and Referendum in Oregon .

Professor LaPalombara has exercised a powerful influence on the community of Italianists, comparativists, and social scientists not only through his publications but also through his professional service. Again, his considerable achievements force me to limit myself to a few highlights. Joseph LaPalombara was a key player in the founding of the Italian Social Science Research Council. He served on the Committee on Comparative Politics of the Social Science Research Council here in the U.S., which, as we all know, was vitally important for the development of the field. Thinking locally, Joseph LaPalombara was of course present at the creation of CONGRIPS and has served as president of our organization. He currently serves as editor of the Journal of International Business Education and has served or now serves on the editorial boards of numerous professional journals. His work in the editorial realm has most recently extended to that of editor-in-chief of the magazine Italy Italy . In recognition of such contributions and many more, Joseph LaPalombara has been named to the Connecticut and the American Academies of Arts and Sciences. He has held fellowships from the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the Rockefeller, Ford, and Guggenheim Foundations, the Social Science Research Council, the Fulbright Program, and the Twentieth Century

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Fund. He has received Medals of Honor from the Presidency and the Constitutional Court of the Italian Republic. Joseph LaPalombara also served as Cultural Attaché in the U.S. Embassy in Rome in 1980-81.

The landmarks in Professor LaPalombara’s distinguished career concern not only publications, professional service, and honors, but also professional homes. As many of us may know, Joseph LaPalombara received the Ph.D. in Political Science from Princeton University; the year was 1954. And as many of us know, he has taught at Yale University for over three decades. Less well known may be the route to Princeton, which began on Chicago’s West Side and brought our colleague to the University of Illinois, the first member of his family to finish—and to start—a college education. And before arriving at Yale University, Professor LaPalombara served on the faculty at Oregon State University and then Michigan State University. At Michigan State, he became department chair at the remarkable age of 32. It was Michigan State that lost Professor LaPalombara to Yale, where he again served as departmental chair, indeed for two terms. At Yale, Joseph LaPalombara is now the Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science and Management Emeritus and a Senior Research Scholar in the Center for Comparative Research. And it has been at Yale above all that Joseph LaPalombara has trained and mentored several generations of Italianists, Europeanists, comparativists, and political scientists.

For very good reason, another tribute to our esteemed friend and colleague (one recently published by the University of Illinois) recognizes him not only as “the country’s eminent scholar” on Italian politics but also as “the quintessential American success story.” I am delighted and honored to extend to Joseph LaPalombara the “Career Achievement Award in the Field of Italian Politics and Society.”

Carol Mershon Outgoing President, Congrips

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NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS: LE PRIMARIE IN ITALIA

La SISE (Società italiana di studi elettorali), comunica che la registrazione integrale audio-video del convegno sul tema “Le Primarie in Italia: selezione dei candidati o legittimazione della leadership?”, tenutosi a Firenze il 2 dicembre 2005, è disponibile on line sul sito della Regione Toscana ( http://www.elezioni2005.toscana.it/ ) Le relazioni e le comunicazioni presentate al convegno saranno anche pubblicate sul prossimo fascicolo (n. 55) della rivista “Quaderni dell’Osservatorio elettorale”.

STANDING GROUP ON ITALIAN PARTIES

Lo Standing Group sulle trasformazioni dei partiti italiani si è dotato di una propria pagina web. L'indirizzo è http://www.dosp.unibo.it/partita ed è linkato alla pagina del sito SISP dedicata agli Standing groups (SG). Si tratta di un portale (e non di un semplice sito). Per il momento i responsabili hanno definito la struttura e inserito contenuti e informazioni essenziali. Nei prossimi mesi lavoreranno all'attivazione delle sezioni previste e a organizzare le prime iniziative. Per communication rivolgersi al responsabile dello SG Aldo di Virgilio.

POSTGRADUATE STUDY: UNIVERSITY OF SIENA

The University of Siena offers the Master Programme ( Master di II livello ) Politics in Europe – Interactions between Domestic and Supranational Arenas. The courses offered will cover both a “comparative politics” and a “European politics” perspective. The first approach focuses on similarities and differences among national political systems, while the second one on European institutions and decision-making processes. Other activities, such as meetings with national and international officers and policy makers, and visits to EU institutions, are also provided. A number of internships and stages at European and Italian institutions, during and at the end of the teaching programme, will be available. A study visit to the European and international institutions in Brussels is regularly organized at the end of the courses. The programme is entirely offered in English. Applications should normally be received by July 30th, but applications received after that date may be considered until the end of September if places are still available. The fee is set in € 3.500. Enquiries: Silvina Cabrera (tel. + 39 0577 235299; mail: [email protected] ). Info: www.gips.unisi.it/gradschool .

The University of Siena also offers a three-year PhD programme in Political Science – Comparative and European Politics. The programme provides advanced training in both the theory and the methodology of political science, with a special emphasis on comparative, international, and European politics.The Graduate School is part of the Scuola Superiore Santa Chiara of the University of Siena, a college set up for doctoral students and post-doctoral research fellows that has been selected as a centre of

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excellence for post-graduate training by the Italian Ministry of the University.The doctoral degree is released in conjunction with the Universities of Catania and Trento, and in collaboration with the University of Molise. In 2006-2007 Philippe Schmitter (European University Institute) and Michael Lewis-Beck (University of Iowa) will join the faculty as visiting professors. All applications must be sent by May 31st. Applicants are encouraged to send an expression of interest by April 20th. Expressions of interest may be sent to [email protected] and must include a CV and an abstract of the research proposal. Enquiries: Filippo Tronconi (tel. + 39 0577 235299; mail: [email protected] ). Info: www.gips.unisi.it/gradschool .

The Center for the Study of Political Change in the Department of Political Science at the University of Siena is offering a two-year postdoctoral fellowship for scholars with PhDs whose strengths lie in statistical methodology, whose substantive interests lie in public opinion and survey research, and whose training may go beyond political science. The fellow will provide consultation on advanced methods for faculty and staff and collaborate with faculty members on an Integrated Project financed by the European Commission under the Sixth Framework Programme. The project is called INTUNE - Integrated and United a Quest for Citizenship in an-ever closer Europe - and it envisions two waves of mass and elite surveys in 15 European countries and two local deliberative polling exercises. Teaching responsibilities are negotiable. The appointment begins November 1, 2006 and can be a 12 month appointment further extended of 12 months. Applicants should send a curriculum vitae, three letters of recommendation, a writing sample, syllabi and teaching evaluations, and a personal statement on their training and research in quantitative methods, teaching interests and computer skills, to Prof Pierangelo Isernia, Department of Political Science, Via Mattioli, 10, Siena Italy. Applications must be submitted by June 1, 2006 to Prof. Pierangelo Isernia, Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche, Giuridiche, Politiche e Sociali, Università di Siena, Via Mattioli, 10 - I-53100 Siena. Tel. +39-0577-235285/299 - Fax +39-0577-235292. Office mailto: [email protected] ; INTUNE Project: mailto: [email protected]

POSTGRADUATE OPPORTUNITIES: UNIVERSITY OF MILAN

The Graduate School in Social, Economic and Political Sciences (University of Milan) is now inviting applications from qualified candidates for its three-year PhD Program in Political Studies.

The application deadline is May 30th, 2006. For further information concerning the Graduate School, the PhD Program in Political Studies and the application procedures, please visit the website or download the online Application Form .

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FORTHCOMING EVENTS AND PUBLICATIONS

EUROPEAN SUMMER SCHOOL IN POLICY ANALYSIS

Dal 16 al 28 luglio 2006 si terrà (in Italia, presso il centro residenziale dell'Università di Bologna) la prima edizione della European Summer School in Policy Analysis, una nuova summer school patrocinata dall'ECPR e diretta da Giliberto Capano (Università di Bologna), Herbert Gottweiss (Università di Vienna), Henk Wageenaar (Università di Leiden). Per tutte le informazioni necessarie si suggerisce di consultare la home page della scuola.

MESSAGGI DAL COLLE. I DISCORSI DI FINE ANNO DEI PRESIDENTI DELLA REPUBBLICA ITALIANA

Il prossimo 9 maggio alle ore 9.30 presso la Sala degli Anziani del Municipio di Padova, Via VIII Febbraio, verranno presentati i risultati di una ricerca interdisciplinare sul tradizionale discorso di fine anno di tutti i Presidenti della Repubblica Italiana (1949- 2005). La ricerca ha visto impegnati studiosi di diverse discipline (Statistica sociale, Linguistica italiana, Semiotica, Sociolinguistica, Scienza politica, Storia contemporanea, Sociologia e Storia della fotografia) che operano nel corso di laurea interfacoltà in Scienze della comunicazione di Padova. Per informazioni rivolgersi a: [email protected] , [email protected] Il programma della giornata è in rete sul sito: http://dssp.scipol.unipd.it/Programma%209%20maggio.pdf

ITALIAN ELECTIONS WORKSHOP: IL VOTO DEL 9 E 10 APRILE 2006

Si terrà all’Università di Pisa, 15 e 16 giugno 2006, un convegno Il voto del 9 e 10 aprile 2006: Analisi dei risultati e delle loro conseguenze sistemiche , o rganizzato dall’Italian Politics Specialist Group della Political Studies Association (PSA) insieme all’Università di Pisa. Iscrizioni al workshop entro il 5 giugno email: [email protected]

FLORENCE SCHOOL FOR MEDITERRANEAN MIGRATION AND DEVELOPMENT

The European University Institute and the University of Florence (Faculty of Political Science) launch the call for applications for the Second Session of the Florence School for Mediterranean Migration and Development (15-30 June 2006) for scholars and practitioners. Applications must be received by 15 March 2006. For more information please visit the School’s webpage http://www.iue.it/OnlineProjects/SchoolOnMigration/

CONFERENCE, UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA

Il seminario "Elezioni e trasformazione del sistema politico italiano: dal maggioritario (1994) al proporzionale (2006)" si terrà a Bologna il 23 giugno 2006, Emeroteca del Mulino, Vicolo Posterla 1. Al Seminario di preparazione del numero speciale della

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Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica (RISP) (n. 3/2006) dedicato alle elezioni politiche dello scorso aprile parteciperanno Sergio Fabbrini (direttore RISP), Paolo Bellucci, Roberto Cartocci, Alessandro Chiaramonte, Piergiorgio Corbetta, Aldo Di Virgilio, Guido Legnante, Giacomo Sani, Luca Verzichelli. Si può consultare il sito RISP: http://www.soc.unitn.it/risp

XX CONGRESSO ANNUALE, SOCIETÀ ITALIANA DI SCIENZA POLITICA (SISP)

Congresso Nazionale SISP, Bologna 12-14 settembre 2006 Entro il 15 marzo p.v. devono essere inviate le proposte di panels ai responsabili di sezione: Paolo Bellucci (Comportamento politico), Franca Roncarolo (Comunicazione politica), Luigi Bobbio (Democrazia deliberativa: teoria e pratiche), Patrizia Messina (Governo locale), Donatella della Porta e Gianni Piazza (Movimenti sociali e partecipazione politica), Francesca Longo (Il policy-making europeo), Salvatore Vassallo (Il sistema politico italiano. Elettori, partiti, governi e politiche), Carlo Guarnieri (Organizzazione e comportamento giudiziario), Marco Clementi (Relazioni Internazionali), Leonardo Morlino e Marco Almagisti (Teoria empirica della democrazia), Paolo Martelli (Teoria politica normativa e positiva). Eventuali proposte di panels che non rientrano in nessuna delle sezioni previste possono essere inviate, sempre entro il 15 marzo, alla segreteria SISP .

Dopo questa data, i responsabili di sezione devono comunicare alla segreteria l'elenco dei panels selezionati, nome, cognome ed e-mail dei responsabili dei panels e tutte le informazioni necessarie per lanciare al più presto il call for papers attraverso il sito SISP. Come specificato nelle "linee guida" pubblicate sul sito , ogni panel dura due ore e si compone di 2 o massimo 3 papers al fine di garantire una discussione approfondita dei papers.

E' in rete il programma del Congresso SISP che si terrà a Bologna dal 12 al 14 settembre 2006. Invitiamo tutti i partecipanti a prenderne visione e a comunicare alla Segreteria SISP eventuali correzioni da fare. Il programma sarà stampato e distribuito a giorni.

E' possibile trovare tutte le informazioni utili su come raggiungere Bologna e come soggiornarvi (alberghi, ristoranti, trasporti, ecc.) sul sito http://www.dosp.unibo.it/sisp2006/ curato dall'organizzazione locale presso il Dipartimento di Organizzazione e Sistema Politico dell'Università di Bologna.

L'organizzazione locale del Congresso SISP distribuirà ai partecipanti un CD con gli atti del congresso. I papers dovranno essere inviati tassativamente entro il 31 agosto 2006 per essere inseriti nel CD.

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APSA 2006 ANNUAL MEETING, PHILADELPHIA, 31 AUGUST-3 SEPTEMBER

CONGRIPS is once again organizing sponsored panels at the forthcoming APSA annual meeting, on the theme ‘Italy in the International Arena’

1st session

Saturday, Sep 2, 10:15 AM

Chair : Maurizio Carbone, [email protected] , University of Glasgow

Papers:

‘Italy and EU High Politics’ Federiga M. Bindi, University of Rome Tor Vergata ([email protected] ) Palma D'Ambrosio, University di Roma Tor Vergata ( [email protected] )

‘Italy and the Reform of the UN Security Council’ Marco Pedrazzi, University of Milan ( [email protected] )

‘Italy and the South of the World: a Laggard in International Development’ Maurizio Carbone, University of Glasgow ( [email protected] )

‘Italy and EU Enlargement: A Comparative Analysis of Left and Right Governments’ Fabio Fossati, University of Trieste ( [email protected] )

Discussant(s): Joseph LaPalombara, Yale University ( [email protected] ) Paul Furlong, Cardiff University ( [email protected] )

2nd session

Sunday, Sep 3, 8:00 AM.

Chair : Maurizio Carbone, [email protected] , University of Glasgow

Papers:

‘Italy and Africa: New Stakes and New Tasks; How to Forget Colonialism’ Giampaolo Calchi Novati, University of Pavia ( [email protected] )

‘Italy and Russia Since the End of the Cold War’ Osvaldo Croci, Memorial University ( [email protected] ) Bill McGrath, Memorial University ( [email protected] )

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‘Italy and Asia: China as a Threat or as an Opportunity?’ Francesco Stolfi, University of Pittsburgh ( [email protected] ) Franco Algieri, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich ([email protected] )

‘A Wolf in Sheepskin? Italy’s Policies Toward International Organizations’ Giovanna Antonia Fois, University of Siena ( [email protected] ) Fabrizio Pagani, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris ([email protected] )

Discussant(s): Joseph LaPalombara, Yale University ( [email protected] ), Filippo Sabetti, McGill University ( [email protected] )

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Chi vuole le primarie?: Le Opinioni degli attivisti di An e Prc

Rinaldo Vignati

Università di Milano Bicocca

1. La selezione dei candidati e le primarie dell’Unione alle prossime elezioni parlamentari. In realtà, la vittoria di Prodi La tendenza verso la democratizzazione risulta scontata – la posta in gioco sta delle procedure di selezione delle piuttosto nello scarto con cui il vincitore candidature è un fenomeno che diversi annunciato sopravanzerà gli altri candidati. osservatori della vita dei partiti registrano, La scelta di introdurre la procedura delle seppur dando ad esso significati non univoci primarie è stata da taluni criticata: Sabino e attribuendogli conseguenze in alcuni casi Cassese, sul “Corriere della sera” ( La controintuitive 1. L’Italia ha per lungo tempo debolezza delle primarie , 5 settembre 2005), in gran parte eluso questa tendenza: solo ne metteva in dubbio l’effetto pochi anni fa 2 l’analisi degli statuti rivelava democratizzante, considerandole un che i partiti italiani erano perlopiù lontani artificio, in quanto dettate dalla volontà di dall’aderire a questa corrente – alcuni Prodi, di fatto designato già leader, di andavano anzi in direzione esattamente rafforzarsi all’interno della coalizione: opposta. Il 2005 è però stato da questo punto essendo dettate dal “timore che l’‘azionista di vista assai ricco di avvenimenti. di maggioranza del governo’ possa chiedere, Esperimenti di primarie erano stati già messi un giorno, di assumerne direttamente la in atto qua è là con risultati alterni, ma mai gestione o che l’‘azionista di minoranza’ con la stessa rilevanza politica e risonanza marginale possa, un giorno, minacciare di massmediatica di quelle tenutesi nel corso uscire dalla coalizione” le primarie venivano del 2005. In gennaio si sono tenute le giudicate da Cassese “non tanto una prova primarie per la scelta del candidato del di democrazia, quanto una prova di centro-sinistra alle elezioni regionali debolezza”. In realtà, questo tipo di pugliesi che hanno visto affermarsi il ragionamento non tiene conto della candidato della sinistra radicale, il quale – a necessaria distinzione tra i moventi dispetto delle previsioni, sia quelle dei dell’azione di un attore politico (che, in una sondaggi svolti prima delle primarie (che visione “realistica” della politica, non davano la Puglia saldamente nelle mani possono che essere “autointeressati”, della Casa delle libertà), sia quelle di molti finalizzati cioè in primo luogo a politologi all’indomani delle primarie conservare/rafforzare il proprio potere) e le (Giovanni Sartori, sul “Corriere della sera”, conseguenze della stessa azione. Questo tipo La democrazia dei militanti , 19 gennaio di ragionamento sembra in sostanza 2005, sosteneva che la vittoria alle primarie implicare l’idea secondo cui un’azione, per di Vendola avrebbe alienato all’Unione il avere conseguenze “sistemiche” positive consenso degli elettori di centro, (nel ragionamento di Cassese, lo sviluppo determinando un’inevitabile sconfitta) – ha della qualità della democrazia), debba poi vinto anche le elezioni, diventando il necessariamente nascere da un movente che primo presidente di regione del Partito della miri prioritariamente ad ottenere tali rifondazione comunista. Ora, mentre scrivo, conseguenze “sistemiche”. Ora, è fuor di stanno per essere ultimati i preparativi per le dubbio che Prodi, nello spingere per primarie per la scelta del candidato leader l’introduzione delle primarie pensasse in

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primo luogo a rafforzare il proprio potere 2. Le opinioni degli attivisti di partito all’interno della coalizione (o a eliminare le condizioni che lo indeboliscono e ne Se, come è noto, la totalità delle ricerche limitano la libertà d’azione) 3 –. Ed è anche demoscopiche registrano tra i cittadini vero che, nell’attuale sistema istituzionale italiani un basso livello di percezione della che non prevede l’elezione diretta del propria efficacia politica e un elevato premier, le primarie sono essenzialmente numero di persone che dichiara distacco, se un’iniziativa “propagandistica” (come non disgusto, nei confronti della politica e afferma un commentatore che si dichiara ad lamenta la scarsa capacità dei partiti e dei esse favorevole, M. Salvati, Discutiamo di politici di ascoltare le richieste della programmi a costo di divergenze , “Corriere “gente”, non è difficile prevedere che la della sera”, 12 settembre 2005). Tuttavia, grande maggioranza di questi stessi cittadini procedure come le primarie – anche se italiani sia favorevole al ricorso a forme di introdotte per ragioni che attengono alle consultazione come le primarie. Dai dati “lotte di potere” interne all’Unione e alle raccolti dall’Istituto per lo studio della strategie propagandistiche dell’intera pubblica opinione (Ispo) nel gennaio 2003 Unione nei confronti dell’esterno – risulta che sei italiani su dieci si potranno, nel caso si creino le condizioni dichiaravano favorevoli a questa forma di che ne favoriscano la loro ripetizione nel selezione del leader della coalizione 7. Il dato tempo e quindi il loro consolidamento, risulta confermato, anzi rafforzato, dalle produrre effetti “sistemici” che, rilevazioni più recenti: secondo quella inevitabilmente, andranno al di là dei pubblicata sul “Corriere della sera” del 25 moventi che hanno spinto oggi certi attori settembre 2005 a ritenerle opportune è oggi politici a volerle (ed è su questi effetti, più il 70% degli elettori del centro-sinistra e il che sui moventi degli attori, che dovranno 65% di quelli del centro-destra. essere valutate). Di fatto – se non si Il dato deve essere valutato con le cautele risolveranno in un’iniziativa sporadica, con cui devono essere valutati tutti i dati che messa in atto solo perché c’è già un rilevano le opinioni del pubblico generale (e vincitore sicuro, ma riusciranno a non del pubblico “attento” o del pubblico consolidarsi diventando procedura “attivo”) 8: una parte consistente dei “normale” di scelta dei candidati 4 – le favorevoli non è consapevole di alcune delle primarie introducono un principio di scelta implicazioni delle primarie (sono una forma dei candidati che mette in discussione le di partecipazione in più: quanti, tra coloro procedure fortemente oligarchiche che, in che si sono dichiarati favorevoli, hanno Italia più che nella maggior parte degli altri veramente voglia di partecipare più di quel sistemi europei, governano tale processo di poco che partecipano oggi? E quanti hanno selezione 5. In tal modo possono contribuire davvero voglia di informarsi di più? E ad ampliare gli ambiti e le forme di quanti di quel 60% ha pensato che partecipazione dei cittadini, ampliando la partecipare alle primarie significa, per così democrazia all’interno dei partiti e, dire, “mettere in piazza” la propria attraverso questa, anche la democrazia “in appartenenza politica?). È plausibile grande” 6. sostenere che parte delle risposte esprimono In questo breve articolo, comunque, non mi una generale insoddisfazione nei confronti occuperò di fare previsioni in merito al dei partiti, più che una reale adesione a successo che avranno le primarie e agli questa forma di selezione delle candidature: effetti che produrranno. Andrò piuttosto a sono, in sostanza, l’altra faccia del osservare alcuni dati relativi alle opinioni bassissimo livello di fiducia che in tutti i che gli attivisti di partiti hanno nei confronti sondaggi condotti in Italia viene attribuito ai delle primarie. partiti. In altre parole, questa, che potrebbe sembrare un’opinione che, in apparenza, chiede più partecipazione, ad una analisi più

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ravvicinata potrebbe paradossalmente Nel secondo caso, invece, ci troviamo di rivelarsi, in buona misura, espressione di fronte a un’organizzazione politica che quegli stessi sentimenti che determinano un nasce dal Pci e quindi da una tradizione di distacco dalla politica e un allontanamento pensiero molto diversa, che, almeno nella dalla partecipazione attiva. formulazione originaria dell’ideologia di Se i cittadini intervistati dai sondaggi Ispo riferimento, vede il partito come costituiscono, secondo la menzionata l’organizzazione guida delle masse: in classificazione dell’opinione pubblica, il questa concezione l’idea di consultazioni “pubblico in generale”, gli attivisti di partito degli iscritti era sostituita dal cosiddetto costituiscono il “pubblico attivo”. Da loro ci centralismo democratico e dalle decisioni si attende una opinione più informata e dei vertici. L’enfasi era posta sulla necessità consapevole, anche se si può ritenere che le della coesione e sulla creazione di confini loro idee in merito, pur essendo più forti rispetto all’ambiente. Evidentemente, il “approfondite” – e, si può supporre, più partito ha subito trasformazioni che l’hanno “coerenti” – di quelle del cittadino portato a una elaborazione teorica che in “comune”, possono facilmente cambiare a molti punti ha assunto un carattere distante seconda delle indicazioni e dei suggerimenti dall’ideologia originaria 11 . È però provenienti dai vertici del partito e quindi ipotizzabile che tale ideologia continui a della congiuntura politica. Tenendo presente pesare e a influenzare le opinioni di una questa avvertenza, va detto che i dati a cui parte almeno del partito. Del resto, alcuni faremo riferimento risalgono a un periodo elementi tuttora caratterizzanti le posizioni compreso tra il 1998 e il 1999, e cioè prima ideologiche del Prc – il rifiuto del che il tema divenisse di stretta attualità 9 e “plebiscitarismo” e della quindi oggetto di dibattito pubblico e di “americanizzazione” della politica – portano esplicita e costante tematizzazione da parte a una concezione dell’organizzazione che di quei vertici di partito in grado di può risultate difficilmente conciliabile con i condizionare le opinioni degli attivisti. presupposti delle primarie. I dati che abbiamo a disposizione riguardano Queste differenze nella concezione della due partiti, Alleanza nazionale e democrazia e nell’ideale di partito che Rifondazione comunista 10 , fra loro assai tradizionalmente divide i membri di queste diversi per molti motivi, ma in particolare due formazioni si riflettono nel diverso per le concezioni diametralmente opposte grado in cui i due gruppi approvano della democrazia e dell’organizzazione l’eventuale introduzione di elezioni primarie partitica. Nel primo caso si tratta di un per la selezione dei candidati alle elezioni partito che ha largamente sentito il fascino parlamentari. In An la percentuale di per teorizzazioni antipartitocratiche e che favorevoli giunge all’82%, mentre in quindi ha spesso visto con favore – se non Rifondazione si ferma al 44%. Anche altro per spirito polemico nei confronti della quest’ultima percentuale, stanti le repubblica antifascista e della sua motivazioni succitate, è tuttavia costituzione – il sistema americano. ragguardevole e per molti versi All’interno di questa concezione l’idea delle sorprendente 12 . Sulla base di tali primarie può facilmente trovare una motivazioni ci si sarebbe aspettati che solo collocazione, in quanto vista come antitesi una percentuale marginale – e non quasi la delle degenerazioni partitocratiche. A metà dei delegati – rispondesse temperare questa concezione è, d’altra parte, positivamente al quesito sulle primarie. Se il “realismo” e l’“elitismo” che viene poi chiesto chi si ritiene debba caratterizzano l’ideologia dei partiti di partecipare a tali consultazioni, anche in destra, i quali in tal modo sarebbero portati a questo caso emergono differenze: in An una vedere come inevitabili forme di direzione consistente maggioranza (66%) opta per le del partito di carattere oligarchico. primarie aperte, mentre nel Prc la maggioranza di chi è favorevole a questa

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forma di consultazione (57%) la Tab. 1 Percentuale di delegati di An e Prc preferirebbe limitata ai soli iscritti al che approva l’introduzione delle partito 13 . primarie, distinta per alcune variabili Di non facile spiegazione è la consistenza relative alla posizione nel partito degli delle percentuali di favorevoli alle primarie intervistati aperte a tutti gli elettori, forma di consultazione che, in linea teorica, An Prc priverebbe gli attivisti, che sono coloro che Periodo di iscrizione al partito hanno fornito le risposte, di una parte del 1946-1960 (Msi – Pci) 83,3 51,5 loro potere e capacità di influenza. Nella 1961-1970 (Msi – Pci) 89,7 50,0 percezione corrente, formalizzata nella 1971-1980 (Msi – Pci) 82,4 51,5 “legge della disparità curvilineare” 14 , vi è An: 1981-1993 Prc: 1981-1989 78,0 37,0 An: 1994-1998 Prc: 1990-1999 82,3 40,0 una sostanziale somiglianza di obiettivi e di scelte tra i leader e gli elettori e una Posizione nel partito differenza di questi due gruppi dai più Semplice militante 85,2 46,2 radicali “attivisti”. Può darsi che gli attivisti Dirigente locale (fino a provincia) 82,2 38,5 non percepiscano questa differenza e quindi Dirigente regionale 86,1 27,1 vedano gli elettori come potenziali alleati in Dirigente nazionale 77,1 31,8 un’apertura democratica del partito. Al di là delle differenze osservate tra i due Posizione nelle istituzioni partiti nelle risposte a queste due domande Nessuna 83,5 46,1 emerge dunque una propensione Eletto-amministratore locale 84,5 40,9 generalmente favorevole all’introduzione Eletto-amministratore reg.-naz. 81,2 35,3 delle primarie. Se si pensa che in un partito Impegno nelle attività di partito come Rifondazione circa un quinto dei Tutti i giorni 77,3 36,7 delegati congressuali opta per il modello 4-5 giorni alla settimana 80,0 33,8 delle primarie aperte, modello che, per i 2-3 giorni alla settimana 86,7 38,4 motivi brevemente esposti in precedenza, è 1 giorno alla settimana 80,5 56,6 agli antipodi della sua tradizione ideologica, Meno di 1 giorno alla settimana 81,8 60,9 si può concludere che anche all’interno degli stessi partiti viene espressa l’esigenza di un Differenza rispetto alle posizioni rinnovamento delle modalità di ufficiali del partito funzionamento interno. Il fatto che il dato Coincidenza 83,1 44,3 risalga al 1999 – e quindi non sia legato alle Vicino (differenza di collocazione: 1-2) 85,6 43,3 contingenze politiche citate in precedenza Lontano (diff. di colloc.: 3-9) 75,0 64,3 (la vittoria di Vendola, ecc.) – lo rende in qualche modo più significativo del cambiamento in atto nella cultura del partito. di burocratizzazione l’approvazione delle Queste percentuali sembrano riflettere primarie è pari al 38%. Tra coloro che un’insoddisfazione dei militanti rispetto al scelgono una posizione intermedia (4, 5 o 6 grado di democrazia interno al partito. Il sulla suddetta scala) l’approvazione sale al dato relativo all’opinione sul livello di 46%. La percentuale di favorevoli raggiunge democrazia interna è invero disponibile solo infine il 52% tra coloro che scelgono le per il Prc ma segnala una relazione positiva posizioni di maggior accordo sulla scala e tra il giudizio relativo all’eccesso di quindi ritengono il partito troppo burocratizzazione del partito e l’opinione burocratizzato. favorevole nei confronti delle primarie. Tra Ma, oltre alla richiesta di una maggiore coloro che si dichiarano poco d’accordo democraticità nella conduzione del partito, a (scegliendo le posizioni 1, 2 e 3 su una scala determinare l’opinione favorevole a tale a 10 livelli) all’affermazione circa l’eccesso metodo di selezione sono anche altri fattori

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Tab. 2 Percentuale di delegati di An e modo. Entrambi provengono da due Prc che approva l’introduzione delle ideologie – il fascismo e il comunismo – primarie, distinta per alcune variabili che, idealmente (al di là delle modalità attinenti alle opinioni degli intervistati concrete di funzionamento del Msi e del Pci), considerano il partito come guida di An Prc una élite sulla società. Si può dunque Autocollocazione ipotizzare che, quanto maggiore è il distacco Estrema sinistra (1) - 45,2 da tali presupposti “illiberali” 15 , tanto Sinistra (2-3) - 43,5 maggiore sarà, in entrambi i casi, il favore Centro-sinistra (4-5) - 54,8 con cui vengono viste le primarie. Per la Centro-destra (6-7) 89,4 - verità, questa relazione è molto ben visibile Destra (8-9) 80,5 - nel Prc, mentre – pur essendo positiva – è Estrema destra (10) 72,3 - assai debole e scarsamente significativa in Attaccamento alle radici An. Questa differenza può essere spiegata ideologiche facendo riferimento al fatto che la tradizione An: Fascismo (giud. positivo) 87,2 ideologica del primo è più coerente, Prc: Mercato (giud. negativo) 37,2 organica e metodicamente trasmessa, mentre An: Fascismo (giud. intermedio) 83,3 nel secondo il richiamo al fascismo si Prc: Mercato (giud. intermedio) 47,2 riduceva in larga misura a un insieme An: Fascismo (giud. negativo) 83,1 disparato di simboli e di liturgie fra loro non Prc: Mercato (giudizio positivo) 65,2 sempre coerenti e quindi più facilmente integrabile con elementi provenienti da Concezione del partito (1) – strategia da seguire culture e ideologie ad esso estranee. Mantenere solida base ideologica 83,2 36,4 L’elaborazione ideologica di Alleanza Rimanere fedele ai principi, anche nazionale si caratterizza proprio per il 16 se comporta perdita voti 83,6 45,6 sincretismo delle sue fonti culturali . Rappresentare interessi del Un’altra relazione che deve essere maggior numero di elettori 81,0 55,6 sottolineata è quella con la posizione Ottenere il meglio ogni situazione, gerarchica dell’intervistato all’interno del invece che restare legati ai principi 86,0 56,9 partito: sono gli attivisti posti ai livelli più bassi (come carica di partito e come carica Conc. del part. (2) – gruppo istituzionale) ad approvare maggiormente le da tutelare maggiormente primarie, nonché – significativamente – Iscritti e militanti 79,5 43,7 Elettori del partito 80,4 43,0 quelli meno impegnati nelle attività di Tutti gli elettori 85,6 45,5 partito: si può dunque concludere che in molti casi l’introduzione delle primarie sia vista dagli attivisti dei due partiti come una e motivazioni, in alcuni casi fra loro forma di redistribuzione del potere contraddittori. Se le caratteristiche socio- all’interno del partito che – concedendo demografiche degli attivisti sembrano non uguale diritto di voto a ogni militante, determinare differenze significative, le indipendentemente dalla sua carica e dal suo tabelle 1 e 2 mostrano l’influenza, impegno – porterebbe ad avvantaggiare rispettivamente, di alcune opinioni coloro i quali attualmente hanno una dell’intervistato e della posizione all’interno posizione di scarsa influenza sulle decisioni del partito. interne. Parte dei più attivi percepiscono Si diceva in precedenza delle diverse nell’introduzione delle primarie una tradizioni ideologiche da cui provengono i possibile perdita di potere. due partiti e delle differenze che L’approvazione delle primarie può essere determinano nelle opinioni dei loro attivisti. dovuto anche ai giochi di potere interni al Ma le origini ideologiche dei due partiti partito: favorevoli a tale metodo potrebbero possono essere osservate anche in altro essere soprattutto coloro che si trovano in

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disaccordo con i vertici del partito e quindi molti casi l’adesione a questo metodo può lo vedono come strumento per contrastare le essere strumentale e condizionata da scelte dei leader. Si può in effetti osservare considerazioni diverse dal desiderio di che in Rifondazione l’approvazione delle apertura e sburocratizzazione dei partiti. primarie raggiunge il 64% tra gli attivisti Tuttavia queste percentuali rappresentano che possono essere considerati lontani 17 anche una opportunità di cui deve tener dalle posizioni di vertice mentre fra quelli conto chi è interessato alla riforma della che hanno posizioni coincidenti o vicine politica e all’ampliamento delle forme di l’approvazione si ferma al 44%. Va però partecipazione democratica. detto che in Alleanza nazionale questa relazione non si osserva (è semmai Endnotes contraria). In questo caso – essendovi una domanda che serviva a distinguere tra le 1 R. S. Katz, The problem of candidate selection varie componenti interne (utilizzando come and models of party democracy , in «Party indicatore la rivista di partito che politics», 2001, VII, 3, pp. 277-296; P. Ignazi, Il l’intervistato sente più vicina) – possiamo puzzle dei partiti: più forti e più aperti ma meno notare che vi sono differenze esistenti tra gli attraenti e meno legittimi , in “Rivista italiana di attivisti delle diverse componenti interne 18 . scienza politica”, 2004, XXXIV, 3, pp. 325-246. 2 R. Vignati, Trasformazioni dei partiti politici, In definitiva, si può concludere che democrazia interna e selezione dei candidati , in nell’approvazione del metodo delle primarie F. Raniolo (a cura di), Le trasformazioni dei da parte degli intervistati nei due sondaggi partiti politici , Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli, convivono motivazioni diverse e in parte 2004, pp. 121-142. L’analisi risale al 2002. contraddittorie. Le primarie possono essere 3 Con obiettivi diversi, anche la pressione di viste come uno strumento utile a creare Bertinotti per avere primarie che fossero il più nuove adesioni al partito o a incentivare possibile competitive rispondeva a una logica d’azione “autointeressata”. l’impegno degli attuali attivisti. Le primarie 4 possono essere anche considerate come uno Al momento si parla di primarie per la scelta strumento utile per la lotta politica interna o, del candidato del centro-sinistra alla poltrona di sindaco di Milano. più in generale, per redistribuire il potere 5 Si vedano a questo proposito le analisi all’interno del partito. L’approvazione per contenute nel numero monografico di “Party questo metodo di selezione può essere politics” (il n. 3 del 2001) dedicato alla selezione dovuta alla percezione di una mancanza di dei candidati. Sulla scelta delle candidature in democrazia all’interno del partito e quindi Italia si veda anche O. Massari, La selezione dei alla necessità di un rinnovamento del partito candidati , in G. Pasquino (a cura di), in questa direzione. Infine può trattarsi del L’alternanza inattesa , Rubbettino, Soneria Mannelli, 1995, pp. 21-47. passivo adeguamento, non si sa quanto 6 convinto, degli attivisti a una “corrente di Sul rapporto tra democrazia all’interno dei pensiero” legittimante che pone in evidenza partiti e democrazia “in grande” che risulta dalla competizione tra i partiti esistono opinioni la necessità del rinnovamento e della divergenti. Cfr. R. Vignati, Trasformazioni dei sburocratizzazione dei partiti. partiti politici , cit., pp. 121-129. A ciascuna motivazione si può presumere 7 R. Mannheimer, Gli italiani e la politica , corrispondano diversi modelli di Bompiani, Milano, 2003, 94-95. Per l’esattezza, applicazione del metodo delle primarie (in era favorevole il 63% degli elettori che si relazione al grado di controllo dei dichiarava di centro-sinistra e il 57% di quelli di partecipanti da parte dei vertici, dei limiti centro-destra. 8 previsti per la presentazione della Su queste distinzioni si vedano G. Grossi, candidatura, ecc.). La coesistenza di L’opinione pubblica , Laterza, Roma-Bari, 2004, motivazioni così diverse ci induce a 96-ss. e V. Price, L’opinione pubblica , Il mulino, Bologna, pp. 48-ss. guardare alle percentuali – a prima vista 9 Sugli iscritti (e non sui soli attivisti) del Prc e sorprendenti – di approvazione delle dei Ds si trovano dati più recenti in R. Mulé, primarie con una certa cautela, poiché in Mutamenti nella democrazia interna al Prc e ai

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Ds , paper presentato al convegno annuale della 16 R. Vignati, La memoria del fascismo , in R. Sisp, Cagliari, 21-23 settembre 2005. Chiarini, M. Maraffi (a cura di), op. cit. , pp. 43- 10 L’indagine su Alleanza nazionale, a cui ho 83. partecipato, è quella di cui dà conto il volume 17 Come indicatore è stata utilizzata la differenza curato da Roberto Chiarini e Marco Maraffi, La in valore assoluto tra la collocazione del proprio destra allo specchio , Marsilio, Venezia, 2001. partito sulla scala sinistra-destra e L’indagine su Rifondazione comunista è stata l’autocollocazione sulla stessa scala. curata da Simone Bertolino, che ringrazio per 18 L’approvazione delle primarie è massima avermi concesso di utilizzare il dataset della (92%) tra chi dichiara di sentirsi più vicino alla ricerca. Parte dei risultati della ricerca si trovano rivista “Charta Minuta” espressione dell’area nel volume di Bertolino, Rifondazione “liberale” del partito (A. Urso, ecc.): 92%. Tra comunista , Il mulino, Bologna, 2004. Le due chi si dichiara più vicino ad “Area” e a rilevazioni sono state condotte con questionario “Millennio” la percentuale di favorevoli è pari somministrato ai delegati della conferenza all’82%, mentre tra chi si dichiara vicino a programmatica di An (1998) e del Congresso del “Percorsi” si scende al 69%. Prc (1999). 11 Nel preambolo dello statuto viene detto che il Prc “rigetta ogni concezione autoritaria e burocratica, stalinista o d’altra matrice, del socialismo e ogni concezione e ogni pratica di relazioni od organizzativa del partito di stampo gerarchico e plebiscitario”. È da notare che lo Statuto dei Comunisti italiani (art. 9.2) fa invece ancora esplicito riferimento al “centralismo democratico”. 12 Va tenuto presente che nella domanda si fa riferimento alle primarie tenute dal partito per la scelta dei propri candidati nelle elezioni parlamentari e non alle primarie di coalizione per la scelta del leader della stessa. Rispetto a queste ultime, specie dopo la vittoria di Vendola alle primarie pugliesi, gli appartenenti al Prc potrebbero aver maturato una posizione decisamente più favorevole, slegata dalla tradizione culturale del partito e fondata piuttosto sulla base della convinzione che il Prc, avendo una base più militante, e quindi più facilmente mobilitabile, di quella degli altri partiti della coalizione di centro-sinistra sia in grado di far valere nelle primarie di coalizione un peso e un potenziale di condizionamento superiore alla sua effettiva forza elettorale. 13 Queste ultime percentuali si riferiscono alla sola componente di delegati che si è detta favorevole alle primarie. 14 J. D. May, Opinion structure of poliitcal parties: the special law of curvilinear disparity , in “Political studies”, 1973, XXI, 2, pp. 135-151. 15 Gli items utilizzati come indicatori sono le risposte alle domande che chiedevano di definire il fascismo (nel caso di An) e di esprimere il giudizio sull’affermazione “una società giusta non può fare a meno del mercato” (Prc).

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Presentation: Special Issue of Telos on Italian Fascism

Frank Adler (with Danilo Breschi)

Macalester College (Libera Università S. Pio V, Rome)

This special issue on Italian Fascism ( Telos young historian (born in 1963) with no 133, Winter 2005) was conceived four years “suspect” past, Sergio Luzzatto, focused ago as an extension of conversations Paul precisely on this query in La crisi Piccone and I were having concerning new dell’antifascismo , stating at the outset “It is work on Italian Fascism published in Italy useless to deny it: anti-fascism is since the death of Renzo De Felice in 1996. undergoing a profound crisis; eventually an For twenty-five years, De Felice’s writings, irreversible crisis.” 1 most centrally his monumental, eight- In the past, Telos intermittently touched on volume biography of Mussolini, had been fascism, even translating into English for the the focal point of historical analysis, as well first time Thalheimer’s classic essay on as a protracted historiographical debates fascism as “Bonapartism,” in 1979. 2 But it concerning the methods, concepts and was not until 2001 that we began to consider normative presuppositions involved in the new “post defelician” scholarship studying so complex and ideologically appearing in Italy, reviewing two books that charged a phenomenon as fascism. By the had appeared on the Fascist “left.” 3 The time De Felice passed away, this intellectual present special issue is a continuation of that debate had become a political one as well, initiative, focusing both on the new focusing on the legacy of that triumphant scholarship, as well as left tendencies within anti-fascism upon which the new postwar Italian Fascism. Long ago De Felice argued republic had been forged institutionally, that, unlike German National Socialism, ideologically and culturally. Not only had Italian Fascism originated, not as a historical memory dimmed with the passing movement of the extreme right, but rather as of generations that had been protagonists a heretical movement of the so-called and witnesses, but, after fifty years, the “subversive left” (socialists, anarchists, political context had completely changed as revolutionary syndicalists). By no means, well: internally, there no longer were Fascist however, could it be argued that this point and Communist political parties which of departure signified an unchanging symbolically, if not practically, were “essence” or core orientation, especially as committed to a qualitative transformation of the “movement” developed into a “regime” Italy nor, externally, the Cold War which, as that soon reached an accommodation with an omnipresent parameter, had framed and the traditional economic elites, one that was also overdetermined the range of domestic never substantially transgressed, despite political options and strategies from 1948 to successive stages of increasingly hyperbolic 1989. If “fascism” no longer had anti-bourgeois, populist rhetoric. contemporary meaning for many Italians, Nevertheless, as a tendency within Fascism, especially after the neo-fascist MSI had the left remained not only significant, but convincingly morphed into the post-fascist remarkably durable, even outliving the and manifestly centrist AN, what demise of the Fascist regime itself, as contemporary meaning could “anti-fascism” Giuseppe Parlato demonstrates in La continue to have? In 2004, a relatively Sinistra Fascista . Moreover, the Fascist left

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was neither dismissed, nor taken for granted, against the Jews in 1938. Although the by the Italian Communist Party which, conventional explanation for this new anti- following Palmiro Togliatti’s explicit Semitic policy, which had no basis in the directives, actually recruited leaders and formative principles and practices of militants from this Fascist tendency during Fascism, is based almost exclusively on the closing years of the regime. In fact, Italy’s growing diplomatic relationship with among the young “second generation” of the Nazi Germany and the consequent need to 1930s especially, it might be said that harmonize domestic policy, it can be argued Fascism’s unredeemed leftism stimulated a that there were internally generated causes revolutionary appetite it was unable to for the campaign against “the Jews” as well. satisfy, one which made the undeniable By 1937, the Regime was coming under social transformations of the Soviet Union, attack from all quarters for failed economic and therefore, of communism, all the more and social reforms, especially the corporatist attractive. restructuring of productive life, as well as Focusing on the Fascist left, and the the growing economic hardships of the unredeemed transformative promises of Great Depression, exacerbated by deficits Fascism, raises a related question, yet to be attributed directly to colonial expenses and adequately theorized or historically Italy’s protracted military intervention in the explored: what happens when a political Spanish civil war. Mussolini responded, not revolution is not accompanied by a social with new substantive reforms, but instead one? Italian Fascism certainly was a with a new ideological crusade against the political revolution that fundamentally “bourgeoisie,” which now was targeted as altered institutions, imposed new political the “enemy” because of its characteristic principles (including a new concept of the selfishness and defeatism. Not Fascist State), created a new political culture, and policies, but the “bourgeoisie” was recruited a new political class. Moreover, presented as the root cause of Italy’s unlike the Liberal State that never seriously difficulties. Since neither the property order attempted to integrate the masses into nor traditional economic elites themselves political life, the Fascist State was Italy’s were ever identified (Mussolini explicitly first attempt to “totally” incorporate the said the “bourgeoisie” was not an economic masses into public life, albeit hierarchically, category, not a class, so much as an attitude, through new youth organizations, leisure a way of life), this ideological abstraction activities ( dopolavoro ), labor syndicates, had to be concretized and personified. Here corporations, and social welfare programs. the “enemy” was found in the Jews, “living Many of these efforts were half-baked and incarnations of the bourgeois spirit.” superficial, if not totally insincere, stopping Before describing the contents of this well short of violating the prerogatives of special issue on Italian Fascism, recognition private property and altering the social order should be given to its co-editor Danilo itself. Breschi, a young political scientist I met For this reason, Mussolini was always re- while conducting research in Rome. In inventing himself and the regime, and when 2003, he had co-authored a biography of domestic options ran out, by the mid- Camillo Pellizzi, 4 a fascist intellectual who thirties, he then turned toward an aggressive became a major force in institutionalizing imperialist foreign policy to compensate for the discipline of sociology in Italy after the a growing deficit in domestic legitimacy. war. Breschi also had an extensive list of This accounts, as well, for his turn towards publications in such journals as racism, one that was related to imperialism, MondOperio , Trasgressioni , Rivista di Studi especially after Ethiopia had been Politici , Il pensiero politico , and Annali conquered and Italy ruled over a large della Fondazione Ugo Spirito . Serving as African population. It also partially our man in Italy, and assuming a greater accounts for Mussolini’s racial campaign editorial load as Paul Piccone struggled

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valiantly with cancer, Breschi not only opening, especially with the changes in wrote our opening essay, introducing non- Soviet economic policy ushered in by the specialists to recent trends in Italian NEP. 6 Relations with the Soviet Union historiography on Fascism, he contributed were disturbed neither by the Matteotti an introduction to the recollections of assassination, nor by the imprisonment of Torquanto Nanni, a Socialist who had been Antonio Gramsci. No protracted campaigns close to Mussolini before 1915, and later against the Soviet Union appeared in the analyzed Fascism and Bolshevism from an Italian press, while books on communism orthodox Marxist perspective. Breschi also and Soviet developments continued to be wrote a review of Robert O. Paxton’s The published with regularity. As Petracchi Anatomy of Fascism which appeared in an demonstrates, the Wall Street Crash Italian edition shortly after its initial precipitated a new stage of heightened publication in English. interest in “soviet” social and economic Best known for a book on Italian-Soviet transformations, one that lasted until the relations during the early years of Fascism, 5 diplomatic clash of 1936. Mussolini had Giorgio Petracchi focuses on how the become convinced that, as he put it, the developing Soviet Union was viewed in crisis “in” the system had become a crisis Fascist Italy. Lenin and Mussolini were “of” the system. The Fascist labor frères ennemis as were no other European syndicates, as well as proponents of leaders of the time. Both emerged as corporatism, anticipated greater State revolutionary socialists, critical of orthodox intervention and planning, if not Marxism, as well as the fatalism and fundamental changes in the economy. At political passivity of reformists. Though the 1932 international conference on Fascism was hostile to Italian communism, corporatism held at Ferrara, Ugo Spirito, a an antithetical political force, as well as the disciple of Giovanni Gentile, proposed a so- international machinations of the Soviet called “communist thesis,” approved in Union, it did not regard Russia as an enemy advance by Mussolini, whereby private until 1936, when the clash of diplomatic property would be abolished and vested in objectives in Spain opened an the new State corporations. High-profile insurmountable breach. Before that, Fascist Fascists, such as Balbo and Malaparte, Italy looked upon the Soviet experiment visited the Soviet Union, as did leading with considerable interest, if not sympathy. journalists, such as Luigi Barzini. A major No other European case, certainly not theme, and common concern, was the Germany, shared comparable aspirations, qualitative transformation of youth via the particularly those related to how rapid two new revolutionary States, the parallel modernization might be achieved in development of what later became backward, predominantly agricultural designated as “New Fascist Man” and societies. Diplomatically, Fascist Italy “New Soviet Man.” 7 recognized the Soviet Union almost In anti-fascist literature, Giovanni Gentile is immediately, and never participated in the not only vilified as a Fascist philosopher, aggressive anti-Soviet policies of England, but as that undeniably brilliant intellectual France and the United States. Fully backed who gave to Fascism, an inconsistent if not by Italy’s major industrialists, Mussolini incoherent collections of slogans, a rigorous pursued favorable trade relations with the theoretical foundation. Gentile’s Soviet Union. While American and West “actualism” represented a principled European markets were blocked by high rejection of that self-regarding, if not selfish, tariff walls and dominated by powerful egotistical individualism that formed the international cartels, Russia, possessing a basis of traditional political and economic wealth of raw materials and an immense liberalism. Gentile was thoroughly market for manufactured goods, provided dismissive of the liberal concept of for Italian industrialists an opportune “negative liberty,” the principled claim for

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individual autonomy against society and the suggesting these were not simply acts of State. Instead, he advocated “positive personal generosity, but reflected a liberty,” the process of collective self- commitment to include all, even dissidents, constitution through which a new social in the process of collective self-constitution. individual would be created, a more In this sense, repression of dissenting views complete and transformed individual whose was antithetical to the larger national ultimate freedom resided in a seamless, project, one for which Fascism was had organic identity with the national become the historical means, not an end in community and the State. Unlike the static, itself. authoritarian formulations of Nationalists Nevertheless, Gentile never broke with the such as Alfredo Rocco and Enrico regime that became not only increasingly Corradini, where individuals were simply repressive, but institutionalized the very subordinated to the State, Gentile’s Hegelian racism he had unambiguously opposed. The argument was one in which individuals corporatism inspired by his philosophy, and collectively and organically grew into their earnestly promoted by Spirito and Bottai, community and State. occupied only symbolic space and never Two essays were planned on Gentile; a became an actual site of State intervention, historical one by Giuseppe Parlato and a let alone social restructuring. In Under the philosophical one by Paul Piccone. Axe of Fascism , the great historian, and one- Unfortunately, Paul’s battle with cancer time close friend of Gentile, Gaetano precluded writing what might have been one Salvemini, tellingly entitled the chapter on of his very best efforts, especially since he corporatism “Looking in a Dark Room for a was an expert on that Neapolitan Hegelian Black Cat Which is Not There.” As for the tradition, stemming primarily from dignity of labor and the “totalitarian” Bertrando Spaventa, which led to Gramsci’s participation of workers in creating a new “phenomenological Marxism,” on the one Fascist State, Salvemini, in Origins of hand, and to Gentile’s “actualist Fascism,” Fascism , quipped “labor has in the Fascist on the other. Any reader familiar with corporative state no more active part than Paul’s remarkable book on Italian have animals in a society for the protection Marxism, 8 as well as his numerous essays of animals.” on the theme of phenomenological Gentile ended up as an intellectual disaster, Marxism, will recognize, despite obvious not only because he continued to support a political differences, underlying affinities regime which degenerated into a perverse between Gentile’s “actualism” and form of political gangsterism, but because Piccone’s long-standing concerns with self- his categorical rejection of “liberty,” and constitution, hegemony, and the younger especially ”negative liberty,” denied him Hegel of the Phenomenology , who stressed any principled basis to do otherwise. This is emergent subjectivity and self-becoming, a point forcefully argued by Norberto rather than the fixed, already attained Bobbio in what might be considered the teleology of Hegel’s later Logic . classic postwar anti-fascist critique of That Parlato turns to Gentile is not at all Gentile. 9 The only condition under which surprising; to the degree that the Fascist left authentic collective self-constitution can intellectuals identified with any philosopher, take place is one of liberty, liberty as a Gentile’s idealism was an obvious pole of requisite means to be incorporated in attraction, especially after Gentile decided to principles, practices and institutions. In this republish his earlier work on Marx in 1936, sense, the direct historical relationship and identified labor as the sphere in which between principled anti-liberalism and authentic self-constitution is experienced. political gangsterism is far more important Parlato offers a sympathetic picture of than the undeniably generous nature of Gentile, who helped anti-fascist intellectuals Gentile the man. The same certainly could and Jews who suffered discrimination, be said regarding certain strands of Hegelian

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Marxism as well, even those that had been version of this position, stressing the degree so formative to the editors of Telos in the to which Jews had become integrated into early days and to our readers. Was Lukacs Italian society and the consequent reluctance any less an intellectual disaster than Gentile, of Italians to view their Jewish compatriots defending Stalin and Stalinism, or, for that as a threatening alien presence. matter, Palmiro Togliatti, 10 who as a Accordingly, Cabona looks to the predominant Comintern operative had imperatives of foreign policy to explain the literal, not just figurative blood, on his anti-Semitic turn of October 1938. hands? Confronting Gentile’s Hegelianism, Frank Adler, while not dismissing the at this fundamental political level, means explanation based on diplomatic confronting that of Lukas, Togliatti and imperatives, argues that Cabona and others even Gramsci, who died before he ran the who adopt this “external” interpretation fail risk of compromising himself as well, but to situate the belated campaign against who, nevertheless, failed to ever articulate Italy’s Jews within the internal dynamics of political principles and practices which Fascism itself . As a complimentary might differentiate between a good and just interpretation, Adler stresses the degree to workers’ state, on the one hand, from a bad which the imperialist-totalitarian and unjust workers’ state, on the other. radicalization of Fascism during the late Though Gramsci wrote more on politics 1930s was predicated on the realization of a than any other major Marxist, he offered no projected “cultural” or “anthropological” basis, regarding political norms, practices revolution whereby the new State, in turn, and institutions, from which a critique of would fabricate a unitary, homogenized so- Stalin’s (or Mussolini’s) political called New Fascist Man: heroic, anti- gangsterism could be derived. 11 bourgeois, proletarian, obedient, ready to Mussolini’s abrupt turn against Italian Jews sacrifice. Jews, irrevocably tied to the very remains an enigma, given the absence in decadent and corrupt liberal-bourgeois order Italy of anti-Semitic mass movements that that Fascism was committed to totally had appeared in such other European cases supersede, were depicted as an implacable as France, Austria and Germany during the obstacle to the creation of this new society late nineteenth century, movements whose and new subjectivity. Accordingly, the characteristic themes could be redeployed Jewish community was presented a later during the crisis-prone interwar years. disproportionately influential, self-regarding Anti-Semitism had not been part of enemy enclave that fully merited Fascism’s formative principles, nor an discriminatory treatment. The ideological aspect of the regime during the 1920s, as it rationale for this racial policy made no consolidated its dictatorship, nor an element direct reference to Nazism, nor did this of the “consensus” it sought to generate future-regarding project have anything in during the early 1930s. Instead, the common with backward-looking German campaign against Italy’s Jews took place racism, committed as it was to preserving only during Fascism’s final, radicalized the purity of an already constituted, yet stage, during the second half of the 1930s. threatened superior race. Given the absence of anti-Semitism during As a contribution to ongoing debates the first sixteen years of Fascism, the concerning Italian Fascism, we have growing salience of foreign policy after translated two documents never before 1935, and especially Italy’s growing alliance available to English readers. The first is an with Nazi Germany, it is understandable that appeal issued by the Italian Communist early studies viewed the sudden turn Party in the August 1936 issue of Lo Stato towards anti-Semitism in October 1938 as operaio , an appeal to “our brothers in black an externally induced, imitative shirts.” It called for national reconciliation, phenomenon, adopted solely for diplomatic and for a joint struggle by communists and ends. Maurizio Cabona offers an updated fascists against the parasitic bourgeoisie,

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one that would realize the original Fascist which a comparable appeal could refer, nor, Program of 1919, depicted as democratic consequently, the tactical possibility of and progressive, a program that had been exacerbating Nazi regime’s internal abandoned by the Fascist government. The contradictions. One might add that a close PCI, as suggested earlier, never dismissed reading of Togliatti’s Lezioni sul fascismo , the reality of a Fascist left, or, more written at the same time, yields similar accurately, the contradictory nature of observations concerning a Fascist left, Fascism, where an anti-capitalist left might conceding the authenticity of Fascist labor be set against an accommodating regime leaders such as Edmondo Rossoni and Luigi that had failed to keep its revolutionary Razza, as well as how the experience of promises. The appeal was written under the former socialists, like Mussolini himself, direction of Ruggiero Grieco, who had contributed to the social dimension of fascist become PCI general secretary when ideology. Nevertheless, it is interesting that Togliatti assumed a leadership role in the while Lezioni sul fascismo never has been Comintern. Despite its simplistic, out of print, the text of this “appeal” has all demagogic tone, and the dubious suggestion but disappeared from communist memory. that it was the capitalist “bloodsuckers” who In his official history of the party, Paulo were behind Italy’s new, aggressive Spriano did entitle a chapter “fratelli in imperialism, not Mussolini, what Grieco camicia nera,” but he neither quotes from really sought to develop was Antonio the document directly, nor includes the text Gramsci’s earlier prediction that, to the itself as an appendix. After the war, the PCI degree that Fascism became totalitarian, it was understandably less interested in would reproduce within itself all the recalling this surprising stage than it was in contradictions of Italian society. Thus, the promoting the view that, from the very appeal was related to a new policy of beginning, the boundary between fascism entrismo where communists were and anti-fascism had always been clear, firm encouraged to join Fascist organizations and unambiguous. (labor syndicates, dopolavoro, youth The second set of documents, comprised of organizations, etc.), promote the anti- extracts from the writings of Torquanto capitalist positions Fascism had earlier Nanni, sheds light on a host of relevant articulated, and thereby exacerbate its issues: Mussolini’s emergence as a new type internal contradictions. One should add of socialist leader; how the First World War that, at this stage, the PCI was little more both split the Italian Socialist Party and then than a small, clandestine organization, created a new series of social problems totally isolated, without many tactical which the party failed to address; the options. Nevertheless, the appeal does genesis of a Fascist dictatorship; and, underscore an important difference between finally, whether a transition to socialism, or Italian Fascism and German National a step in that direction, might eventually Socialism. This appeal forthrightly stated, occur through Fascism. Nanni, who once “We Communists will make the 1919 was close to Mussolini, certainly comes Fascist program our own!” It is across as an almost pre-Kautskian, orthodox inconceivable that communist leadership in Marxist, reflective of Engels’ dialectics of Germany would ever have launched a nature , where social history is little more similar appeal in 1936 to their “brothers in than a working out of nature’s own internal brown shirts,” even if the Germans had processes. As an orthodox Marxist and as a more imaginative leadership, as well as the reformist, he believed that socialism would marginally greater autonomy from Moscow be an evolutionary process, based on the that the PCI preserved. There was no education, the growing maturity and, and the significant, durable left in National moral elevation of the laboring masses. Socialism, nor an unredeemed This made him acutely aware of the revolutionary, anti-capitalist program to “deviations” of both Lenin and Mussolini --

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at once, similar though different -- from contemporary scholarship views France classical Marxism. Recognizing the during the Second World War, Peasant practical errors that flowed from Marxist Fascism in France , and, with Michael orthodoxy, however, Nanni forthrightly Marrus, Vichy France and the Jews . Danilo acknowledged how he and his fellow Breschi considers The Anatomy of Fascism reformists tragically misread the nature and from an Italian perspective, while Michele consequences of the First World War, Cone considers it from a French one. especially how a new nationalism had Finally, we include two previously displaced the old internationalist unpublished documents regarding Fascist presumptions of classical socialism, and racial policy that Frank Adler recently how the psychology of the young generation unearthed at the Archivio Centrale dello had changed, particularly those whose Stato in Rome. The first was written in education and employment opportunities August 1940 by Undersecretary for Internal had been disrupted by the conflict, those Affairs, Guido Buffarini-Guidi. Though who had experienced a new solidarity of the Renzo De Felice published what turns out to trenches, those for whom violence had be a later draft of this communication, we become almost a second nature, a banal fact include the far more revealing first draft of life. Despite the limitations of his which frankly admitted the failure of racial theoretical rigidity, perhaps even because of legislation, and spoke of a racial policy it, given his own undeniable intellectual “reduced to a nullity.” It lays out a less honesty, Nanni was a remarkably perceptive ideological, more pragmatic alternative observer, ready to recognize his own which, Buffarini-Guidi argued, would solve mistakes and to give the devil – in this case, the problem in six or seven years, after Mussolini – his due. In retrospect, Nanni which “we would no longer have to hear might appear as hopelessly naïve regarding about Jews or Judaism.” The complex racial a socialist transcendence of Fascism, yet one laws would be scrapped, replaced with a far can well imagine that he was representative simpler scheme whereby, essentially, Jews of how at least certain Marxists viewed the would be tolerated and given juridical status contradictory nature and immanent equal to aryans who either had converted, possibilities of Italian Fascism. married Catholics, and had their children We offer two reviews of Robert O. Paxton’s raised as Catholics, or, alternatively, were The Anatomy of Fascism. During the past over the age of sixty-five, with no children two years, Paxton’s book and Michael or other heirs, and were willing to leave Mann’s Fascists promised new comparative their property to the State. Most intriguing, approaches to a subject that had always however, is the inclusion in this general generated more acrimony than consensus in category (Jews to be tolerated and given the scholarly community. Whereas Mann’s juridical status equal to aryans) of Jews effort turned out to be half-baked who neither converted nor were over sixty- methodologically, and poorly crafted in its five, but nevertheless were, in the words of treatment of individual cases, especially Buffarini-Guidi, “useful and indispensable Italy, 12 Paxton’s study most likely will to the Nation.” Parenthetically, one might become a classic. In fact, The Anatomy of note that this pragmatic recognition of Fascism is a full-scale elaboration of what “useful” and “indispensable” Jews originally appeared as a brilliant journal undermined the very same essentialist essay that almost immediately was principles regarding “Jews” that had reproduced in anthologies of fascism in Italy justified their discrimination and exclusion and elsewhere. For those unfamiliar with in the first place. In any case, all other Jews Paxton’s earlier work, he is highly regarded, were to be expelled during a five-year primarily, as a French historian, most period under terms that would become notably for Vichy France , a book which increasingly more punitive for those who fundamentally shaped the way delayed their departure past the first year.

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Moreover, no Jews were to be admitted or re-admitted into Italy. Due, no doubt, to the 4 Danilo Breschi and Gisella Longo, Camilo exigencies of war, this alternative was never Pellizzi. La ricerca delle elites tra politica e adopted, but nevertheless remains important sociologia (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino 2003) 5 both as a document and as a road not taken. Giorgio Petracchi, La Russia revoluzionaria The second document is illustrative of the nella politica italiana. Le relazioni many opportunistic denunciations of Jews to italosocietiche, 1917-1925 (Bari: Laerza 1982). 6 See Franklin Hugh Adler, Italian Industrialists be found in the archives, in this case a from Liberalism to Fascism (New York: denunciation of Jewish candidates feigning Cambridge 1995), pp. 273-75. to be “aryan” so that they could enter a 7 Pier Luigi Bassignana, Fascisti nel paese dei competition for university posts. This Soviet (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri 2000), pp. 33- denunciation was made by candidates who 38, 98. formally identified themselves as “racists,” 8 Paul Piccone, Italian Marxism (Berkeley: of “Italian racial purity,” and of married University of California Press 1983). 9 status. Invoking, as incredible as it might “Giovanni Gentile,” in Norberto Bobbio, Dal seem, the universality of law, indeed fascismo alla democrazia (Milan: Baldini & claiming the law should apply equally to all, Castoldi 1977), pp. 187-214) Bobbio points out that Gentile turned to political philosophy they wrote the document to call attention to relatively late, only after the First World War. two named transgressive Jews who, as Jews, Nevertheless, Gentile’s grasp of liberal political should be excluded, and thus had no thought was limited to individualist, atomistic, business trying to compete. It is clear that contractarian, seventeenth and eighteenth the motive here was more opportunistic than century natural law concepts of Hobbes, Locke racial, in as much as they also sought to and Spinoza. Gentile apparently had no blow the whistle on “unmarried candidates” acquaintance with the later liberal thought of who were not supposed to compete either, Tocqueville, Mill and Constant which went but for different reasons. Fascist beyond the earlier rationalist tradition, demographic policy aimed at promoting a incorporating the profound social changes brought on by the industrial revolution , the higher birthrate, and one means of development of modern, representative political accomplishing this end was to favor in parties, and emergence of democratic various ways married adults over those who movements. In his famous reply to Gentile’s “selfishly” remained single. The document “Manfesto of Fascist Intellectuals,” Croce in underscores the opportunism, rather than 1925 had made the same point. principled racism, that motivated many 10 It might be argued that, unlike Gentile and Italians from 1938 to 1943, accounting as Lukacs, Togliatti was primarily a politician, not well for the pervasive indifference toward an intellectual. This would reintroduce precisely and lack solidarity with Italian Jews whose the distinction that the category “organic discrimination, however regrettable in the intellectual” was to overcome, not among Italian communists, but among disciplines of Gentile. abstract, nevertheless concretely favored Moreover, Paul Piccone suggests that, if their own life chances during a very difficult anything, Togliatti was more of a Hegelian than period. Gramsci. When they were students at the University of Turin, Togliatti actually translated Endnotes 150 pages of the Phenomenology into Italian. See Paul Piccone, Italian Marxism , p. 111-122. 11 In this respect, one is struck by the degree to 1 Sergio Luzzatto, La crisi dell’antifascismo which Bobbio’s critique of Italian communism (Turin: Einadi 2004), p. 7. mirrored his critique of Italian fascism. See 2 See, as well, Frank Adler, “Thalheimer, Nadia Urbinati’s recent essay “Socrate e i Bonapartism and Fascism,” Telos , Summer comunisti, il perchè e il come di un ‘dialogo,’” 1979. in Corrado Ocone (ed.), Bobbio ad uso di amici 3 P. Neglie, Fratelli in Camicia Nera and G. e nemici (Venezia: Marsilio 2003), pp. 17-44. Parlato, La Sinistra Fascista , reviewed in Telos See also, Franklin H. Adler, “Socialisme et Spring 2001 by Frank Adler. démocratie dans l’oeuvre de Norberto Bobbio,”

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Les temps modernes , no. 55, 1992 and “Liberalismo socialismo democraziia in Norberto Bobbio,” Il Ponte , August-September 1993. 12 See Franklin Hugh Adler’s review of Michael Mann’s Fascists in Comparative Political Studies , August 2005.

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BOOK REVIEWS

Legnante on De Luca’s Cambiamenti istituzionali e consenso. I nuovi sistemi elettorali regionali , Beckwith on Foot’s Modern Italy , Everson on Fragnito’s Church, Censorship and Culture in Early Modern Italy , Vandelli on Magnatti et al.’s Governance alla prova: l’esperienza italiana dei Patti territoriali , Ceccarini on Sciolla’s La sfida dei valori. Rispetto delle regole e rispetto dei diritti in Italia , Brancaccio on Viesti’s Abolire il Mezzogiorno , Allum on Violante’s Il Ciclo Mafioso .

Roberto De Luca , Cambiamenti introduction of regional electoral institutions istituzionali e consenso. I nuovi sistemi in Italy) to 2000, the second election held elettorali regionali with the new rules. This chapter, that uses Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2004, both data from other researches and original pp.172, ISBN 88-498-1081-4. data, considers some aspects of systemic (such as the increase in the number of

parties, in “wasted” votes, in abstensionism) The electoral reforms and the political and party results: in the past, the difficulties system change of the 1990s increased the in the regional vote for Dc and the success autonomy of Italian regional electoral for Pci, Psi and Msi, due to a relaxing of the dynamics vis-à-vis the national political voting ties with respect to national elections; system. The Constitutional reform of 1999 in the 1990s, the variability of the results of pushed a step forward the autonomy of Forza Italia (due to volatility of the regions, allowing them to approve their own consensus for Berlusconi’s party), the statutes and electoral laws. As a success of Ds (especially where the former consequence of that, it is likely that regional communists governed regions), An and Rc peculiarities will be further increased. Di (especially when these parties are in a Luca’s book discusses this transition, with a positive trend at the national level). particular focus on two aspects: on the one The fourth chapter describes the debate on hand, the electoral system and the choices of and the results of the 1999 Constitutional parties and voters; on the other hand, the reform that has increased regional autonomy normative and systemic implications of the in making electoral laws. Now regions can electoral laws. approve their own electoral laws: the fifth The first chapter describes the dimensions of chapter discusses the possible aims of analysis of electoral systems. The main electoral laws, with respect to territorial focus is on the electoral formula, but there representation, provisions in order to are also noticeable mentions to the reinforce the governing majority, role of complexity of the whole electoral system opposition, minorities and regional councils, including voting rights, constituency design, access to women, clarity of the system for thresholds, campaign activities. The second voters. The sixth and the seventh chapters chapter describes the features of the regional discuss two particular features of voting in electoral system during the “first Republic” regional elections. The sixth chapter and after the 1995 reform that introduced a describes the question of the dimensions of majority prize and the direct election of the districts and introduces the question of regional “governors”. The third chapter candidates’ equality as far as preference focuses on the features of the regional voting, electoral campaign and primaries are electoral market from 1970 (year of

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concerned. The seventh chapter presents title Modern Italy . In the last decade, from original and very interesting data on Paul Furlong to John Davis to Denis Mack preference voting and observes that Smith to John Foot, Italy is positioned as preference voting has grown everywhere in “modern,” although it is not clear whether Italy, both in Northern regions (where “modern” is 1) something to which Italian usually few voters made use of preferences) politics should aspire or 2) something which and in Southern regions (where preference Italy has at last achieved. In the current rates were already high). The crisis of international political context, “modern” is parties may leave room (even more than in now problematized as failing to achieve the the past) for the success of personal political human progress it had initially been seen to supply, whose success lies in electoral promise and as marking a boundary between committees, “representatives” in the local cultures and civilizations (Adams, Clemens network, local administrators. The eighth and Orloff 2005). chapter proposes some simulations (taking John Foot’s Modern Italy does not grapple as an instance the regions of Calabria, with the big questions of modernity. The Lombardy and Umbria) based on local emphasis instead is on contemporary Italy, electoral systems. and the book is purposefully cast to fill a gap Di Luca’s book presents many data on and between chronological narrations of Italian explanation of (a significant part of which is history and descriptive accounts of Italian the product of the authors’ analysis) the politics, society and the economy. Italian regional electoral competition. Organized thematically, Modern Italy is Among the qualities of this book, there is the intended “to stimulate further reflection on fact that many electoral aspects of regional and study of its major themes and “to pose voting, past and future, are dealt with. A as many questions as it answers” (2). Foot demanding reader might complain the fact also proposes “to integrate subjective or that this richness and variety of topics does personal experiences of history with more not allow the author to discuss more in depth so-called ‘objective’ historical accounts” (2). the most original (preference voting, but also As a supplementary text, Modern Italy simulations) of the many contents he includes multiple sets of footnotes and presents. However, more eclectic readers references for each chapter and its “boxes,” may appreciate the fact that the book lies in independent sets of paragraphs that provide equilibrium among a handbook (for instance more detail or anecdotes to illustrate the in the descriptions of the feature electoral discussion in the main text. Foot further systems), a pamphlet (for instance in its provides appendices of all Italian prescriptions for “good” regional electoral governments and Italian heads of state since systems), and a research book (for instance unification. Four major themes serve to in the discussion of preference voting). organize Modern Italy: the nation, the state, the economy and society, and politics. Less Guido Legnante actual themes than arenas of discussion, they Università degli Studi di Pavia correspond to four major sections, intended to facilitate the supplemental use of the book and permitting the reader to map individual sections to other course readings or research John Foot, Modern Italy interests. As a result, Modern Italy is most Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave fairly reviewed by addressing it on its own McMillan, 2003, pp. 208, ISBN terms: as a supplementary text, to be used in 0333669053. comparative West European politics and history courses, and not as a stand-alone It must say something about the state of work. scholarship on Italian politics and society Foot begins with the nation, an excellent that so many books on the subject share the choice in regard to the Italian case. Foot

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discusses comparative conceptual definitions why “society” is linked to the economy of “nation” to position Italy in the process of rather than, for example, to politics, nation-building and national development. especially given Antonio Gramsci’s For Italy, Foot argues, the concept of nation emphasis on civil society as superstructural, entails the assertion of an “Other,” which is comprising “not ‘all material relationships’, not the nation, against which a vision of but all ideological-cultural relations” modern Italy has been asserted. Foot (Bobbio: 82-83). Nonetheless, this chapter positions the Italian South as central in will be particularly useful as a supplement to constructing the imagined community of history and political science courses that modern Italy, and uses, in part, the “southern include Italy as a case. Foot presents question” as a theme for analyzing national “debates” concerning Italian economy and language(s), changes in geopolitical society on four themes: “backwardness” boundaries, and initiatives of colonialism. A (111); the Southern question; Italian political particular strength of this section of the book economy; and the rate of Italian economic is the attention Foot pays to Italian out- transformation in the 20 th century. In migration (the Italian diaspora), internal addressing these themes, Foot presents a migration (from south to north, rural to concise and detailed political economic urban), and in-migration from Albania and history of Italy’s transformation from a northern Africa. The actual physical rural, agricultural, physically dispersed and mobility of Italian citizens and the in- exploited labor force to an urban, Fordist migration of foreign citizens have not been industrialized, physically concentrated, central foci of most textbook studies of organized and emergent socialist proletariat. Italian politics, and Foot does a good job in For students unfamiliar with share-cropping linking these various mobilities to issues of outside of the US context, Foot’s citizenship and to national identity. distinctions among latifondi , mezzadri , and Foot distinguishes between “nation” and braccianti will be helpful in understanding “state,” a useful distinction for most political the shifts to industry and to class struggle. systems and, perhaps, particularly for Italy. Politics is the focus of the final section of In this second section, Foot argues that “the Modern Italy . Foot begins this chapter with Italian state has been in the throes of a semi- a set of definitions of concepts for permanent legitimation crisis ever since its understanding Italian politics, including inception” (55; emphasis in original) and transformism, consociationism, Caesarism, that full legitimacy for state structures, rules, political clientelism, and partitocrazia . The constitutional provisions and state funding major focus concerns Italian political parties (for examples) has never been achieved and and the party system, and a discussion of the is instead always in negotiation and electoral system and its changes across time. contestation (among political elites as well The section is supported by informational as among citizens). Foot identifies multiple boxes containing tables of election results, causes for Italy’s crisis of legitimacy: the party alliances across time, details of the history of Catholic Church opposition to the Cencelli spoils system, and an account of modern Italian state and the Church’s squadristi fascist activism in the 1920s, subsequent constitutionally inscribed formal Because this chapter is distinct from the state role; the strength of the Mafia and its sections on the state, on society and on the influence on and involvement in the state; nation, it is less clear than it might be, and it and an initially weak post-Risorgimento will be difficult for undergraduates to follow state which was followed by state the multiple trajectories of the mass parties transformations and breakdowns during two of the left and of the centre-right. A major World Wars, including two decades of key to the Italian party system is its fascist government. rootedness in distinctive political historical The third major theme of Modern Italy is subcultures, which continue to provide a Italian economy and society. It is not clear base for left parties, for Catholic parties, and

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for fascist parties; the disjunction between Italy’s rich history demands deep analysis, the section on “society” and the focus on both of her leaders, and of her peoples, but “politics” in this chapter deprives the reader her story has not been a happy one. As of the kind of systematic analysis necessary Salvemini wrote in 1952, ‘When the reality for understanding Italian parties and the is barbaric, a mirror will reflect a barbaric party system. image.’ The discussion of electoral rules is similarly complex, beginning with the introduction of References: limited suffrage after unification and ending Adams, J., Clemens, E.S., & Orloff, A.S., eds. with the current “hybrid” system combining (2005) Remaking Modernity: Politics, History, proportional representation and first-past-the and Sociology , Durham, NC: Duke University post provisions. Foot links party system Press. Bobbio, N. (1988) “Gramsci and the Concept of bipolarism to the details and complications Civil Society” in Civil Society and the State , ed. of electoral system changes since 1993. John Keane, London and New York: Verso. Again, in the absence of other core materials on Italian politics, undergraduates will find Karen Beckwith it difficult to understand the sources and The College of Wooster implications of these changes. “No one methodological school underpins Modern Italy ” (4). In the absence of such a grounding, Foot has produced a work Gigliola Fragnito, ed. (translated by A. lacking the analytical structure and criteria Belton) Church, Censorship and Culture that students might employ in understanding in Early Modern Italy , Cambridge: contemporary Italian politics and society. Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. Professors will not be able to use the text to 264, ISBN 0-521-66172-2 demonstrate how a scholar employs a particular framework for raising and testing This volume of essays by some of the questions, and students will not be able to leading Italian scholars of book history and argue against or to critique that framework, Counter-Reformation culture constitutes a or to consider others. welcome contribution to the bibliography in Foot’s Modern Italy holds within it a central, English on the history of the book in Italy. unreconciled tension. On the one hand, Foot The inspiration for the volume was the reports that “a systematic comparative opening of the archives of the Holy Office, analysis is beyond the scope of this book” including those of the congregation of the (7); on the other, Foot also argues that Index, in 1998, as well as the completion (in “Italy’s history is also Europe’s history” 1996) of Bujanda’s magnum opus, the Index (13). This second claim would seem to des livres interdits . Since the turn of the insist upon exactly the type of systematic century, therefore, scholars have had access comparative analysis necessary for to a wealth of archive material not merely understanding the particularities of Italian relevant but fundamental for the study of political history and for explicating Italy’s th print culture in Italy (and indeed beyond). unique centrality for 20 century Europe. Any survey of the impact of the The lack of a concluding chapter confirms deliberations of the Council of Trent, the Foot’s original intention of producing a progressive establishment of the Index, and supplementary rather than core text, the operations of the Inquisition on Counter- producing both a fragmented argument and Reformation culture must now take account an unhappy ending, of the kind too of these archives. The deliberations recorded frequently embraced in studies of Italy – and there, which have remained largely of the kind that creates student prejudices unknown until now, will, as the essays of rather than invokes student perspicuity. The this volume suggest, importantly modify the book’s unfortunate final sentences read thus:

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understanding of the operations of when not rigorously applied. Indeed, not censorship in the later sixteenth and early surprisingly, many writers, printers, seventeenth centuries. inquisitors and others were prone to over- Although as the title indicates, the present caution in respect of what they considered volume is concerned with the impact of the permissible, and to hypercorrection in the institutions of censorship on culture in Italy, process of expurgation. The effect on Italian several of the essays make useful and vernacular culture and the spread of literacy, interesting comparisons with the operations as both Rozzo and Fragnito remind us, was of the Inquisition and Index in the Iberian both repressive and retrograde. The ban on peninsula, where the application of the rules Bibles in the vernacular, on long-established was frequently less rigorous. The essays and popular devotional literature (the subject gathered here cover a range of topics, of Barbieri’s essay) put back the cause of including astrology (Baldini), spiritual and literacy and education among the middle to devotional works (Barbieri), vernacular lower classes for generations to come, while literature (Rozzo) and law (Savelli), as well the ban on creative writers and whole genres as examining, from various perspectives, of literature (such as the novella) profoundly more general issues such as the processes of distorted the Italian canon (and continues to expurgation (Balsamo, Donati) and the do so), wiped the names of some writers impact on education and commerce wrought from cultural memory and irretrievably by censorship. This broad range of topics reversed two centuries of Italian humanist and themes, and the different perspectives of philology geared as it had been to the the individual scholars, though at times restoration of original texts, replacing this productive of a certain amount of repetition with the expurgators’ interference and between the essays (several for example wholesale recasting of texts against the rehearse the stages of elaboration of an intentions of authors. Nor, as Parente’s essay Index of prohibited books up to the importantly urges, was it only Catholics ‘definitive’ Index of Clement VIII in 1596), whose culture suffered from the operations proves ultimately highly satisfactory, of church censorship. His survey of the successfully illuminating the multifarious difficulties faced by Jewish communities in practices, the often incoherent, inconsistent their attempt to continue the printing and and contradictory approaches to censorship study of the Talmud makes for painful and the sheer complexities and irresolvable reading today and underlines the fact that issues that face any authority attempting to censorship in Counter-Reformation Italy impose uniform control on culture. was as much about government control as a Particularly stimulating (though hardly matter of religious orthodoxy. surprising to connoisseurs of Italian politics In spite of the archival basis of these and bureaucracy) is the picture painted in discussions, what emerges above all from several of the essays of the rivalries between this volume is a very human story. Several the bodies centrally entrusted with individuals recur from essay to essay, censorship (the Holy Office/Inquisition, the grappling essentially with the irrevocable Congregation of the Index, local bishops etc) messiness and greyness of human life: and the manipulation of successive Popes by Clement VIII striving to modify the powerful, authoritarian cardinals who took it strictures of the Holy Office; Antonio upon themselves to censor the Pope’s own Possevino attempting the impossible of views where these were considered too providing access to contemporary science lenient. and scholarship but only through rigorously As essay after essay reveals, the impact of approved texts; cardinals Sirleto and Santoro censorship, through the gradually more determined to impose uniformity and comprehensive implementation of the Index, tidiness at whatever cost. The result is a was wide-ranging, and little short of volume that is consistently stimulating, disastrous in many areas of culture, even thought-provoking and even wrily amusing.

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The essays have in general been well “partenariati” tra soggetti pubblici e privati. translated, but the volume lacks a unified In un quadro contrassegnato, nei diversi bibliography – and this, in a work whose Paesi, da grande varietà di forme, queste footnotes contain such a wealth of scholarly finalità sono state assegnate, in Italia, nella items and in particular of recent criticism in seconda metà degli anni ’90, alla istituzione languages other than English, is a very dei “Patti territoriali”; strumenti di una serious defect. As references to archive “programmazione negoziata” in cui le realtà documents throughout the volume stress, locali sono considerate come soggetto – e censorship in early modern Italy is an non più semplicemente come destinatarie, immensely rich field for research. Hopefully come obbiettivo, o come oggetto – delle the essays presented here will further open politiche di sviluppo: in una concezione that up to Anglophile scholars and students. profondamente innovativa, dopo lunghi anni di fallimentari esperienze del sistema delle Jane E.Everson imprese pubbliche e dei tradizionali Royal Holloway University of London interventi nel Mezzogiorno. Ma se la concezione era originale e gli obbiettivi si presentavano ambiziosi, quali sono i risultati sin qui ottenuti, nelle Piera Magnatti, Francesco Ramella, concrete esperienze? Carlo Trigilia, Gianfranco Viesti , Patti Questa è la domanda che affronta il volume territoriali. Lezioni per lo sviluppo , Patti territoriali. Lezioni per lo sviluppo , Bologna: Mulino, 2005, pp. 168, ISBN che raccoglie studi di Piera Magnatti, 88-15-10293-0. Francesco Ramella, Carlo Trigilia, Gianfranco Viesti (Bologna, Mulino, 2005). Il coinvolgimento delle risorse pubbliche e Dei Patti territoriali, gli Autori, in quattro private nel perseguimento di obbiettivi saggi di notevole interesse, per un verso condivisi, per lo sviluppo di un’area ripercorrono l’evoluzione e i caratteri, per territoriale, è questione di rilievo primario, l’altro puntano a cogliere i limiti, i problemi, nell’attuale, problematico contesto ma anche i risultati positivi ottenuti e le economico. potenzialità realisticamente ottenibili. Si tratta di cogliere le peculiarità, le Così, il primo saggio, curato da P. Magnati, vocazioni e le potenzialità delle specifiche ricostruisce le varie fasi della normativa sui realtà; di riunire le istanze e mobilitare le Patti, dalla prima sperimentazione incentrata energie delle istituzioni dei vari livelli, delle sul CNEL (il cui presidente, De Rita, ne fu imprese, delle organizzazioni economiche e del resto l’originario ideatore) sino alla sindacali, dei centri di ricerca e delle recente regionalizzazione, passando per università; di responsabilizzare, dunque, le l’accentramento presso strutture ministeriali espressioni più significative delle realtà (Ministero del Bilancio e, quindi, delle locali, rendendole protagoniste nelle scelte; Attività produttive). di puntare a realizzare le infrastrutture Allo studio di casi sono dedicati i saggi (materiali e immateriali) funzionali allo successivi; che puntano, in particolare, a sviluppo, in sintonia con gli investimenti cogliere, sulla base di un’ampia raccolta di degli imprenditori e con i contributi dati, l’efficacia delle esperienze (anzitutto pubblici, in maniera coerente; di costruire nella percezione dei testimoni qualificati, una governance flessibile ed efficace, in secondo le rilevazioni di F. Ramella), il grado di elaborare e gestire l’intero disegno. rilievo dei vari fattori causali (nella Queste, in sintesi, le finalità di fondo ricostruizione e interpretazione dello stesso perseguite, in Europa, dalle nuove politiche Ramella e di C. Trigilia), le prospettive dei per lo sviluppo locale; e significativamente Patti come strumento per il futuro sviluppo l’erogazione dei fondi strutturali europei è locale (G. Viesti). stata collegata al requisito della esistenza di

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Come spesso accade in Italia, la vicenda dei essenziale per il successo dei Patti: dando Patti territoriali è stata accompagnata da prova, nel sostituirsi per vari profili ondate (iniziali) di entusiastici consensi, all’Amministrazione statale, di essere in seguite da ondate di sconfortante delusione. grado di cogliere e di valorizzare nei termini Un merito di fondo del libro è quello di più efficaci le esigenze, le istanze e gli rifuggire da ogni atteggiamento estraneo ad impulsi che provengono dalle realtà locali; una razionale, documentata analisi di dare a queste esperienze – contrariamente dell’esperienza, per trarne valutazioni sui a quanto è avvenuto per la legislazione risultati conseguiti e sui rischi (anzitutto, sul nazionale – un quadro normativo organico e piano della destinazione delle risorse stabile; di individuare criteri oggettivi e pubbliche), traendone indicazioni utili per attendibili per selezionare le domande: l’impostazione delle politiche future. escludendo progetti strumentali, calibrando i Le considerazioni e gli insegnamenti che si finanziamenti, evitando – anche in questo, possono trarre da questa densa analisi sono contrariamente a quanto si è verificato in vari, e di notevole interesse. Per esempio, passato, sul piano nazionale – di disperdere risultati positivi emergono sul piano del le risorse erogandole in maniera consolidarsi di una rete di legami indiscriminata. interistituzionali, e sulla capacità progettuale E’ una sfida rilevante e complessa; e dei governi locali, con effetti positivi strategica, nel contesto del dibattito politico sull’incremento della fiducia istituzionale da italiano, diviso tra prospettive di parte degli operatori economici. Ciò non liberalizzazione (di chi ritiene che lo toglie che, in concreto, le esperienze dei sviluppo locale richieda, semplicemente, di Patti abbiano registrato risultati assai “slegare” le imprese, di farle operare variegati sul piano dei risultati concreti, con liberamente nel mercato) e prospettive di casi di ritardi eccessivi, e non rare rinunce concertazione (di chi considera necessario da parte di progetti imprenditoriali. coinvolgere imprese e istituzioni in progetti Rimane aperta la questione di fondo, che – condivisi). Ed è precisamente in sfide come come evidenzia F. Barca nella Prefazione al questa, nella capacità di creare una volume – riguarda la capacità dei Patti di governance mutilivello, di superare realizzare condizioni permanenti di settorialismi e dirigismi, di coordinare e maggiore sviluppo; ma l’esperienza è troppo favorire lo sviluppo dei territori che il breve per dare risposte ad una domanda di regionalismo italiano può trovare una delle questo tipo. Così come è probabilmente sue ragioni più significative. prematura ogni considerazione sugli effetti della regionalizzazione dei Patti, prevista Luciano Vandelli nell’Accordo stipulato tra Stato e regioni il Universita’ di Bologna 15 aprile 2003, al fine di superare i problemi di complessità e distanza determinate dalla gestione dei Patti da parte dello Stato. Loredana Sciolla , La Sfida Dei Valori. Del resto, un aspetto fondamentale rilevato dalle ricerche riguarda l’importanza della Rispetto delle regole e rispetto dei diritti leadership politica. In questo senso, il in Italia Bologna: Il Mulino, 2004, pp. consolidarsi della stabilità e della 272, ISBN 88-15-10263-9. governabilità conseguite dai Comuni italiani con l’elezione diretta dei sindaci, a partire In this book, Loredana Sciolla continues her dal 1993, ha costituito certamente un research activity and intellectual pathway elemento fondamentale di mutamento delle into Italian political culture. The author’s condizioni istituzionali su cui innestare main scientific interest focuses on citizens’ azioni di sviluppo locale. Ora, sono le civic engagement, as developed through a regioni ad essere chiamate a svolgere, con series of essays. un ruolo diverso, un compito di regia,

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In regards to the Italian case her main theme Observatory on Civic Culture in Italy are has been to dispute the use of the categories discussed. that for a long time have characterised the Sciolla’s work ends with two rich social (and scientific) representation of methodological and statistical appendices in Italians’ civic attitudes. Classic pieces of order to integrate the data presented research - Banfield in 1958, Almond and throughout the book. Perhaps a conclusive Verba in 1963, La Palombara in 1965 and chapter (which is missing), also written in a Putnam in 1993, just to quote the best “provisional” or “open” form, could be known – have contributed to a “stereotyped” useful to readers and researchers. image of Italian political culture. Lack of The four chapters which compose the first civicness, low stock of social capital, part of the book offer an overview of distrust in political institutions, familism, cultural change and differences among particularistic attitudes, are elements that selected western societies. Even though the accompany the idea of Italian political author pays attention mainly to the Italian culture. case, it is possible to gauge a wider view, In this work, there is an effort to give the embracing other countries on topics such as reader a more complex portrayal of the citizen disaffection toward democracy, Italians’ system of values, taking into politics and public issues, the decline of consideration the cultural change that social capital, trust and distrust, the has occurred in this society during the last dynamics of the collective identity, the decades and, most recently, after the crisis of relevance of civility as a “social virtue”. the political system during the 1990s. What emerges is that Italy is no longer an Hence, this research contributes an updated “anomaly” among the other countries and ambitious attempt to react to the considered. First, because indicators not literature on the topic of Italian civic culture. always show a negative gap against the The author addresses some fundamental Italian case. Second, because traditional questions, such as: are Italians still the same differences, starting from the 1990s, have as those of the past or have they changed? progressively reduced. This is due to a Are other democracies and citizens different process of convergence, in which Italians from Italians? If yes, how? Are there still have lost some of their political culture’s relevant traditional Italian territorial peculiarities (low level of political differences? involvement, competence, trust, The work is divided into two different parts; associational participation and so on). the first one takes a comparative perspective Meanwhile, citizens from other western and is titled Italians and the others . In this countries seem to have become more section, Italian culture is contrasted with ‘Italianized’. value systems characterizing other western The findings presented by Sciolla are clearly democracies (Usa, France and Spain). The more complex and articulated than the author analyzes these countries over the last synthesis reported here. The author tries to twenty years, discussing survey data in verify various research hypotheses regarding secondary analysis. The main sources are the explanatory variables of different civic constituted by three international research attitudes and behaviours, such as programmes: World Values Survey (Wvs), institutional trust, interpersonal trust, and European Values Survey (Evs) and diverse modes of political participation. Eurobarometer (Eb). Moreover, various models of civic moral are The second part of the book offers an insight outlined using multivariate analysis. Italian into Italian society. Inside Italy is the title of democracy is presented as more this section, where - among other sources of conservative and traditional, while less lay data and in order to deepen the insight into and libertarian. Religious attitudes still play the Italian case - findings from the a relevant role, and are not associated with a civicness deficit.

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The second part of the book, which is Gianfranco Viesti , Abolire il composed of three chapters, focuses on the Mezzogiorno Italian context at a local level. This section Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2003, pp. 150, examines traditional territorial differences ISBN 88-420-6914-0. and the weakening of the political subcultures. In the first chapter, the author Over one hundred years of studies, debates uses Evs data to divide the national context and plans for the “Mezzogiorno” still have into five macro-regions, which map onto the not resolved the problem of southern Italy. classical ones identified in the literature Among public opinion, the outcome has analyzing the relation among politics, been the idea of the South as an territory and society. The remaining two insurmountable problem. Instead of being chapters present a discussion of data simply a geographic category, the collected by the Observatory on Civic “Mezzogiorno” has become a stereotype that Culture in Italy , through the analysis of six shadows – or even hides – its true specific provinces. These provinces belong to the features. We are no longer able to examine traditional geo-political areas mentioned its problems (not so different from the rest above: Turin and Milan in the north-western of the country, from a qualitative point of industrial area, Vicenza in the north-eastern view), its resources, the internal diversities, white area, Modena in the central red zone, and its recent changes. Viesti’s essay Teramo in the centre-south and Caltanissetta develops around this framework, and in the south. outlines an effective picture of the narrow Hence, data on institutional and minded conventional interpretations of the interpersonal trust, religious and civic “Mezzogiorno” to explain how – once the attitudes, but also collective identity and stereotype is overcome – problems can be social networks is first analysed at macro- approached. regional level, then at the provincial level. In the introduction and in the first chapter, Thereby, the second part of the book allows the author focuses on a meta-economic plan: the author to move the analysis from an “To abolish the ‘Mezzogiorno’ as issue, international to an intra-national really means to abolish the ad hoc policies comparison. Or better still, to a level of local for the ‘Mezzogiorno’, as different from societies , since the findings portray different what has been pursued in other Italian political culture outlines among the Regions”. Viesti further argues that, since provinces, which are, sometimes, the “Mezzogiorno” does not constitute a unexpected and run against the “stereotype” problem in itself, but rather a specific area of (for example, Caltanissetta emerges as more the country in which we experience heavy civic than Milan or Turin). However, in the dysfunctions, it is necessary to reverse our introduction, the author herself warns about way of thinking. Rather then trying to solve the limitations of surveys in the study the the “Southern problem”, for a better political culture, as this approach, she development of the country we ought to fix argues, is able to capture just the subjective ordinary problems, such as the dysfunctions dimension of this concept. Political culture of the public administration. Thereby, we is complex multidimensional concept, and it remove the obstacles, which currently has been suggested that different techniques, prevent the South from expressing its qualitative and quantitative, could be capacity. Clearly, there is a fundamental successfully integrated in its analysis. error in how we think about the “Mezzogiorno”. Luigi Ceccarini In chapters 2 and 3 the author analyses the Universita’ di Urbino public policies employed in the “Mezzogiorno”, from the post-war years until the present. The first phase (from the

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1950s to the 1960s), according to the Fordist represent the basis for the political program model, was characterized by large public of the Prodi coalition (of which Viesti is investments. Iron, steel, and chemical responsible among others). factories were built with standardised This book reveals a theoretical framework production lines, developed primarily to clearly detached from traditional fulfil the semi-manufactured demand for the “meridionalismo”, which shifts the focus on benefit of the industrial North. Even if, in local resources and cultural variables as new the short term, the South experienced means to develop the economy. However, positive results regarding occupation and within the same coalition, other scholars, salaries, in the mid term this approach according to a more traditional economic undermined southern economic perspective, have highlighted the failure of development. On the one hand, the recent local development plans (the so- introduction of large standardised called “Programmazione Negoziata”) and productions caused the loss of artisan know- argued for the continued relevance of how and compromised local entrepreneurial macro-economic variables. With two skills. On the other hand, the increase in different ways to imagine the future of income, lacking an effective control system southern Italy, the debate is still open. in the public administration, amplified unauthorized development and – hence – the Luciano Brancaccio environment’s deterioration. Due to a focus Universita’ di Napoli “Federico II” on extraordinary interventions, policy makers failed to be effective in the ordinary issues. Luciano Violante , Il Ciclo Mafioso At the beginning of the 1970s, the Fordist Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2002, pp. 174, industrial approach entered a crisis, and the damages caused by the model persisted ISBN 88-420-6593-5. while the benefits disappeared. In the 1980’s, the administration unsuccessfully All is not well in the fight against organised tried to fight the crisis in the public sector crime in Italy. Palermo is eerily silent whilst industry through an injection of public the daily scenes of Far West played out in expenditure. The only result was a huge the streets of Naples are spectacularly tragic. financial deficit and an empowerment of Both indicate ‘business as usual’ : on the one local mafias. hand, the gangsters are active, making The change in the 1990’s was due. The end important profits through public contracts of the “Intervento straordinario” and the and extortions and on the other, the dismissal of the large system of state Antimafia judges are isolated, overwhelmed holdings (“Partecipazioni Statali”) led to a and unsupported by the State. sudden increase in unemployment. Long gone are the days of the ‘Palermo Nevertheless, there were important signs of Spring’ when, after the 1992 murders of vitality within civil society and the Judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo productive system of the “Mezzogiorno”. Borsellino, Mayor Leoluca Orlando lead a The introduction of a new system for civic uprising against the Mafia power mayoral elections has improved the system. Long gone are the days of the efficiency of local institutions, has led to ‘Regeneration of Naples’ lead by Mayor some successful cases of local development, Antonio Bassolino when Neapolitans turned and has sustained an increase in exports, to legality as a possible way of life. showing new ways to plan the development Those who study this question do not need of the South. These lessons have only Luciano Violante (former law professor, partially been followed by the center-left President of the Antimafia Committee, administrations between 1996 and 2001 – as President of the Chamber of Deputies and outlined in the fourth chapter – and now DS politician) to tell them this. But those

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who don’t and have a serious interest in because we cannot see or hear the Mafia, contemporary Italy may want to read his that it is not as active as usual. Indeed, book, Il Ciclo Mafioso (2002). It is one Provenzano appears to have reorganised among others recently published in Italy, Cosa Nostra’s internal structure across the which should be heard as a loud alarm bell territory, introducing rigid rules which about the fight (or rather lack of fight) means that arresting a top boss has little against organised crime in Italy. For this impact on the rest of the organisation and reason alone, it needs to be read. has made extortions more efficient so that But, Violante also presents some searching even the smallest business is not exempt. ideas for instance the notion of the Mafia Violante organises his book in four sections: cycle. He argues that the Sicilian Cosa 1) ‘La mafia non esiste’ ; 2) ‘ La strategia del Nostra operates in ten-year cycles. Each secondo colpo’ ; 3) ‘L’uso politico delle cycle is characterised by ‘un omicidio assoluzioni’ and 4) ‘La convivenza’ . His eccellente’ - the murder of an important analysis is always relevant and interesting State official, politician or journalist for and sections 2, 3 and 4 in particular show example - in 1963, the Ciaculli massacre of how the Mafia has been dealt with during five carabineri , in 1971, the murder of State the first Italian Republic. He presents a Prosecutor of Palermo Pietro Scaglione, in historical overview of the different Mafia 1982, the murders of trade unionist, Pio la cycles and shows how re-active the Torre and General Dalla Chiesa and in 1992, Antimafia fight has been: ‘Hanno atteso the murders at Capaci and Via D’Amelio of cioè la mafia colpisse per prima, per Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. rispondere soltanto dopo’ (p 72). These murders set off a chain of events – a The first section ‘La mafia non esiste’ is the cycle – which lasts ten years: murder- most disturbing as it explains the difficulties outcry-reaction-new laws-new arrests-new the Antimafia fight is currently facing in trials-distraction- acquittals-new Italy. In a coherent analysis of the most interventions- cohabitation. Then, the recent events post-2001, he shows how the reaction against the cohabitation, a new centre-right government has directly or murder and the cycle begins again. This indirectly favoured the Mafia: for example, analysis recalls to a great extent Alison when minister Lunardi argued that the Mafia Jamieson’s antimafia cycle: was a ‘fact of life’ and had to be accepted, ‘action>reaction>restoration of the status when the lawyer and Forza Italia MP, quo’ (2000: 39). Taormina felt that being both an Under- According to Violante’s calculations, 2002, Secretary of State and lawyer for Mafia the date of publication of his book, should bosses was not incompatible, or again when have been the year in which a new cycle the abolition of body guards for Antimafia should have begun again with an important judges was decided. These acts may not be murder. As we know this has not happened; have been consciously aimed at favouring but this is even more worrying as it suggests the Mafia but in reality they do. Facts which that cohabitation between the Mafia and the are sometimes ignored by those who choose State is now fully established and rather to argue that democracy under Berlusconi is consolidated. In other words, a new phase of not in danger… cohabitation between a new form of State Violante in his Epilogue makes a kind of (alla Berlusconi ) and a silent Mafia under mea culpa to explain how and why the the leadership of Bernardo Provenzano, a Italian Left has allowed this situation to Mafia which for the moment has abandoned develop: the Ulivo’s programme in 1996 its visible killer instinct and carries out its prioritised membership of the Single activities in an invisible and conciliatory European Currency and introduced way. But as Violante points out, let us institutional reform with the centre-right’s remember that ‘la mafia del silenzio non è il help at a price. Thus, there may not be a new silenzio della mafia’ (p. 60). It is not mafia cycle for a long time since we seem to

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have entered a phase of cohabitation – ‘convivenza’ - or in the words of Lodato and Travaglio (2005), a period of ‘normalizzazione’ . But will the alarm bell of ‘Il Ciclo Mafioso’ be heard?

References: Lodato, S. & Travaglio, M. (2005) Intoccabili , Milano: BUR. Jamieson, A. (2000) The Antimafia, Italy’s Fight against Organised Crime , Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Felia Allum University of Bath, UK

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