Journal articles on the topic 'Liberalism – Italy – History'

Neo-liberalism has spread throughout the world in tandem with globalization. This article attempts to address the way in which neo-liberalism has operated in the Italian university system, an academic context that has its own history, values, and traditions. A brief overview of the consequences of neo-liberalism in Italy is followed by a description of the stages in the neo-liberal university reforms that have characterized the Italian academic world since the end of the 1980s. Finally, three forms of resistance that hinder the process of neo-liberalization and make it non-linear are examined in depth.

Following the transnational turn within fascist studies, this paper examines the role German National Socialism and Italian Fascism played in the transformation of the Norwegian fascist party Nasjonal Samling in the years 1933–1936. It takes the rivalry of the two role models as the initial point and focusses on the reception of Italy and Germany in the party press of the Nasjonal Samling. The main topics of research are therefore the role of corporatism, the involvement in the organization caur and the increasing importance of anti-Semitism. One main argument is that both indirect and direct German influence on the Nasjonal Samling in autumn 1935 led to a radicalization of the party and the endorsement of anti-Semitic attitudes. However, the Nasjonal Samling under leader Vidkun Quisling never prioritized Italo-German rivalry as such. Instead, it perceived itself as an independent national movement in the common battle of a European-wide phenomenon against its arch-enemies: liberalism and communism.

Soon after the Second World War and the signing of the 1947 Peace Treaty, Italy was faced with the traumatic loss of its African colonial Empire, an Empire whose establishment had been one of the main objectives of the Fascist regime's foreign policy. This article analyses Anglo-Italian relations in the Somalian context, highlighting the contributions made by Fascism and by the anti-Italian policies of British troops to the tensions that were to lead to the tragic events of January 1948. Attention is focused on the diplomatic mission carried out by Umberto Zanotti Bianco, President of the Italian Red Cross, an important figure in Italian Liberalism. Zanotti Bianco was conscious of the need for Italy to rejoin the ‘club’ of democratic powers and, in accordance with the diplomatic strategy of Foreign Minister Carlo Sforza, he sought to reopen dialogue between Britain and Italy. The dispute between Italy and Britain brought about by the Mogadishu events and, more generally, by the Italian presence in Africa was soon brought to a close, due both to Zanotti Bianco's shrewd strategy and to the clear need for the Western Allies to strengthen De Gasperi's government on the eve of the decisive April 1948 elections.

ABSTRACTIn the 1850s, the Piedmontese ‘moderate’ liberals created a peculiar political culture, suited to the twofold task of strengthening representative institutions at home and justifying Piedmont's Italian mission. Inspired by both the whig tradition and the French Doctrinaires, the moderates elaborated arguments advocating elite government and countering democracy. Gioberti, Balbo, Carutti, Mamiani, and Boncompagni shared five theses: (1) natural (and/or divine) laws are both the ultimate source of right and wrong in politics and the guarantee of gradual progress; (2) only the citizens who understand the natural order should rule; (3) ‘democracy’, that is popular sovereignty and universal suffrage, is inherently wrong; (4) granted that citizens' attitudes play an important role in politics, certain virtues are required by representative government; and (5) moderatism was imbued with Burkeanism, meaning that it endorsed a realistic, prudent approach to politics, that much was made of Italian and especially Piedmontese history and traditions, and that mere constitutional machinery was to be disdained. This political culture led the moderates to portray everybody who was either on the right or the left of their camp, both in Piedmont and Italy, as a ‘sectarian’ and hence a dangerous revolutionary.

Following the political stabilisation achieved with the victory at the election in 1948 of the Christian Democrat Party, De Gasperi's leadership had to deal with new domestic and international dynamics. The government dialogue with the ‘laical’ parties did not end with the reconstruction of the identity of a nation divided by the Fascist phenomenon, nor did it solidify along the lines of an ideologically driven anti-Communist design. De Gasperi's leadership was interwoven with profound changes in the role of the Church, the economic system and political organisation, founded upon new party and government systems. The national and European dimensions influenced one another in this conjuncture, resulting in a new set of equilibria: in the stability of the executive, within the limits set by the primacy of the parliamentary institutions and the organisational role of the party as a focus for political support; in economics, with a revision of classical economic liberalism; and in a unique synthesis of the secular tradition with social Catholicism, with a new interpretation of the 1948 Constitutional model.

Franklin Hugh Adler,Italian Industrialists from Liberalism to Fascism. The Political Development of the Industrial Bourgeoisie, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996, xv + 458 pp., ISBN 0–521–433406–8 hbk, £40.00Giuseppe Berta,Il governo degli interessi. Industriali, rappresentanza e politica nell'Italia del nord-ovest 1906–1924, Marsilio, Venice, 1996, xv + 175 pp., ISBN 88–317–6342–3 pbk, 32,000 LireGiorgio FioccaStoria della Confindustria 1900–1914, Marsilio, Venice, 1994, 266 pp., ISBN 88–317–5850–0 hbk, 70,000 LireThe three books under review trace the organization of industrial interests in Italy from the foundation of the Lega industrial di Torino (LIT) in 1906 to the insertion of Confindustria into the Fascist totalitarian state. As Franklin Hugh Adler's ambitious and detailed account relates the Lega (LIT) begat first a Federazione Industriali Piemontesi (1908) and then the Confederazione Italiana dell'Industria (CIDI) in 1910 which was relaunched as the Confederazione generale dell'industria Italiana (Confindustria) in 1919. All of these organizations came under the effective direction of Gino Olivetti, the first secretary of the Lega who emerges from Adler's analysis as the principal theorist of a liberalproductionist ideology that the author regards as the central value system of the Italian industrial bourgeoisie. The slimmer volumes (in both scope and size) of Giuseppe Berta and Giorgio Fiocca diverge from Adler's account in stressing the discontinuities in the process of association which are attributed to the triumph of one industrial faction over another, and the changes in direction consequent upon this. By presenting these organizations within the broader context of entrepreneurial and associational activity, their accounts also call into question the extent to which the positions of Confindustria can be assumed to be representative of Italian industrialists as a whole.

Italian security policy literature reveals, usually implicitly rather than explicitly, two distinct strains of analysis. One set of explanations, rooted in realist theory, views Italian foreign policy behaviour by reference to its power position. A second set of arguments, rooted in liberalism, assumes that policy-makers are ultimately influenced by domestic institutional factors in deciding foreign policy issues. The purpose of this article is to offer a theoretical contribution to the ongoing debate on continuity and change in Italian foreign policy. While neorealist and liberal theories have been widely used to explain the development of Italian international behaviour, neither approach has yet provided a full explanation of Italian security policy since the end of the Cold War. In contrast to these theories, it is argued that Italy has built its foreign policy on the basis of cultural considerations involving conflicting strategies of action.

The politics of Italian national identity. Edited by Gino Bedani and Bruce Haddock. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000. Pp. vii+296. ISBN 0-7083-1622-0. £40.00.Fascist modernities: Italy, 1922–1945. By Ruth Ben-Ghiat. Berkeley, University of California Press, 2001. Pp. x+317. ISBN 0-520-22363-2. £28.50.Le spie del regime. By Mauro Canali. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2004. Pp. 863. ISBN 88-15-09801-1. €70.00.I campi del Duce: l'internamento civile nell'Italia fascista (1940–1943). By Carlo Spartaco Capogreco. Turin: Einaudi, 2004. Pp. xi+319. ISBN 88-06-16781-2. €16.00.The American South and the Italian Mezzogiorno: essays in comparative history. Edited by Enrico Dal Lago and Rick Halpern. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Pp. 256. ISBN 0-333-73971-X. £28.50.Disastro! Disasters in Italy since 1860: culture, politics, society. Edited by John Dickie, John Foot, and Frank M. Snowden, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Pp. ix+342. ISBN 0-312-23960-2. £32.50.Remaking Italy in the twentieth century. By Roy Palmer Domenico. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002. Pp. xiv+181. ISBN 0-8476-9637-5. £16.95.Twentieth century Italy: a social history. By Jonathan Dunnage. Harlow: Pearson, 2002. Pp. xi+271. ISBN 0-582-29278-6. £16.99.Milan since the miracle: city, culture and identity. By John Foot. Oxford: Berg, 2001. Pp. xiv+240. ISBN 1-85973-550-9. £14.99.Squadristi: protagonisti e tecniche della violenza fascista, 1919–1922. By Mimmo Franzinelli. Milan: Mondadori, 2003. Pp. 464. ISBN 88-04-51233-4. €19.00.For love and country: the Italian Resistance. By Patrick Gallo. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2003. Pp. viii+362. ISBN 0-7618-2496-0. $55.00.The struggle for modernity: nationalism, futurism and Fascism. By Emilio Gentile. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003. Pp. xix+203. ISBN 0-275-97692-0. $69.95.Italy and its discontents. By Paul Ginsborg. Harmondsworth: Allen Lane, 2001. Pp. xv+521. ISBN 0-713-99537-8. £25.00.Silvio Berlusconi: television, power and patrimony. By Paul Ginsborg. London: Verso, 2004. Pp. xvi+189. ISBN 1-84467-000-7. £16.00.Fascists. By Michael Mann. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. x+429. ISBN 0-521-53855-6. £15.99.Mussolini: the last 600 days of Il Duce. By Ray Moseley. Dallas: Taylor Trade publishing, 2004. Pp. vii+432. ISBN 1-58979-095-2. $34.95.Lo stato fascista e la sua classe politica, 1922–1943. By Didier Musiedlak. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2001. Pp. 585. ISBN 88-15-09381-8. €32.00.Italy's social revolution: charity and welfare from Liberalism to Fascism. By Maria Sophia Quine. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Pp. xv+429. ISBN 0-333-63261-3. £55.00.La seduzione totalitaria: guerra, modernità, violenza politica (1914–1918). By Angelo Ventrone. Rome: Donzelli, 2003. Pp. xvi+288. ISBN 88-7989-840-X. €24.00.With its winning of an American Academy Award, the film Life is beautiful (1997), brought its director and leading actor, Roberto Benigni, global fame. Benigni's zaniness and self-mockery seemed to embody everything that has convinced foreigners that Italians are, above all, brava gente (nice people). Sometimes, this conclusion can have a supercilious air – niceness can easily be reduced to levity or fecklessness. In those university courses that seek to comprehend the terrible tragedies of twentieth-century Europe, Italians seldom play a leading role. German, Russian, Polish, Yugoslav, and even British and French history are each riven with death and disaster or, alternatively, with heroism and achievement. In such austere company, brava gente can seem out of place.

Uma melhor compreensão da importância de Dom Vital na história brasileira do século XIX exige uma visão mais ampla da política eclesiástica regalista no Brasil, verificando as suas raízes no iluminismo já no “ancien régime” em Portugal. Em sintonia com o movimento ultramontanista que vinha se formando frente aos movimentos de liberalismo e nacionalismo, especialmente na Itália, a experiência de Dom Vital na França o ajudou a ver de perto as suas possibilidades de enfrentar as políticas hostis à Igreja. De volta ao Brasil e já consagrado Bispo, tomou uma decisão imprevista, mas decisiva: enfrentou o Imperador ao defender-se contra uma parte mais radical da Maçonaria em Pernambuco. Para o Império, sua posição foi política e não contra a Maçonaria, contra a autoridade imperial, enquanto para Dom Vital foi uma expressão de fé, defendendo a liberdade de ação da Igreja.Abstract: A better understanding of the importance of Dom Vital in Brazilian history during the Nineteenth Century requires a larger vision of the regalist and ecclesiatical policies in Brasil, verifying its roots already in the enlightenment of the “ancien régime” in Portugal. In conformity with the utramontanist movement which was taking shape in reaction to liberalism and nationalism, specially in Italy, the experience of Dom Vital in France helped him grasp the possibilities of how to face up to the hostil policies against the Church. Back in Brazil and already consacrated Bishop, he made an unforeseen, but decisive decision. He confronted the Emperor by defending himself against the most radical elements of Free Masonry in Pernambuco. For the Empire, his stance was political and not against Free Masonry, against the imperial authority while for Dom Vital, it was an expression of faith, defending the Church’s freedom of action.

Large historical problems are stimulating to debate but difficult to specify and answer in ways that might carry forward our long-standing discourses in global economic history. The papers which form the basis of our essay deal with a meta question and are focused upon the economic consequences (the costs and benefits) for those European societies most actively involved in territorial expansion, colonization, world trade, capital exports and emigration to other continents over the past five centuries. Our symbolic dates mark (rather than demarcate) the beginning and ending of European imperialism. Colonisation occurred in Antiquity and in the Middle Ages but between 1415 and 1789 European powers, particularly Britain but also Spain, Portugal, Holland, France and Italy, founded hundreds of colonies. Individual articles have concentrated upon periods of significance for particular countries and are, moreover, analysed within the context of an international economy, evolving through four eras (or orders) of mercantilism (1415–1846), liberalism (1846–1914), neo-mercantilism (1914–48), and decolonisation (1948–74). Our Introduction draws heavily upon six national case studies as well as discussions that took place at a conference in Madrid in 1997. We do not intend to cite particular contributions to the inferences and conclusions in this essay. Our views represent an elaboration upon and an interpretation of the articles that follow.

This paper takes as its starting point the conceptual metaphor ‘life is a journey’ as defined by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) in order to advance a new reading of William Michael Rossetti's Democratic Sonnets (1907). These political verses may be defined as cognitive-semantic poems, which attest to the centrality of travel in the creation of literary and artistic meaning. Rossetti's Democratic Sonnets is not only a political manifesto against tyranny and oppression, promoting the struggle for liberalism and democracy as embodied by historical figures such as Napoleon, Mazzini, Cavour, and Garibaldi; but it also reproduces Rossetti's real and imagined journeys throughout Europe in the late nineteenth century. This essay examines these references in light of the issues they raise, especially the poet as a traveller and the journey metaphor in poetry. But its central purpose is to re-read Democratic Sonnets as a cognitive map of Rossetti's mental picture of France and Italy. A cognitive map, first theorised by Edward Tolman in the 1940s, is a very personal representation of the environment that we all experience, serving to navigate unfamiliar territory, give direction, and recall information. In terms of cognitive linguistics, Rossetti is a figure whose path is determined by French and Italian landmarks (Paris, the island of St. Helena, the Alps, the Venice Lagoon, Mount Vesuvius, and so forth), which function as reference points for orientation and are tied to the historical events of the Italian Risorgimento. Through his sonnets, Rossetti attempts to build into his work the kind of poetic revolution and sense of history which may only be achieved through encounters with other cultures.

‘Iraq in 1939’ makes an argument that this pivotal year in the history of the Greater Mediterranean was also pivotal for Iraq. The European contest among fascism, communism and liberalism, had strong echoes in Iraq. Whereas the existing historiography paints Arab Iraq as deeply influenced by fascism, the author found no evidence for this allegation. Iraqis were reported in the British archives to have been disgusted by Hitler's invasion of Poland as a form of colonialism. Italy's own colonial enterprise in Libya tarnished its image among Arabs, and the Iraqi monarch expressed unease about a Yemeni arms deal with Italy. Germany was not at that point interested in Arab nationalism, and still hoped for a British alliance of Aryans. The reach of German radio broadcasts has been exaggerated, and prominent Iraqi poets and political societies roundly condemned fascism. The Communist movement in Iraq was still in its infancy in 1939, and a left-leaning military dictatorship had recently been overthrown in favor of a return to constitutional monarchy. The victor in 1939 was the relatively pro-British liberal government of Nuri al-Sa'id. The Arab nationalists in the officer corps, however, did wish to use the rise of the Axis as a lever to escape the onerous postcolonial British dominance stipulated in the 1930 treaty. Although they did not seek an Axis alliance, merely a neutrality as between it and Britain, this attempt to move away from London's embrace set them on a collision course with Britain, which reoccupied the country only two years later. The war-time British interpretation of Iraqi elites' flirtation with a Turkish-style neutrality as an embrace of Nazism has too long influenced later historians, and needs to be abandoned in light of the evidence in the British archives themselves.

ABSTRACTIn recent years, historiography has shown an increased interest in comparative analysis of socio-political states and evolutions—an excellent perspective from which to analyze modern history. The various manifestations of political clientelism appearing in Mediterranean Europe during the last quarter of the nineteenth century—caciquismo in Spain, opportunisme in France, and trasformismo in Italy—set the stage for political pragmatism, independent of ideological milieu, and also served as a bridge between the demise of liberalism and the emergence of democracies. These semi-official power relationships also represented attempts on the part of the elite and prominent individuals to bolster their position vis à vis the new movements and ideologies that brought about the society of the masses. In this article, we are attempting to reflect how the political clientelism that emerged in Mediterranean Europe during the transition from nineteenth to twentieth century: a) provided the stability required to initiate reforms in a socio-political milieu that was still taking shape and b) was a system that brought to light the contradictions between the legal context, founded on liberal principles, and how these principles were being applied by some of the elite who were striving to preserve a political and social order that was favorable to them.RESUMENEn los últimos años la historiografía incrementó su interés por el análisis comparado entre estados y evoluciones político-sociales, una excelente perspectiva para el análisis de la historia contemporánea. Las diferentes manifestaciones de clientelismo político que se desarrollaron en la Europa mediterránea desde el último cuarto del siglo XIX, caso del caciquismo español, el opportunisme francés y el transformismo italiano, vienen a ser la plasmación del pragmatismo político independientemente de la condición ideológica, y además, sirvieron de puente entre el fin del liberalismo y la instauración de las democracias. Pero estas relaciones de poder oficiosas también fueron el intento de las élites y notables por fortalecer su posición ante los nuevos movimientos e ideologías que eclosionan con la sociedad de masas. Con esta comunicación pretendemos reflejar cómo las políticas clientelares desarrolladas en la Europa mediterránea en la transición del siglo XIX al XX permitieron: a) la estabilidad necesaria para iniciar reformas en un ambiente sociopolítico todavía en formación; b) fueron sistemas donde se hicieron visibles las contradicciones entre el marco legal, fundamentado en los principios liberales, y la aplicación de los mismos por parte de unas élites que pretendían mantener un orden político y social que les era favorable.

Liberalism is a system of norms and values elaborated by the European world-economy in the course of its constitutive process. It is a matter of organizational principles determining the acting subject, economic action, the state and, the entire picture of social imaginary, starting from the prescriptive nucleus of ‘freedom’ rights. The history of liberalism is the story of a methodical structuring of norms and values,which postulates a possessive and acquisitive subject in a system of ceaseless pursuit of endless accumulation. This methodical structuring had already begun in the XIII century with the formation of the Mediterranean world-economy, centered on the free city states of the Ital-ian peninsula.1 Initially, the above elaboration utilized elements of ancient both Graeco-Roman and Judaic-Christian organizational experience, but the identi?cation of a new nucleus adequate to the new system was not realized until the XVII century, with the establishment of Dutch hegemony in the world-system and the emerging English organizational power.