Political Enemies in Republican Italy

Political factionalism and ideologica! polarization have run high in ltalian his­tory. They must be taken into account in any attempt to explain the frailty of ltallan publlc institutions. Moreover, ltalian politics since the Risorgimento can be interpreted as a 150-year-long attempt to prevent factionalism and polariza­tion from spinning out of control and becoming disruptive for the country. This book deals with the historical question of political factionalism and ideological polarization in post-1945 ltaly from the point of view of delegitimation. In our definition, delegitimation occurs when one political subject denies another in principle the right to exist, and in more concrete terms that of governing the country, by arguing that it is incompatible with one or more of the values on which the public sphere is founded. The chapters in this book chart the story of political delegitimation in post-1945 ltaly as it occurred in different political parties, exploited different discursive arguments, was instrumental to different politicaI projects, and was met with counter-arguments aimed at defusing it, or even at trying to counter-delegitimize the delegitimizers.