The Italian transition that never was

Bull, MJ

Abstract

The recent argument that the notion of ‘transition’ should be set aside in attempting to explain the trajectory of Italian politics in the past two decades is to be welcomed, but does not go far enough in explaining why we, as Italianists, got our case wrong and how exactly we might get our case right today. The transitional ‘myth’ was born and maintained despite growing evidence of its inherently problematic nature, both in conceptual and empirical terms. The concept of ‘transition’ needs more serious conceptual treatment and empirical application, but even with this work it is unlikely to be concluded that Italy is in transition. Freeing Italy and Italianists from this conventional wisdom, while, at the same time, not abandoning the idea that something exceptional happened to Italian politics in the early 1990s, will help enrich the debate on the nature of the political change that Italy has experienced in the past seventeen years.

Citation

Bull, M. (2012). The Italian transition that never was. Modern Italy, 17(1),

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2012
• Deposit Date: Oct 7, 2011
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 5, 2016
• Journal: Modern Italy
• Print ISSN: 1353-2944
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 17
• Issue: 1
• Keywords: Transition; Italy; Political Change; Italian Politics; Italian Democracy
• Publisher URL: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/cmit