Download or read book The Return of Berlusconi written by Paolo Bellucci and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2002 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2001, for the first time in the history of the Italian Republic, an opposition replaced the incumbent government as a consequence of an electoral victory. In the May General Election, the center-left government was ousted and a new right-right majority came into office. It would be premature to suggest that this election represents the birth of a new Italian political system, one that will be based on an ongoing alternation in government between two coalitions and a realignment of voters and parties. Nevertheless, the second Berlusconi government — aside from the various political judgments of it – undoubtedly constitutes an institutional and political novelty. This is not just because the left-left proved unable, in the election campaign, to exploit its achievements in office when confronted with someone with undoubted (if controversial) abilities, but also because of the likely impact of the new government on policy making and Italy's economic, social and international trajectory. This edition of Italian Politics evaluates the 2001 election and impact and analyzes the electoral success of the right, the election campaign, the crisis of the left-left after the defeat, and the composition of the new parliament.
Download or read book Being Berlusconi written by Michael Day and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2015-07-21 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book to fully document the scandal-riddled rise and fall of Italy's Prime Minister and tabloid star—Silvio Berlusconi
Download or read book Berlusconi written by Alan Friedman and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before there was real estate tycoon cum President-Elect Donald J. Trump, there was Silvio Berlusconi, the billionaire media mogul turned prime minster who dominated Italian life for the past twenty years. In a candid, warts-and-all portrait of the leader who played hard in office and in private life. From the bunga-bunga parties to his most secret moments with world leaders, this biography is rich in anecdotes and revelations involving Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, Vladimir Putin, Mikhail Gorbachev, Tony Blair, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel , and many others. Berlusconi's incredible rise to power started from nothing. A self-created man, he was a cruise ship crooner as a young man, became a real estate tycoon in the '70s, started the first commercial television network in history, and turned AC Milan into a world-class soccer club. And that was all before he survived the squalid swampland of Italian politics to become prime minister who has not only served the longest in Italian history, but also has generated the most controversy of arguably any world leader today.
Download or read book Silvio Berlusconi written by Paul Ginsborg and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Silvio Berlusconi, a self-made man with a taste for luxurious living, owner of a huge television empire and the politician who likened a German MEP to a Nazi concentration camp guard-small wonder that much of democratic Europe and America has responded with considerable dismay and disdain to his governance of Italy. Paul Ginsborg, contemporary Italy's foremost historian, explains here why we should take Berlusconi seriously. His new book combines historical narrative-Berlusconi's childhood in the dynamic and paternalist Milanese bourgeoisie, his strict religious schooling, a working life which has encompassed crooning, large construction projects and the creation of a commercial television empire-with careful analysis of Berlusconi's political development. While highlighting the particular italianita of Berlusconi's trajectory, Ginsborg also finds international tendencies, such as the distorted relationship between the media system and politics. Throughout, Ginsborg suggests that Berlusconi has gotten as far as he has thanks to the wide-open space left by the strategic weaknesses of modern left-wing politics.
Download or read book Berlusconi s Italy written by Michael E. Shin and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 2008-03-28 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Berlusconi's Italy provides a fresh, thoroughly-informed account of how Italy's richest man came to be its political leader. Without dismissing the importance of personalities and political parties, it emphasizes the significance of changes in voting behaviors that led to the rise-and eventual fall-of Silvio Berlusconi, the millionaire media baron who became Prime Minister. Armed with new data and new analytic tools, Michael Shin and John Agnew use recently developed methods of spatial analysis, to offer a compelling new argument about contextual re-creation and mutation. They reveal that regional politics and shifting geographical voting patterns were far more important to Berlusconi's successes than the widely-credited role of the mass media, and conclude that Berlusconi's success (and later defeat) can be best understood in geographic terms.
Download or read book The Truth Society written by Noelle Molé Liston and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-15 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Noelle Molé Liston's The Truth Society seeks to understand how a period of Italian political spectacle, which regularly blurred fact and fiction, has shaped how people understand truth, mass-mediated information, scientific knowledge, and forms of governance. Liston scrutinizes Italy's late twentieth-century political culture, particularly the impact of the former prime minister and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi. By doing so, she examines how this truth-bending political era made science, logic, and rationality into ideas that needed saving. With the prevalence of fake news and our seeming lack of shared reality in the "post-truth" world, many people struggle to figure out where this new normal came from. Liston argues that seemingly disparate events and practices that have unfolded in Italy are historical reactions to mediatized political forms and particular, cultivated ways of knowing. Politics, then, is always sutured to how knowledge is structured, circulated, and processed. The Truth Society offers Italy as a case study for understanding the remaking of politics in an era of disinformation.
Download or read book Re inventing the Italian Right written by Stefano Fella and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-06-26 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following his third election victory in 2008, the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was the most controversial head of government in the EU. This is a cogent examination of the Berlusconi phenomenon, exploring the success and development of the new populist right-wing coalition in Italy since the collapse of the post-war party system in the early 1990s. Carlo Ruzza and Stefano Fella provide a comprehensive discussion of the three main parties of the Italian right: Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, the xenophobic and regionalist populist Northern League and the post-fascist National Alliance. The book assesses the implications of this controversial right for the Italian democratic system and examines how the social and political peculiarities of Italy have allowed such political formations to emerge and enjoy repeated electoral success. Framed in a comparative perspective, the authors: explore the nature of the Italian right in the context of right-wing parties and populist phenomena elsewhere in other advanced democracies, drawing comparisons and providing broader explanations. locate the parties of the Italian right within the existing theoretical conceptions of right-wing and populist parties, utilising a multi-method approach, including a content analysis of party programmes. highlight the importance of political and discursive opportunities in explaining the success of the Italian right, and the agency role of a political leadership that has skilfully shaped and communicated an ideological package to exploit these opportunities. Providing an excellent insight into a key European nation, this work provides a thoughtful and stimulating contribution to the research on the Italian right, and its implications for democratic politics.
Download or read book Not A Normal Country written by Geoff Andrews and published by Pluto Press (UK). This book was released on 2005-07-20 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Not a Normal Country explores Italian politics and culture in the era of Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s richest man and one of its longest serving prime ministers. Geoff Andrews argues that the ‘Berlusconi phenomenon’ was a populist response to widespread cynicism towards politics. Berlusconi posed as an ‘anti-politician’, and based his appeal on his virtues as a salesman rather than a statesman. The second part of the book discusses the varied opposition to Berlusconi. This ranges from the anti-global demonstrations in Genoa in 2001 to unconventional protests such as the Girotondo movement led by the film director Nanni Moretti. According to Andrews, this new associationism has helped rebuild Italian politics. Finally, Andrews looks to the future and, through the examples of anti-mafia protests in Sicily as well as opposition to the Americanisation of Italian culture, considers the prospects for the new post-Berlusconi Italy.
Download or read book After La Dolce Vita written by Alessia Ricciardi and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-25 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book chronicles the demise of the supposedly leftist Italian cultural establishment during the long 1980s. During that time, the nation's literary and intellectual vanguard managed to lose the prominence handed it after the end of World War II and the defeat of Fascism. What emerged instead was a uniquely Italian brand of cultural capital that deliberately avoided any critical questioning of the prevailing order. Ricciardi criticizes the development of this new hegemonic arrangement in film, literature, philosophy, and art criticism. She focuses on several turning points: Fellini's futile, late-career critique of Berlusconi-style commercial television, Calvino's late turn to reactionary belletrism, Vattimo's nihilist and conservative responses to French poststructuralism, and Bonito Oliva's movement of art commodification, Transavanguardia.
Download or read book Resisting the Tide written by Daniele Albertazzi and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2011-12-22 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edited by members of the Department of Italian Studies at the University of Birmingham, and bringing together academics in Britain, Ireland, the US and Italy, this volume takes an international perspective on Italian events. It investigates how resistance to the new conservative culture has been articulated, and how this has been expressed and explained by those involved. The volume is divided into four areas: 1. The Economic and Media Landscapes, which sets the scene for the rest of the book by explaining how Italian society, and particularly its media environment, have developed in recent years; 2. Political Challenges, which discusses the main threats to the authority and policies of Berlusconi coming from within his own centre-right coalition, the left and social movements; 3. Texts, which analyses films, internet sites, television programmes, novels, newspaper articles and theatre performances that sought to resist increasingly dominant conservative norms and/or respond to events set in motion by the Berlusconi governments; 4.Experiences, covering the voices and practices of those who have opposed Berlusconi from within the cultural industries and identity movements, such as journalists, LGBT activists, feminists and associations representing immigrant communities. Wide-ranging, innovative and challenging, this volume should appeal to all those who have an interest in Italy, political-, media- and cultural studies.
Download or read book Forza Italia written by Paddy Agnew and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When journalist Paddy Agnew and his girlfriend Dympna touched down in Rome in 1985 in search of adventure, sunshine and the soul of Italian football (well, Paddy was looking for that), they were travelling into the uncharted terrain of a country they did not know and a language they did not speak. It soon became clear that neither Italy nor Italian football would be boring. In that first week in Italy, Michel Platini and Juventus won the Intercontinental Cup, whilst just days later the PLO killed 13 people in a random shooting at Rome's Fiumicino airport. Paddy covered both stories. The coming years saw the rise of TV tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, as he became owner of AC Milan and then Prime Minister of Italy, naming his political party 'Forza Italia' after a football chant. In that same period, Argentine Diego Maradona became the uncrowned King of Naples, leading Napoli to a first ever Scudetto title in 1987, notwithstanding a hectic, Hollywood-esque lifestyle that mixed footballing genius with off-the-field excess. Forza Italia is a fascinating tale of inspired players, skilled coaches, rich tycoons, glitzy media coverage, Mafia corruption, allegations of drug taking and fan power - culminating in the 2006 World Cup victory that delighted a nation and a match-fixing scandal that shocked the world. It is also a personalised reflection on the consistent and continuing excellence of Italian football throughout a period of huge social, political and economic upheaval, offering a unique insight into a society where football has always been much more than just a game.
Download or read book Silvio Berlusconi written by James L. Newell and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about one of the most remarkable European politicians of recent decades, Silvio Berlusconi, and about his contribution to the dramatic changes that have overtaken Italian politics since the early 1990s. From the vantage point of 2017, would Italian political history of the past twenty-five years look substantially different had Berlusconi not had the high-profile role in it that he did? Asking the question makes it possible to contribute to a broader debate of recent years concerning the significance of leaders in post-Cold War democratic politics. Having considered Berlusconi’s legacy in the areas of political culture, voting and party politics, public policy and the quality of Italian democracy, the book concludes by considering the international significance of the Berlusconi phenomenon in relation to the recent election of Donald Trump, with whom Berlusconi is often compared.
Download or read book Mamma Mia written by Beppe Severgnini and published by Rizzoli. This book was released on 2011-10-25 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is it in the operatic Italian psyche that allows-indeed, forgives, even applauds-Italy’s premier for conducting a lifestyle as decadent as a Fellini extravaganza, while organizing an ongoing string of questionable behaviors and politically incorrect gaffes not seen since the days of Nero? All this, and yet Mr. Berlusconi remains completely “understood” by so many of his countrymen-some of whom keep coming back for more! Best-selling writer Beppe Severgnini, who by explaining America to Italians humorously immortalized American behavior in his book Ciao, America!, now trains his sights on his own countrymen. Through witty yet substantive anecdotes touching on Italy’s current political and economic climate, Severgnini decodes the Italian premier’s style and appeal, exploring his rise to power and creating a compulsively readable portrait of Italy today.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Italian Politics written by Erik Jones and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 801 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Italian Politics provides a comprehensive look at the political life of one of Europe's most exciting and turbulent democracies. Under the hegemonic influence of Christian Democracy in the early post-World War II decades, Italy went through a period of rapid growth and political transformation. In part this resulted in tumult and a crisis of governability; however, it also gave rise to innovation in the form of Eurocommunism and new forms of political accommodation. The great strength of Italy lay in its constitution; its great weakness lay in certain legacies of the past. Organized crime--popularly but not exclusively associated with the mafia--is one example. A self-contained and well entrenched 'caste' of political and economic elites is another. These weaknesses became apparent in the breakdown of political order in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This ushered in a combination of populist political mobilization and experimentation with electoral systems design, and the result has been more evolutionary than transformative. Italian politics today is different from what it was during the immediate post-World War II period, but it still shows many of the influences of the past.
Download or read book Contract with America written by Newt Gingrich and published by Three Rivers Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The November 1994 midterm elections were a watershed event, making possible a Repbulican majority in Congress for the first time in forty years. Contract with America, by Newt Gingrich, the new Speaker of the House, Dick Armey, the new Majority Leader, and the House Republicans, charts a bold new political strategy for the entire country. The ten-point program, which forms the basis of this book, was announced in late September. It received the signed support of more than 300 GOP canditates. Their pledge: "If we break this contract, throw us out". Contract with America fleshes out the vision and provides the details of the program that swept the GOP to victory. Among the pressing issues addressed in this important book are: balancing the budget, stopping crime, reforming welfare, reinforcing families, enhancing fairness for seniors, strengthening national defense, cutting government regulations, promoting legal reform, considering term limits, and reducing taxes.
Download or read book The Liberty of Servants written by Maurizio Viroli and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Italy is a country of free political institutions, yet it has become a nation of servile courtesans, with Silvio Berlusconi as their prince. Drawing upon the republican conception of liberty, this title shows that a people can be unfree even though they are not oppressed.
Download or read book First They Took Rome written by David Broder and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Italy’s political disaster under a microscope There is little that hasn’t gone wrong for Italy in the last three decades. Economic growth has flatlined, infrastructure has crumbled, and out-of-work youth find their futures stuck on hold. These woes have been reflected in the country’s politics, from Silvio Berlusconi’s scandals to the rise of the far right. Many commentators blame Italy’s malaise on cultural ills—pointing to the corruption of public life or a supposedly endemic backwardness. In this reading, Italy has failed to converge with the neoliberal reforms mounted by other European countries, leaving it to trail behind the rest of the world. First They Took Rome offers a different perspective: Italy isn’t failing to keep up with its international peers but farther along the same path of decline they are following. In the 1980s, Italy boasted the West’s strongest Communist Party; today, social solidarity is collapsing, working people feel ever more atomized, and democratic institutions grow increasingly hollow. Studying the rise of forces like Matteo Salvini’s Lega, this book shows how the populist right drew on a deep well of social despair, ignored by the liberal centre. Italy’s recent history is a warning from the future—the story of a collapse of public life that risks spreading across the West.
