While almost all European democracies from the 1980s started to accord legal recognition to same-sex couples, Italy was, in 2016, the last West European country to adopt a regulation, after a tortuous path. Why was Italy such a latecomer? What kind of barriers were encountered by the legislative process? What were the factors behind the policy change? To answer these questions, this article first discusses current morality policymaking, paying specific attention to the literature dealing with same-sex partnerships. Second, it provides a reconstruction of the Italian policy trajectory, from the entrance of the issue into political debate until the enactment of the civil union law, by considering both partisan and societal actors for and against the legislative initiative. The article argues that the Italian progress towards the regulation of same-sex unions depended on the balance of power between change and blocking coalitions and their degree of congruence during the policymaking process. In 2016 the government formed a broad consensus and the parliament passed a law on civil unions. However, the new law represented only a small departure from the status quo due to the low congruence between actors within the change coalition.

Rather than focusing on how Italians share the neighbourhood with other groups, this paper examines some of the intra-group processes (i.e. relations between Italians themselves) that produced various monuments to Italian migration in Australia, Brazil and Italy. Through their distinct styles and formulations, the monuments reflect diverse and often competing elaborations of the migrant experience by different generations at local, national and transnational levels. The recent increase in the construction of such monuments in Australia is linked to the gradual disappearance of ‘visibly’ Italian neighbourhoods. These commemorations effectively transform Italian migrants into Australian pioneers and, thus, resolve moral and cultural ambiguities about belonging and identity by de-emphasizing difference (ethnic diversity) and concealing intergenerational tensions about appropriate ways of expressing Italianness. Similarly, the appearance of monuments in Italy is linked to an emergent ‘diasporic’ consciousness fuelled by Italian emigrants’ growing ability to travel to Italy, but also to the attempt to obscure potentially destabilizing dual identities by emphasizing (one, Italian) ‘homeland’.

This article asks why, despite their doubtful utility, the categories used in accounts of contemporary Italian politics are almost universally negative in character. It is suggested that at least part of the explanation has to do with the ontological and epistemological assumptions informing the accounts, together with the social circumstances that have given rise to their production. More fruitful, less uncritically negative analyses require the adoption of approaches informed by alternative ontologies and epistemologies, that is, interpretive approaches. These seek to account for social phenomena by rendering intelligible the meaningful action in which the latter are rooted and, as the example of corruption shows, yield less negative accounts by allowing researchers to imagine themselves acting, given similar circumstances, in ways similar to those they study.

Language as it appears in the public space is at the centre of investigations into linguistic landscapes. Language agents immersed in a given geo-historical context contribute to the construction of spatialised meaning and to the transformation of space into place. The visibility of a language in a linguistic landscape does not just index a reality, i.e. the use of one or more languages within a community, but contributes to the symbolic construction of a given space. The current study aims to investigate the peculiarities of place-making and -marking of the Slovenian-speaking community in the area of Trieste via an analysis of written signs displaying the minority language. The paper will show that the tension resulting from achieved equality in the legal status of Slovenian and the perception of unequal power relations between different ethnic groups is reproduced in the construction of the local linguistic landscape. The final part of the discussion will suggest that public use of the Slovenian language is central to the performance of a material border.

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.

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 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.

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 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’.

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.

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 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.

Wine consumption is affected by intertwined needs generated by factors such as production and marketing methods, as well as by the individual's desire for social differentiation in a democratised mass drinking culture. Our study sought to determine whether consumption patterns have changed in the Italian province of Trentino and how such changes may have affected the meaning that wine drinkers living in this area assign to the concept of quality in wine. The paper presents a qualitative study (n=57 interviews) carried out in a wine producing region in north-east Italy. In addition to investigating the changes that have taken place in the area's wine drinking culture, the study also focuses on how consumers perceive and define wine quality. The findings show that economic, political and social factors have brought major changes in drinking culture and consumption over the last 50 years. In addition, changes in the wine industry have had a significant impact on how consumers’ views on wine quality and its key features have evolved. Nevertheless, the study found that some traditional aspects persist in the drinking culture and still determine the perception of quality.

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.

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.

This article assesses the impact that direct election of regional presidents has had on party politics in Italy. It finds regional presidents exert a growing personalisation of power within parties at sub-national levels, primarily through their capacity for political nomination and de facto status as party negotiators in the governing coalition. While presidents may shape structures of regional party competition, they remain constrained by coalitional politics and can struggle to assert their authority against powerful governing partners or local powerbrokers rooted in the legislature. They also possess few mechanisms to consolidate their position at national level, consistent with a broader tendency towards ‘stratarchy’ in multi-level parties. Although the distinction between densely and loosely structured parties remains relevant, a common trend towards ‘cartelisation’ at sub-national levels is noted as political parties prioritise the control of state resources and the governing legitimacy this entails. This article contributes to our broader understanding of the multi-level dynamics of party politics in Europe, as well as the unintended consequences of experimenting with an untested hybrid model of ‘directly elected Prime Minister’ in the Italian regions.

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.

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.