Artykuły w czasopismach na temat „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.

From the perspective of the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS) and the left generally, the 1989-1994 period can be viewed as a political failure in as far as there was a right-wing outcome (albeit ephemeral) to Italy's transition. Yet, it is a failure which has to be viewed in the context of the deep undercurrents of change at work in Italy in this period and the constraints within which the PDS and its leader, Achille Occhetto, were operating

This essay looks at two recent Italian books about the evolution of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). Drawing on archival materials, the books trace the conflict between the radicals and the reformers within the PCI's ranks, a conflict that gave way to violent splinter groups that regarded the PCI as too staid and conciliatory. As the far left took a violent turn in Italy in the late 1960s, it paved the way for the spasm of grisly far-left and far-right terrorism in Italy in the 1970s and early 1980s. The books lend weight to the view that the PCI, through its exaltation of Communist revolution and its demonization of the Christian Democratic establishment, facilitated the emergence of extremist groups that perpetrated more than 8,400 terrorist attacks in the latter half of the 1970s.

The paper attempts to give an idea of the Italian political scene on the eve and after the extraordinary parliamentary elections in September 2022. The causes of the political crisis are analyzed and it is pointed out that by the level of political tension and intensity the elections in 2022 can be compared with the first parliamentary elections in the country in 1948. In the course of the election campaign political opponents of the centre-right coalition used the tools of labeling, the main of which were «friends of Putin», «populist», «neofascist». The article analyses these discursive techniques, and concludes that the left-wing forces in modern Italy, first of all the Democratic Party, are in a crisis, both in terms of ideology and leadership. The programme of the centre-right coalition and its ideas are considered separately; it is pointed out that the document contains a lot of «left» proposals related to the social support of citizens. The author analyses the reasons for the victory of the centre-right coalition and, in particular, of G. Meloni, highlighting the high social demand for change as the main factor behind the victory of the «Brothers of Italy».

The paper attempts to give an idea of the Italian political scene on the eve and after the extraordinary parliamentary elections in September 2022. The causes of the political crisis are analyzed and it is pointed out that by the level of political tension and intensity the elections in 2022 can be compared with the first parliamentary elections in the country in 1948. In the course of the election campaign political opponents of the centre-right coalition used the tools of labeling, the main of which were «friends of Putin», «populist», «neofascist». The article analyses these discursive techniques, and concludes that the left-wing forces in modern Italy, first of all the Democratic Party, are in a crisis, both in terms of ideology and leadership. The programme of the centre-right coalition and its ideas are considered separately; it is pointed out that the document contains a lot of «left» proposals related to the social support of citizens. The author analyses the reasons for the victory of the centre-right coalition and, in particular, of G. Meloni, highlighting the high social demand for change as the main factor behind the victory of the «Brothers of Italy».

Abstract This comparative paper examines the reasons and the features of the rising Euroscepticism in Italy and in Hungary in the light of economic, financial, and political crisis. The financial crisis became the main focus of the political debates and discourses among the Italian and the Hungarian political parties between 2008 and 2013. In Italy and Hungary, Euroscepticism is still on the rise. In the first chapter, I will shortly summarise the conceptual framework of Euroscepticism. In the second chapter, I provide an overview of the way Hungarian and Italian political discourse has envisioned Europe in the post-bipolar, or post-Maastricht, period that began in the early 1990s. The fall of the Berlin wall had a decisive impact on the domestic politics of Hungary and Italy, and subsequent international changes created the basis for different forms of transitions in both countries. Hungary left behind dictatorship and the one-party system to create a functioning democracy, whereas Italy experienced the end of the political party system of the “First Republic,” giving birth to the highly promising “Second Republic.”

"Anti-communist by excellence in spirit, the painter, sculptor and illustrator Camilian Demetrescu left Romania and went to Italy, tired of the continuous persistent attempts of the Securitate to attire him into becoming a collaborator. He left Romania legally in 1969, with a passport, and when the visa expired, he asked for political asylum. His stay in a capitalist country, but most of all the depths of his cultural and political exile, reflected in the articles of the Italian printed press and in the participation to actions or congresses, determined the Securitate not only to target him informatively, but also to threaten him, fact that did not stop him from being up to the end, with stoicism and determination, a convinced and militant anti-communist, a promoter of democracy and of human rights, but also an artist, who kept in his paintings, illustrations and sculptures the emotional relationship with Romania. Keywords: anticommunism, political exile, militantism, art, democracy "

While caution, tactics and compromise characterised the political practice of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement in post-war Italy, a section of the Italian press took a less guarded approach to the 20-year regime (Fascism) and to fascism as a political idea (fascism). A lively debate began immediately after the death of Mussolini; Italians sympathetic to fascism opposed the new Italian republican settlement and their opinions were freely expressed in newspapers and magazines. Neo-fascism in Italy was represented by three main ideological currents (left-wing, moderate and right-wing), and this article gives an account of the different views of the issues of democracy and corporatism that were held by fascist loyalists. An extensive number of articles published in the period 1945–1953 are used as primary sources.

Abstract The transformation of the discourse of right-wing populist parties in Italy from 2018 to 2022 is considered. Based on analysis of the discourse of the programs and electoral rhetoric of the parties the Brothers of Italy, the League, and Forward Italy, the author concludes that Italian right-wing populism is becoming more moderate, replacing the concepts of sovereignism with “patriotism and conservatism” and rejecting Euroscepticism. Although nationalism is still characteristic of the right-wing parties in Italy, it is changing: a legalist approach to migrants is gradually replacing the ethnocultural and socioeconomic approaches. Populism remains the basic strategy of the right-wing parties, but the role of the main “enemy” of the Italian people is shifting from the European bureaucracy to the domestic mainstream Center–Left (i.e., the Democratic Party). The authoritarianism of the right-wing populists has undergone the least change in terms of ideological content between 2018 and 2022, but its importance has increased with the growing public demand for political stability and the increasing personalization of politics. This article contributes to the study of the phenomenon of right-wing populism.

Though a Catholic country, Italy has been distinguished by the presence of a deeply-rooted Socialist Party. At the beginning of the twentieth century, encouraged by the economic and social changes taking place as well as by a new and growing awareness, a number of Catholics decided to open up to a dialogue with the socialist world. Some, such as Don Murri, identified Turati's party as a possible political interlocutor, in the conviction that the programmes of the democratic Catholics and those of the left had many elements in common. Others sensitive to modernist issues, particularly in intellectual circles, believed that Christianity at its origins and the early forms of socialism shared the same basic identity. Thus some scholars (including Father Ernesto Buonaiuti) chose to focus on the origins of the church, convinced that examples could be found there of how the world could be changed according to Christian ethics. The response of left-wing culture to these ideas was varied. Some, such as Camillo Prampolini, an exponent of “evangelical socialism,” appeared to be interested in a dialogue, like those socialists who were ready to accept idealist inspiration. The party leadership, instead, barred any suggestion of debate, convinced that Marxism was an alternative to Christianity.

Despite dramatic economic transformation in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, radical working-class politics has never become an institutionalized part of Swiss political life as it has among its neighbors France, Italy and Germany. Nor did class conflict produce in Switzerland a deeply fragmented and compartmentalized society such as is found in other small European Democracies. It is argued that decentralized social, economic and political institutions; moderate and continuous rates of economic development; cross-cutting cleavages and overlapping group affiliations; small size, and to a lesser extent political neutrality contributed to Switzerland's relatively calm “class struggle.” It is further noted that these explanations seem to fit the Swiss case best when enveloped in Lipset and Rokkan's developmental thesis of European cleavage development, in which it is argued that nineteenth and twentieth century political institutions are more able to mediate class conflict successfully when not burdened by the residue of the unresolved political conflicts of earlier periods in the development of the modern political state. In sum, by the time working-class politics reached high tide in Switzerland, most nation building issues had been resolved, and effective democratic processes had been firmly put in place.

A sharp contrast between left and right arose in Italy especially after World War Two, as a legacy of the conflict between fascism and anti-fascism, which had developed between the two wars. However, at this cleavage was added the majority and hegemonic centre pole represented by Christian Democracy (both anti-fascist than anti-communist), which would make more mobile the identity boundaries and more marked the dissonances between the reality of political-administrative life and the self-representation of left and right widespread cultures. A history of politics truly attentive to the social and cultural factors, contribute to overcome the dissociations between a limited political representation of an ungraspable right and the wider circulation of languages and images of identity (in the moderate and populist press, in the youth field, in the silent majority).

In recent years in Italy there have been numerous conflicts related to locally unwanted land use (‘Lulu’). Some have taken on a political dimension that goes beyond the local, becoming ‘trans-territorial’, as they link with similar conflicts elsewhere. This article analyses the role of various left-wing parties and groups (moderate, radical, antagonist) in these conflicts, examining four specific Lulu movements: those against the high-speed rail line (TAV) in Val di Susa; those against the bridge over the Strait of Messina; those against the extension of the US military base in Vicenza (Dal Molin); and those against the construction of a refuse site in the district of Chiaiano (Naples). Analysis of these cases shows that independent variables related to the well-established ‘political opportunity structure’ (POS) model do not fully explain the role played by the various organisations of the left. Other factors ultimately have greater explanatory power: the policy-making that triggers Lulu conflicts, from which emerge both a new centre/periphery political cleavage (national majoritarian democracy vs. local participatory democracy) and a new economic cleavage (growth/economic development vs. alternative models of development); policies and cleavages in their turn determine the splits between leftist parties nationally and locally and, ultimately, shifts in the Italian party system.

Abstract Recent research on the intellectual history of modern Japan has shown how Buddhism provides a variety of ideas that inspire both conservative and progressive views of society. The aim of this paper is to consider how similar ambiguities and multiplicities can be found in the appropriation of Japanese Buddhism in Italy. In particular, it focuses on two cases: Traditionalist philosopher Julius Evola’s (1898–1974) interest in Zen, and debates in Italian media related to Sōka Gakkai. Building on an anti-democratic reading of Buddhism as the religion of the Aryan Übermensch, Evola found in the modernist Zen of D.T. Suzuki and Nukariya Kaiten tools to resist modernity. Sōka Gakkai’s particular success in Italy, especially in left-wing and progressive contexts, has spurred a mix of praise and criticism in the media; indeed, the analysis of debates around this success has become a way to discuss socio-economic and political issues in the country.

Background: The evidence on the association between politics and health is scarce considering the importance of this topic for population health. Studies that investigated the effect of different political regimes on health outcomes show inconsistent results. Methods: Bayesian time-series cross-section analyses are used to examine the overall impact of regional politics on variations in Italian regional life expectancy (LE) at birth during the period 1980–2010. Our analyses control for trends in and unobserved determinants of regional LE, correct for temporal as well as spatial autocorrelation, and employ a flexible specification for the timing of the political effects. Results: In the period from 1980 to 1995, we find no evidence that the communist, left-oriented coalitions and Christian Democratic, centre-oriented coalitions have had an effect on regional LE. In the period from 1995 onwards, after a major reconfiguration of Italy’s political regimes and a major healthcare reform, we again find no evidence that the Centre-Left and Centre-Right coalitions have had a significant impact on regional LE. Conclusion: The presented results provide no support for the notion that different regional political regimes in Italy have had a differential effect on regional LE, even though Italian regions have had considerable and increasing autonomy over healthcare and health-related policies and expenditures.

The coalition government of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte was born after the parliamentary elections of March 2018 as an outcome not of ideological proximity, but of rational choice, a strategic exchange between the two parties. The rightist League accepted some increase of the public expenditure requested by its populist partner, and the 5 Star movement accepted some limits to immigration flows, promoted by its xenophobic partner. The Italian political system, which since the 1990’s had been characterized by moderate pluri-partitism and a centripetal competition, after 2018 has suffered a push towards radicalization. The experiment ended in the summer of 2019, when League decided to break the previous contract with 5 Star Movement, and a mainstream government between moderate (Democratic Party) and radical (5 Star Movement) left was formed.

The Social Centres in Italy are autonomous groups set up by left-wing radical activists, who occupy and/or self-manage unused buildings, where they organize political campaigns, social and countercultural activities. In this article, a typology of decision-making and internal democracy models, based on decisional method and preferences' treatment adopted (Consensual vs. Majoritarian), is here proposed and tested through the binary comparison of two Social Centres, as empirical cases, in the same city (Catania in Sicily), with the most dissimilar characteristics (campaigns/activities, political ideological orientations, national networks, legal position, attitude towards institutions). The research, methodologically founded on participant observation, the analysis of self-produced documents and a set of semi-structured interviews, provided unexpected findings, entailing an explanation through the procedure of re-identification and/or cultural recollocation of Pizzorno. As a consequence, the diverse models of decisionmaking and internal democracy adopted by activists of the two Social Centres seem to be depended on their different ends, collective identities and political-ideological orientations

After 1945 the Italian tradition of feminine beauty was redefined in a democratic context in which women, for the first time, became full citizens. Faced with a far-reaching challenge from Hollywood, traditional criteria of beauty were first strenuously defended and then modified and commercialised. Beauty contests proved to be a vital vehicle in this transition, since they acted both as a forum for the reassertion of Italian beauty and as a vehicle for the displacement of old ideas centred on the face with a new concept based on the eroticised body. This transition became bound up with the ongoing political conflict between Catholics and the left for the moral and political leadership of the country. While both, with different emphases, championed ‘natural’ at the expense of American-style ‘manufactured’ beauty, competition led them to engage with, and in some way adopt, the sexualised beauty that was the hallmark of the role of the United States in furnishing new models for the consumer society that would develop rapidly in the later 1950s.

In this article I analyse global and national neoliberalisms- economic and social class war from above- neoconservatisms which are leading to and connected with NeoFascisms- with their scapegoating, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, heterophobia, militarism and the attacks on dissent- whether electoral, media, or from academics/ universities and workers’ organisations and actions. Six prime examples are Erdogan in Turkey, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Trump in the USA, Orban in Hungary, the Law and Justice government in Poland, and the racist government in Italy, in effect led by Salvini. Across Europe Far-right anti-immigrant, xenophobic and ultra nationalist authoritarian parties are recruiting and becoming electorally significant- and, in some cases, significant on the streets. Critique social democratic reformist parties and governments for adopting neoliberal austerity policies and thereby becoming delegitimised, together with the too-often `accomodationist' trade union and party leaderships. and critically examine prospects for left social democracy as represented, for example, by the Jeremy Corbyn led Labour Party in the UK. Much of the article is devoted to the resistant and the revolutionary role of teachers, academics and education/ cultural workers in different arenas, from national and local electoral and direct action politics/ Focusing on Critical Education, Critical Educators, Marxist Education, Marxist Educators, I seek to address four aspects of education: pedagogy, the curriculum, resistance in the classroom and the hidden curriculum, and the structure of schooling nationally and locally (within-school). I conclude by setting out what is specifically Marxist about the proposals set out. These are: (1) Class Analysis: the Capital-Labour Relation; (2) Capitalism must be replaced by Socialism and that change is Revolutionary; and (3) Revolutionary Transformation of Economy and Society needs to be preceded by and accompanied by a Class Programme, Organisation, and Activism. Regarding capitalism, our task is to replace it with democratic Marxism, to lead, firstly, into socialism, and ultimately, into communism. As teachers, as educators, as cultural workers, as educational, union and party activists, as intellectuals, we have a role to play.

Born in 1846, Franz Mehring as a young man was a follower of Ferdinand Lassalle, who in 1863 had organized Germany's first socialist party. As well as establishing a reputation as a journalist with his contributions to many liberal and democratic newspapers, Mehring was awarded his doctorate at Leipzig University in 1881 for his dissertation on the history and teachings of German social democracy. In his mid-forties he embraced Marxism and in 1891 joined the German Social Democratic Party, soon emerging as the intellectual leader of its left wing. He became editor of the Leipziger Volkszeitung and wrote prolifically for Die Neue Zeit and other radical journals on history, politics, philosophy, and literature. His book The Lessing Legend, published in 1893, is regarded as the first sustained attempt at Marxist literary criticism. His major biography of Karl Marx appeared in 1918, the year before his death. Completed in 1891, The Weavers was accepted for performance by the Deutsches Theater but was rejected by the Berlin censor as ‘a portrayal which specifically instils class hatred’. The first production of the play, discussed by Mehring below, was possible only because the Freie Bühne was a subscription society. In October 1893 a further private performance was given at the Neue Freie Volksbühne, followed by seven more in December at the Freie Volksbühne, where Franz Mehring was chairman. By now, the Prussian State censor had overruled his Berlin subordinate and The Weavers received its public premiere at the Deutsches Theater on 25 September 1894. On each occasion Hauptmann's play was greeted with great enthusiasm by the public, but found no favour with the Imperial family who indignantly cancelled their regular box at the Deutsches Theater. Subsequently The Weavers was banned from public performance in France, Austria, Italy, and Russia. Mehring's article appeared originally in Die Neue Zeit, XI, No. I (1893). Its translation in NTQ forms part of an occasional series on early Marxist dramatic criticism, which already includes Trotsky on Wedekind (NTQ28) and Lunacharsky on Ibsen (NTQ39). EDWARD BRAUN

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.

In the 1970s, Italy experienced a difficult crisis that marked the end of the economic model carried out after world war two. The resulting changes in production relations led to the disappearance of traditional public spaces and meeting places such as open squares, workplaces, party offices or the premises of left extra-parliamentary groups. Within this context, in the 1980s and 1990s, these groups managed to create new social and political spaces by setting up Self-Managed Social Centers, ie squatted properties which became the venue of social, political and cultural events. In Italy, over 300 Social Centers have been active over the past 25 years, especially in urban areas. Their organizational modes indicate examples of successful direct democracy in non-hierarchical structures and may provide alternative options to the bureaucratic organization of so many aspects of social and political life. Social Centers have turned abandoned places into public spaces relying mostly on collective action, that is cooperative working modes which do not come under the provisions governing regular employment contracts. Their actions explicitly contest marginalization and exclusion processes which are becoming more and more fierce in our cities. An analysis of the evolution of this original Italian movement provides the opportunity to address a number of issues associated with alternative practices to neoliberal globalization.

AbstractThis article argues that Gerd-Rainer Horn's model of a ‘Mediterranean New Left’ encompassing both the French Parti socialiste unifié (PSU, 1960–1990) and the Italian Partito socialista italiano di unità proletaria (PSIUP, 1964–1972) needs to be significantly revised. It agrees that, half a century on from the events which gave rise to their foundation, this much misunderstood part of the political spectrum, midway between social democracy and the far left, is worthy of rescue from the ‘enormous condescension of posterity’, but questions how similar the two parties actually were. Major differences emerge, especially in the nature of each party's relationship with communism, with the philosovietism of the PSIUP contrasting with the PSU's evolution towards an anti-Leninist decentralist socialism of self-management. Yet, at the same time, important new evidence is uncovered about the concrete political and personal links that developed between leading intellectuals of the PSIUP and PSU, an example being the friendship of the Italian parliamentarian and theorist Lelio Basso with the journalist Gilles Martinet, later French ambassador to Italy. Other transnational links, both across the Mediterranean and to eastern Europe, are explored. Furthermore, the location of the roots of both parties in the 1940s generation of anti-fascist resistance calls into question prevailing assumptions equating the New Left with the youth of the 1960s, with wider implications for our understanding of the development of the European left across the twentieth century.

Abstract Arthur Rosenberg’s remarkable essay, first published in 1934, was probably the most incisive historical analysis of the origins of fascism to emerge from the revolutionary Left in the interwar years. In contrast to the official Comintern line that fascism embodied the power of finance-capital, Rosenberg saw fascism as a descendant of the reactionary mass-movements of the late-nineteenth century. Those movements encompassed a new breed of nationalism that was ultra-patriotic, racist and violently opposed to the Left, and prefigured fascism in all these ways. What was distinctive about the fascists in Italy and Germany was not so much their ideology (a pastiche of motifs that drew on those earlier traditions of the conservative and radical Right) as the use of stormtroopers to wage the struggle against democracy in more decisive and lethal ways. After the broad historical sweep of its first part, the essay looks at the factors that were peculiar to the Italian and German situations respectively, highlighting both the rôle of the existing authorities in encouraging the fascists and the wider class-appeal of the fascist parties themselves, beyond any supposed restriction to the middle-class or ‘petty bourgeoisie’.

Fact-checking has spread internationally, in part to confront the rise of digital disinformation campaigns. American studies suggests ideological asymmetry in attitudes toward fact-checking, as well as greater acceptance of the practice among those more interested in and knowledgeable about politics. We examine attitudes toward fact-checking across six European counties to put these findings in a broader context ( N = 6,067). We find greater familiarity with and acceptance of fact-checking in Northern Europe (Sweden and Germany) than elsewhere (Italy, Spain, France, and Poland). We further find two dimensions of political antipathy: a left–right dimension and an “anti-elite” dimension (including dissatisfaction with democracy and negative feelings toward the European Union), the latter of which more consistently predicts negative feelings toward fact-checkers in the countries examined. Our findings demonstrate that despite general acceptance of the movement, significant political divides remain. Those less likely to trust fact-checkers could be more vulnerable to disinformation targeting these divides, leading to a spiral of cynicism.

Despite primary elections in Italy continue to be asymmetric – i.e. carried out only by the center-left coalition – their ability to involve the electorate and their growing media impact make it a powerful democratic tool. In this article we study the 2012 Italian primary elections, held by the center-left coalition in order to select the prime ministerial candidatefor the 2013 general elections. In particular, we will shed light on three dimensions: turnout, electoral results and competitiveness. We will also take into account the role played by the new candidate selection rule – the two-round system – which will allow us to collect a lot of information about the voting behavior of the selectorate. What has been the turnout level in the2012 Italian primary elections? Which similarities and differences can be found in the patterns of participation between the first and the second round? Which factors may explain the territorial differences in turnout levels? What have been the territorial patterns of voting behavior for the main candidates? The 2012 primary elections have been more or less competitive with respect to the previous Italian national primaries? We will try to address these questions through the use of a mainly quantitative methodology with aggregate data.

I am indebted to Alexander De Grand for taking the time and trouble to comment on my article, although I am sorry that he seems to have read it principally as an attack on Giolitti and Giolittian policies. While I can see that it is possible to read this into the paper, it was certainly not my intention to lay the responsibility for the development of Fascism at Giolitti's door. My concern was rather to seek to identify some of the reasons for the dramatic clash between left and right in 1920 and 1921 which led to the affirmation of Fascism; it was in this light that I attempted to assess the Giolittian period, which has always seemed to me the great moment of democratic possibilities between one form of repressive government and another. I agree, of course, that the great radicalising and polarising event in Italy was the First World War. My point – put very simply – was that the experience of the war might have been much less devastating for Italy if the political situation in 1914–15 had not already been characterised by profound lacerations within Italian society. To put it another way, I was interested in seeing why, as De Grand himself says, ‘the great hopes for reform that marked that [Giolittian] period gave rise to little structural reform’ and in assessing the consequences of that lack of reform for the subsequent period. The central question of the article, therefore, is that of Fascism as breach or continuity rather than the culpability of Giolitti.

Local elections held on June 2016 in Italy asked voters to appoint more than 1,300 among mayors and municipal councilors, some of them in big cities like Rome, Milan, Turin. This article aims at assessing who is the real winner of this election. At first sight, the Five Stars Movement won this election. Nevertheless, some doubts arise because of its limited coverage of the territories, internal conflicts and the lack of homogeneity of its electoral results at the local level. Among the losers, Forza Italia and minor parties like NCD and extreme-left parties are to be counted, while the Northern League secured its previous elections' percentage. The Democratic Party reported huge losses but remained the leading party in half of the voting municipalities. A more in-depth analysis shows however that local lists (civic lists) strongly improved their results and voters' support. From this perspective it is the territory that won 2016 local election. The article claims that this may negatively affect the national political system and political establishment. Civic lists bring in fact together different political actors (such as notabilities, patrons and relevant clienteles) with populist local movements, and often show weak political capabilities in local government.l

Corporate law reveals its democratic background when it comes to the general meetings of shareholders, finding, on both sides of the Atlantic, its most tangible expression in the “one share, one vote” principle. While, in the political landscape, the “one person, one vote” standard is absolute dogma and weighting votes according to people’s preferences and interests has never proved feasible, in the corporate scenario the one share, one vote principle is constantly challenged by the incentives of companies and their shareholders to shape corporate rights according to specific needs. In this respect, some legislators (specifically in France and Italy) have provided mechanisms that allow more loyal shareholders to increase their voting power. Tenured voting (or time-phased voting rights) should be analyzed in light of the modern corporate governance debate, which calls for a stronger role for long-term investors. However, the other side of the coin should be considered: the increase in voting rights broadens the range of control-enhancing mechanisms, although specific sunset clauses (whether provided for by law or voluntarily opted in by companies) may restore the one share, one vote rule. The analysis suggests that the mechanism based on tenured voting is more transparent and potentially less stable than other common control-enhancing mechanisms and deserves to be considered in the debate. At the EU level, the possibility left to the Member States of weighting shareholders’ voting power according to their long-term interests, leads to legislative fragmentation across Europe. Specifically, in Italy, the adoption of tenured voting coupled with a tradition of ownership concentration sharply empowers controlling shareholders. At the same time, European takeover regulation plays an exogenous role in indirectly selecting the companies that adopt time-phased voting rights. The final result is completely mistrusted, as tenured voting rights disappoint their expectations and are rarely used to meet a true need of long termism. The paper describes the paradox that emerges when tenured voting rights interact with the core principles of the EU financial market law system, and it offers various ways to alleviate this difficult coexistence.

This paper is dedicated to the education policies of Italy for the expansion and consolidation of Italian schools in Albania, from the point of view of archival documents and the Albanian press at that time. The study focuses primarily on the efforts of the Italian government to organize the education system, establish schools, prepare programs and textbooks, equip schools with the necessary acts, etc., as an attempt to outline the European profile of education in Albania after 1912. As a part of the general analysis on the effects of the Italian schools on the life of Albanian society, would undoubtedly be the analysis of the "individual" type that it produced. On the one hand, the changes after the World War I generated a complex, renewed and more productive national education, but on the other hand, it was highly dependent on the Italian-Albanian education policies, and consequently, oriented towards a more open education system which promoted the cultural tendencies and aspirations of the Albanian nation. New democratic developments in Albania, gave us the opportunity to shed light on Italian-Albanian education policies within the context of the Italian-Albanian relations. Thanks to this, prominent figures left in oblivion, their work for the spread of new pedagogical ideas and the development of Western schools are given the acknowledgment that they deserve. The tendency to embrace and adapt those policies to the conditions of Albania of that time, reflect the important phenomenon of its developments and intellectual thought, so that the school could help more in the civilization and education of the Albanian society. Received: 12 January 2021 / Accepted: 31 March 2021 / Published: 10 May 2021

The coronavirus pandemic has become the most serious challenge since the European Union’s existence. The challenge is complex. The first blow was struck on four freedoms: movement of capital, goods, labor and services. Discontinuing production under the influence of a pandemic will mean both insufficient supply and too low demand. Quarantine measures have split the Common Market into “national containers”. The monetary union is also facing a serious crisis before the pandemic. The next blow to European solidarity was the crisis with illegal migrants. The humanitarian crisis has benefited populists to intensify xenophobic sentiment and terrorist movements to send their killers to the EU. The pretext of left and right populism is wandering Europe. Security threats are real. The UK’s exit from the EU has created a deficit in the EU budget. Germany and France should increase their contributions proportionally. The Visegrad bloc countries oppose their greater financial responsibility. Austria does not agree with the single Eurozone budget. Polls in the spring of 2016 showed an increase in the position of European skeptics in France, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, Germany, the Greek part of Cyprus, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Contemporary political discourse offers European optimistic and European pessimistic scenarios. The European Republic is decentralized (European regions), post-national, parliamentary-democratic and social. This concerns a possible shift from the United States of Europe project to the European Republic. The concept of republic is a common ideological and political heritage of Europe. A New Europe Demands New Political Thinking without Populism and Nationalism. The European Republic should be at the center of the triangle: liberalism (liberty), socialism (equality) and nationalism (brotherhood). The pessimistic scenario focuses on the fragmentation of the European Union. The basis of such fragmentation can be the project of European integration of different speeds.

In the early 2000s the British academic and expert in the field of populism, Paul Taggart, conceptualised the heartland – which he defined as ‘a version of the past that celebrates a hypothetical, uncomplicated and non-political territory of imagination.’ The idea is that populists envision this return to an almost utopic, laborious, morally pure, and culturally homogenous ‘place’ where professional political administration is not completely rejected but certainly kept at a minimum. Applying Taggart’s heartland to leaders and parties allows us to build on an efficient comprehension of specific uses of populist dialogue, as well as their general discursive styles and political narratives. Those who have capitalised on the current populist zeitgeist (a term Cas Mudde often uses), such as the American President Donald J. Trump, have mobilised masses by implicitly calling for a return to the heartland with slogans such as ‘Make America Great Again’. However, Trump is not the only politician who has discursively framed the concept of heartland in the twenty-first century. Interestingly, the heartland can also be applied to ‘right-wing’ national- populists and ‘left-wing’ techno-populists in Italy. The League, believes that with their involvement, their country can return to be a safer, more stable, hard-working, producerist society. Similarly, the Five Star Movement pressures the elites for a more virtuous, honest, and transparent way of doing politics through the digital web and direct democracy practices. Those values are the ones that shape their idea of heartland. This piece untangles the two distinct versions of heartland that exist within the forma mentis of the two Italian populist parties, compares them, and contrasts them in the hope of contributing to the already existing literature that has presented little evidence so far on how Taggart’s relevant concept can be identified in populist discourse, monologue, and ideology. Also, some advice is given on how to deal with the new populists worldwide in a way that involves dialogue that is both constructive and inclusive.

Public spaces were first introduced into the Arab world through colonial authorities in a vision to “modernise” what was seen as “oriental cities”, since the 19th century until today. However, this process was brought under severe political, social, cultural, and economic circumstances. In the due date, the imported western models of public spaces were superimposed on the existing fabric, dismissing any of those components, which left public spaces to their tragic fate in the Arab cities. In that context, they were also snatched from their democratic and civic nature under the dictator regimes. The paper will be divided into five sections, starting with a look at the historical evolution of public spaces under colonisation, then it will take Beirut, Lebanon as a case study; a city that was torn by war and patched by western ideologies following the m­odernist movement. This will take a critical approach by looking at several players in the process of implementation of public spaces in Beirut. One of these being Solidere and its reconstruction plans of the city centre of Beirut after the civil war (1975-1990), which was heavily influenced by the western models of public spaces. In the third section, a comparative study between Piazza del Duomo in Italy and Martyrs’ Square in Lebanon will set a wider understanding of the product of this evolution. Eventually, the paper will analyse the impact of the Lebanese revolution (2019) on reclaiming the public spaces for the people, similar to other revolutions in the Arab world that date back to 2011, through examples like “The Egg”, Samir Kassir Garden and Martyr’s Square. By the hands of the revolutions, the people were able to domesticate what did not reflect their identity, culture or needs, and transform them into inclusive spaces for everyone from all races, classes and backgrounds as an opportunity to set a collective vision for the future. By that, a look and a recommendation for the future of the public spaces in the Arab world, especially Beirut, will take place through a concluding section.

Covid 19 – living the experience As I sit at my desk at home in suburban Brisbane, following the dictates on self-isolation shared with so many around the world, I am forced to contemplate the limits of human prediction. I look out on a world which few could have predicted six months ago. My thoughts at that time were all about 2020 as a metaphor for perfect vision and a plea for it to herald a new period of clarity which would arm us in resolving the whole host of false divisions that surrounded us. False, because so many appear to be generated by the use of polarised labelling strategies which sought to categorise humans by a whole range of identities, while losing the essential humanity and individuality which we all share. This was a troublesome trend and one which seemed reminiscent of the biblical tale concerning the tower of Babel, when a single unified language was what we needed to create harmony in a globalising world. However, yesterday’s concerns have, at least for the moment, been overshadowed by a more urgent and unifying concern with humanity’s health and wellbeing. For now, this concern has created a world which we would not have recognised in 2019. We rely more than ever on our various forms of electronic media to beam instant shots of the streets of London, New York, Berlin, Paris, Hong Kong etc. These centres of our worldly activity normally characterised by hustle and bustle, are now serenely peaceful and ordered. Their magnificent buildings have become foregrounded, assuming a dignity and presence that is more commonly overshadowed by the mad ceaseless scramble of humanity all around them. From there however the cameras can jump to some of the less fortunate areas of the globe. These streets are still teeming with people in close confined areas. There is little hope here of following frequent extended hand washing practices, let alone achieving the social distance prescribed to those of us in the global North. From this desk top perspective, it has been interesting to chart the mood as the crisis has unfolded. It has moved from a slightly distant sense of superiority as the news slowly unfolded about events in remote Wuhan. The explanation that the origins were from a live market, where customs unfamiliar to our hygienic pre-packaged approach to food consumption were practised, added to this sense of separateness and exoticism surrounding the source and initial development of the virus. However, this changed to a growing sense of concern as its growth and transmission slowly began to reveal the vulnerability of all cultures to its spread. At this early stage, countries who took steps to limit travel from infected areas seemed to gain some advantage. Australia, as just one example banned flights from China and required all Chinese students coming to study in Australia to self-isolate for two weeks in a third intermediate port. It was a step that had considerable economic costs associated with it. One that was vociferously resisted at the time by the university sector increasingly dependent on the revenue generated by servicing Chinese students. But it was when the epicentre moved to northern Italy, that the entire messaging around the event began to change internationally. At this time the tone became increasingly fearful, anxious and urgent as reports of overwhelmed hospitals and mass burials began to dominate the news. Consequently, governments attracted little criticism but were rather widely supported in the action of radically closing down their countries in order to limit human interaction. The debate had become one around the choice between health and economic wellbeing. The fact that the decision has been overwhelmingly for health, has been encouraging. It has not however stopped the pressure from those who believe that economic well-being is a determinant of human well-being, questioning the decisions of politicians and the advice of public health scientists that have dominated the responses to date. At this stage, the lives versus livelihoods debate has a long way still to run. Of some particular interest has been the musings of the opinion writers who have predicted that the events of these last months will change our world forever. Some of these predictions have included the idea that rather than piling into common office spaces working remotely from home and other advantageous locations will be here to stay. Schools and universities will become centres of learning more conveniently accessed on-line rather than face to face. Many shopping centres will become redundant and goods will increasingly be delivered via collection centres or couriers direct to the home. Social distancing will impact our consumption of entertainment at common venues and lifestyle events such as dining out. At the macro level, it has been predicted that globalisation in its present form will be reversed. The pandemic has led to actions being taken at national levels and movement being controlled by the strengthening and increased control of physical borders. Tourism has ground to a halt and may not resume on its current scale or in its present form as unnecessary travel, at least across borders, will become permanently reduced. Advocates of change have pointed to some of the unpredicted benefits that have been occurring. These include a drop in air pollution: increased interaction within families; more reading undertaken by younger adults; more systematic incorporation of exercise into daily life, and; a rediscovered sense of community with many initiatives paying tribute to the health and essential services workers who have been placed at the forefront of this latest struggle with nature. Of course, for all those who point to benefits in the forced lifestyle changes we have been experiencing, there are those who would tell a contrary tale. Demonstrations in the US have led the push by those who just want things to get back to normal as quickly as possible. For this group, confinement at home creates more problems. These may be a function of the proximity of modern cramped living quarters, today’s crowded city life, dysfunctional relationships, the boredom of self-entertainment or simply the anxiety that comes with an insecure livelihood and an unclear future. Personally however, I am left with two significant questions about our future stimulated by the events that have been ushered in by 2020. The first is how is it that the world has been caught so unprepared by this pandemic? The second is to what extent do we have the ability to recalibrate our current practices and view an alternative future? In considering the first, it has been enlightening to observe the extent to which politicians have turned to scientific expertise in order to determine their actions. Terms like ‘flattening the curve’, ‘community transmission rates’, have become part of our daily lexicon as the statistical modellers advance their predictions as to how the disease will spread and impact on our health systems. The fact that scientists are presented as the acceptable and credible authority and the basis for our actions reflects a growing dependency on data and modelling that has infused our society generally. This acceptance has been used to strengthen the actions on behalf of the human lives first and foremost position. For those who pursue the livelihoods argument even bigger figures are available to be thrown about. These relate to concepts such as numbers of jobless, increase in national debt, growth in domestic violence, rise in mental illness etc. However, given that they are more clearly estimates and based on less certain assumptions and variables, they do not at this stage seem to carry the impact of the data produced by public health experts. This is not surprising but perhaps not justifiable when we consider the failure of the public health lobby to adequately prepare or forewarn us of the current crisis in the first place. Statistical predictive models are built around historical data, yet their accuracy depends upon the quality of those data. Their robustness for extrapolation to new settings for example will differ as these differ in a multitude of subtle ways from the contexts in which they were initially gathered. Our often uncritical dependence upon ‘scientific’ processes has become worrying, given that as humans, even when guided by such useful tools, we still tend to repeat mistakes or ignore warnings. At such a time it is an opportunity for us to return to the reservoir of human wisdom to be found in places such as our great literature. Works such as The Plague by Albert Camus make fascinating and educative reading for us at this time. As the writer observes Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world, yet somehow, we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars in history, yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise. So it is that we constantly fail to study let alone learn the lessons of history. Yet 2020 mirrors 1919, as at that time the world was reeling with the impact of the Spanish ‘Flu, which infected 500 million people and killed an estimated 50 million. This was more than the 40 million casualties of the four years of the preceding Great War. There have of course been other pestilences since then and much more recently. Is our stubborn failure to learn because we fail to value history and the knowledge of our forebears? Yet we can accept with so little question the accuracy of predictions based on numbers, even with varying and unquestioned levels of validity and reliability. As to the second question, many writers have been observing some beneficial changes in our behaviour and our environment, which have emerged in association with this sudden break in our normal patterns of activity. It has given us the excuse to reevaluate some of our practices and identify some clear benefits that have been occurring. As Australian newspaper columnist Bernard Salt observes in an article titled “the end of narcissism?” I think we’ve been re-evaluating the entire contribution/reward equation since the summer bushfires and now, with the added experience of the pandemic, we can see the shallowness of the so-called glamour professions – the celebrities, the influencers. We appreciate the selflessness of volunteer firefighters, of healthcare workers and supermarket staff. From the pandemic’s earliest days, glib forays into social media by celebrities seeking attention and yet further adulation have been met with stony disapproval. Perhaps it is best that they stay offline while our real heroes do the heavy lifting. To this sad unquestioning adherence to both scientism and narcissism, we can add and stir the framing of the climate rebellion and a myriad of familiar ‘first world’ problems which have caused dissension and disharmony in our communities. Now with an external threat on which to focus our attention, there has been a short lull in the endless bickering and petty point scoring that has characterised our western liberal democracies in the last decade. As Camus observed: The one way of making people hang together is to give ‘em a spell of the plague. So, the ceaseless din of the topics that have driven us apart has miraculously paused for at least a moment. Does this then provide a unique opportunity for us together to review our habitual postures and adopt a more conciliatory and harmonious communication style, take stock, critically evaluate and retune our approach to life – as individuals, as nations, as a species? It is not too difficult to hypothesise futures driven by the major issues that have driven us apart. Now, in our attempts to resist the virus, we have given ourselves a glimpse of some of the very things the climate change activists have wished to happen. With few planes in the air and the majority of cars off the roads, we have already witnessed clearer and cleaner air. Working at home has freed up the commuter driven traffic and left many people with more time to spend with their family. Freed from the continuing throng of tourists, cities like Venice are regenerating and cleansing themselves. This small preview of what a less travelled world might start to look like surely has some attraction. But of course, it does not come without cost. With the lack of tourism and the need to work at home, jobs and livelihoods have started to change. As with any revolution there are both winners and losers. The lockdown has distinguished starkly between essential and non-essential workers. That represents a useful starting point from which to assess what is truly of value in our way of life and what is peripheral as Salt made clear. This is a question that I would encourage readers to explore and to take forward with them through the resolution of the current situation. However, on the basis that educators are seen as providing essential services, now is the time to turn to the content of our current volume. Once again, I direct you to the truly international range of our contributors. They come from five different continents yet share a common focus on one of the most popular of shared cultural experiences – sport. Unsurprisingly three of our reviewed papers bring different insights to the world’s most widely shared sport of all – football, or as it would be more easily recognised in some parts of the globe - soccer. Leading these offerings is a comparison of fandom in Australia and China. The story presented by Knijnk highlights the rise of the fanatical supporters known as the ultras. The origin of the movement is traced to Italy, but it is one that claims allegiances now around the world. Kniijnk identifies the movement’s progression into Australia and China and, in pointing to its stance against the commercialisation of their sport by the scions of big business, argues for its deeper political significance and its commitment to the democratic ownership of sport. Reflecting the increasing availability and use of data in our modern societies, Karadog, Parim and Cene apply some of the immense data collected on and around the FIFA World Cup to the task of selecting the best team from the 2018 tournament held in Russia, a task more usually undertaken by panels of experts. Mindful of the value of using data in ways that can assist future decision making, rather than just in terms of summarising past events, they also use the statistics available to undertake a second task. The second task was the selection of the team with the greatest future potential by limiting eligibility to those at an early stage in their careers, namely younger than 28 and who arguably had still to attain their prime as well as having a longer career still ahead of them. The results for both selections confirm how membership of the wealthy European based teams holds the path to success and recognition at the global level no matter what the national origins of players might be. Thirdly, taking links between the sport and the world of finance a step further, Gomez-Martinez, Marques-Bogliani and Paule-Vianez report on an interesting study designed to test the hypothesis that sporting success within a community is reflected in positive economic outcomes for members of that community. They make a bold attempt to test their hypothesis by examining the relationship of the performance of three world leading clubs in Europe - Bayern Munich, Juventus and Paris Saint Germain and the performance of their local stock markets. Their findings make for some interesting thoughts about the significance of sport in the global economy and beyond into the political landscape of our interconnected world. Our final paper comes from Africa but for its subject matter looks to a different sport, one that rules the subcontinent of India - cricket. Norrbhai questions the traditional coaching of batting in cricket by examining the backlift techniques of the top players in the Indian Premier league. His findings suggest that even in this most traditional of sports, technique will develop and change in response to the changing context provided by the game itself. In this case the context is the short form of the game, introduced to provide faster paced entertainment in an easily consumable time span. It provides a useful reminder how in sport, techniques will not be static but will continue to evolve as the game that provides the context for the skilled performance also evolves. To conclude our pages, I must apologise that our usual book review has fallen prey to the current world disruption. In its place I would like to draw your attention to the announcement of a new publication which would make a worthy addition to the bookshelf of any international sports scholar. “Softpower, Soccer, Supremacy – The Chinese Dream” represents a unique and timely analysis of the movement of the most popular and influential game in the world – Association Football, commonly abbreviated to soccer - into the mainstream of Chinese national policy. The editorial team led by one of sports histories most recognised scholars, Professor J A Mangan, has assembled a who’s who of current scholars in sport in Asia. Together they provide a perspective that takes in, not just the Chinese view of these important current developments but also, the view of others in the geographical region. From Japan, Korea and Australia, they bring with them significant experience to not just the beautiful game, but sport in general in that dynamic and fast-growing part of the world. Particularly in the light of the European dominance identified in the Karog, Parim and Cene paper this work raises the question as to whether we can expect to see a change in the world order sooner rather than later. It remains for me to make one important acknowledgement. In my last editorial I alerted you to the sorts of decisions we as an editorial and publication team were facing with regard to ensuring the future of the journal. Debates as to how best to proceed while staying true to our vision and goals are still proceeding. However, I am pleased to acknowledge the sponsorship provided by The University of Macao for volume 42 and recognise the invaluable contribution made by ISCPES former president Walter Ho to this process. Sponsorship can provide an important input to the ongoing existence and strength of this journal and we would be interested in talking to other institutions or groups who might also be interested in supporting our work, particularly where their goals align closely with ours. May I therefore commend to you the works of our international scholars and encourage your future involvement in sharing your interest in and expertise with others in the world of comparative and international sport studies, John Saunders, Brisbane, May 2020

Does a debate on Social Democracy – its history, its present state, and its future perspectives – exist today in Italy? This is the very first question that one wonders about, when analysing the Italian contributions on such a political tradition, as they are few and not particularly innovative. Such a paucity can be explained by the weak “rootedness” of this political tradition in Italian history, due to the existence, until 1991, of a strong communist party (PCI), which identified in Democratic Socialism one of its main enemies. But what about the following developments of the communist party, which became first PDS, Democratic Party of the Left, then DS, Democrats of the Left, and finally PD, Democratic Party)? Was the leadership – who, in spite of all the changes in the party name, has remained more or less the same – moved by the fall of the Berlin wall to approach Democratic Socialism?

The Socialist Workers’ Party of Finland (SSTP) was a unique case in the division of the labour movements during and after the First World War. In many European countries, a left-wing social democratic or socialist group or party was established during the war, while in Finland the division took place only after the Civil War in 1918. The fact that a socialist party was only established after the division into social democrats and communists had taken place was also particular to Finland. The close cooperation of the SSTP with the illegal communist party residing in Soviet Russia and the party’s rejection of the Social Democrats were due to their differing interpretations of the Civil War and not their positions on the First World War. In Finland, the acceptance of many of the principals of the Communist International did not cause internal splits within the SSTP as it did in Germany, France, Italy, Sweden and Norway. However, in addition to the rigorous criticism of the victors of the Civil War, it contributed to the difficulties the SSTP faced in its work and to the party’s ultimate dissolution. Paradoxically, the party was dissolved at a time when its involvement in the issues of Finnish society became more significant.

Over the past decade right-wing populism has achieved unprecedented popularity across much of Europe. The first intimations came in 2010 when Viktor Orbán's Fidesz Party won a super-majority in alliance with Christian Democrats, gaining the power to reshape Hungary's legal framework. While the eurozone crisis then sparked the rise of left-wing anti-establishment movements across Mediterranean Europe, elsewhere populism exploded on the right. In the 2014 European parliamentary elections centrists lost seats to parties on the margins, and Fidesz extended its grip over Hungary. Over the next three years Law and Justice won elections in Poland with a campaign steeped in religion and euroscepticism; the United Kingdom shocked the world by voting to leave the European Union; Marine Le Pen of the National Front demolished conventional candidates in the first round of the French presidential elections; the anti-immigrant Lega joined a ruling coalition in Italy; and in Germany, Europe's largest country, the nationalist Alternative for Germany (Alernativ für Deutschland; AfD) entered parliament as the third largest party.