Italy: Political History & Development
II. Risorgimento and
Unification
II. Mussolini
li i and
d
Fascism
III. Postwar
S ttl
Settlement
t
IV. ‘New’ Italian Politics
I Risorgimento and Unification
I.
y Risorgimento (National Resurgence)
y Unification
y Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont)
y King Victor Emmanuel II and
PM Count Camillo Cavour
y Giuseppi
Gi
i Garibaldi
G ib ldi
y Kingdom of Italy (1861)
y Venetia
V i added
dd d iin 1866
y Rome in in 1870
Garibaldi helps
Victor Emmanuel
take Italy
Process of Italian Unification
P bl
Problems
with
ith Lib
Liberall It
Italy
l
y Popular
p
Antipathy
p y and Resentment
y Monarchy disguised as popular democracy
y No economic reform
y Oligarchic Rule
y Minimal franchise
y Church Resistance
y Non expedit decree (noncooperation decree) forbid
Catholics from participating in Italian politics
Mussolini and Fascism, 1922-1943
y ‘Black shirts’ and March on Rome (1922)
y Italian Fascism:
y Anti-Democratic
y Extreme Nationalist
y Expansionist
E
i i (E
(Ethiopia
hi i 1936)
y Differences from Nazis
y Concordat with Church (1929)
y Axis Power and World War II:
y Defeat in North Africa
‘il Duce’ and Der Fuhrer
y Allied Invasion (1943)
y Mussolini Deposed; Italy Surrenders (1943)
y Germany
G
Occupies
O
i Northern
N th It
Italy
l (1943-45)
(1943 45)
III. The Postwar Settlement
y Legacies of Fascism
y Fear of Communism
y 1946 Election: Monarchy Abolished; Republic
Declared
y 1948 Parliamentary Elections
y American and Vatican support for DC
y Political stagnation and economic revival
y Opening
p
g to the Left in Earlyy 1960s
y DC/PSI Coalition Governments
y ‘Instability’
Instability in Italian Politics
IV ‘New’
IV.
New Italian Politics
y Communism and extremism in the 1970s
y ‘Red Brigade’ assassinates former PM Aldo
Moro (1978)
y Collapse
C ll
off DC/PSI ‘Old O
Order’
d ’
y Tangentopli (‘Bribesville’)
y Rise of new parties (e.g.,
(e g Lega Nord [Northern
League])
y Reform of electoral system
y
y The move away from proportional representation
(1993)
y The move back to proportional representation
(2005)
The new face of
Italian politics