Andrea Mammone

A Daily Revision of the Past: Fascism, Anti-Fascism, and Memory in Contemporary Italy

Recent cultural and political debate in contemporary Italy, which has often been focused on Fascism and the Resistance, has seen an attempt to reconsider the importance of the constitutive moment of the Republic, namely the Liberazione from Nazism–Fascism, and to equate the memories of Fascism and anti-Fascism. The direct consequence of these confused revisionist approaches is either to rehabilitate many aspects of the Duces regime, or on the contrary to assign this shady page of history to oblivion. The effect of this would be to marginalize anti-Fascism, and even to depict Fascism as relatively ‘harmless’ or ‘apolitical’. The danger is that this trend may construct an artificial and distorted history and thus a ‘manipulated’ public memory for Italian society. The purpose of this article is not to defend anti-Fascism but to restore the reality of ‘Fascism in action’, and to challenge distorted revisionist perceptions of the past.

The Eternal Return? Faux Populism and Contemporarization of Neo-Fascism across Britain, France and Italy

This article raises some doubts as to whether the contemporary extreme right in France, Italy and the UK should be perceived as something particularly novel, and instead the image of a Janus-faced party family and a contemporarized neo-fascism is proposed as a more realistic conceptual model. This article challenges the assumption of the existence of a specific national-populist party family in France as well as the idea that populism should be perceived as the main and foremost feature of certain extremist parties. It is also suggested that the use of labels such as populism as a political category may serve as an indirect, and unintended, form of democratic legitimization for such parties that still manifest neo-fascist, xenophobic and undemocratic tendencies. The article also calls for the use of other methodologies—including a long-term historical enquiry—to complement pure political science in the study of modern extremism.

The Transnational Reaction to 1968: Neo-fascist Fronts and Political Cultures in France and Italy

A transnational analysis of neo-fascism in France and Italy can elucidate historical processes that are usually only analysed within a specific national context or deemed to be by-products of individual nation-states. This article highlights the crucial importance of 1968 in the development of neo-fascist electoral and political strategies in both countries, as well as in the rise of extremist cultural activism. It reveals similar reactions to the hegemony of the political left over popular and youth culture as well as a striking commonality of ideals. Through the examination of a relatively brief period (1968 to the end of the 1970s), this article attempts to demonstrate patterns of cross-fertilisation, ideological transfer and the prominence of the Movimento Sociale Italiano which strongly influenced the French neo-fascists in the establishment of the Front national. The importance, and the trans-border impact, of the Nouvelle Droite in the cultural milieu and its attempt to update neo-fascist and racist ideals is also highlighted.

The black-shirt resistance: Clandestine fascism in Italy, 1943-50

Vogliamo ripetere con religiosa meditazione le parole ‘Onore, Patria, Sacrificio’ [...]. Passa su di noi un’ondata di materialismo, di cinismo, di brutalita. Forse questi tempi nuovi sono troppo duri e la generazione che li deve fronteggiare si arma per combatterli [...]. Bisogna sapere resistere, saper attendere. Tenere accesa la fiammella. (Maria Pignatelli di Cerchiara, Relazione, 5 January 1950)

Revitalizing and de-territorializing fascism in the 1950s: the extreme right in France and Italy, and the pan-national (‘European’) imaginary

ABSTRACT In this article Mammone explores a still relatively neglected story in the history of post-war neo-fascism, notably the attempts by some French and Italian right-wing extremists to revitalize fascist ideology after the war by means of two interconnected strategies, namely, radicalization (rejection of the democratic system) and ‘de-territorialization’ (in the sense of converting narrow fascist nationalism into pan-European nationalism). Mammone describes these project(s), as well as the influence of thinkers such as Julius Evola and Maurice Bardèche, and their location in the wider ideological context of the extreme right in the 1950s. The immediate outcome of this ‘de-territorialized fascism’ was the creation of an extreme-right international association, the Mouvement Social Européen, in which French and Italian activists played a central role. Mammone breaks new ground regarding the non-national dimension of extreme-right thought, a topic too often studied within the boundaries of a given geographical territory and nationalist ideological landscape. By utilizing a transnational framework, he also shows the continuous connections and interactions between the Italian and the French extreme rights.

Italy in Chiaroscuro: the dark shadows of modern Italian society

Abstract Italys incapacity of dealing with an increasing decline should be attributed to a number of chronic problems, not only economic ones, which have never been seriously faced by Italian society and politics. Despite the frequent presence of these issues in public discourse, a lack of analytical commitment has favoured a superficial and rhetorical engagement. A common theme of incompleteness in the attempts at applying a solution unifies different problems presented in this special issue: from federal reform of the state to the lack of political reconciliation, from the troubled Italian southern regions to the policies towards families. This special issue aims to analyse some of the most critical and unsolved Italian problems, and tries to cast some light on the many ‘shadows’ that still persist in the country of la dolce vita.

The Routledge handbook of contemporary Italy : history, politics, society

This chapter first outlines the institutional framework and the functioning of the Italian political system until the early 1990s; then, second, documents the rise of institutional reform from the early 1980s and especially its trajectory since the early 1990s, highlighting the long-term failure of the political parties to achieve comprehensive reform; and third, analyses the Italian political system today and how, despite the absence of root-and-branch institutional reform, it differs in its operation from the so-called ‘First Republic’ as a result of the impact of a mixture of institutional and non-institutional changes.

Introduction: the extreme right in contemporary Europe: history, interpretation, performance

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by Mammone on extreme-right parties, one by Ernesto Gallo on social and political evolution in Italy and Spain, and one by Michael Baun and colleagues on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on the Czech Republic.

The extreme right in contemporary Europe: cultural and spatial perspectives

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by Mike Redgrave on the evolution of New Labours programme to Europeanise British politics and government after 1997, one by Nitzan Shoshan on young activists and the extreme right, and another one by Michael J. Goodwin on the development of the British National Party (BNP).