Fertility Politics as “Social Viagra”: Reproducing Boundaries, Social Cohesion, and Modernity in Italy

Abstract

In this article, we investigate the delicacy of adopting pronatalism as a public position in Italy. Mounting scientific and political knowledge about the demographic “problem” exposes a new hegemonic formation that low fertility is dangerous. Drawing on ethnographic contexts, political debates, media publications, and policy documents, we trace the “demographic emergency” and compare two policies: a monetary baby bonus and a law restricting assisted reproduction. The coexistence of incentives to counter superlow fertility with prohibitions on high‐tech baby making reflect the contested governance of “social cohesion.” We conclude that scholarly and popular discourses serve as a sort of “social Viagra.” Ultimately, both policies sought to rejuvenate family norms. Both aimed to fortify the political terrain of a nation‐state struggling to achieve and maintain modernity against a backdrop of immigration and aging. Modernity became a weapon of the state to exert control over Italian fertility practices and of its critics to deploy orientalizing representations of backwardness.