Le Berlusconisme dans l'histoire de l'Italie

Since 1994, when he first moved from business into public life, Silvio Berlusconi has been a defining figure in Italian politics. From the outset, his political career was expected to be short-lived, and over the following years he has been considered finished several times, most recently with his resignation in 2011 – yet each time, such predictions have been proven wrong. This study shows that Berlusconi’s success and resilience have lain in his ability to give significant political answers to longstanding questions in Italian history. In the process, it also shows how the weakened political parties, electoral volatility, resurgent populism, negative politics, and other “post-democratic” features of Berlusconi’s Italy came to be.