Academic literature on the topic 'Left Democrats (Italy)'

Scholars argue that the realignment of the electorate which took place with the transition to the so-called Italian Second Republic followed mainly a traditional partisan pattern, with electors of the former centre ruling parties (the Christian Democrats and the Socialists) turning to vote for the new centre and right parties (Forza Italia and the National Alliance), while left-wing voters continued to hold their traditional allegiance. Behind this apparent electoral turmoil there would appear to be little in the way of voter mobility. Such a reading implies continuity in the motivations of voters who behaved according to their previous ‘personal electoral history’ and in accordance with their sub-cultural political identification. Here an alternative interpretation is proposed in which it is argued that as a result of the 1994 realignment elections voters who deserted the centre (the heirs of the Christian Democrats) did so also according to their class interest and in response to the policy proposal of the centre-right. Since that time a ‘valence model’ of electoral behaviour has begun to emerge where ‘reasoning voters’ react to the performance of the incumbent, and voting also depends on an assessment of leadership, policy performance and issues.

This article deals with the role played by Giovanni Gozzer in opposition to the secondary school reform in Italy during the second half of the Seventies. Drawing on the arguments of the international debate, which he knew in great detail, he defended the ongoing middle school reforms of 1962 but opposed the proposals for the secondary school reforms, considering them to be promoted principally by the communist party which even seemed to succeed in holding sway over the left-wing reformist Christian democrats.

This paper draws on the literature on party competition and issue ownership to assess whether political membership on the right-left dimension explains party stances on migration. While some scholars argue that on this issue a clear distinction between left and right exists, some more recent quantitative and fine-grained analyses show a more nuanced picture. According to them, a clear difference in narratives exists only when the salience of the issue is high, under pressure of the electoral success of a far-right party or about specific policy issues. This paper further investigates this aspect in the context of the 2015 refugee crisis. It looks at the positions held by the main centre-left, centre-right, Radical Right, and Populist Parties in the Italian, British, and European Parliaments. The content analysis shows that centre-left parties frame the refugee crisis mainly as a humanitarian emergency and held pro-European Union (EU) positions, while centre-right parties differ substantially between Italy and the United Kingdom. Both radical right and Populist Parties exploit the political-opportunity offered by the refugee crisis to foster their anti-establishment claims. Moreover, Radical Right Populist Parties stress the need to secure external borders and restore national sovereignty, against further integration. At the EU level, left- and right-wing groups (Socialist and Democrats Party, European Conservatives and Reformists Party, and European People’s Party) are cohesive, while the populist group (European Freedom and Direct Democracy Party) is not. This paper adds on the academic debate on the refugee crisis, showing how the immigration issue can impact on domestic and European party politics, challenging party identities and alliances.

Italian local authorities share with those of other European countries a considerable degree of fragmentation. In addition, they suffer from the well-known North-South differential in economic conditions. On top of this, their management has long been split between the left-wing (mainly Communist) and the conservative (mainly Christian Democrat) political philosophy. This has rendered their performances and behaviour quite heterogeneous and has complicated the task of securing an equitable system of central-local financial relationships. For decades most of the southern authorities and the ‘red’ fraction of the centre-northern authorities have taken advantage of the possibility of borrowing for balancing the budget on the current account. This was a major loophole in the system until 1977. Bankruptcy was avoided ony through ‘entente’ between the Christian Democrats and the Communists in early 1978 (at the time of Mr Moro's murder), whereby all outstanding debt of local authorities was cancelled and transferred to the Central Government. In spite of an officially proclaimed ‘restraint’ there followed a period of real ‘Renaissance’ in local budgets, especially on the capital side. Borrowing—this time for capital expenditure—was again at the root of this development. Part of the deal was a revival of the ‘fiscal effort’ on the local side, making use of the few sources of own revenue left to local authorities after the fiscal reform of 1973–1974. Meanwhile, the ‘equalisation issue’ was raised with regard to the distribution of the general grant. Distribution criteria have been constantly changing since 1982. A completely new approach is now under consideration at the Ministry of Interior, based on the notion of ‘equal grant’ for ‘normal’ local authorities. Such an approach will eventually put aside the ‘past expenditure’ criterion which is still at the core of the grant distribution. While waiting for this reform, local authorities will almost certainly get a new local tax (‘tax for the financing of services’) starting in 1986.

Abstract This contribution analyses the change in the conception of taxation which occurred in Italy during the aftermath of World War II. From being a neutral mechanism to collect state revenue, in this period taxation became seen as a powerful political tool to redistribute income and wealth. The article primarily relies on material collected by the Economic Commission of the Ministry for the Constituent Assembly set up in 1945, a unique source which offers a comprehensive overview of the different conceptions of taxation at the time. Drawing upon their different economic and political ideologies, liberal economists and entrepreneurs, Christian Democrats, and Communists formulated alternative tax programmes. While liberal economists and entrepreneurs advocated the maintenance of the existing tax system on technical grounds, the Christian Democrats imposed a new conception of taxation as a means for income redistribution. Progressive and redistributive taxation was also present in the Communist programme, but their ambiguous tax views suffered from the lack of administrative and economic experience which liberal and Catholic economists had instead gathered before and partially even during the Fascist regime. The debate ended abruptly in 1947 with the exclusion of the left from government and the success of liberal conceptions. Nonetheless, during the 1960s, the Catholic emphasis on progressive and redistributive taxation incorporated the new Keynesian ideas on public finance and achieved a hegemonic position in the public debate, thus overcoming the traditional liberal view.

For The Last Fifty Years, Italian Politics Have Been remarkably static and predictable: one party (the Christian Democrats) always came out on top, while the Left was always in opposition. Yet in the most unexpected fashion all this changed in April 1996: for the first time in the history of the Italian Republic, a left-wing government has been returned. While the historial significance of the 1996 elections cannot be disputed, it is much more difficult to explain the causes of such radical political change. Compared to the results of the 1996 elections, the elections of 1992 now seem little more than a minor tremor, yet one could argue that the tremors felt in 1992 were part of the same process that delivered the real earthquake four years later. Therefore in searching for an explanation of the recent unexpected political changes in Italy, one should start from the 1992 elections.

ABSTRACTThis article explores how political parties in France, West Germany, and Italy conceptualized democracy and challenged the conceptions of democracy of their political adversaries between the end of the 1940s and the early 1960s. It studies from a comparative perspective the different conceptions of democracy held by Christian democrat, Left-wing, and Gaullist political actors and shows how these diverged on key issues such as the economic system, foreign policy, the separation of powers, electoral systems, and the use of state institutions in the defence of democracy against anti-democratic forces. In this way, the article reveals how in the first fifteen years after the Second World War, government and opposition parties disputed each other's democratic credentials and political legitimacy, and it thereby reconsiders the claim that there existed a broad consensus on the meaning of democracy among political elites in post-war Western Europe. It is argued that these different conceptions of democracy only started to converge after they had clashed during political crises at the turn of the 1960s in all three states. This study thereby contributes to an enhanced understanding the formation of the post-war democratic order in Western Europe.

AbstractIn the European Union right-wing and left-wing populist parties are increasingly becoming stronger. Meanwhile in Central and Eastern Europe autocracies are emerging and becoming stabilized. Italy and Hungary are two notable examples of these processes. Italy is the only country in Western Europe where a coalition of purely populist parties won an election, while Hungary has the most mature autocracy in the European Union. By using survey methodology, we examined the preferences of Hungarian and Italian students regarding the values of liberal democracy. We seek answers to the questions whether there are any significant differences between the proportion of Hungarian students and Italian students who identify themselves with the values of liberal democracy and which of these values of liberal democracy they consider to be protected values. Based on our results, we claim that students from both countries are more likely to support liberal democratic values than to support either right-wing or left-wing populist values, even if the distributions of the two groups differ significantly. We found that Italian students adhere more strongly to liberal democratic values, while Hungarians are more open to left-wing and right-wing populism. Our results confirm that in Hungary, because of the values that many people hold, conditions are conducive for establishing a sustainable autocracy, while in Italy, the demand for such a system is much weaker.

Abstract The article analyses whether and how the activity of populist governments in Italy has affected the performance of parliament’s legislative and scrutiny functions. The analysis covers the government of Five Star Movement (5SM) and the Lega as well as the coalition government made up of the 5SM, the Democratic Party and centre-left junior allies up to the COVID-19 outbreak. The article uses selected bills and decree-laws to investigate the impact on the legislative function, while question time sessions and committees of inquiry are examined as case studies on the scrutiny function. The analysis demonstrates that although ‘subversive’ constitutional and parliamentary conduct was already in place beforehand, when populists entered government in the 18th legislative term there was a worsening of a trend towards eroding representative democracy.

The debate surrounding German Social Democracy during the era of the Second International represents an important chapter in the historiography of post-Second World War Italy. At the same time, it also marks some crucial moments in the political and intellectual life of Republican Italy. This article aims to show the close relationship between the investigation of the past and the ongoing political struggle that has characterised research on this issue. Study of the topic was practically monopolised by left-wing historians, who, in dealing with the history of German Social Democracy, aimed also to direct the political strategy of workers’ parties. Considering the studies appearing after the 1956 crisis and in the mid-1970s, such a goal seems evident. It was only during the 1980s that the research opened itself to different perspectives – no longer influenced by ideological controversies.

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the announcement by the leader of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), Achille Occhetto, that the time had come to shed its communist name and identity inaugurated a decade of uncertainty and change for the party. As the Party of the Democratic Left (PDS), it faced the challenge of developing its post-communist identity amid the upheaval in the Italian political system that followed the Tangentopoli (Bribesville) scandal. The transition to the 'Second Republic', spurred by widespread anti-party sentiment, brought new electoral systems and forms of coalition-making, a changed array of allies and opponents, a personalisation of certain political roles, and changed relationships between the national and local dimensions of politics. In 2000, now called the Left Democrats (DS), the party was the largest component in the nationally governing coalition and even provided the prime minister. Yet the rise to the pinnacle of power had been accompanied by decreasing electoral support. In over ten years of post-communist life, the party had failed to achieve the real breakthrough hoped for by Occhetto: to unite the Italian left in a single party that dominated government or opposition, as in other Western European countries. The primary aim of this thesis is to contribute to understanding the party's fortunes through a case study of the way the turbulent years from 1989 to 2000 were experienced in the Venetian provincial federation. This decade of change has so far not been examined from a local perspective, yet local studies were particularly fruitful in the analysis of the PCI, as they allowed exploration of the ways party debates were perceived, and decisions made at national level were implemented, 'on the ground' in specific contexts. I have not chosen the Venetian federation as a microcosm of the experience in the periphery as a whole but as an interesting and relevant component of the full picture. The Venetian party enjoyed greatly increased responsibilities in government at sub-national levels in the second half of the 1990s, due to successful alliance strategies, but decreasing electoral support. I seek to explain the local party's electoral and power outcomes in terms of a combination of external and internal factors: on one hand, the opportunities and constraints presented by the changing environment; and, on the other, internal dynamics that hampered the party in responding to those challenges. In particular I stress the significance of the crisis precipitated by Occhetto's proposal to transform the party in 1989 and the constraints on the local party's legitimacy and visibility in the competitive environment that developed in the Second Republic. I attribute these constraints to the mixed electoral systems operating at sub-national levels, intra-coalition rivalry, and a striking case of an individual enjoying personal power and influence in the local political system. As a secondary theme, I analyse change in the party type that accompanied these outcomes, in light of theories on general trends in party transformations in Western Europe. I identify rapid changes in the local party's aims, functions and organisational roles and relationships, and in its relationship with the national leadership. I argue that this process of change, consistent with the transformation of a mass party into an electorally focused party, was accelerated at local level by the changing competitive environment and the sudden increase in government responsibilities. The introduction in chapter 1 sets the party's story in context and outlines the aims and argument of the thesis. Chapter 2 introduces the local case study in light of existing analyses of the party's development, the tradition of local studies of the PCI, and theories on party types and transformations. The central chapters are dedicated to the case study, which is based largely on interviews with members of the federation's leadership groups in various periods. The organisation of the material reflects my division of the federation's story into distinct phases, each reflecting a stage in the development of both the party's alliance strategy and the local political system. In the concluding chapter, I discuss the implications of the case study findings for the party as a whole and make a claim for the continuing validity of local studies of Italian political parties.

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the announcement by the leader of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), Achille Occhetto, that the time had come to shed its communist name and identity inaugurated a decade of uncertainty and change for the party. As the Party of the Democratic Left (PDS), it faced the challenge of developing its post-communist identity amid the upheaval in the Italian political system that followed the Tangentopoli (Bribesville) scandal. The transition to the 'Second Republic', spurred by widespread anti-party sentiment, brought new electoral systems and forms of coalition-making, a changed array of allies and opponents, a personalisation of certain political roles, and changed relationships between the national and local dimensions of politics. In 2000, now called the Left Democrats (DS), the party was the largest component in the nationally governing coalition and even provided the prime minister. Yet the rise to the pinnacle of power had been accompanied by decreasing electoral support. In over ten years of post-communist life, the party had failed to achieve the real breakthrough hoped for by Occhetto: to unite the Italian left in a single party that dominated government or opposition, as in other Western European countries. The primary aim of this thesis is to contribute to understanding the party's fortunes through a case study of the way the turbulent years from 1989 to 2000 were experienced in the Venetian provincial federation. This decade of change has so far not been examined from a local perspective, yet local studies were particularly fruitful in the analysis of the PCI, as they allowed exploration of the ways party debates were perceived, and decisions made at national level were implemented, 'on the ground' in specific contexts. I have not chosen the Venetian federation as a microcosm of the experience in the periphery as a whole but as an interesting and relevant component of the full picture. The Venetian party enjoyed greatly increased responsibilities in government at sub-national levels in the second half of the 1990s, due to successful alliance strategies, but decreasing electoral support. I seek to explain the local party's electoral and power outcomes in terms of a combination of external and internal factors: on one hand, the opportunities and constraints presented by the changing environment; and, on the other, internal dynamics that hampered the party in responding to those challenges. In particular I stress the significance of the crisis precipitated by Occhetto's proposal to transform the party in 1989 and the constraints on the local party's legitimacy and visibility in the competitive environment that developed in the Second Republic. I attribute these constraints to the mixed electoral systems operating at sub-national levels, intra-coalition rivalry, and a striking case of an individual enjoying personal power and influence in the local political system. As a secondary theme, I analyse change in the party type that accompanied these outcomes, in light of theories on general trends in party transformations in Western Europe. I identify rapid changes in the local party's aims, functions and organisational roles and relationships, and in its relationship with the national leadership. I argue that this process of change, consistent with the transformation of a mass party into an electorally focused party, was accelerated at local level by the changing competitive environment and the sudden increase in government responsibilities. The introduction in chapter 1 sets the party's story in context and outlines the aims and argument of the thesis. Chapter 2 introduces the local case study in light of existing analyses of the party's development, the tradition of local studies of the PCI, and theories on party types and transformations. The central chapters are dedicated to the case study, which is based largely on interviews with members of the federation's leadership groups in various periods. The organisation of the material reflects my division of the federation's story into distinct phases, each reflecting a stage in the development of both the party's alliance strategy and the local political system. In the concluding chapter, I discuss the implications of the case study findings for the party as a whole and make a claim for the continuing validity of local studies of Italian political parties.
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La tesi “Il dopo Franco è già rosso! - La transizione spagnola nella stampa della sinistra rivo-luzionaria italiana” si occupa della transizione spagnola (1973-1978) dal punto di vista dell'estre-ma sinistra italiana. Per estrema sinistra si intendono qui i gruppi a sinistra del movimento operaio “ufficiale” (PCI, PSI, PSIUP), già presenti, seppur ultraminoritari, ben prima dell'esplosione del '68, ma sviluppatisi ampiamente negli anni settanta del XX secolo, al punto da costituire una seria con-correnza, per lo meno tra i giovani, all'egemonia della sinistra maggioritaria (soprattutto del PCI). Trattandosi di un numero enorme di partiti, gruppi e gruppuscoli, è stata fatta la scelta di privilegia-re da un lato le organizzazioni maggiori, quelle dotate di un quotidiano (nell'ordine Il Manifesto, Lotta Continua e il Quotidiano dei Lavoratori), e dall'altro quelle più rappresentative di una corrente “storica”: per il maoismo il MS-MLS (Movimento Studentesco-Fronte Popolare), per l'anarchismo la FAI (Umanità Nova), per il trotskismo i GCR (Bandiera Rossa) e per il bordighismo (seppur sui generis) Lotta Comunista. Dal punto di vista cronologico, si è scelto di considerare il periodo tra la morte di Carrero Blanco e l'approvazione della Costituzione post-franchista. Un primo capitolo è stato però dedicato alla fase precedente (1969-1973), considerata già da questi gruppi come “l'inizio del dopo Franco”. La tesi segue gli sviluppi della percezione soggettiva delle dinamiche di questa transizione, dai primi anni (in cui le posizioni dei vari gruppi apparivano piuttosto omogenee) in cui l'ipotesi ritenuta più probabile era quella di una rottura rivoluzionaria. Rottura che, tramite una sol-levazione popolare, avrebbe dovuto seppellire, con la dittatura, anche ogni eredità del franchismo (compresa la monarchia) e, almeno per quanto riguarda la maggioranza dei gruppi, anche la stessa struttura capitalistica della Spagna. A partire dal 1974-75 crescono le differenziazioni all'interno dell'estrema sinistra italiana, sia sulle dinamiche sia sui probabili sbocchi della crisi del regime. Da un lato emergono sempre più le posizioni “moderate” (in particolare del PdUP-Manifesto) che, av-vicinandosi alla posizione del PCE-PSUC (la rottura democratica), individuano nella restaurazione della II Repubblica lo sbocco auspicabile e prevedibile (in questo condivise anche dal MLS), e ten-dono a problematizzare lo schema precedente “franchismo-rivoluzione”. Dall'altro si continua a scommettere (con qualche distinguo da parte di Avanguardia Operaia – Quotidiano dei Lavoratori) sulla precedente ipotesi rivoluzionaria. Il punto più “caldo” viene raggiunto tra la ripresa delle mo-bilitazioni dopo la morte del Caudillo e l'eccidio di Vitoria del marzo 1976. In questa ondata, vista dai più come la tanto attesa spallata rivoluzionaria, iniziano a venire al pettine i nodi di un'analisi che, col senno di poi, sottovalutava le capacità trasformistiche dei settori più importanti della bor-ghesia spagnola e dello stesso apparato franchista e nel contempo sopravvalutava le potenzialità ri-voluzionarie del proletariato spagnolo ed il peso dell'estrema sinistra al suo interno. L'ipotesi ini-zialmente esclusa e comunque temuta dall'estrema sinistra, quella di una transizione sostanzialmen-te indolore dalla dittatura ad una democrazia borghese più o meno classica, acquista via via sempre più consistenza durante l'estate e l'autunno del 1976, fino alla doccia fredda del referendum voluto da Suarez nel dicembre del '76. Anche se il cambiamento di prospettiva avviene con ritmi diversi tra i vari gruppi, si può dire che le elezioni del giugno '77 costituiscano un po' la pietra tombale delle speranze rivoluzionarie, per lo meno sui tempi brevi. Le differenze restano profonde nell'analisi del ruolo della sinistra riformista (PCE-PSUC in testa), ritenuta dalla maggioranza (escluso il Manife-sto) come principale responsabile del successo dell'operazione “gattopardesca” di Suarez-Juan Carlos.
The thesis “Il dopo Franco è già rosso! - La transizione spagnola nella stampa della sinistra rivoluzionaria italiana” concerns the spanish transition (1973-78) from the point of wiew of italian revolutionary left. With this expression I mean all the groups placed on the left of the major parties of the “official” left (PCI, PSI, PSIUP). This “far left” was already present before 1968, but only in the Seventies became a real problem (above all among the youth) for the consolidated hegemony of the PCI. Among theese numerous groups only seven have been chosen. The most important three, all of them with a daily newspaper (Il Manifesto, Lotta Continua and Il Quotidiano dei Lavoratori), of course, and one group for every political area: one for the maoists (Movimento Studentesco-Fronte Popolare), one for the anarchists (Umanità Nova), one for the trotskysts (Bandiera Rossa) and one for the bordiguists (even if sui generis), Lotta Comunista. After a first investigation about the period 1969-73 (so called pre-transition), the thesis analyses the evolution of italian far left perception, from the “revolution vs franchism” of the first half of the Seventies, when more or less all the groups staked that the revolutionary rupture was the most probable scenery (even if some thinking that the restauration of the Second Republic was the aim, while the majority believing in an an-ticapitalistic, social rupture), to the second half of the decade (above all after summer 1976), when almost all the groups (with different rythms) realized that the possibility of a painless transition was going to be the realistic way out. An open self criticism was made above all by Il Manifesto and Lotta Continua (while other groups, like MLS, simply operated a 180° turning), laying stress on their undervaluation of the transformist abilities of spanish bourgeoisie and franchist establishment and their overvaluation of the maturity and revolutionary potentialities of spanish working class. Most of the groups underlined PCE-PSUC fault, with his exagerate social and political moderation that helped the establishment to defeat the hope of a new, socialist (or just republican) Spain.

The Faculty of Political Science of Florence – the oldest school of political and social science in Italy, founded in 1875 by Carlo Alfieri and named after his father Cesare – has a tradition of study that is widely recognised, even abroad, to which the cultural project of this series is related. The first book is dedicated to the research activity carried out by Luciano Cavalli and the profound traces that it has left on Italian and European sociology. Now Professor Emeritus, Luciano Cavalli taught and worked at the "Cesare Alfieri" for many years from 1966 on. Around his commitment as a "pioneer" of sociology in Italy he mustered an array of sociologists, active in different universities, many of whom have opened up new frontiers within the discipline and have successfully cultivated a dialogue with the other social sciences, as the contents of the book clearly illustrate. This extensive collection of essays offers a clear image of the fertile sociological work that burgeoned around the scientific commitment of Luciano Cavalli and was often generated by his own action of cultural stimulus. The three sections into which the book is divided – Portrait of an intellectual, The sociology of political phenomena and Sociological theory and social change – address issues of great relevance to the contemporary sociological debate. The rapport between the democratic construction of the modern State and the role and functions of the leadership, the relations between citizens and leaders, the various forms of the democratic institutional structures and the transformations of political culture are interwoven with the Neo-Weberian interpretation of the charisma theory that Cavalli masterfully proposed. Also particularly significant and topical are the critical reflections made by writers whose scientific itinerary has run parallel to that of Cavalli for decisive stretches, and who were and are bound to his teaching when they tackle arguments such as the changes in urban life, immigration and the problems of economic, political and social development in our times.

Wars have had a clearly recognizable impact on Italy’s social policy since unification. The independence and early colonial wars prompted the introduction of veteran benefits and other forms of state compensation. The two world wars marked key turning points, creating the conditions for introducing compulsory social insurance and then extending its scope and coverage. The pronatalist policies introduced by Fascism were in their turn closely linked to the regime’s war mobilization strategy. In comparative perspective, a distinctive feature of Italian developments was the elaboration of very ambitious and comprehensive reform plans after both world wars, largely motivated by the wish to forge broad cross-class coalitions and safeguard democratic stability. Even if initially unsuccessful, such plans left an ideational legacy which contributed to inspire welfare state developments well throughout the so-called Golden Age.

Growing disappointment with party politics in the 1920s gave rise to discourses extolling the state as the principal actor of societal change. A common denominator of the various versions of etatism and technocratism in the region was a strong “anti-political” ideological reflex. In the 1930s, this was coupled with a discourse of a preventive strike, defending dictatorial policies as measures to hinder radical left- and right-wing movements from taking power. In turn, East Central European fascism emerged in the post-First World War atmosphere of insecurity and polarization. This was reinforced by the collapse of parliamentary democracy in the 1930s and the reconfiguration of the geopolitical framework of the region due to the rise of fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. The ensuing fascist projects offered a particularly violent ideological mixture, preventing any empathy toward ethnic and social groups targeted for persecution.

AbstractIn general, historians of science and historians of ideas do not focus on critical appraisals of scientific ideas such as vitalism and materialism from Catholic intellectuals in eastern and southeastern Europe, nor is there much comparative work available on how significant European ideas in the life sciences such as materialism and vitalism were understood and received outside of France, Germany, Italy and the UK. Insofar as such treatments are available, they focus on the contributions of nineteenth century vitalism and materialism to later twentieth ideologies, as well as trace the interactions of vitalism and various intersections with the development of genetics and evolutionary biology see Mosse (The culture of Western Europe: the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Westview Press, Boulder, 1988, Toward the final solution: a history of European racism. Howard Fertig Publisher, New York, 1978; Turda et al., Crafting humans: from genesis to eugenics and beyond. V&R Unipress, Goettingen, 2013). English and American eugenicists (such as William Caleb Saleeby), and scores of others underscored the importance of vitalism to the future science of “eugenics” (Saleeby, The progress of eugenics. Cassell, New York, 1914). Little has been written on materialism qua materialism or vitalism qua vitalism in eastern Europe.The Czech and Slovene cases are interesting for comparison insofar as both had national awakenings in the middle of the nineteenth century which were linguistic and scientific, while also being religious in nature (on the Czech case see David, Realism, tolerance, and liberalism in the Czech National awakening: legacies of the Bohemian reformation. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2010; on the Slovene case see Kann and David, Peoples of the Eastern Habsburg Lands, 1526-1918. University of Washington Press, Washington, 2010). In the case of many Catholic writers writing in Moravia, there are not only slight noticeable differences in word-choice and construction but a greater influence of scholastic Latin, all the more so in the works of nineteenth century Czech priests and bishops.In this case, German, Latin and literary Czech coexisted in the same texts. Thus, the presence of these three languages throws caution on the work on the work of Michael Gordin, who argues that scientific language went from Latin to German to vernacular. In Czech, Slovenian and Croatian cases, all three coexisted quite happily until the First World War, with the decades from the 1840s to the 1880s being particularly suited to linguistic flexibility, where oftentimes writers would put in parentheses a Latin or German word to make the meaning clear to the audience. Note however that these multiple paraphrases were often polemical in the case of discussions of materialism and vitalism.In Slovenia Čas (Time or The Times) ran from 1907 to 1942, running under the muscular editorship of Fr. Aleš Ušeničnik (1868–1952) devoted hundreds of pages often penned by Ušeničnik himself or his close collaborators to wide-ranging discussions of vitalism, materialism and its implied social and societal consequences. Like their Czech counterparts Fr. Matěj Procházka (1811–1889) and Fr. Antonín LenzMaterialismMechanismDynamism (1829–1901), materialism was often conjoined with "pantheism" and immorality. In both the Czech and the Slovene cases, materialism was viewed as a deep theological problem, as it made the Catholic account of the transformation of the Eucharistic sacrifice into the real presence untenable. In the Czech case, materialism was often conjoined with “bestiality” (bestialnost) and radical politics, especially agrarianism, while in the case of Ušeničnik and Slovene writers, materialism was conjoined with “parliamentarianism” and “democracy.” There is too an unexamined dialogue on vitalism, materialism and pan-Slavism which needs to be explored.Writing in 1914 in a review of O bistvu življenja (Concerning the essence of life) by the controversial Croatian biologist Boris Zarnik) Ušeničnik underscored that vitalism was an speculative outlook because it left the field of positive science and entered the speculative realm of philosophy. Ušeničnik writes that it was “Too bad” that Zarnik “tackles” the question of vitalism, as his zoological opinions are interesting but his philosophy was not “successful”. Ušeničnik concluded that vitalism was a rather old idea, which belonged more to the realm of philosophy and Thomistic theology then biology. It nonetheless seemed to provide a solution for the particular characteristics of life, especially its individuality. It was certainly preferable to all the dangers that materialism presented. Likewise in the Czech case, Emmanuel Radl (1873–1942) spent much of his life extolling the virtues of vitalism, up until his death in home confinement during the Nazi Protectorate. Vitalism too became bound up in the late nineteenth century rediscovery of early modern philosophy, which became an essential part of the development of new scientific consciousness and linguistic awareness right before the First World War in the Czech lands. Thus, by comparing the reception of these ideas together in two countries separated by ‘nationality’ but bounded by religion and active engagement with French and German ideas (especially Driesch), we can reconstruct not only receptions of vitalism and materialism, but articulate their political and theological valances.

It is surprising that the very existence and recognition of China had significant repercussions on domestic policy in Italy, which was the country with the strongest Communist party in the West. In the ’50s the Italian official policy was compelled by membership in Atlantic alliance and relations with United States, to refuse economic exchanges with China. According to documents found in “Ministero degli Affari Esteri” and in “Aldo Moro” archives, even in the same years political characters such as the Socialist Pietro Nenni, the Christian Democrats Giovanni Gronchi and Amintore Fanfani worked to favour China-Italy exchanges and economic actors like Dino Gentili and Enrico Mattei organised economic Italian missions to China. Since 1960, thanks to trade relations set up in the ’50s, and to political events (December 1963 the first centre-left government with Aldo Moro president, Pietro Nenni vicepresident and Giuseppe Saragat to foreign affairs, and at the beginning of 1964 the French political recognition of China), the process was accelerated. Thus, in December 1964 the first commercial agreement between Italy and China was concluded and commercial offices were opened in Rome and Beijing. After 1964 the Chinese question entered Italian foreign policy and was included in parliamentary debates and government programmes. The American diplomacy, dominated by the Vietnam war, opposed any initiative to Chinese recognition but Italy anticipated the better reported, more celebrated US recognition.

The most salient empirical results can be summed up in a few points. First, despite the complexities and necessary distinctions, the consensual democracies with coordinated economies tend to have redistributive policy solutions and to correct inequalities. Second, the salience of the migration issue derives either from the consequences of the economic crisis (Italy, Spain, and France) or from basic ideological orientations (Poland). Third, with the Great Recession, the presence of new parties and populist parties became a distinguishing aspect of our six countries. Greater dissatisfaction and the growth of the new protest parties pushed the incumbent leaders to be more responsive. Fourth, we distinguish between a revendicative populism (leftist or inclusionary) and an identitarian populism (rightist or exclusionary). Identitarian populism mainly prevailed in Poland—but has a specific salience also in other countries: from France, with the Front National, to Italy with the League of Salvini, the United Kingdom with UKIP and also with Boris Johnson, and, to a more limited extent, Germany with AfD, and lastly Spain with Vox. Revendicative populism became politically and electorally relevant where the economic crisis was felt most, as Southern European democracies. Fifth, the relationship between the vote of the left parties (moderate and radical) and the trend of inequality shows a rather random connection. It is possible to identify a few patterns in the six countries. Finally, the connection between protest movements and the related institutionalization is different from case to case, with Germany, the United Kingdom, and Poland, where there are no relevant social movements.

<Online Only>This chapter examines authoritarian liberalism as a more general phenomenon ‘beyond Weimar’. It looks outside Weimar Germany and takes a longer historical perspective, revealing deeper tensions in liberalism itself, specifically its inability to respond to the issue of socio-economic inequality in a mass democracy. The major Weimar constitutional theorists—Hans Kelsen, Carl Schmitt, and Hermann Heller—had no answer to the social question as a matter of constitutional self-defence. The chapter then discusses the political economy of the various crises across Europe—in Italy, France, and Austria—revealing a similar quandary. As Karl Polanyi argued, in these contexts, the turn to authoritarian liberalism fatally weakened political democracy and left it disarmed when faced with the fascist countermovement. Later in the interwar period, proposals for neo-liberalism would be introduced, symbolized by the organization of the Walter Lippman Colloquium in 1938.</Online Only>

Abstract Michels’ contacts with socialist and syndicalist currents in France are less well-known than his involvement with the German Social Democrat Party, but they have received some attention in Zeev Sternhell’s work on the supposed left-wing origins of fascist ideology in France and Italy. From 1904 to 1908, Michels was associated with the journal Le Mouvement Socialiste, and corresponded with the radical syndicalists Hubert Lagardelle and Victor Griffuelhes, as well as Georges Sorel. Michels also had contacts with Gustave Hervé, and sympathized with Hervé’s radical anti-militarism in this period. An examination of Michels’ contacts reveals his sympathy for the revolutionary spirit of the French revolutionary syndicalists, but it also shows that he did not fully identify with syndicalist theory. The examination of the group around Le Mouvement Socialiste also shows that it occupied an increasingly marginal position in the French labour history, lacking a mass working-class base.