The Troubled Presence of the United States in Italy’s Political Culture: An Overview
Abstract
Stefano Luconi
University of Naples L’Orientale
Italy
The Troubled Presence of the United States in Italy’s Political Culture: An Overview
This brief article examines the impact of US values on Italy’s political system since the end of World War II. It argues that, during the Cold War, the allegiance of the sizeable Communist Party to the Soviet Union, on the one hand, and the Catholics’ distrust of Americanism, on the other, prevented US principles from shaping the nation’s republican institutions and playing a significant influence on Italian political culture, notwithstanding Washington’s efforts to spread its own philosophy in the country. It also suggests that, after the end of the West-versus-East ideological conflict, the two major party coalitions paid only lip service to US values and referred to them mainly out of expediency while jockeying for position in their struggle for political power.
Keywords
Italy; political culture; US values; American model
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Dipartimento di Studi Letterari, Linguistici e Comparati L'Università degli Studi di Napoli L'Orientale Italy
Stefano Luconi teaches History of North America at the University of Naples L’Orientale and specializes in Italian immigration to the United States. His publications include From Paesani to White Ethnics: The Italian Experience in Philadelphia (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001) and The Italian-American Vote in Providence, Rhode Island, 1916–1948 (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2004). He also edited, with Dennis Barone, Small Towns, Big Cities: The Urban Experience of Italian Americans (New York: American Italian Historical Association, 2010) and, with Mario Varricchio, Lontane da casa: Donne italiane e diaspora globale (Turin: Accademia University Press, 2015). His most recent volume is La “nazione indispensabile”: Storia degli Stati Uniti dalle origini a oggi (Florence: Le Monnier, 2016). He serves on the editorial boards of Forum Italicum and The Italian American Review and is the book review co-editor for Altreitalie: Rivista Internazionale di Studi sulle Migrazioni Italiane nel Mondo.
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