This book explores the discourses, attitudes and behaviours of professional politicians and ordinary citizens alike characterized by hostility towards the political sphere, political parties and, above all, professional politicians. It furnishes a clear, consistent depiction of the anti-politics phenomenon in general using Italy as a “laboratory” where anti-politics is widespread. After an original reconstruction of the concept of anti-politics, the author charts the rise of Silvio Berlusconi, the success of Umberto Bossi's Northern League, the resounding electoral victories of the Five Star Movement and the League (La Lega), all rooted in the anti-political rhetoric of Italy's leaders and the anti-political sentiment of its population. The author also traces the socio-political profile of the anti-political citizens of the main European democracies. This broad, consistent view of anti-politics will attract academics, journalists and policy makers interested in anti-politics in Italy and elsewhere. Students and scholars of party politics, party leaders, democracy and political participation will also find the volume of great interest.

"A classic."—New York Times "Seminal, epochal, path-breaking . . . a Democracy in America for our times."—The Nation From the bestselling author of Bowling Alone, a landmark account of the secret of successful democracies Why do some democratic governments succeed and others fail? In a book that has received attention from policymakers and civic activists in America and around the world, acclaimed political scientist and bestselling author Robert Putnam and his collaborators offer empirical evidence for the importance of "civic community" in developing successful institutions. Their focus is on a unique experiment begun in 1970, when Italy created new governments for each of its regions. After spending two decades analyzing the efficacy of these governments in such fields as agriculture, housing, and healthcare, they reveal patterns of associationism, trust, and cooperation that facilitate good governance and economic prosperity. The result is a landmark book filled with crucial insights about how to make democracy work.

Media and Politics in Contemporary Italy is the first book to provide a comprehensive examination of the media system in Italy during the last twenty years. Seeing the rise of new political actors and the growing role of the Internet and social media, the general elections of February 2013 have symbolically closed a twenty-year period of Italian history dominated by Silvio Berlusconi politically and by television as channel of political communication. The analysis focuses on change and continuity with past media structures, cultures and practices, and considers the “Berlusconi factor,” namely the impact of one man on the country’s media system, journalism, and political communication.

While the historical significance of fascism and anti-fascism is still being hotly debated in Europe and around the world, this anthology offers a new look at the many faces of repression and resistance. Stanislao G. Pugliese brings together a wide range of voices that illuminate more than eighty years of fascism and anti-fascism in Italy. Many of the pieces, including letters from women to Mussolini and anti-fascist graffiti from a Nazi prison in Rome, are available in English for the first time. The selections include historical documents, political analysis, stories, songs, and memoirs from a variety of perspectives. Taken together, the documents provide a compelling account of the political, historical, economic, and social impact of fascism and the resistance. Touching on fields as far ranging as political science, history, women's studies, and religion, Fascism, Anti-Fascism, and the Resistance in Italy is immediate, human, and eminently readable.

No, Anti-Book is not a book about books. Not exactly. And yet it is a must for anyone interested in the future of the book. Presenting what he terms “a communism of textual matter,” Nicholas Thoburn explores the encounter between political thought and experimental writing and publishing, shifting the politics of text from an exclusive concern with content and meaning to the media forms and social relations by which text is produced and consumed. Taking a “post-digital” approach in considering a wide array of textual media forms, Thoburn invites us to challenge the commodity form of books—to stop imagining books as transcendent intellectual, moral, and aesthetic goods unsullied by commerce. His critique is, instead, one immersed in the many materialities of text. Anti-Book engages with an array of writing and publishing projects, including Antonin Artaud’s paper gris-gris, Valerie Solanas’s SCUM Manifesto, Guy Debord’s sandpaper-bound Mémoires, the collective novelist Wu Ming, and the digital/print hybrid of Mute magazine. Empirically grounded, it is also a major achievement in expressing a political philosophy of writing and publishing, where the materiality of text is interlaced with conceptual production. Each chapter investigates a different form of textual media in concert with a particular concept: the small-press pamphlet as “communist object,” the magazine as “diagrammatic publishing,” political books in the modes of “root” and “rhizome,” the “multiple single” of anonymous authorship, and myth as “unidentified narrative object.” An absorbingly written contribution to contemporary media theory in all its manifestations, Anti-Book will enrich current debates about radical publishing, artists’ books and other new genre and media forms in alternative media, art publishing, media studies, cultural studies, critical theory, and social and political theory.

The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Italy provides a comprehensive account of Italy and Italian politics in the 21st Century. Featuring contributions from many leading scholars in the field, this Handbook is comprised of 28 chapters which are organized to deliver unparalleled analysis of Italian society, politics and culture. A wide range of topics are covered, including: Politics and economy, and their impact on Italian society Parties and new politics Regionalism and migrations Public memories Continuities and transformations in contemporary Italian society. This is an essential reference work for scholars and students of Italian and Western European society, politics, and history.

First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.