Giovanni Giolitti Research Articles

Либералы и государство в Италии: либеральный реформизм Джованни Джолитти и его критики

The article examines the strategy of liberal reformism in Italy in the late 19th – early 20th centuries and its critique by representatives of economic liberalism (“pure” liberals). The clash of two visions of liberal policy reflected the complication of the transformation of liberalism in response to expansion of state interference and the emergence of the mass politics. The peculiarities of the transformation of liberalism in Italy during the period were caused by the nature of the challenges. The country faced the tasks of state-building after the unification, bridging the development gap between the north and the south, carrying out industrialization. Protectionist and dirigiste policies were the responses to this. The challenges were further intensified with Italy’s entry into the First World War and the post-war social and political teurmoil that lead to the establishment of the Mussolini regime.At the same time, Italy had a lasting tradition of liberal economic thought, and Italian liberals comprised a prominent and influential school of economic thought. State interference could not but cause their repudiation. However, their close involvement into the country’s elite made them to modify the postulates of classical economic liberalism of the mid-19th century to be able to deliver feasible policy proposals. This article focuses on the political program of the outstanding Italian politician Giovanni Giolitti. It became one of the routes of transforming classical liberalism of the mid-19th century. Following the introduction, the second section of the article examines the position of liberal ideology in Italy in the context of the problems that arose in the context of industrialization of a backward and divided economy. Giolitti’s liberal reformism became a strategy for a pragmatic response to emerging challenges. The main features of this strategy and its criticism by ‘pure’ liberals are examined in the third section of the article. Brief conclusions are presented in the conclusion.

Obituary: Frank John Coppa (1937–2021)

ObituaryFrank John Coppa (1937–2021) Roy Domenico Click for larger view View full resolution Frank J. Coppa, who taught Italian and Catholic History at St. John’s University in Queens, New York, passed away on January 13, 2021. Born in 1937 in New York City, Coppa obtained his BA from Brooklyn College in 1960 and went on to The Catholic University of America where he earned the PhD in 1966. His dissertation there, under John K. Zeender and funded in part with a Fulbright grant, concerned the work of Italy’s pre-World War One Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti. Titled “Giolitti and Industrial Italy: An Analysis of the Interrelationship between Giolitti’s Economic Policy and His Political Program,” the Catholic University of America Press published it in 1971 as Planning, Protectionism, and Politics in Liberal Italy: Economics and Politics in the Giolittian Age. It was the first of his twelve books. Beyond a biography of Count Cavour and a study of the Italian Wars of Independence, Coppa devoted the balance of his book-length studies to aspects of the papacy, particularly the pontificates of Pius IX and Pius XII. Much of his later work focused on the Holy See and the [End Page 163] Jews and he became keenly interested in interfaith dialogue. Among those later studies, his The Papacy, the Jews and the Holocaust: From Nineteenth-Century Anti-Semitism to the Third Millennium, which the CUA press published in 2006, earned him particularly glowing reviews. He also edited or co-edited fourteen books beginning with the 1969’s (with Benjamin Bast) From Vienna to Vietnam: War and Peace in the Modern World. Frank Coppa joined the faculty of St. John’s University in 1965, reached the full professor rank in 1979, and he remained there until his retirement in 2010. Known as a charming and collegial figure among his peers and students, Coppa served as Department Chair. He also established and directed St. John’s doctoral program in World History. Professor Coppa was a tireless worker and produced three more books after his retirement, displaying an energy that St. John’s recognized when it honored him in 2012 with Emeritus status. Frank Coppa was also a long-standing and loyal member of the ACHA, which chose to award him with its first Lifetime Distinguished Scholarship Award at the 2011 meeting in Boston. Father Steven Avella, the ACHA president at the time, remarked that the award honored Coppa’s “contributions, which have fundamentally animated the research of others, beside being significant in their own right.” Coppa’s wife, Rosina, who often accompanied him to conferences, survives him as do their daughters, Francesca and Molina, and two grandchildren. Professor Dolores Augustine, a colleague and friend at St. Johns, noted that Frank Coppa was not only “one of the most preeminent scholars in the field of Catholic history, but, equally important, he . . . contributed to a general spirit of collegiality in the History Department.” [End Page 164] Roy Domenico The University of Scranton Copyright © 2021 The Catholic University of America Press

‘The Public Force of the Private State’ – Strikebreaking and Visions of Subversion in Liberal Italy (1880s to 1914)

From the end of the nineteenth century onwards, Italy witnessed a significant increase in labour conflicts, trade unionism and social protests, all of which shook the foundations of the liberal state. Following the failure of the authorities’ attempts to deal with mass protests, efforts were made under the governments of Giovanni Giolitti to adopt new policing policies that embraced state neutrality in social conflicts and the deployment at the same time of substantial police forces to prevent the escalation of conflict and bloodshed. The success of these policies is highly questionable and there were major differences in this respect between northern and southern Italy, and between rural and industrial areas. Nevertheless, these policies contributed to the fear of abandonment and desire for revenge felt by significant sections of the propertied classes, and the issue of strikebreaking was at the centre of the controversy. Focusing on the Po Valley, this article first presents a broad overview of the political situation in Italy with emphasis on policing policies and work replacement, then analyses the various forms of legal and illegal private strike-breaker protection organizations that took on clear subversive aims. Drawing on newspapers and archival records, the article highlights the overlap between private and public law enforcement and the combination of coercion and consensus in the Italian countryside. The long-term consequences of the unresolved issue of strikebreaking and private policing help explain the rise of Fascism after the Great War.

A path towards Fascism: nationalism and large-scale industry in Italy (1910–1923)

In the decade before World War I, close connections developed in Italy between the nationalists and major elements of large-scale industry. As the Italian Nationalist Association, founded in 1910, became the main political reference for industrialists, the ties between nationalism and the business community helped to undermine the liberal state and end the political system established by Giovanni Giolitti. During World War I, the Nationalist Association developed close links with the Ansaldo company and supported it in the ‘parallel wars’ of Italian capitalism. Ansaldo went bankrupt in 1921, but the nationalists were able to establish relations with other entrepreneurs. Their connection with large-scale industry lay behind Mussolini’s decision in 1923 to accept the Nationalist Association into the National Fascist Party. Nationalism not only ensured that important economic forces would support the Fascist regime but its ideology significantly contributed to the building of Mussolini’s dictatorship.

Il liberalismo fra tecnica e politica. Appunti sul caso italiano

This essay considers how Italian liberal culture has confronted the relationship between politics and expertise since the late nineteenth century. The first section presents general remarks on how liberalism tries to define the boundaries of the political sphere and limit the scope for political strife by referring to technical arguments. The second section is centred on the relationship between politics and expertise in the fin-de-siecle crisis of liberalism, and considers two protagonists of that period: Marco Minghetti and Giovanni Giolitti. The third section deals with the Italian Liberal Party leader Giovanni Malagodi, whose biography shows how a part of post- 1945 liberalism endeavoured to enlighten Italians as to the limits of political action. The birth of the new centre-left governing alliance in the early 1960s - Malagodi’s greatest defeat - is seen here both as an attempt to produce an ambitious reformist effort which was deeply rooted in technical knowledge, and as the failure of that attempt. The conclusion provides some reflections on the crises of politics in Italy in the last twenty years.

Boccioni's Coin

The Ardito was a fighter as well as a competitor whose status as a ‘warrior’ was based on courage and superior physical performance: a superior man. In addition, his exuberant conduct, both on and off the battlefield, introduced a significant new sub-culture into post-war Italian society, contributing to the attachment of notable value to virility and Mussolini's cult of the ‘strong man’. The purpose of this research is to analyse the impact of this ‘arditismo' (spirit of daring) on the early post-war period in particular, including the different ‘male image’ of the Italian citizen, and to study the sense of virility in the transition from the liberal, easy-going ‘Little Italy' of Giovanni Giolitti (1842–1928) to a manly, combative, and ambitious nation. Together with some of the vitalistic tendencies in the Futurist movement, the main characteristics and mentality of the ex-Ardito (former Special Forces) would thus be significantly influential in the ideology of nascent Fascism. Indeed, the ‘arditismo' influence, together with the article and social movement known as Futurism would constitute the two most highly structured foundations of early Fascist culture, bringing a political and social revolution necessary to create a ‘new man’. It was as if the Arditi and the new method of military training had transferred their experience from the military into civilian life, contributing to a renewal of the image of the Italian male in the collective imagination. Indirectly, the image of women would also begin to absorb and adapt to new sports models imported from abroad, which would create for the Italian Ardito, a grudgingly tolerated rival. The main sources for this paper are the archives of the Historical Office of the Army, advertising and manuals from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, placards and graphic publicity from books and journals or private collections, and exhibition catalogues.

I "lacci e gli sbadigli": Pascoli, Martini, Giolitti, e l'insegnamento di latino e greco nell'Ottocento italiano

Before the great Italian poet Giovanni Pascoli (1855-1912) was appointed University Professor of Latin and later of Italian, he taught in several Italian high schools. In 1893, the Secretary for Education, the journalist and writer Ferdinando Martini, wishing to improve the teaching of Latin in Italy, appointed Pascoli as a member of a committee of specialists in this field. Pascoli, who was elected president of the committee, wrote a famous report criticizing the excess of grammar and erudition and the lack of a true reading of authors. The paper shows that Pascoli's statement must be understood within the framework of the cultural struggle concerning the teaching of Latin and Greek in the first decades of the recently unified Italy: the local tradition (i.e. practical teaching of Latin, particularly in Central Italy and Catholic schools) was challenged by a different approach, particularly in the North of the country. This was of German origin and placed the emphasis on grammar and philology. Many years later, in 1922, a letter of Giovanni Giolitti, who in 1893 was Prime Minister, shows the influence of Pascoli's ideas, as well as of other disputes regarding the teaching of Greek in Italian high schools.

When leadership failed

As we have seen, history is not only a tale of great men and their wills and their imagination, but it is partly also that story. Following Professor Lipset’s injuction, we find that by including leaders in our understanding of the world and in our reckoning of what is possible and desirable in human societies, we can more fully appreciate the extent to which choices can stretch constraits. The depths of Italian and Japanese liberalism and their replacement by fascism point us toward reisserting choice between great social, economic, and political forces on the one hand, and outcomes on the other. The choices to bolster the state against the challenges of mass politics. Goilitti reached out to leftist parties in a failed effort to incorporate the masses. Neither Hara nor Giolitti ever reached out directly to the masses with a compelling idea about a shared national project. Thay did not inspire citizens—they bought voters. And, in the event, buying agve way to bullying in both countries. Hara Kei and Giovanni Giolitti, two consummate politicians, had failed to be sufficiently creative. Their successors were remarkably creative bricoleurs who would not make the same mistake. And, as Lipset has reminded us, so long as leaders are creative, history has no shortcut and no end.

Reviews of Books:The Hunchback's Tailor: Giovanni Giolitti and Liberal Italy from the Challenge of Mass Politics to the Rise of Fascism, 1882-1922 Alexander De Grand

Reviews of Books:The Hunchback's Tailor: Giovanni Giolitti and Liberal Italy from the Challenge of Mass Politics to the Rise of Fascism, 1882-1922 Alexander De Grand

The Hunchback's Tailor: Giovanni Giolitti and Liberal Italy from the Challenge of Mass Politics to the Rise of Fascism, 1882–1922. By Alexander De Grand. Italian and Italian American Studies. Edited by, Spencer M. Di Scala. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2001. Pp. x+294. $69.95.

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Hunchback's Tailor: Giovanni Giolitti and Liberal Italy from the Challenge of Mass Politics to the Rise of Fascism, 1882–1922. By Alexander De Grand. Italian and Italian American Studies. Edited by, Spencer M. Di Scala. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2001. Pp. x+294. $69.95.Alice A. KelikianAlice A. KelikianBrandeis University Search for more articles by this author Brandeis UniversityPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Modern History Volume 74, Number 4December 2002 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/376242 Views: 19Total views on this site PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The Hunchback’s Tailor: Giovanni Giolitti and Liberal Italy from the Challenge of Mass Politics to the Rise of Facism, 1882-1922, by Alexander De Grand

<i>The Hunchback’s Tailor: Giovanni Giolitti and Liberal Italy from the Challenge of Mass Politics to the Rise of Facism, 1882-1922</i>, by Alexander De Grand

The Road to Fascism: an Italian Sonderweg?

The article argues that many of the factors which eventually produced Italian fascism should be identified not in the divisions of the war years nor in the conflicts of the immediate postwar period but in the period 1900–15 and in the failure of Giovanni Giolitti's reformist strategy. The increasing popular disaffection with parliamentary politics before the war reflected the inability of Giolitti to widen the political base of liberalism through significant social reform. It was this failure which made the experience of the First World War especially disastrous in Italy. In particular, it is argued that liberal governments totally failed to understand the kind of social conflict which was developing in the large estates of the Po valley – the area which would provide the specific context for the explosion of Fascism in late 1920. The essay links Fascism, therefore, less to an often cited ‘working class revolutionary threat’ in 1919–20 than to unresolved long-term structural problems in certain areas of rural Italy. Alexander De Grand offers a critical commentary on Paul Corner's conclusions and the author gives his response.

The hunchback's tailor: Giovanni Giolitti and liberal Italy from the challenge of mass politics to the rise of fascism, 1882-1922

Introduction The Apprenticeship of a Statesman, 1842-1892 A Disastrous Beginning: The Presidency of the Council of Ministers, 1892-93 Into the Wilderness: in Opposition, 1894-1901 The Zanardelli-Giolotti Government, 1901-1903 Giolitti's Second Ministry, Doing it Right, 1904-1905 The Long Ministry, 1906-1909 Domestic Reform and War, 1910-1914 A Second Political Exile, 1914-1920 Giolitti and the Crisis of the Liberal State, 1920-1928 Conclusion Bibliography Index

The Struggle for Modernity: Echoes of the Dreyfus Affair in Italian Political Culture, 1898-1912

During the last two years of the nineteenth century, Italy underwent a serious economic, social and political crisis, which seemed to threaten the existence and progress of a liberal democracy in the making. In spring 1898, while Italian public opinion was deeply immersed in the Dreyfus Affair, the government used military force to suppress widespread popular protest which culminated in violent rioting, during which more than a hundred demonstrators died. Politicians and journalists both extreme left-wing democrats and right-wing Catholics who were considered to have instigated the agitation, were arrested and given severe sentences. The Conservatives thought that in this way they would halt the progress of democracy, in order to defend the state from the potential danger of a socialist revolution and a reaction from the Church. In 1899, the government, led by General Luigi Pelloux, a member of the liberal left, tried to introduce reforms to limit constitutional liberties in the name of the Reason of State, but the parliamentary opposition of socialists, radicals and left-wing liberals caused his plans for the restoration of an authoritarian regime to fail. At the very beginning of the twentieth century, Italy renewed its march towards democracy, while in France the victory of Dreyfus's supporters ushered in an era of radical government. In Italy, also, a new period of liberal politics began, characterized by the parliamentary hegemony of Giovanni Giolitti, who was head of government, with only short breaks, from 1903 to 1914. The so-called 'Giolitti era' represented an epoch of economic progress, civil modernization, cultural renewal and democratic reforms that favoured the ascent of the popular classes and the formation of a modern and productive bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, to many contemporaries and especially to the young, Giolitti's long parliamentary supremacy was a reflection of political corruption, a crisis of state, a weakening of the nation and serious moral decay of individual and collective conscience.'

From elite to mass politics: Italian socialism in the Giolittian Era, 1900-1914

In this study James Miller argues that in their pursuit of gradual change the dominant reformist faction of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) deliberately built a party structure that limited mass participation in the movement and handed control to middle-class parliamentary deputies. Mistrusting the peasant and urban masses, the reformists built a small organization with a membership drawn overwhelmingly from an elite of better paid, better educated, and well organized farm and industrial labourers while they actively sought the votes of reform-minded members of Italy's middle class. Major reforms took place in Italy between 1900 and 1912. However, Giovanni Giolitti, Italy's shrewd Prime Minister, authored and exploited them to tame both the Socialist Party and the workers' movement. Giolitti offered concessions designed to cement the support of individual Socialist deputies, weaken party discipline, and eventually entice the deputies - and through them, the PSI - into his coalition government as a minority partner. The success of Giolitti's strategy, particularly his ability to set the agenda and control the pace of reform, sparked a series of internal revolts against Reformist leadership. An initial challenge by middle class radicals, although successful in securing control of the PSI in 1904, proved incapable of providing a credible organizational or policy alternative to Reformism. By 1908, the reformists again controlled the PSI. However, they once again proved incapable of achieving the sort of major reforms that could justify their continued dominance. Reformism began to disolve into contending factions. In the wake of the Libyan war (1911-12), a coalition of lower middle-class and working-class Revolutionaries, championing a strategy of confrontation with the Italian state, ousted the party's traditional leadership. The Revolutionaries' confrontation with the Italian state and attacks from Italy's growing extreme right undermined Giolitti's experiment in social and political reform. One faction of the PSI's left-wing, majority, led by Benito Mussolini, pushed the party toward a new type of political organization, one that sought to utilize the latent power of Italy's peasant and urban masses to overthrow the state. Mussolini's dual bid for leadership of the PSI and a revolution climaxed with the unsuccessful Red Week uprisings of June 1914. Within a few months he split with his fellow socialists over Italian participation in World War I. Mussolini applied the lessons that he learned in 1912-14, particularly his vision of mass political mobilization, with great success in promoting Italian intervention in the war, crushing the workers' movement in the postwar era, and ultimately in overthrowing the Italian state.

Giolitti’s Reform Program: An Exercise in Equilibrium Politics

On March lo, 1913, Giovanni Giolitti startled Italy by resigning as prime minister. Giolitti's retreat from the summit of political leadership may appear to be one of the paradoxes of modern Italian history, for his abrupt withdrawal closely followed one of his greatest triumphs, the passage of the Electoral Reform Act of 1912, which he had ushered through parliament against considerable opposition. But the impression is deceiving. A close look at the circumstances of Giolitti's fall reveals the seeming paradox to be a fine historical irony, since Giolitti's very success in seeing through parliament a reform program-of which the Electoral Reform Act was the culmination-was the immediate cause of his downfall. Giolitti's ability to muster the votes in the Chamber for the reforms he deemed necessary established him as the undisputed political leader of Italy for over a decade. His program of reforms also made him the most significant Italian practitioner of European New Liberalism. Giolitti did not contribute theoretical works to this new intellectual current, but he put into practice several of the tenets of New Liberalism before some of the theorists of the intellectual current had shown awareness of them. And nothing speaks

Economic and Ethical Liberalism in Conflict: The Extraordinary Liberalism of Giovanni Giolitti

Reflecting upon the post-unification political scene, Benito Mussolini pointed to Giovanni Giolitti as the finest statesman that Italy had produced after Cavour.1 Though he had often maligned Giolitti, even the egocentric Duce could not deny the real ability of this controversial figure. Five times president of the Council of Ministers, that is, prime minister,2 a post he always held in conjunction with the vital portfolio of the Interior, his authority and control were so complete that even his friends spoke of a Giolittian dictatorship. Nevertheless, this interesting and powerful Italian political figure was never well known as a political personality. Giolitti's name was so often on Italian lips for over twenty years that it became a household term in that country. However, very few knew much about the program of the man. Friends and foes alike acknowledged that he was the dominant political figure of the first decade of the twentieth century in Italy, but beyond this there was little agreement. Rarely did someone react objectively to Giolitti. Some idolized him,3 others despised him, but practically no one could remain indifferent to him. Those who were proud to call themselves giolittiani considered their chief not only an outstanding politician but a statesman of the first magnitude, who had the courage and faith to move Italy from the conservative to the liberal camp. His opponents, on the other hand, not satisfied to describe him as mediocre, accused him of being the corrupter of the country's conscience and parliament. Small wonder that Italians have yet to decide whether Giolitti was Gaetano Salvemini's I1 ministro della mala vita or Giovanni Ansaldo's I1 ministro della buonavita. Almost from the first moment he assumed the presidency of the