This study, first published in 1981, focuses on a single region of Italy – Tuscany, and examines the internal and external relationships of the parties, their evolution and their roles in the years 1975-1980. Looking in depth and detail at the activity of the parties in Tuscany, the book identifies and examines different factors of change and continuity and comes to the conclusion that there has been significant movement in the political positions and strengths of the respective parties as well as in their strategic courses and inter-relationships. This volume has a particular importance due to the questioning of many previously held assumptions of the country’s party system in the light of political and socio-economic change during the 1970’s. This title will be of interest to students of European politics.

This study, first published in 1981, focuses on a single region of Italy – Tuscany, and examines the internal and external relationships of the parties, their evolution and their roles in the years 1975-1980. Looking in depth and detail at the activity of the parties in Tuscany, the book identifies and examines different factors of change and continuity and comes to the conclusion that there has been significant movement in the political positions and strengths of the respective parties as well as in their strategic courses and inter-relationships. This volume has a particular importance due to the questioning of many previously held assumptions of the country’s party system in the light of political and socio-economic change during the 1970’s. This title will be of interest to students of European politics.

Following his third election victory in 2008, the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was the most controversial head of government in the EU. This is a cogent examination of the Berlusconi phenomenon, exploring the success and development of the new populist right-wing coalition in Italy since the collapse of the post-war party system in the early 1990s. Carlo Ruzza and Stefano Fella provide a comprehensive discussion of the three main parties of the Italian right: Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, the xenophobic and regionalist populist Northern League and the post-fascist National Alliance. The book assesses the implications of this controversial right for the Italian democratic system and examines how the social and political peculiarities of Italy have allowed such political formations to emerge and enjoy repeated electoral success. Framed in a comparative perspective, the authors: explore the nature of the Italian right in the context of right-wing parties and populist phenomena elsewhere in other advanced democracies, drawing comparisons and providing broader explanations. locate the parties of the Italian right within the existing theoretical conceptions of right-wing and populist parties, utilising a multi-method approach, including a content analysis of party programmes. highlight the importance of political and discursive opportunities in explaining the success of the Italian right, and the agency role of a political leadership that has skilfully shaped and communicated an ideological package to exploit these opportunities. Providing an excellent insight into a key European nation, this work provides a thoughtful and stimulating contribution to the research on the Italian right, and its implications for democratic politics.

This title was first published in 2000: A guide to the changing place of political parties within the Italian political system, seeking to shed light on how the parties operate and their role in the country's politics. Starting from a recognition of the traditional centrality of parties in Italian political life, the book's main focus is on the consequences and causes of the transformation in the party system which began to unfold from 1989 onwards. Arguing that the latter has its roots in the specific choices made by the traditional parties as they attempted to adapt to change in their electoral environment, the book then proceeds to examine what effects the changing party system is having on such traditional, "party-driven" features of Italian politics such as "sottogoverno" and "lotizzazione" and on the functioning of such institutions as parliament and the executive. The book concludes by attempting to assess whether parties are still central to political and civil society or whether their role has diminished in importance.

"Newly married [in 1956], Scottie and Michael are seduced by Tuscany's famous beauty. But the secrets they are keeping from each other force them beneath the splendid surface to a more complex view of Italy, America, and each other. When Scottie's Italian teacher--a teenager with secrets of his own--disappears, her search for him leads her to discover other, darker truths about herself, her husband, and her country. Michael's dedication to saving the world from communism crumbles as he begins to see that he is a pawn in a much different game"--Amazon.com.

Employing primary sources and interviews with protagonists of the rebellion of the Italian North, this book explores the invention of the Padanian nation and the construction of identity politics in Northern Italy. It reveals for the first time the connection between the ethnic wave in European party politics in the 1970s and the rise of a new radical right nationalism in the 1990s. The author highlights the way in which the discourse of national minorities was instrumental in the rise of a new political agenda that links territory, identity and cultural rights to create new boundaries of exclusion. In addition to clarifying the connection between the new nationalism and racism by demonstrating how cultural distinctiveness is constructed in contemporary European politics, this unique book also explores the dynamics of new party mobilization and the symbolic resources of nationalist rhetoric. This book presents for the first time data on political participation - both party elites and members - and the real dimension of the party organization.

For a while now, political science as a discipline has been big enough (in terms of the number of academics) and analytically mature enough to justify reflections on and reviews of its achievements. In fact, there is no lack of general handbooks, dictionaries and 'state of the art' assessments (as well as 'reflective' journals such as the ECPR's own European Political Science), which are useful in helping us to understand and evaluate where we currently are and where we might still need to go. The focus of these texts, however, is on particular concepts, themes, research areas, institutions or behaviour. What they rarely do is indulge in a critical reflection on the political scientists themselves, especially those who are commonly accepted as having made the most significant contributions to the growth of their discipline. This book fills an important gap in the growing reflective literature on the political science discipline: it consists of a series of 'objective' profiles of the 'Masters of Political Science', written by political scientists who have read and studied their work and who are therefore in a position to evaluate the nature of their contributions. The Masters: Robert Dahl, Anthony Downs, David Easton, S. E. Finer, Samuel P. Huntington, Juan J. Linz, Seymour Martin Lipset, Giovanni Sartori, Sidney Verba, Aaron Wildavsky, Hans Morgenthau