The objective of the course is to provide us with the tools to better understand the current Italian political system and some of the social, economic and cultural factors that underpin it.

Few countries offer more challenging and interesting hunting grounds to students of politics, history or sociology. This course will be a journey through a landscape marked by the footprints of giants who founded the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, of geniuses who gave us medieval and renaissance art, Italian opera and literature. This same landscape shows the scars of foreign occupation and internal conflicts, two world wars and fascism, organized crime and home-grown terrorism, bureaucratic inefficiency and corruption. The purpose of this journey is to acquire enough familiarity with the key landmarks of the Italian social and political landscape to know what questions to ask and where to look for answers.

Studying Italian politics and society during the Summer of 2013 will offer us a unique opportunity to see history in the making. We shall be privileged witnesses of the aftermath of a very unusual political campaign that resulted in an even more unusual political stalemate among parties of the old guard and new social movements. This political uncertainty raises concerns in many circles but is undoubtedly a sign of the vitality of Italian contemporary politics. This course will consist of two parallel investigations which we will carry out simultaneously:
(A) We shall study Italian history, learn to identify and explain some of the key characteristics of Italian society, economy and culture, and analyze the structure and functions of Italian political institutions; and
(B) Like correspondents sent to Italy by foreign newspapers to follow current events, we shall keep abreast of major political and economic developments, become familiar with the key political parties and leaders and assess their political performance.

While the course’s primary focus will be on contemporary Italian politics, in order to understand the latter we will need to familiarize ourselves with recent Italian history, as well as with some of the peculiar characteristics of the Italian economy, Italian society and culture:

(A) In our quick historical review we will look at the creation of Italy as a unified state in 1861; the liberal state and its collapse after World War I; Fascism and World War II; the establishment of the Italian Republic and the ratification of the Republican Constitution; the post-war years and the Cold War; the Second Republic (known also as the “Berlusconi Era”) born out of the clean hands investigations of the early 1990s and its bipolar political system; Italy's response to the deepening sovereign debt crisis, the "technocratic government" that took office in November 2011; the elections of February 2013 and their aftermath;
(B) While exploring this historical background we will have an opportunity to study the impact of Italy’s changing demographics, social structure and culture, the importance of labor unions and the effect of Italy’s peculiar form of capitalism;
(C) The Italian political party system (in its various incarnations over the past few decades) will be analyzed both as a product of the factors mentioned above as well as a force in itself that at times acts as a brake on reform and innovation, and at others creates opportunities for real change and modernization.

The MIDTERM EXAM will be held on Wednesday, June 5th

On Monday, June 10^th, at 6 pm, we will participate in an event at the Guarini Institute for Public Affairs

The FINAL EXAM will be held on Friday, June 21^st.

Unit 1
What is Politics and What Are the Key Functions of Government?
“Comparative Politics Today – A Theoretical Framework”  (CPT) by Gabriel Almond, Bingham Powell, et al. (Pearson Longman 2008, Fifth Edition), pages 4-12
Press Room: brief description of key Italian political institutions

Unit 2
Political Systems: Structures and Functions
CPT, pages 38-46

Introducing the Italian Risorgimento
“The Pursuit of Italy – A History of a Land, its Regions and their Peoples” (TPI) by David Gilmour (Penguin 2012), pages 148-155

Unit 3
The Failure of the 1848-1849 Revolts
The Politics of Italian Opera
TPI, pages 155-175
Press Room: analyzing the February 2013 national elections

Unit 4
The Unification of Italy
TPI, pages 176-210
Press Room: background information on the celebrations (in 2011) of the 150^th Anniversary of the Unification of Italy

Unit 5
The Giants of the Italian Risorgimento: Cavour, Garibaldi and Vittorio Emanuele III
TPI, pages 211-237

Unit 6
1870s-1914: The Liberal State
The Giolitti Era
“A Concise History of Italy” (CHI) by Christopher Duggan (Cambridge University Press, Eleventh Printing, 2011), pages 157-189

Unit 7
Italy in the First World War
CHI, pages 189-204
Press Room: the 2013 reelection of Giorgio Napolitano as President of the Republic

Unit 8
Fascism
CHI, pages 205-240

Unit 9
The Resistance
The June 2nd 1946 Referendum
Italian Christian Democrats and Communists in the Cold War
CHI, pages 333-356

The Economic Boom
The Hot Autumns
The Mafia
The “Clean Hands” Investigations and the End of the First Republic
CHI, pages 356-366

Unit 10
The Transition to the Second Republic
European Integration and Italian Regionalism
The Berlusconi Era
TPI, 367-399

Unit 11
The Italian Constitutional Framework
“The Politics of Italy – Governance in a Normal Country” (POI) by James Newell (2010 Cambridge University Press), pages 49-64

Unit  12
The Executive and Legislative Branches
“Italian Politics - Adjustment Under Duress”, (IP) by Martin Bull and James Newell (2008, Polity Press), pages 115-133
Press Room: the “loose alliance” and the appointment of Enrico Letta as Prime Minister 

Unit 13
The Judiciary and the Italian Bureaucracy
IP, pages 138-154

Italy’s Membership in International Organizations
POI, pages 102-105

Unit 14
Italian Political Culture
POI, pages 15-18 and 145-178

Unit 15
Interest Groups in Italy
POI, pages 179-209

Unit 16
Coalitions, Elections and Electoral Laws
POI, pages 210-228
Press Room: the debate over the changes to be made to the current electoral law

Unit 17
Voting behavior and Elections
POI, pages 228-249

Unit 18
Italian Economic Policy, the EU and the Challenges Ahead
POI, pages 250-282

Unit 19
Italian Foreign Policy
POI, pages 318-351

Unit 20
Review Session