Italy’s Southern Question: long-standing thorny issues and current problems

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe southern question is still the biggest unresolved problem in the history of the Italian state. It constitutes the most accentuated and pervasive case of economic dualism of the entire industrialized West, where there is no state other than Italy in which 40.8% of its territory (the South) and 34.2% of the national population have per capita income of only 56% of that of the remaining part of the country (the Centre-North). This dualism already existed in 1861 when the Kingdom of Italy was born. Since then, despite the great development of the Italian economy as a whole, and therefore also of the South, the economic and social difference between North and South has progressively increased, except in the period 1962–73, when the Italian state made a great effort to reduce the gap. Starting from the 1970s, the weak performance of the South has been a powerful factor in slowing the economic and social development of Italy and weakening, both in the North and in the South of Italy, the sense of belonging to a single national community.