The Green is the New Red? A Libertarian Challenge: The Radicals and the Friends of the Earth Italy, 1976–1983

Abstract

This paper focuses on Italian libertarian and anti-authoritarian environmentalism, embodied at the political level by the Radical Party and by a small organization linked to it, the Amici della Terra, the Italian section of Friends of the Earth. It aims at highlighting their role within the environmentalist galaxy of associations, movements and committees and at studying their political strategy, the peculiarities of their cultural and political contribution to the Green movement, but also their clashes with the other components. The paper analyses the Radical Party and Amici della Terra's support for anti-nuclear mobilizations in the late 1970s, especially against the construction of a nuclear plant in Montalto di Castro; how they provided a political outlet for many animal-rights movements and contributed to bringing conservationist associations closer to politics; and how they tried to build international links with other Green parties and associations. The paper highlights some political and ideological clashes between Radical environmentalism and the so-called ‘Red ecology’ around the referendum against nuclear power plants, the anti-hunting referendum and the mobilization for peace and the Amici della Terra's proposal to create local Green Lists. Thus it aims at adding a political interpretation to the cultural one – suggested by scholars – of the delay in the development of a Green party in Italy compared to other Western European countries.