2. Alternative projects of nationhood

After the First World War, the country was torn apart by competing visions of what modern Italy should stand for and which values should bind Italians together. Against a background of high inflation, high unemployment, widespread social protests, soaring trade-union membership, and militancy, liberals, Catholics, socialists, nationalists, and fascists vied with each other for popular support. ‘Alternative projects of nationhood’ outlines Benito Mussolini’s fascist movement describing its failure as a totalitarian project. It then describes the rise and decline of the Christian democratic take on modern nationhood after the Second World War, before looking at the Second Republic’s modernization project epitomized by Silvio Berlusconi, which embraced consumerism and media culture.

3. Governing Italy

One strand of controversy and debate concerning Italy’s path to modernity has focused on its political system and style of government. In liberal Italy, there are two styles of governing: ruling with an iron fist at home and promoting an aggressive foreign and colonial policy; and governing by consensus through compromise with social forces and reliance on a parliamentary practice known as trasformismo (‘transformism’). ‘Governing Italy’ shows that these governing styles were replicated (and exacerbated) after the fall of the liberal state. It describes the origins of trasformismo, the breakdown of governance following World War I, the ‘blocked democracy’ of the Christian Democratic Party (1945–92), and Italy’s Second Republic.

Introduction

The ‘Introduction’ outlines the aims of this volume. It explores the country’s difficulties in developing and disseminating strong and credible national visions for a domestic and international audience, but also its extraordinary ability to seduce the world thanks to the ‘soft’ power of its culture and the ‘Made in Italy’ brand. It argues that its political class—with the exception of the fascist period—has tended to overcome internal divisions through ruling by consensus and relying on economic growth and prosperity to bind Italians together, explaining its current predicament. Finally, it probes the extent to which modernity still represents a shared vision among Italian intellectuals, political leaders and ordinary people.

Conclusion

Italy’s problematic relationship with the concept of modernity and process of modernization has often resulted in a lack of unitary purpose, at times descending into violent conflict. The ‘Conclusion’ explains that the years before and after the First World War saw the country torn between opposing modernizing projects, leading to the liberal regime’s demise. After the Second World War, when the country experienced rapid economic expansion and growing consumerism, internal divisions and controversies resulted in abundant creativity and inventiveness, albeit marred by political violence. In recent decades, Italy has been experiencing another critical historical juncture: the collapse of the First Republic, globalization, increasing flows of migration, and bewildering technological advances.

4. ‘Made in Italy’

Despite lacking raw materials and still being heavily dependent on agriculture in the early 20th century, Italy managed to become the fifth most industrialized economy in the world by the 1980s. The economic miracle of the 1960s, in particular, was accompanied by social phenomena typically associated with the process of modernization, including urbanization, the predominance of the nuclear family, mass consumerism, and mass transport based on private car ownership. Italian design became known the world over, combining creativity with craftsmanship. ‘Made in Italy’ describes early industrialization, the ‘golden age’ of the Italian economy, the slowdown and decline of the 1990s and early twenty-first century, and the recent economic fight back.

6. Italy’s ‘soft’ power

‘Italy’s “soft” power’ explores the various dimensions that make up Italy’s soft power, including art and architecture, cinema, literature, music, gastronomy, fashion, sport, diplomacy, and peacekeeping. It traces the rise of this power back to the intense creativity and innovativeness of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. This was the period when Italian art and design successfully sustained and blended with business entrepreneurship and consumerism. But by the 1980s, continuity appeared to trump innovation. With the advent of globalization Italy has struggled to regain its prestige at an international level and has had to undergo a process of renewal in almost every branch of productive activity.

5. Emigration, immigration, and citizenship

‘Emigration, immigration, and citizenship’ describes how modern Italy has been characterized by mass emigration. In 1861-1990 over twenty-eight million Italians left their country, mainly for economic reasons. In the 1970s, Italy became a country of immigration. In 1991-2015, the number of residents of non-Italian origin rose fivefold to just over five million. By then, immigration was considered a serious problem rather than having beneficial effects. Emigration and immigration have impacted on Italy’s approach to citizenship. Citizenship laws finally changed in 2015, but despite becoming an increasingly multi-ethnic country, Italy has found it difficult to acknowledge, represent, and give legal substance to this new reality.

1. Modernity and resurgence in the making of Italy

‘Modernity and resurgence in the making of Italy’ explains that the history of modern Italy has been characterized by recurrent cultural and political projects of modernity, rejuvenation, and regeneration. The Risorgimento (Resurgence), the movement leading to the Italian Unification in 1861, explicitly linked the quest for national unity to a process of moral regeneration and progress. Later forms of nationalism and the rise of fascism in the first two decades of the 20th century advocated a spiritual revolution and the molding of new Italians through war and violence as the only means of creating a modernized, but also spiritually reborn, nation at the forefront of a new European civilization.