For Italy, unprecedented mass migration in the late nineteenth century overshadowed the European Scramble for Africa. To secure Italy's place in the new imperial order, Francesco Crispi proposed to harness emigration for colonial expansion, by settling Italy's East African colonies with the surplus Italian population. Defeat at Adwa in 1896 shattered Crispi's project, and turned attention to colonial possibilities elsewhere. Luigi Einaudi and other Liberals trumpeted the value of Italian collectivities or colonie across the Atlantic, where Italy exerted only indirect influence. In theory, these ‘spontaneous colonies’ would boost the Italian economy at little expense. Italian colonialist societies turned from Africa to the Americas, working to make Italian migration more prestigious, successful and profitable. After 1908, however, Enrico Corradini and the Italian Nationalists mocked these initiatives, and called upon the Italian state to return to traditional imperialism in Africa.

In the essay, ‘Of Other Spaces’, Michel Foucault contends that every society constructs sites which can be defined as effectively enacted utopias (heterotopias), sites where social policies are articulated and where ideals of social ordering are physically performed. The article examines how a number of places in Fascist Italy, which conformed entirely to the principles of the heterotopia that Foucault sets out, were perceived by a selection of prominent writers and journalists. It examines the recorded journeys to the cemeteries of the First World War, to various renovated prisons within Italy and finally to the new towns south of Rome. It explores the kind of mental and physical sensations which the different writers evoked as well as examining the ways in which their written accounts of their imaginative experiences interacted with the myths of identity and social control which were central to Fascist ideology.

This article considers the systemic effects of the electoral reform approved by the centre-right in December 2005, and the factors that led to the crisis of the Prodi government, highlighting the way in which the issue of electoral reform and the likelihood of an electoral referendum contributed decisively to the breakdown of the fragile coalition maintaining the Prodi government in office. The article then analyses the ‘game’ surrounding possible electoral reforms, examining the interweaving of the preferences and vetoes of the various political actors, showing how these were influenced by the strategic aims of each actor and by the process of re-structuring of the party system. Finally, the new configuration of the political supply as it took shape in the run up to the 2008 general election is analysed, showing how this new format derives from the actors’ strategic adaptation to the electoral rules in force, and how the election may signal the end of a period of Italian politics marked by ‘fragmented bipolarity’.

In this paper, the author proposes an analysis of the apparently contradictory attitudes towards transactional sexual exchanges, as they have emerged in public debate and informed legislation and policies in Italy over the past few years. The ambiguity towards commercial sex is linked to a specific dynamic of power, which denies sexual labour the status of work and makes it the object of repressive and criminalising policies, whilst at the same time habitually demanding sexual services in exchange for money, gifts or favours. The article shows how criminalisation functions as a prominent form for the control of subjects, related to the workings of sovereignty. In particular, the author considers the ways in which the criminalisation of prostitution and of undocumented migration, which compound in the figure of the migrant prostitute, represents a means for the exertion of sovereignty and relates to the centrality of desire, transgression and their disciplining in the contemporary context. However, closer examination of the subjective experiences of those who are supposedly excluded and criminalised, such as undocumented migrant sex workers in detention centres, reveals the incompleteness of disciplinary mechanisms.

This article examines the meaning of monuments in Italy and the United States (Chicago) dedicated to the Fascist gerarch Italo Balbo. A hugely popular personality in Fascist Italy, Balbo cemented his reputation in the early 1930s as the commander of mass-formation transatlantic flights to Brazil (1930-1931) and the United States (1933). Chicago’s monuments – a road (Balbo Drive) and a column (the ‘Balbo monument’) – are a legacy of Balbo’s triumphant arrival in the city in 1933. Italy’s monuments date from the postwar and contemporary periods. The article examines why Balbo Drive and the Balbo monument in Chicago have become more controversial over time, especially in recent decades, and why, despite calls for their removal, both remain. It contrasts the Chicago case with the situation in Italy where, since the 1990s, Balbo has been commemorated in numerous ways.

As urbanisation has come to characterise contemporary societies, large cities have become quite ambivalent places for the human species: they are removing the human body from its perceived natural condition, while increasingly attempting to provide a cure for the ills of a sedentary life. Fitness gyms are presented as the ‘natural' solution to our ‘unnatural' lifestyle as urban dwellers and as a therapeutic fix to the ills of metropolitan living. This paper deploys a mix of qualitative methods (ethnographic observation, interviews and discourse analysis) to explore fitness culture as an urban phenomenon. Using data from Italy and the UK, it develops a micro-sociology of the spatiality of the gym that helps to approach this institution from within, deconstructing those claims which contribute to its cultural location as a key ingredient in contemporary urban lifestyles. The paper first looks at how fitness culture is negotiated through the marshalling of structured variety within the spatiality and temporality of gyms. It then explores the specificity of fitness as urban, instrumental leisure as compared with other forms of active recreation or sports available in urban contexts. It finally considers, on the one hand, the way in which fitness activities are continuously renovated, drawing on the fields of both sport and popular culture and, on the other, the kind of subjectivity and embodiment that fitness culture normatively sustains.

This article explores the encounter between parkour as an unstructured and culturally innovative practice, challenging both physical as well as organisational spaces, and UISP (Unione Italiana Sport per Tutti/Italian Union of Sport for All) as a sport-promotion body open to organisational and cultural experimentation. Drawing on a multi-method qualitative approach (analysis of documentary material, interviews and focus groups), it looks at the role of UISP in the diffusion and legitimisation of parkour within the Italian context, investigating the interplay between the cultural and organisational logics of both this new practice itself on the one hand, and the organisations that are trying to accommodate it on the other. The incorporation in a sport-for-all organisation like UISP provides traceurs with a safe and legitimised space, which is, however, ‘loose' enough to maintain the fluidity of the practice. Nonetheless, by enabling the coexistence of different and competing definitions and uses of parkour, this fluid organisational space reproduces tensions among traceurs and weakens their voice in UISP's decision-making processes.

The Resistance at the root of Italian democracy is still the object of political and often controversial debate, 60 years on. This is related to the various phases of political development in Italy: from the early post-war years, characterized by the conflict associated with the ideological clashes of the Cold War, to the 1960s and 1970s, afflicted by terrorism, to the fall of the Berlin Wall and then to the collapse of the party system. Diverse, sometimes conflicting memories of the Resistance have emerged, linked not only to the numerous forms characterizing the struggle against Nazi–Fascism, but also to the varying motives, ideals and politics which animated fighters on both sides. With the new bipolar political system and the rise of the Right, the Resistance has returned to being one of the most prominent features of political controversy. This manifests itself in editorial strategies and extensive media operations in which memories representing those people who are opposed to the ideals of the Resistance seem to have the upper hand.

The international role and status of Italy among international powers has been an issue of debate in both the political and the academic context. What has never been systematically investigated is the way in which other powers with which Italy interacts in institutional contexts perceive Italy and its international role. It is the aim of this special issue to provide an overview of how Italy is perceived abroad. This introduction explains why it is worth looking at international images of Italy, and sums up the findings of the research project.

The article presents the results of a research group which has, over the last few years, carried out a careful contextualization of the massacres of civilians in four Italian regions (Apulia, Campania, Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna) during World War II. The research enables us to go beyond references to the irrationality of evil, the unchangeable core of violence in human nature or terror as an end in itself, which do not contribute much to an analytical interpretation. The aim has been to place these massacres in a more precise historical context by reconstructing the power structures, the logic and the cultural conditioning which made them possible, the behaviour and aims of the various protagonists, the complex evolution of the survivors’ memories and the ways in which the community memory has been taken up, or expelled, by the anti-Fascist paradigm of Republican Italy.

This article focuses on the history and reception of the ex-Casa del Fascio in Predappio, from the end of the Second World War to the current plans for its restoration and reuse as a study centre and a museum of Fascism. Taking into account changes in legislative, political, and cultural contexts, the article proposes an approach to the legacy of Fascist architecture in Italy based not just on its ideological charge, but also on cultural and political shifts, changes in legislation, and the complex relationships between the bodies in charge of the preservation and management of public heritage. The recent plans put forward by the town administration to restore the building and turn it into a museum of Fascism have reopened the debate on the heritage of Fascism and the ex-Casa del Fascio has now become one of the most conspicuous emblems of Italy’s uneasy relationship with its Fascist past and of the problems of dealing with the material legacy of the Fascist regime.

In the twentieth century Italy has witnessed an unusual variety of charismatic political figures. Given the tradition of the Risorgimento and in particular the influence of Garibaldi, several of these donned the mantle of heroism. However, in modern conditions this heroism was largely a matter of showmanship. With the rise of mass communications, political leaders were compelled to reinvent the nature and forms of their appeal to the people and also to engage with the languages of popular entertainment. It is argued that cinema heralded a profound change in the nature of charisma and that television subsequently undermined it by rendering political leaders familiar and reducing the distance necessary for stage management.

Matteo Renzi’s eruption on to the Italian political scene is now overcoming the inertia of the Italian political system, with a highly personalised leadership style which is challenging the Democratic Party’s (Partito Democratico, PD) organisational model. Renzi’s great innovation on the Italian left is the enforcement of a post-ideological leadership which is able to attract wide support due to a vigorous style of communication and skill in the use of traditional and new media. This article analyses the rise of this new charismatic leadership and the way in which it challenged the traditional organisational model of the PD, and aims to identify the main elements that define it at national and party level.

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.

Studies on party institutionalisation commonly argue that parties with personalist leadership and weak organisation are unlikely to remain in power beyond leadership succession. In other words, these parties will rarely attain their own institutionalisation. From this perspective, the recent Italian political reality represents a conundrum. Three parties of this type – Northern League; Forza Italia; Italy of Values – confronted significant resignation issues concerning their leaders, but only the League, contrary to the theory, made a decisive step toward institutionalisation by removing its founding father and remaining an actor with national blackmail potential. This article addresses this challenge and provides a solution to this conundrum. In particular, the article demonstrates that an approach that considers both party factors and critical events is necessary to account fully for the variance of outcomes and, more generally, for party change.

The definitions of disability adopted in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) necessitate an important change in the way disability is assessed and introduce a new idea of justice in relation to persons with disabilities. The article starts by reviewing the various ‘models of disability’ prevailing in the past and the respective ideas of justice underlying them. The charity model, for instance, was rooted in ideas of divine justice and human beneficence, where care for the disabled led in practice to their being segregated from the rest of society, while the medical model saw justice in terms of treatments or compensations for individual pathologies rather than of positive enablement for active living. The CRPD overturns these models and the related conceptions of justice by emphasising society's obligations towards persons with disabilities and, above all, their human right to full inclusion and participation in society. The key concepts are empowerment and capability. In Italy these concepts and this new conception of justice have started to be applied by the Osservatorio nazionale sulla condizione delle persone con disabilità, the body created to monitor the effective application of the CRPD in Italy, and they are included in the two-year action programme on disability, approved by the Italian government in October 2013.

In spite of the great tradition in social movement studies, Italy completely lacks any contribution regarding animal advocacy from the point of view of political sociology. This is despite the fact that, as in the rest of Western societies, interest in the wellbeing, rights and status of non-human animals is growing. This can be seen both among the general population and in the very varied organised forms of welfare and activism. In this article, we will investigate this internal differentiation, starting from an initial stratification in welfare, protectionism and anti-speciesism, and focusing in particular on the following two aspects: ethical values; and political ‘careers’ and multi-membership affiliations. The investigation was accomplished by means of 20 semi-structured interviews and an online questionnaire answered by 704 volunteers and activists. The tripartition hypothesised was confirmed, although with a few exceptions: more progressive values emerged among anti-speciesists, and conservative positions among protectionists and welfarists, but the overall spectrum is characterised by utilitarian perspectives. Similarly, previous experience in the specific field of animal advocacy is typical of the protectionist area, while anti-speciesists also come from other opposition movements.

Italian football is renowned as much for the passion of its spectators as it is for the quality of its players, yet these spectators are understudied. Those studies that have been conducted have generally focused on the problems of violence and racism associated with some of the more extreme supporters, the so-called ultras. This paper aims to complement that research by analysing a different aspect of the passions of Italian spectators, namely the emotional ties they create with particular players upon whom they confer a special, hero-like status. Our interest lies not in questioning the legitimacy of this status, but rather in looking at what the history of these emotional attachments reveals of the football supporters themselves, and of their relationship to the football club they support. This paper focuses on the intense relationship supporters of Associazione Sportiva Roma have had with two key players: Agostino Di Bartolomei and Francesco Totti. Drawing on a large body of texts including graffiti, newspapers, talkback radio, popular accounts and internet fan forums, along with psychoanalysis and classical mythology, the authors trace the way each of these players was granted a specific heroic status that evolved and changed over time, and how the passions they provoked became part of the ever transforming culture and identity of Rome. In particular we explore how the tales and cultural texts devoted to football players can reveal something of the emotional worlds and experiences of a city's inhabitants, and the way local memories and identities are remembered, retold and forgotten through passionate engagement with the football players who represent them on the broader national and international stage.

World cultural heritage is under systemic attack on several crisis fronts, most notably in Mesopotamia, where ISIS is practising a deliberate and highly sophisticated strategy of ‘cultural cleansing’. Through its newly established Task Force, Italy is leading the international community’s efforts to strengthen the protection regime by including a cultural component in the mandates of peacekeeping interventions. The Italian contribution distinguishes itself, thanks to its capacities and capabilities, in fulfilling the military, police and cultural tasks of ‘cultural peacekeeping’ and in meeting the needs of the international intervention in the crucial entry and exit phases. Moreover, Italy’s commitment to protecting cultural heritage fits perfectly with the distinctive features of Italy’s international identity and role while at the same time serving the country’s national interests by increasing its standing and visibility in world affairs.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the evolution of the Italian public funding regime, in the light of the assumptions of the cartel party thesis. In the mid-1990s, the debate on party and party system change was revitalised by R. Katz and P. Mair (1995), who introduced the concept of the ‘cartel party’ as a means to study the increasing influence of the state on party politics. Among the main analytical dimensions of the cartel party argument, the system-level variables have received little attention with respect to the Italian case. In what follows I try to find out empirical evidence for the hypothesised changes in the relationship between parties and the state and in the patterns of inter-party competition. I will analyse the trends of the law-making process in the domain of party funding (1948–2014), by combining these observations with data on parties’ reliance on state funds and party collusive behaviour.