tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/forza-italia-10017/articlesForza Italia – The Conversation2023-07-06T07:46:50Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2085452023-07-06T07:46:50Z2023-07-06T07:46:50ZHow ‘La Grande Bellezza’ captured Italy’s Berlusconian era<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535363/original/file-20230703-212535-54j063.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C1920%2C1077&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jep Gambardella, the narcissistic and excessive central character in Sorrentino's allegory of Silvio Berlusconi.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Allociné</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Silvio Berlusconi, a leading figure on the Italian right, died on 12 June. His career was marked by a series of public and private scandals and by the school of thought that it gave rise to, <a href="https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/berlusconismo/">“Berlusconism”</a>. Many an Italian film <a href="https://www.rollingstone.it/cinema-tv/film/silvio-berlusconi-il-cinema-del-caimano-i-film-che-lo-hanno-raccontato/755244/">has attempted to capture it</a> since the 1990s.</p>
<p>One director in particular has distinguished himself in exploring the stigma left by Berlusconi on Italian society: Paolo Sorrentino. His 2018 film <em>Loro</em> (“Them”) is perhaps <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/transalpina/448">his most direct rendition</a> of the sulphurous figure of the <em>Cavaliere</em>. However, the major themes associated with the right-wing leader are already broadly sketched out in <em>La Grande Bellezza</em> (Oscar for best foreign language film in 2014), which follows the existential upheaval of protagonist Jep Gambardella, a worldly and disillusioned sexagenarian who eventually regains his lust for life by delving into his past.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/koxRDhAQOpw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Entertainment as “categorical imperative”</h2>
<p>Of the four salient features of Berlusconism shown in <em>La Grande Bellezza</em>, the most striking is that of the pursuit of individual pleasure. In an interview, Sorrentino said that Berlusconi raised entertainment during his tenure to the level of <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/life-among-italys-ruins-20140122-318zw.html">“categorical imperative”</a>.</p>
<p>Take the sweeping, Fellinian scene of the night club in the first part of the film, for example. It is a perfect allegory of the Berlusconian pleasure principle, calling to mind various sex scandals that took place in the years prior to the film’s shooting. One thinks of the <em>Cavaliere</em>’s relationship with a then-18-year-old aspiring model, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/may/24/silvio-berlusconi-noemi-letizia-italy">Noemi Letizia</a> in 2008; the escort <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/oct/02/patrizia-daddario-silvio-berlusconi">Patrizia D’Addario</a> in 2009, or <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-23034167">the underage Moroccan prostitute, Karima El Mahroug</a> in 2010, an affair which went on to become known as the Ruby sex case. The scene’s excesses are but a hyperbolic copy of the hedonistic parties held at Berlusconi’s villas, pictured in great detail by the Italian press at the time.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/R-6UZfEduOI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The film’s characters embody respective facets of Berlusconism, namely, the desired and the desiring. On the one hand, we have Jep Gambardella, the party host and target of its dancers’ lustful glances; on the other, his friend Lello Cava, a businessman with a towering sex drive, seen shaking with excitement at the feet of a young woman dancing on a cube. Like many young women gravitating around Berlusconi, she’s there to <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-vacarme-2017-4-page-88.htm">make it as a showgirl</a>.</p>
<h2>Television and the cult of the self</h2>
<p>The second feature of Berlusconi’s life is television, a medium inextricably linked to his financial success and political rise. The party is held under the aegis of “Lorena”, an opulent woman who emerges from Jep’s enormous birthday cake, played by none other than Serena Grandi. One of Italy’s sex symbols from the 1980s and 1990s, she appeared on several TV entertainment shows in the 1980s and 2000s. Her character is somewhat of a caricature of her public persona, merging two themes – sex and television – dear to Berlusconi.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534768/original/file-20230629-29-7yoje7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534768/original/file-20230629-29-7yoje7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534768/original/file-20230629-29-7yoje7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534768/original/file-20230629-29-7yoje7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534768/original/file-20230629-29-7yoje7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534768/original/file-20230629-29-7yoje7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534768/original/file-20230629-29-7yoje7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Serena Grandi plays herself as a former party girl.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The third grand Berlusconian theme is narcissism. In the first half of the film, we find it personified by Orietta, a woman who spends her time photographing herself and sending selfies to her admirers. This obsession with beauty and youth is also captured by the extraordinary scene in which a Botox guru administrates expensive injections to patients who revere him as their spiritual leader. It’s no secret that Berlusconi relished cosmetic surgery. The Cavaliere not only resorted to it extensively on himself, but also touted its merits to others, claiming women who had subjected themselves to the needle were “more beautiful”.</p>
<h2>Corruption at every level</h2>
<p>The last major feature of Berlusconi’s life to stand out in the film is corruption. From falsifying business accounts to bribing lawyers, the former Prime Minister has been charged with almost every offence under the sun. His right-hand man, Marcello Dell’Utri, has also been indicted for <a href="https://lejournal.info/article/berlusconi-et-la-mafia-le-pacte-impuni/">complicity with the Mafia</a>.</p>
<p>This aspect of Berlusconi’s persona, which still contains grey areas, is reflected in the character of Giulio Moneta, an enigmatic businessman and neighbour of the protagonist, who appears from his high balcony but in reality, serves the interests of the underworld. Arrested by the police at the end of the film, he says, handcuffed, that he is one of those “moving the country forward” – a defence strategy typical of Berlusconi and his defence lawyers.</p>
<h2>Historical perspective</h2>
<p>The strength of Berlusconi’s depiction also lies in its historical perspective. Tapping into a range of images, Sorrentino helps viewers understand that Berlusconi’s triumph was made possible by the decline of the two major ideologies that shaped Italy’s 20th-century history: socialism (and its derivative, Marxism), and Catholicism.</p>
<p>The decline of Marxism is depicted in a scene that is at once solemn and grotesque, in which a famous body artist, her pubic area dyed red to reveal the sickle and hammer crest, comes crashing headlong into a Roman aqueduct. Through this spectacular, bloody performance, she represents the dead end to which the Soviet interpretation of Marxist thought has led.</p>
<p>At the same time, the protagonist is confronted with religion on a daily basis in the city of Rome, from the myriad of religious figures he sees in the streets or from his balcony, to the monuments dotted around the Eternal City. Yet Jep Gambardella’s view of religion, imbued with nostalgia and strangeness, is typical of a secularised society in which religion no longer plays the primary role of organising authority.</p>
<p>The idea that Berlusconi could flourish in an ideological vacuum created by the decline of these two great ideologies is expressed in the transition from the first to the second sequence of the film. <em>La Grande Bellezza</em> opens with a stroll on Mount Janiculum, offering a series of images that alternatively evoke socialism – i.e., the statue of Garibaldi on horseback, or the busts of Garibaldi supporters on display in a public garden – and Christianity. We are taken to the fountain “Acqua Paola”, commissioned by Pope Paul V in 1608, while the film’s first shot shows the cannon shot at midday from Janiculum Hill in Rome, a practice initiated by Pope Pius IX in 1948 to allow the Roman bells to ring in unison.</p>
<p>The transition to the second sequence, that of the nightclub, is a guest’s hysterical scream filmed in close-up. It acts as a cry of distress to express the transition from strong but bygone ideologies to the ideology of seemingly carefree, narcissistic enjoyment.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534809/original/file-20230629-15-5oudti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534809/original/file-20230629-15-5oudti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534809/original/file-20230629-15-5oudti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534809/original/file-20230629-15-5oudti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534809/original/file-20230629-15-5oudti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534809/original/file-20230629-15-5oudti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534809/original/file-20230629-15-5oudti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The cry of</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screenshot</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>La Grande Bellezza</em>, which began filming in August 2012, is imbued with a pungent whiff of decadence that harks back to the end of Berlusconi’s political reign. Beset by sex scandals and Italy’s dramatic finances – “on the brink of a precipice” is how the business newspaper <em>Il Sole 24 ore</em> put it a few days earlier – the <em>Cavaliere</em> stepped down as prime minister on 12 November 2011. In the last part of the film, the protagonist can indeed be seen staring in silence at the capsized hull of the <em>Costa Concordia</em>, the cruise ship that sank on 12 January 2012.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208545/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fabrice De Poli ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>The Oscar-winning film sketches out the broad themes of Berluconist hedonism, all against the backdrop of the decline of ideologies that shaped 20th-century Italy.Fabrice De Poli, enseignant-chercheur en Etudes Italiennes (poésie, prose et cinéma de l'Italie - XIX-XXème s.), Université Savoie Mont BlancLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2057612023-05-17T23:07:34Z2023-05-17T23:07:34ZIn Meloni’s Italy, young Black men are particularly at risk of ending up on the street<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526920/original/file-20230517-9960-anjh1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C11%2C3816%2C2752&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Groups of refugees from war-torn regions gather in Milan's Central Station. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/fr/image-photo/milan-italy-november-10th-2016-groups-514008019">Alexandre Rotenberg/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Italy is in the grip of a housing crisis, and has been for years. It’s not as if the problem had gone unnoticed. There has been no shortage of articles in the <a href="https://milano.repubblica.it/cronaca/2023/05/04/news/ilaria_lamera_tenda_politecnico_protesta_caro_affitti_milano-398739819/">national</a> – or even <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/12/italy-students-protest-over-cost-housing-high-rents">international</a> – media over students’ struggle to access affordable accommodation. Over the past days, they have taken to pitching tents outside university buildings, as part of a growing protest movement against high rents. Begun by Ilaria Lamera, an engineering student at Milan Polytechnic who found it impossible to find a room under 600 euros, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/12/italy-students-protest-over-cost-housing-high-rents">the demonstration has since spread to Milan, Rome, Florence, Bologna, Padua and Cagliari</a>.</p>
<p>In Bologna, where I am writing from, rising student numbers and Airbnb rentals have snatched away the prospect of a home for many. But young adults are also grappling with another, less publicised issue: that of the ongoing racism toward those construed as “foreign” or “other”. The phrase “no foreigners” is a common refrain when looking for rental accommodation in Bologna. This racial discrimination is normalised by estate agents. It is <a href="http://amsdottorato.unibo.it/9218/">presented as if it were a form of “eligibility” criteria for landlords</a>, like a requirement for an employment contract and references. As if it were totally normal and acceptable for landlords not to want to rent to “foreigners”, by which they mean those who are racialised, and not me, as a white British woman – also a “foreigner”. Sometimes, this is made even clearer. For example, when a housing volunteer at a <a href="https://www.centroastalli.it/rete-territoriale/centro-astalli-bologna/">local charity assisting migrants</a> arrived at a flat viewing together with a young Black African man, they were told by an estate agent: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Madam! You should have told me you were asking on behalf of an African! We don’t rent to Blacks here.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Launched in 2022 and funded by the <a href="https://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/">Leverhulme Trust</a>, my current research at the University of Bologna examines the longer-term fate of young men from West Africa who arrived in Italy as children seeking asylum, and hence are bureaucratically labelled as “unaccompanied minors”. While much ink has been spilled over the experiences of unaccompanied minors as <em>children</em>, less is known about what happens after they turn 18. Yet, it is at this moment that the rights they are accorded as children, including accommodation, may be lost. In my <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1440783321993918">latest paper</a>, drawing on my PhD research undertaken between 2017-2018, I analyse what happens after they become adults and must leave the reception centre that hosted them as children in a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/anti.12873">socio-political landscape that is increasingly anti-migrant</a>.</p>
<p>This is based on ethnographic participant/observation in a reception centre for unaccompanied minors in Bologna while working as a volunteer keyworker for eight months between May 2017 and December 2018. In-depth and repeat interviews were conducted with 12 young African young men (six Gambians, four Nigerians, a Ghanaian and a Somalian), aged between 16 and 21. My current research involves a return to my fieldwork site after four years and involves interviews with five of the young men (two Nigerians and three Gambians) to assess their longer-term outcomes as adults.</p>
<h2>On the record</h2>
<p>The local council has launched the <a href="http://www.comune.bologna.it/centrozonarelli/spad-sportello-antidiscriminazioni/">SPAD Anti-discrimination Help Centre</a> to deal with racial discrimination, but this is in its infancy and under-reporting remains an issue. The first <a href="https://www.comune.bologna.it/notizie/giornata-mondiale-contro-discriminazioni-razziali-2023">SPAD report</a> documents reports of discrimination, and housing is found to be the second most prevalent area in which discrimination occurs. The young men in my study present a weary resignation to the continuing racism they face in the housing sector (and elsewhere).</p>
<p>Innocent*, who is now 22 and arrived in Italy as a twelve year old from Nigeria tells me he has been looking for a place to rent for months. Frequently, he is told by estate agents things such as “the owner is elderly, they don’t want any foreigners”, or “They are afraid because you are Black”.</p>
<p>Innocent goes on to tell me he is regularly stopped for no reason by the police around the station when getting the train to work. They ask him for his residence permit. I ask him how this makes him feel:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Really upset, also because of the housing situation. Us Blacks, we’re nothing here.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Edrisa, a young Gambian who is now 22 came to Italy when he was sixteen, reflects on the difficulties of finding a place to live once outside the reception system. Playing on the Italian name for a residence permit (<em>permesso di soggiorno</em>, meaning a permit to stay), he tells me that many migrants, including him, have “a permit to stay but no place to stay, it doesn’t make sense. It is not right”. This seemingly <a href="https://www.ilpost.it/2023/02/18/senzatetto-lavoratori-bologna/">contradictory situation</a>, of migrants who are employed, paying taxes, and have the legal right to stay, but cannot find a house, is widespread.</p>
<p>Edrisa explains that despite having regular work on construction sites, as a qualified builder, he was homeless for nearly four months, crashing with friends, sometimes even sleeping in his work van.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It is really difficult for a foreigner to find a house here, actually, not all foreigners but if you are Black… Italians don’t want to rent to Black migrants. It is so difficult.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For Edrisa this is due to a combination of the housing crisis and the racism he faces as a young Black man in Italy. He maintains racism is due to the stereotyping of Africans as backwards and threat, compounded by the constant negative imagery of Black and Brown bodies arriving via sea. The <a href="https://series.francoangeli.it/index.php/oa/catalog/book/791">public discourse</a> on immigration in Italy is characterized by the stigmatization of racialised migrants who are framed as inferior and threat.</p>
<h2>Beyond landlords, racism has long tainted Italy</h2>
<p>Clearly, however, it is not feasible to suggest that racism merely pertains to landlords <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1354066119858388">as an individual mentality or exception from the norm</a>. Rather, we must dig deeper into the ongoing colonial legacies of racism that become visible in the act of renting. As the anthropologist Bruno Riccio observed over ten years ago, “culturalist” readings of difference have led to <a href="https://www.editions-ulb.be/en/book/?GCOI=74530100426670#h2tabtableContents">residential segregation and discrimination in the Italian housing market</a>. This “rental racism” builds upon the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-51391-7_3">“fertile soil”</a> of racism rooted in Italian colonialism and fascism and is then embedded within a historically rooted racial landscape. Rent should be understood not solely as an economic transaction, but a <a href="https://radicalhousingjournal.org/2019/editorial/">social relation embedded in emplaced social, cultural, political and material conditions</a>. </p>
<p>This is starkly evident in the recent declaration by Italy’s Agriculture and Food Sovereignty Minister Francesco Lollobrigida that <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65324319">Italy’s low birth rate meant Italians are facing “ethnic replacement”</a>. Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, also a member of the far-right Brothers of Italy political party, has <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65324319">made similar remarks in the past</a>. According to the OHCHR’s (2019) <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/IT/ItalyMissionReport.pdf">“Report of mission to Italy on racial discrimination”</a>, the worst years for racially motivated attacks were 2009 and 2018; both periods in which the public discourse was particularly anti-migrant. During the far-right Lega’s election campaign in 2017-18, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/28/italys-intelligence-agency-warns-of-rise-in-racist-attacks">racially motivated attacks in Italy tripled</a>. The leader of the Lega, Matteo Salvini, is now a Minister in the coalition government.</p>
<p>The coalition government recently introduced a new immigration law, the Cutro Decree (decreto Cutro), named after the Calabrian town close to where <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/09/protests-as-meloni-cabinet-meets-near-scene-of-deadly-shipwreck-cutro-italy">at least 72 people died in a shipwreck in February this year</a>. The new law is controversial and has received widespread criticism from <a href="https://ecre.org/mediterranean-controversial-cutro-decree-approved-by-parliament-as-italy-sees-continued-increase-of-arrivals-death-toll-of-2023-breaks-1000-as-ngo-struggle-to-save-lives-under-dramatic/">human-rights organisations, concerned about the increased precarity and irregularity that would be created</a>. </p>
<p>Naming a law which brings in increasingly restrictive immigration practices after a shipwreck that some <a href="https://www.hrw.org/the-day-in-human-rights/2023/02/27">rights organisations</a> argue resulted from the very same government’s harsher laws, together with wider EU policies, is deeply problematic. While the law does not directly affect the young men in my study, its effects are pervasive and increase the ongoing hostility toward racialised migrants, just like <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/ill-wind-weathering-impact-far-right-government-italy/">previous immigration legislation brought in under a far right party</a>. The divide between “us”
(white Italians) and “them” (racialised migrants) keeps on widening.</p>
<p>In Bologna, like other gentrifying global cities in the Global North, the mobility of elites stand in stark contrast to those who are racialised, unable to access the city, which increasingly risks <a href="https://www.scielo.br/j/ts/a/wv4Pj5n9HJqNv7J7R3RpyWP/">becoming a spectacle of elite privilege and tourist consumption</a>. The local council recently launched a <a href="https://www.comune.bologna.it/notizie/giornata-mondiale-contro-discriminazioni-razziali-2023">“local action plan for an anti-racist and intercultural city”</a>, and has made attempts to regulate Airbnb; <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13683500.2018.1504899">recognised as a challenging</a> feat. However, for Bologna to become a city in which more than the porticoes are ‘open’ to young racialised migrants, what is really needed is a deeper conversation on racism in Italy, particularly as manifested at the political level.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>All names are pseudonyms.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205761/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Walker ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>As student protests against high rents unfurl across Italy, one academic points out one of the groups most likely to end up on the streets under a far-right government: young black men.Sarah Walker, Visiting postdoctoral researcher and adjunct professor, Università di BolognaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1906552022-09-26T06:04:27Z2022-09-26T06:04:27ZWhat will its first far-right leader since WWII mean for Italy?<p>“Una vittoria storica” – a historic victory. That’s how the website of one of Italy’s major newspapers, the <a href="https://www.corriere.it/">Corriere della Sera</a>, reacted to the <a href="https://www.ansa.it/english/news/2022/09/25/-centre-right-ahead-in-opinio-rai-exit-poll-with-41-45-_75e4546a-fce5-4bc3-8863-8999d2974a3a.html">exit polls</a> released after voting closed in Italy’s general election on Sunday night.</p>
<p>With a predicted vote share of between 40-45%, the right-wing coalition led by Giorgia Meloni looks on course to secure at least 230 of the 400 seats in the Lower House, giving it a clear majority.</p>
<p>Meloni’s party, Brothers of Italy, was the big winner on the right, with various agencies estimating it at around 25% of the vote. This was more than the combined total of her two main allies, as Matteo Salvini’s League was tipped to receive approximately 8-9%, with former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia just below that.</p>
<p>In just four years, Brothers of Italy has gone from minor to major player on the right. In 2018, they took 4.4% compared to the League’s 17.4% and Forza Italia’s 14%. And, if we look further back, Italy’s right-wing coalition has moved from having been dominated for over 20 years by a centre-right populist party (Forza Italia), to being dominated now by a far-right populist one (Brothers of Italy).</p>
<p>Brothers of Italy’s victory represents several firsts. Italy will have its first woman prime minister. And both Italy and Western Europe will have their first far-right majority government since the fall of Mussolini and the end of the Second World War.</p>
<h2>Who is Giorgia Meloni?</h2>
<p>Meloni’s trajectory owes much to that history. Beginning as an activist of the post-fascist Italian Social Movement in the Roman working-class district of Garbatella in the early 1990s, Meloni rose to prominence in a political milieu that didn’t deny its heritage.</p>
<p>She stated in an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuoXr-zjqas&ab_channel=INAPolitique">interview</a> with French TV in 1996 that Mussolini was a “good politician” and “all that he did, he did for Italy”.</p>
<p>While Meloni <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da4OO5mLZv0&ab_channel=GuardianNews">now says</a> Italy has consigned fascism to history, vestiges of her party’s political roots remain. For example, the <a href="https://citynews-romatoday.stgy.ovh/%7Emedia/original-hi/67277628313202/fdisim-2.jpg">flame</a> in the party’s symbol is taken from the post-fascist Italian Social Movement, and there have been recent instances of its politicians and supporters <a href="https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2021/12/31/napoli-dirigenti-e-militanti-di-fratelli-ditalia-in-posa-mentre-fanno-il-saluto-romano/6442006/">performing fascist salutes</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/giorgia-meloni-and-the-return-of-fascism-how-italy-got-here-190866">Giorgia Meloni and the return of fascism: how Italy got here</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Meloni and her party’s success can be traced back to Berlusconi’s entry into politics in 1994. His centre-right Forza Italia movement legitimised two smaller radical right parties (the northern regionalist League and the National Alliance) by bringing them into a coalition that easily won that year’s general election.</p>
<p>The coalition that will soon take power almost 30 years later contains the same three ingredients, but their internal balances have now drastically changed.</p>
<p>While some commentators focus on the continuity the new government will represent, there’s a historic change here. The pendulum on the right has shifted from Berlusconi’s centre-right populist governments with a far-right edge in the 1990s and 2000s, to Meloni’s far-right populist government with a centre-right edge in 2022.</p>
<h2>What do these results mean for Italian politics?</h2>
<p>Within the overall success of the right, there are winners and losers. Meloni is obviously the former, and Salvini is the latter.</p>
<p>Salvini is the politician who, having revitalised his party between 2013 and 2019, has now overseen a huge fall in its support from <a href="https://twitter.com/duncanmcdonnell/status/1574170616084643840/photo/1">over 35%</a> in the polls in July 2019 to under 10% today. Only the lack of an obvious successor may save Salvini from losing his party’s leadership.</p>
<p>For the main party on the Left, the Democratic Party, it’s yet another bad day. Having dropped to under 20% in the 2018 general election, they look unlikely to do much better than that this time. Their failure to find a campaign narrative beyond “stop the far right” and to create a broader coalition underlined the strategic ineptitude that has long undermined the Italian left.</p>
<p>Another “first” of this election is the turnout, which has <a href="https://thewest.com.au/politics/low-turnout-as-italy-elects-new-parliament-c-8354488">slipped below two-thirds</a> for the first time in Italian post-war history, declining from 73% in 2018 to 64% in 2022. This speaks to the image of a country in which large swathes of the population, especially in the South, are disillusioned with decades of politicians who have promised the earth and delivered little.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1574231069905358848"}"></div></p>
<p>In economic and foreign policy terms, Italy may not change much in the short-term. Meloni will be keen to show Italian and international elites that she’s a responsible leader. Powerful domestic interest groups, such as the employers’ federation “Confindustria”, must be kept onside. As must the European Union which supports Italy through its post-COVID recovery plan.</p>
<p>But much could change for the far-right’s “enemies of the people”: ethnic, religious and sexual minorities; immigrants; and those judges, intellectuals, and journalists who dare to criticise the new regime.</p>
<p>Things will also change for those far-right Italians who, as Meloni <a href="https://www.lastampa.it/politica/2022/09/21/video/meloni_e_lambiguita_della_frase_ricorrente_ai_suoi_comizi_sogno_una_nazione_in_cui_nessuno_debba_abbassare_la_testa_per_c-9091284/">recently put it</a>, have had to “keep their head down for so many years and not say what they believed”. So, while the Brothers of Italy’s conservation of the post-fascist flame may be more smoke than fire for some groups, for others it will be incendiary.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/giorgia-meloni-the-political-provocateur-set-to-become-italys-first-far-right-leader-since-mussolini-190116">Giorgia Meloni – the political provocateur set to become Italy's first far-right leader since Mussolini</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190655/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Duncan McDonnell receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sofia Ammassari does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Italy will have its first woman prime minister. And both Italy and Western Europe will have their first far-right majority government since the fall of Mussolini and the end of the Second World War.Sofia Ammassari, PhD researcher, Griffith UniversityDuncan McDonnell, Professor of Politics, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/922712018-03-05T05:37:55Z2018-03-05T05:37:55ZIn Italy, fake news helps populists and far-right triumph<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208841/original/file-20180305-65525-bmae1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Silvio Berlusconi, left, arrives to vote as a bare-breasted woman protests in background</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Luca Bruno</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Although there were no outright winners in Italy’s parliamentary election on March 4, there were two clear losers – the European Union and immigrants.</p>
<p>No one party or coalition won a majority and negotiations to form a new government are likely to last several weeks. But results have shown a dramatic increase in the number of votes for the populist Five Star Movement (Movimento Cinque Stelle) and far-right party the League (La Lega).</p>
<p>Five Star – which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/14/opinion/from-sicily-a-voice-of-discontent-to-scare-all-italy.html">one commentator</a> described as a party with a “rightist façade over a leftist basement and anarchic roof” – is poised to be the biggest party with more than 30 percent of the vote. The League, an anti-immigrant party in former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s coalition, soared to its best result ever with over 18 percent of the vote.</p>
<p>These results will alarm European observers given the anti-EU positions of both these groups. Nationalist French politician Marine Le Pen <a href="https://twitter.com/MLP_officiel/status/970424528995266560">tweeted</a> as the votes came in that it was a “bad night” for the EU.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"970424528995266560"}"></div></p>
<p>I research how <a href="https://scholar.google.co.jp/citations?user=fkFHJ3gAAAAJ&hl=en">citizens in different countries use online tools</a>, particularly search engines, to access election information. One thing is clear to me: The rise of these populist and far-right parties was supported by dramatic shifts in the information diet of Italian voters. </p>
<h2>Cutting out traditional media</h2>
<p><a href="https://filippotrevisan.net/2018/03/01/new-book-chapter-mapping-the-search-agenda-election-case-studies-from-italy-the-uk-and-the-u-s/">A study I co-authored</a> shortly after the Italian election in 2013 showed that even then voters were keen on alternative online information sources. In particular, voters searching the internet for information about the Five Star Movement were more likely to look specifically for the party’s official website and online streaming channel instead of traditional media sites. </p>
<p>These <a href="http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/5237/4157">trends</a>, combined with Italians’ <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Digital%20News%20Report%202017%20web_0.pdf?utm_source=digitalnewsreport.org&utm_medium=referral">low levels of trust in media organizations</a>, have made Italy fertile ground for spreading misinformation and propaganda online. </p>
<p>In the last five years, online alternative media platforms and their audience have grown exponentially in Italy. At the end of 2017, BuzzFeed <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertonardelli/one-of-the-biggest-alternative-media-networks-in-italy-is?utm_term=.qlGOVlpRk#.mu5yLXRWM">exposed</a> several popular Italian websites and Facebook pages that posed as news organizations but trafficked in misinformation with a focus on anti-immigration content. These outlets had several million social media followers. That is substantially more than Italian newspapers and political leaders who <a href="http://www.repubblica.it/speciali/politica/elezioni2018/2018/02/19/news/twitter_follower_leader_politici_umani_attivi_inattivi_fake-189182576/#gallery-slider=189170913">typically attract modest numbers of followers</a>. For example, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni has only 410,000 Twitter followers. Compare that to U.S. President Donald Trump with more than 48 million.</p>
<p>The appetite for this type of content increased as immigration became the central theme of the 2018 election campaign. In the lead up to the elections, Five Star’s leader Luigi Di Maio described organizations involved in migrant rescue operations as acting as “<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.it/2018/01/30/quando-luigi-di-maio-disse-che-le-ong-sono-taxi-del-mare-la-polemica-con-saviano_a_23347869/">sea taxis</a>,” implicitly accusing them of ferrying illegal migrants across the Mediterranean to generate more business for themselves. Meanwhile, the League’s leader Matteo Salvini campaigned on an <a href="http://www.rainews.it/dl/rainews/articoli/Salvini-come-Trump-Lo-slogan-prima-gli-italiani-bec239ea-66ec-4fc7-9f01-44dbfe6160b4.html?refresh_ce">“Italians First”</a> platform reminiscent of Donald Trump’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-america-first-echoes-from-1940s-59579">“America First”</a> mantra. In February, a neo-Nazi and former local candidate for the League went on a racially motivated shooting spree that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/03/driver-opens-fire-african-migrants-italian-city-macerata">wounded six African migrants</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208848/original/file-20180305-65547-17yqbyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208848/original/file-20180305-65547-17yqbyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208848/original/file-20180305-65547-17yqbyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208848/original/file-20180305-65547-17yqbyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208848/original/file-20180305-65547-17yqbyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208848/original/file-20180305-65547-17yqbyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208848/original/file-20180305-65547-17yqbyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208848/original/file-20180305-65547-17yqbyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">League party leader, Matteo Salvini, exits a voting booth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Antonio Calanni</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The specter of Russian meddling</h2>
<p>International experts and Italian government officials also pointed at Russian attempts to influence the Italian vote. </p>
<p>Last month, the <a href="http://www.lastampa.it/2018/02/17/esteri/lastampa-in-english/how-russian-twitter-accounts-are-trying-to-influence-the-italian-vote-3lK1heJxAe71xmjXPsvrXO/pagina.html">Italian daily La Stampa</a> identified several prolific Twitter accounts suspected as being used for Russian propaganda operations in Italy. In <a href="http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/publications/reports/the-kremlin-s-trojan-horses-2-0">a report published last fall</a>, the Atlantic Council, an American think tank, documented extensive links between Russian figures and both the Five Star Movement and the League. </p>
<p>Both these parties have pro-Russia policies. For example, their leaders have often spoken out against EU-sanctions on Russia. They have also expressed ambiguity towards NATO. Both candidates have received space on Kremlin-backed media such as the television network RT and news agency Sputnik. In addition, popular news websites controlled by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/world/europe/italy-election-davide-casaleggio-five-star.html">the PR agency in charge of Five Star’s election campaign</a> have posted content espousing Kremlin propaganda.</p>
<h2>A broken media system</h2>
<p>The problem is not simply that misinformation is readily available online, but also that a large proportion of Italians <a href="http://www.lastampa.it/2018/02/05/italia/politica/le-fake-news-rischiano-di-condizionare-il-voto-tre-italiani-su-dieci-ci-credono-8CRt10HpIVq6drx5kiButI/pagina.html">find this content credible</a>.</p>
<p>In Italy, the line between politics and journalism is often blurred. Many journalists have made the transition to politicians and vice versa. Most recently, a top editor at La Repubblica - Italy’s most read newspaper - resigned to <a href="http://www.repubblica.it/politica/2018/01/26/news/tommaso_cerno_candidato-187327651/">stand in the election as a Democratic Party candidate</a>. The word “lottizzazione” – literally, “the division of land into plots” – is used to describe how control over various public TV and radio channels are divided by powerful political parties. </p>
<p>The commercial broadcasting sector isn’t much better. Ownership is concentrated in just a few hands, most notably those of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.</p>
<p>Berlusconi has for years sought to delegitimize the press outside of his media empire. He has called out journalists critical of his tenure as prime minister. Infamously, <a href="http://www.lastampa.it/2008/04/18/esteri/gaffe-di-berlusconi-che-mima-il-mitra-putin-s-mi-piaccioni-le-belle-donne-HjmvgV2CFmAdtSuVTMlc1M/pagina.html">he mimed shooting a machine gun</a> at a journalist during a press conference with Vladimir Putin in 2008.</p>
<p>Grillo has adopted similar rhetoric. He <a href="http://video.corriere.it/beppe-grillo-contro-giornalisti-vi-mangerei-il-gusto-vomitarvi/be9643fc-9d2f-11e7-bc32-abadbc125b15">relentlessly attacks journalists</a> as establishment crooks and encourages Five Star supporters to distrust Italian media.</p>
<h2>Restoring trust in journalism</h2>
<p>As Italian parties begin negotiations over who will be the next prime minister, these factors have created the conditions for online misinformation to continue to thrive. Both Facebook and the Italian police <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/02/19/in-the-war-against-election-meddling-italy-takes-the-lead/?utm_term=.198f86e71046">are experimenting</a> with systems to eradicate bots and report purveyors of fake news. I believe these complex measures can help. However, long-term efforts to restore trust in journalism among Italian audiences are also essential.</p>
<p>This will involve strengthening media literacy skills, boosting the independence of the public broadcasting sector, and possibly reorganizing media ownership so that it is not as tightly concentrated. Without this ambitious set of measures, online misinformation and propaganda are unlikely to go out of fashion in Italy anytime soon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92271/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Filippo Trevisan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Together, two parties with a tough stance on immigration and the EU – the Five Star Movement and the League – received nearly 50 percent of the vote.Filippo Trevisan, Assistant Professor, American University School of CommunicationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/924572018-02-27T11:56:54Z2018-02-27T11:56:54ZSilvio Berlusconi: what to expect from the comeback king in Italy’s election<p>When he was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/08/silvio-berlusconi-to-resign-italy">booted out of office</a> in 2011, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/silvio-berlusconi-1142">Silvio Berlusconi’s</a> political career appeared to enter a new, and seemingly final, phase. He was occupied less frequently in setting the political agenda than in reacting to agendas set by others. He was already elderly and support for his Forza Italia (FI) dwindled as the “anti-establishment” mantle was assumed by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-italys-five-star-movement-69596">Five Star Movement</a> (M5s). Then, at the end of 2013, he was expelled from the Senate and banned from holding public office following a conviction for tax fraud.</p>
<p>Resigned to the fringes, Berlusconi’s role as the driving force in Italian politics was, until the end of 2016, assumed by the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) leader Matteo Renzi, with his constitutional reform agenda. But since then, his fortunes appear to have revived somewhat. So, with an <a href="https://theconversation.com/italy-election-how-populist-five-star-movement-is-wrecking-government-hopes-for-the-mainstream-92141">election</a> coming, is he about to make a political comeback?</p>
<p>On the one hand, support for his party remains well below the levels seen in the past. Before the pre-election ban on the publication of poll results kicked in, it stood at 16.1%, which means Berlusconi continues to have to vie with the 44-year-old <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-election-league/league-leader-pledges-to-put-italians-first-as-election-campaign-intensifies-idUSKCN1G80O2">Matteo Salvini</a> for leadership of the centre right. Salvini has succeeded in transforming the Northern League from a regional-autonomy party into a national populist force.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the rivalry between the two has become less arduous in recent months as polling results have seen Berlusconi’s party’s numbers slowly rise and place him, once again, in front of the League.</p>
<p>Whatever the outcome of this election, Berlusconi cannot assume the role of prime minister because of his conviction. However, there is even a question mark over that because the law banning him from office applies to offences he committed before it was introduced in 2012. Berlusconi has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights arguing that the ruling contradicts the Italian Constitution, which provides that “no punishment may be inflicted except by virtue of a law in force at the time the offence was committed”. He also claims it contravenes a similar provision in the European Convention on Human Rights.</p>
<h2>The elder statesman</h2>
<p>The prospects of Berlusconi’s centre-right coalition emerging with an overall majority in this election look slim indeed. Given the <a href="https://theconversation.com/italy-election-how-populist-five-star-movement-is-wrecking-government-hopes-for-the-mainstream-92141">electoral system</a>, which distributes a third of the seats according to a first-past-the-post system, and given the showing of the M5s as a significant “third force”, the smart money is on none of the three main contenders emerging as an outright victor.</p>
<p>That said, Berlusconi has had a good campaign. He is clearly aware that, though he may no longer be at the centre of Italian politics, he might still act as kingmaker. Attempting to appeal to moderate voters put off by Salvini’s stridency, he has sought to project the image of a wise elder statesman who has turned his back on his flamboyant past. He has made pronouncements designed to reassure Brussels and the international financial markets.</p>
<p>It’s a far cry from the past. In 2002 he <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1744848.stm">lost his foreign minister</a> thanks to his attempts to capitalise on the initial stirrings of popular resentment about austerity, immigration and security, and to channel it in the direction of Brussels. But the transformation should not surprise – Berlusconi is a salesman, after all; campaigning is the activity at which he excels.</p>
<p>His coalition, as an electioneering entity, works very well. Its three main components each appeal to different varieties of more-or-less right-wing sentiment. So if he appeals to moderates, and Salvini to those with far-right, anti-immigrant views, his third ally, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/09/giorgia-meloni-brothers-of-italy-party-friendly-face-surging-far-right">Giorgia Meloni</a> and her Brothers of Italy, appeals to those for whom being on the right means a feeling of affinity with the ideals of national pride never entirely relinquished by the heirs of Mussolini. If the specific profile of each party potentially drives away voters, then the presence of one of the other two serves to reassure them and keep them on side.</p>
<p>And the barely hidden rivalry of the three putative allies has helped Berlusconi to keep his options open when it comes to the inter-party negotiations that will be needed to form a government after the election. If neither M5s, which is without allies, nor the centre left, which is hopelessly divided, have realistic prospects of forming the next government, then the only alternative will be a more-or-less grand coalition. As things currently stand, the most viable option for that appears to be one based on an arrangement between Forza Italia and the Democratic Party.</p>
<p>So as he continues to compete for an overall majority, Berlusconi is aware that in the event of failure, he might abandon his more extreme partners for an arrangement that would still place him close to the centre of power. Love him or loath him, then, his reputation as one of Europe’s most remarkable politicians of recent decades remains fully deserved.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92457/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Newell is a member of the UK Political Studies Association, the Universities and Colleges Union and the Labour Party. </span></em></p>He’s barred from public office but this former prime minister isn’t going to be held back by the small matter of a conviction for tax evasion.James Newell, Professor of Politics, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/921412018-02-23T13:28:40Z2018-02-23T13:28:40ZItaly election: how populist Five Star Movement is wrecking government hopes for the mainstream<p>Italy faces an election on March 4 – and, after a long decade of austerity and economic difficulties, a strong possibility of further political paralysis. Neither the centre-left, the centre-right, or the populists are likely to command a majority in parliament. Establishing a functioning government won’t be easy, and its make-up will depend on which parties are prepared to put aside their differences and form an alliance.</p>
<p>The populist <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-italys-five-star-movement-69596">Five Star Movement</a> (M5S) exploded onto the electoral scene in the 2013 general election, arresting the see-saw alternation between centre-left and centre-right majority governments that had been tentatively established in the 1990s. The vote produced a hung parliament, forcing the two traditional parties to work together in a centrist “grand coalition” to keep M5S out of office.</p>
<p>Now, M5S, <a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-an-election-in-italy-next-year-and-m5s-has-some-familiar-problems-85492">despite recent allegations of corruption</a>, is even stronger. It’s likely to emerge from this election as the <a href="https://www.termometropolitico.it/1289058_sondaggi-elettorali-demopolis-6.html">largest party</a>. But it looks unlikely to secure enough of a majority to govern alone and it continues to refuse to form coalitions with other parties.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207275/original/file-20180221-132650-25c0wy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207275/original/file-20180221-132650-25c0wy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=134&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207275/original/file-20180221-132650-25c0wy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=134&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207275/original/file-20180221-132650-25c0wy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=134&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207275/original/file-20180221-132650-25c0wy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=168&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207275/original/file-20180221-132650-25c0wy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=168&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207275/original/file-20180221-132650-25c0wy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=168&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Statistics from the February 16 Demos opinion poll, organised by party and political spectrum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A collapse in support of the two pivotal parties of the centre-left and centre-right means that neither look likely to be able to form a government either. The Democratic Party under former prime minister Matteo Renzi has sunk from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_general_election,_2013">25% of the vote</a> in 2013 (and an astounding 40.8% of the vote in the 2014 European elections) to 21.9% in polls today. Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, on the centre right, has collapsed from 21.5% in 2013 to 16.3% today. Both parties are suffering from <a href="https://theconversation.com/matteo-renzi-just-killed-off-italys-centre-left-73492">splits and fragmentation</a>, which have weakened the coalitions they lead.</p>
<h2>A new system</h2>
<p>Faced with this decline, it’s not surprising that, in 2017, Renzi and Berlusconi brought the combined parliamentary strength of their parties together to pass an electoral reform that seemed designed to offset M5S’s electoral popularity by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/20/italian-pm-renzi-electoral-reform-m5s">limiting its seat gains</a>.</p>
<p>The new electoral system (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_electoral_law_of_2017">the rosatellum</a> – after Ettore Rosato, the Democratic leader in the Chamber of Deputies who first proposed the new law) is a “mixed” system (part “first-past-the-post” and part proportional). It favours those parties willing to ally together behind single candidates to prevent splitting their vote. It also gives an advantage to those parties that are territorially concentrated, such as the Democratic Party (in the central regions) and the Northern League (in the north). M5S, which opposed the electoral reform, has no natural coalition allies and does not yet have a strong presence at local or regional levels.</p>
<p>This electoral engineering will nevertheless come at a cost. It increases the likelihood that none of the parties or coalitions will reach the 40% threshold of the vote that is likely to be necessary to secure a parliamentary majority. This has resulted in a feverish election campaign, dominated – not by debates about policies – but by speculation over possible post-election coalitions. Even an anti-establishment M5S-Northern League alliance is being touted as a possibility.</p>
<p>All of this matters not just to Italy but to Europe. A decade after the eurozone crisis began, the Italian economy is still in recovery. Its sheer size and significance to the eurozone remains a concern to the European Union, which has demanded greater fiscal discipline and reforms to encourage growth and improve productivity. That needs effective government – and one supportive of the EU.</p>
<p>Yet, there is a rising tide of eurosceptism in Italy, fuelled by M5S and years of perceived EU-imposed austerity. Forza Italia, the Northern League and M5S have all toyed with the idea of withdrawing Italy from the euro, meaning only the Democratic Party has unequivocal pro-euro credentials. Yet, even under prime ministers from that party (Matteo Renzi, Paolo Gentiloni), the Italy-EU relationship has become testy and fractious. Governments have become less willing to be the “good European” if it is seen to involve imposing more austerity on an unwilling population.</p>
<p>Overall, the state of play makes for a potent mix. The 2013 parliamentary and presidential elections produced a “perfect storm” and Italy ended up, for some time, without a prime minister, government or president. This time, fortunately, the president is not up for election – and it will be his responsibility to appoint a prime minister capable of governing with a parliamentary majority. The road ahead is however still fraught with uncertainty.</p>
<p>The new electoral system increases the importance of post-election manoeuvring by the parties, and will determine whether a repeat grand coalition government is needed (and possible) to keep out the extremes, or whether Italy will take a step into the unknown with some kind of anti-EU populist governing alliance. Europe will be watching closely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92141/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin J Bull does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Italy’s political future hangs in the balance – will it see another chaotic grand coalition, or take an anti-EU populist step into the unknown?Martin J Bull, Professor of Politics, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/699192016-12-05T13:34:52Z2016-12-05T13:34:52ZItaly’s ‘no’ vote lights another fire under the European Union<p>How to interpret the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/04/matteo-renzis-future-in-the-balance-amid-high-turnout-in-italy-referendum">outcome</a> of the Italian referendum? Matteo Renzi’s government is clearly the loser – and the prime minister announced his widely expected resignation as soon as the result was in. </p>
<p>The proposed constitutional reform would have given much more power to Renzi by taking it away from the Italian Senate. It was part of a wider package of <a href="http://www.governo.it/approfondimento/1000-giorni-di-governo-renzi/6160">political reforms</a> pushed by his government which can be summed up as the idea that Italy needed to be “unlocked”. The constitutional changes were presented as consolidating this new trajectory, together with a new <a href="https://www.quora.com/Italy-What-is-the-Italicum">electoral law</a> designed to underpin the reformed constitution. The referendum confirmed that 59.1% of voters had other ideas. </p>
<p>Renzi’s government was initially wildly popular but lost support as it became clearer over nearly three years in power that the material conditions of large sections of the population were not progressing but stagnating or, in some cases, getting worse. </p>
<p>Constitutional matters in Italy have traditionally been kept separate from ordinary politics, but not on this occasion. Because the government drafted and submitted the reform proposals rather than the parliament, and Renzi <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/17/matteo-renzi-repeats-vow-quit-italian-pm-loses-referendum">said</a> that he would resign if he lost, it became a vote on the government’s policies – and of course its leader. </p>
<h2>Winners and losers</h2>
<p>For weeks, the prospect of a defeat for the government has been framed as another reaction against the establishment – hardly surprising in the context of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president">Trump</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32810887">Brexit</a> and other populist movements toppling centrists around the world. </p>
<p>Such a reading might be supported by a quick look at some of the components behind the No campaign. The <a href="http://www.politico.eu/article/italys-other-matteo-salvini-northern-league-politicians-media-effettosalvini/">Northern League</a> and Beppe Grillo’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-italys-five-star-movement-69596">Five Star Movement</a> represent two rather different types of right-wing politics that are prone to frame their messages in a populist way – albeit Five Star is the only one that fully fits the anti-establishment archetype seen in other countries. Yet while the government was clearly the political subject behind the proposed constitutional reform, there was no overarching narrative behind the No campaign. </p>
<p>It was an aggregation of different political and social actors, from mainstream right-wing parties to trade unions and civil society associations. They did not form a coalition or attempt to coordinate their efforts, and for obvious reasons they represented very different parts of society. Revealingly, no new movement, political subject or leader emerged out of the contest. </p>
<p>You also need to look at the <a href="http://www.repubblica.it/static/speciale/2016/referendum/costituzionale/mondo.html">distribution</a> of the vote. As in other countries, we can probably point to a disenfranchised group – though it’s less about class in Italy. We don’t have definitive data on how age affected the voting, but <a href="http://www.rainews.it/dl/rainews/media/I-giovani-e-il-Sud-hanno-bocciato-la-riforma-di-Renzi-la-prima-analisi-dei-risultati-del-referendum-0ebc5b75-8d09-4456-be52-7b52c954d41c.html#foto-2">surveys</a> ahead of the vote indicated that the over 65s were the only group backing Yes; while support for No was strongest among the under 35s. </p>
<p>Given that youth unemployment in Italy is <a href="http://www.tradingeconomics.com/italy/youth-unemployment-rate">dramatically high</a> and the material conditions of younger people are deteriorating, the clear message is that Renzi’s reform package was not seen as addressing this group’s problems. </p>
<p>On the other hand, it is interesting to note that the division between centre and periphery, urban and rural areas, which played a major role both in Brexit and in the election of Trump, does not explain what has happened in Italy. On the contrary, the No vote seems to have prevailed almost everywhere except in the regions of Tuscany and Emilia Romagna, the historic strongholds of Renzi’s Democratic Party. In many ways, then, this was a traditional rejection of an unpopular government. </p>
<h2>Italy and the EU</h2>
<p>The most likely immediate scenario following Renzi’s resignation is that a new government will be formed, led by the Democratic Party under a new leader. It will presumably approve the new electoral law and enact some of the bills behind Renzi’s political programme, and could in theory hold power until the current parliamentary term ends in February 2018. </p>
<p>It might well be that this new government will make anti-EU feeling even stronger. The likes of the Five Star Movement have understood how to capitalise on the growing tendency in this previously pro-European country to blame the EU for austerity and society’s ills. Of course, their chances of winning the next general election depends on how the next government reforms the electoral laws: ironically, the changes that Renzi was proposing would have favoured the Five Star Movement. No one, at this stage, can predict what the next electoral reform will look like. </p>
<p>From this vantage point, however, there is certainly a good chance that Italy is heading for a similar protectionist shift of the kind that looks likely to happen in the US next year. Some financial analysts <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/04/renzi-battle-survival-italians-go-polls-vote-seen-referendum/">are already</a> seeing the vote as the first step towards an Italian departure from the eurozone. </p>
<p>So while it is too simple to say that events in Italy exactly fit those in other countries, the outcome might well end up comparable. As if the EU did not have enough to worry about with Brexit, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-marine-le-pen-could-become-the-next-french-president-68765">Le Pen</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/31/geert-wilders-trial-throws-netherlands-divisions-in-sharp-relief">Wilders</a> and so on, this is one more crisis that it really could do without.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69919/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marco Goldoni does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The revolt that brought down Matteo Renzi is no carbon copy of Trump et al, but that won’t be of much comfort to Brussels.Marco Goldoni, Senior Lecturer, Law, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/257692014-04-18T05:24:54Z2014-04-18T05:24:54ZEurope’s elites are more like Berlusconi than you think<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46713/original/bjh6t3ht-1397753309.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bribe me Berly one more time!</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://images.pressassociation.com/meta/2.10842510.html">Chris Ratcliffe/PA</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Silvio Berlusconi has finally learned the outcome of being <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20102215">found guilty</a> of tax fraud last May. He was originally sentenced to four years in prison, but Italian law prevents over-70s from doing prison time, while a rule he passed himself saw three of those years waived anyway. The 77-year-old former prime minister was <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/15/silvio-berlusconi-community-service-sentence-tax-fraud">sentenced to half a day a week of community service for one year</a> and banned from running for public office for two years. </p>
<p>This is the first time Berlusconi has been sentenced in Italy’s highest court, the Court of Cassation. <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/27/us-italy-berlusconi-trials-factbox-idUSBRE9AQ15R20131127">Plenty of other court cases</a> have found him guilty only to fall foul of statutes of limitations, amnesties, annulments on technicalities, or changes in the law made by Berlusconi himself. Only in a handful of cases has he been acquitted.</p>
<p>The very foundations of Berlusconi’s political project are dubious at best. For a start, he should not have been allowed to run for office: a 1957 law rules out those in receipt of state contracts from running for public offices that might conflict with their private interests. Despite his longstanding control over large parts of Italian broadcasting, this law was never applied.</p>
<h2>With friends like these</h2>
<p>The other two founders of Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party – his right-hand men, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/silvio-berlusconis-messenger-to-the-mafia-marcello-dellutri-seized-in-beirut-after-going-on-the-run-9257794.html">Marcello Dell’Utri</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Previti">Cesare Previti</a> – have been tainted by corruption and/or connections with organised crime. </p>
<p>Cesare Previti has twice been found guilty of corruption involving business deals in Berlusconi’s favour, and has been permanently banned from public office. </p>
<p>Days before a Cassation Court ruling on whether he was guilty of acting as a Cosa Nostra bridge man with the political class, Marcello Dell’Utri fled to Beirut for medical treatment. His party claimed he was on a diplomatic mission, sent with Vladimir Putin’s blessing to attempt to smooth Lebanon’s fractious politics by speaking to President Gemayel. Unfortunately for him, Gemayel denied all knowledge of Dell’Utri. He was declared a fugitive and arrested pending extradition.</p>
<p>Berlusconi himself was a member of the <a href="http://martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/p2notes.html">masonic lodge Propaganda Due</a> (P2) which aimed to subvert Italian democracy in the 1970s. It counted politicians, military men, businessmen and mafiosi amongst its members. Its discovery in 1981 prompted the government’s resignation. For years Berlusconi employed as a stable hand notorious <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/when-mafia-bosses-dine-it-can-only-mean-trouble-a-decapitated-cosa-nostra-is-reorganising-itself--over-banquets-9053701.html">Cosa Nostra</a> killer Salvatore Mangano.</p>
<h2>Roll up for a pizza the action!</h2>
<p>With the exception of the <a href="http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2013/no-1305-may-2013/italys-new-brand-5-star-movement">Five Star Movement (M5S)</a>, this theatre of the absurd around Berlusconi’s latest court appearance has passed yet again virtually without comment by Italy’s major political players. Berlusconi may be weakened, but he remains a crucial supporter of <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21600720-matteo-renzi-may-have-fight-and-borrow-more-realise-his-bold-agenda-last-chance">Italy’s new government</a>.</p>
<p>Abroad, Italian politics is often seen as a kind of circus show, a playground for corruption and organised crime, or simply the result of a culture of acceptance. Between Berlusconi’s <a href="http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/world_news/Europe/article1367543.ece">sexual antics</a> and cases of illegality such as those outlined above, it is easy to see why.</p>
<p>But it would be a mistake to dismiss Italian politics as an aberration. The rise of the Five Star Movement to become Italy’s largest single political group demonstrates that there is nothing inevitable about this state of affairs. Railing against corruption in public life, the M5S <a href="http://themonkeycage.org/2013/02/28/the-italian-general-election-of-february-2013-deadlock-after-technocracy/">was beaten</a> to a parliamentary majority by a handful of votes at last year’s general election. This was only thanks to the centre-left and Berlusconi’s minuscule coalition partners. </p>
<p>So what keeps this Italian political caste together? The lack of pressure from abroad, particularly from the EU, has bolstered the political elites’ credibility. Within Italy, the political elites have a shared responsibility in plundering national resources for their own political and personal advantage. Such politicians can be blackmailed. This threat of “mutual assured destruction” has been used to explain the solidarity that centre-left governments have shown their supposed political opponents.</p>
<h2>Made in Italy</h2>
<p>The net result of this intolerance towards the rules of the state is that Italy has corruption <a href="http://www.gazzettadelsud.it/news/english/78493/Corruption-worth-60bn-euros-in-Italy--half-of-EU-total.html">conservatively valued</a> at an annual €60 billion, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21064030">tax fraud</a> at €120bn, and <a href="http://euobserver.com/justice/115572">organised crime</a> worth €150bn. Italy’s richest citizens are meanwhile <a href="http://www.opendemocracy.net/andrea-teti/while-rome-was-burning-berlusconi-and-politics-of-italy%E2%80%99s-patronage">estimated to have hidden</a> about €160bn in tax havens. </p>
<p>Former head of the Bank of Italy and current ECB director Mario Draghi <a href="http://weavenews.org/node/1543">called tax evasion</a> “social butchery” because it shifted the burden of payment onto the poor and vulnerable. If this is true, Italy’s political class has spent the past two decades sharpening the knife.</p>
<p>Following the economic crisis, Italy’s <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/04/anti-austerity-protest-italy-turns-violent-20144122357869885.html">austerity programme</a> is among the toughest in Europe. Large swathes of the population languish between unemployment, underemployment, increasingly precarious working conditions, low wages, and vanishing welfare support. </p>
<p>The deeper problem is neither Berlusconi nor even Italy: it is that Italy is far from unusual in contemporary Europe. Seemingly untouchable elites and complacent international counterparts fail to address growing wealth inequality and the perception of increasingly unrepresentative politicians. This is a very dangerous mix. Italy, Greece and Spain are merely the front line, and Berlusconi just its most obvious symptom.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25769/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Teti is affiliated with the European Centre for International Affairs, a Brussels-based think tank.</span></em></p>Silvio Berlusconi has finally learned the outcome of being found guilty of tax fraud last May. He was originally sentenced to four years in prison, but Italian law prevents over-70s from doing prison time…Andrea Teti, Director, Centre for Global Security and Governance, University of AberdeenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.