The New Italian Republic : From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to Berlusconi

by Stephen Gundle (Editor), Simon Parker (Editor)

The New Italian Republic charts the breakdown of the old party system and examines the changed political climate that has allowed Berlusconi to rise as Italy's new master and subsequently precipitated his rapid fall from power.

348 pages, Paperback

First published December 21, 1995

Reviews

[Marc Lamot]

This is an excellent collection full of fascinating information and insights on Italian politics, society and culture. Only the articles by Italian authors are a bit shallow. I read this when I was following the famous elections of 1996, won by Roman Prodi. In the meanwhile the book is outdated of course.

[Sam]

Without establishing a hierarchy of causation, this collection of essays, written mainly by specialists with the addition of a few journalists, provides a commentary on the Italian politcial crisis of the mid-1990s, focusing on both structural factors such as demographics, domestic budgetary crisis, macroeconomic trends, and the revolt against the clientelism of the DC and socialists, as well as incidental factors that contributed to the realignments such as the void left in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the power of the right to invoke regionally specific forms of identity against competing claims to affiliation, and the failure of the reconfigured communist party to present a coherent and unified message that would address the concerns of most Italians.