A Decade of Political and Economic Change in Italy

Abstract

A LMOST eleven years ago, in the immediate aftermath of a costly war and the fall of fascism, Italy's electorate dismissed the House of Savoy and voted to try its hand at republican government instead. Looking back, most Italian commentators are inclined to judge positively the events following that decision. They point out that Italy has demonstrated a marked capacity for operating democratic political institutions, and an almost miraculous ability to stay above water economically in the face of the most discouraging obstacles. To be sure, there are those on the political right who still bemoan the break with tradition, and others on the left who claim that the break with the past has not been nearly what many had anticipated during the days of the Resistance. Nevertheless, the evidence is overwhelming that basic changes, many of them with profound long-run implications for Italian society, have been effected in the political, economic, and social spheres. It is common knowledge that the United States has played a major role in the reconstruction of postwar Italy. Economic aid, technical assistance personnel, educational exchange, even the millions of American tourists, have been instruments for shaping the direction which certain changes in Italian society have taken. Yet, in spite of the high degree of interaction between the two countries, the public and the government of the United States probably know less about the politics and economics of Italy than of any other of our major allies in Western Europe. We have come to appreciate Italian fashions, motion pictures, motion picture actresses, and postwar novelists. These interests, however, have not been duplicated by serious inquiries into the political institutions and behavior of the Italian Republic. This limited knowledge of Italian affairs has historical roots. We have always been much more closely identified with Great Britain and France, nations that have loomed large in the evolution of our own political institutions. Italy, on the other hand, did not emerge as a nation until the middle of the nineteenth century. What might have developed into close Italo-American ties was thwarted by American isolationism