Italy Swings Populist- The Beginning of the Second Republic [BLOG POST 3]

By Jacob Braun

Silvio Berlusconi, Italian House of Representatives 1994, via WikiMedia Commons Public Domain

Coming out of the major scandals that rocked the Christian Democrats and Italian Socialists, an unlikely political outsider takes the reins of Italy in the 1994 election: Silvio Berlusconi. Poised on bringing populist politics into the spotlight, Berlusconi and his centre-right coalition Forza Italia would prime the Second Republic to be a conservative European stronghold. Along with the official formation of the European Union in 1993, Berlusconi’s populism would prove to be beneficial to fellow conservatives later down the line…

POST-FASCISTS BACK IN FASHION

Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party was the main point of a three-party alliance which also included Lega Nord and the Alleanza Nazionale. These radical right-wing parties were strongly associated with the new Prime Minister’s anti-elitist and anti-corruption platform. Most notably, Alleanza Nazionale is the direct successor of the old postwar neofascist Movimento Sociale Italiano (Italian Social Movement)— which marks a distinct turning point in Italian politics. With the election of Berlusconi, parties which were once shunned as fascist and extremist were able to re-enter the spotlight because of their reinvention over the course of the 20th century.

POPULIST TRANSFORMATION

Italy would change wildly in its attitudes to its role in the European Union during the new millennium. Especially after the fears of 9/11 and the Global Recession of 2008, the Berlusconi government made its issues with EU “interference” very public. This culture of blaming Brussels for domestic political reasons became entrenched in Italy going into the 2010s, practically catapulting euroscepticism in the country into the mainstream. With the help of Berlusconi the Second Republic was kickstarted as one governed by populism, whose pillars would only be reinforced in the aftermath of the refugee crisis caused by the Syrian Civil War.

Asylum Applicants in Europe between 1 Jan. and 30 Jun. 2015, Maximilian Dörrbecker, via WikiMedia Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic