Berlusconi was often called the Mussolini of the twenty-first century. Like Il Duce, he made his image dominant in the public sphere, and he reoriented Italian foreign policy around his personal relationships with the despots he so admired. Taking advantage of his control of national media, Berlusconi remade Italian political culture. He mainstreamed the far right, merging AN and Forza Italia into a new People of Freedom party, which governed Italy from 2009 to 2011. He detained and demonized migrants, promoted the agendas of autocrats like Putin, and exercised authoritarian and personalist
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