Not A Normal Country: Italy After Berlusconi - Softcover

Andrews, Geoff

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0745323677 ISBN 13: 9780745323671

Publisher: Pluto Press, 2005

Synopsis

'I know of no book in English dedicated with such focus and depth on Berlusconi’s politics. ... Geoff Andrew's grasp of political culture is profound and reflective.' Gino Bedani, Research Professor in Italian, University of Swansea

'[Andrews provides] unusually penetrating insights ... Beautifully written.' Jim Newell, Reader in Politics, University of Salford

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.

About this title

About the Author

Geoff Andrews is the author The Slow Food Story (Pluto, 2008) and Not a Normal Country: Italy after Berlusconi (Pluto, 2005). He also writes for a range of newspapers, including the Financial Times, Open Democracy, and Soundings, for which he was an associate editor.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Not a Normal Country

Italy After Berlusconi

By Geoff Andrews

Pluto Press

Copyright © 2005 Geoff Andrews
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-7453-2367-1

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements, ix, 
Map of Italy, with Political Hotspots, xiv, 
Introduction: Not a Normal Country, 1, 
Part I: Berlusconi and Friends, 
1. From Salesman to Statesman: The Postmodern Populism of Silvio Berlusconi, 17, 
2. History Matters: The Battle for the Memory of Monte Sole, 40, 
3. Bossi's Last Shout, 56, 
Part II: Politics Again, 
4. The Failure of the Italian Third Way, 73, 
5. Italy's New Opposition, 91, 
6. The South Strikes Back, 107, 
Part III: Another Italy?, 
7. Civic Renaissance in Sicily, 131, 
8. Slow Food in the Fast Lane, 151, 
9. From Postmodern Populism to Postmodern Politics?, 166, 
Notes, 185, 
Notes on Sources and Further Reading, 191, 
Acronyms and Glossary, 195, 
Index, 197, 

CHAPTER 1

From Salesman to Statesman: The Postmodern Populism of Silvio Berlusconi

What are we to make of Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's longest-serving postwar Prime Minister, richest man and media entrepreneur? Many see his rise to power as carrying dangerous implications for Western democracy. Some compare his unrivalled personal power to that of a latter-day Peron. It was The Economist, not previously noted for radical campaigns, which launched the most in-depth inquiry into his activities, declaring him 'Unfit to Govern' during the 2001 election campaign and later compiling an extensive list of his alleged financial irregularities. Others, like the American journalist Joe Klein, apparently seduced by the 'great seducer', regard him as little more than a lovable rogue who, harangued by the Neanderthal left, was merely trying to follow sensible economic policies. As for Italians themselves, there seems to be an enormous gulf of the kind that has long divided Italy. Some regard him with a mixture of horror and ridicule; others, seemingly indifferent to his activities, shrug their shoulders and talk of their admiration for the way he has 'beaten the system'. Few admit to having voted for him.

Berlusconi has certainly wielded more power than any Italian leader since Mussolini. His second spell in office, which began in May 2001, saw unprecedented conflicts with the judiciary, the President of the Republic and what remains of public broadcasting in Italy, while his 'personal dominion' seems more reminiscent of those found in some Latin American regimes than modern Western democracies. Yet the rise of Berlusconi has a peculiarly Italian context, one which says much about Italy's recent history, political crises, decay of public life, failures of the left and new economic elites. It is partly also a Milanese phenomenon, with its roots in the development of Milanese capitalism in the 1980s and partly framed by the fallout of the Tangentopoli crisis, which first broke in that city. The status of Berlusconi as an 'anti-politician', who often projects himself and his party (founded with the help of his business associates and built on a network of football clubs) above the organisational, structural and democratic norms of modern political parties, is crucial to understanding the nature of his power and the image he invokes. As such, while there may well be wider significance to be drawn from Berlusconi's brand of populism for the future of politics more widely, it is conceivable only through an analysis of the particular nature of Italy's crisis.

For this reason we cannot ignore the very unusual and uniquely Italian nature of Berlusconi's allies in the House of Liberties, without which he would never have prospered. The Northern League and National Alliance are no more 'normal' than Berlusconi's Forza Italia. One party, rooted in Italy's prosperous north-eastern region, wants regional autonomy – even, at one point in the 1990s, complete independence – and is habitually hostile to Rome; the other, the heir to Mussolini's Fascists, is profoundly nationalist and centralist, with much of its core support in the South. The personal ambitions of the two leaders, Umberto Bossi and Gianfranco Fini, combined with their evident dislike of each other, was destined to make Berlusconi's reign a troubled and volatile one.

Crucially, however, these new parties of the Italian right represented a major historical break with the past. While a small rump of the old Christian Democrats has remained in the form of the UDC, a usually more circumspect part of the House of Liberties, the vacuum left by the DC, which ruled for almost the entire postwar period until its collapse in the early 1990s, has been filled by three parties that were not born out of the anti-Fascist moment of postwar reconstruction. They played no part in the construction of the 'constitutional arch' that, reflecting the anti-Fascist political consensus, shaped the first Italian Republic after 1945.

As a consequence these parties have a more ambiguous relationship to the past, which was used initially to great advantage. Berlusconi himself orchestrated this shift well, presenting himself as a 'new' type of leader and not a professional politician or someone linked to the failures of the old political class. We will see that this carefully cultivated image of himself as a new political actor is a myth. Yet myths often worked for Silvio Berlusconi. They helped him come to power and more than once have rescued him from tight corners. They are central to his particular approach to politics, defined in these pages as postmodern populism.

POSTMODERN POPULISM

Postmodern populism, Berlusconi's mode of governance, helps explain his capacity to exercise power through the global media, his contempt for the conventional norms of politics and his particular way of communicating with his electorate, which also doubles as his media audience. As a phenomenon it had its roots in the crisis of ideological politics that characterised the late 1980s and early 1990s when firstly the Italian Communist Party, the biggest of its kind in Western Europe, turned itself into the Left Democrats following the end of Communism. Then, more dramatically, following the public revelations of its role in the Tangentopoli scandal (namely the systematic corruption in which 'kickbacks' and percentage cuts were taken by politicians in exchange for the distribution of contracts to businesses), the ruling Christian Democrats collapsed. As a result, the Christian Democratic-Communist polarity which shaped the ideological contours of postwar Italian politics came to an end. The old partitocrazia was over and an opening beckoned for new political forces.

The collapse of Italy's dominant ideological framework was only part of the story however. The decline of mass political parties and Fordist forms of work preceded this crisis and were behind widespread socioeconomic shifts in most European countries. In Italy, the link between left-wing politics and its industrial support in manufacturing, which had been particularly strong, now began to fragment. This was particularly notable in the northern industrial cities, where shifting political allegiances provided the Northern League in particular with important political gains. Several writers have noted the populist turn in Italian politics at this time, as voters looked for new and often immediate solutions to this moment of crisis.

The populist appeal of Forza Italia, however, was as a uniquely postmodern political organisation. Founded on a network of football supporters' clubs, it was unlike traditional political parties by virtue of its membership, recruiting from groups not previously involved in politics, and marked further by the absence of any democratic structure or formal organisational framework. Even more significant was the unique and unrivalled power of its leader, who announced the formation of the new political organisation by sending out a video, made at his Milan villa in 1994, just a couple of months before the election that brought him to power for the first time.

It is his style of leadership and unrivalled power that marked Berlusconi out from other political leaders. Consistently critical of professional politicians, he cultivated the image of himself as an outsider, but someone at ease with the technological shifts of the contemporary world. With his position as a media entrepreneur, owner of a football club and reputation as a 'showman', the 'cavaliere' ('knight') brought his audacious business acumen to politics. His personal leadership style, characterised by presidential ambitions, has been refined with great care and detail, in the presentation of his own image as someone much younger than he actually is, and as a successful businessman who can seamlessly extend his own personal success as a salesman to the role of statesman.

Through his unique access to the media, he addressed an 'audience' as much as an 'electorate'; his appeals to loyalty were made to consumers rather than citizens, in the era of post-Fordist, media-driven information societies. The language he chose to adopt in public combined in a unique, uneven and unprecedented way with the content of his TV programmes, while the success of his team, AC Milan, also enabled him to remain in the limelight of popular appeal. As with all forms of populism, but notably in its postmodern version, truth and myth are often entwined, while history is overlooked or rewritten. Yet as Taggart has argued, populism in reality has an 'empty heart'. While it claims to be revolutionary and 'draws great support at times of crisis ... [it] is incapable of offering root and branch reform'. In appealing beyond the conventions of 'normal' politics, Taggart argues that populists 'identify themselves with an idealised heartland'. Despite grandiose language invoking 'the people' against bastions of bureaucracy and officialdom, populism reinforces power elites and above all undermines politics. In fact, as Taggart suggests, populism is only 'reluctantly political', and is 'a reaction against the ideas, institutions and practices of representative politics'.

Indeed, Berlusconi has often shown little patience for the political and legal niceties of representative democracies. He has regularly invoked 'the people' against the judiciary, the left or any other imaginary obstacles that got in his way. In doing so he has sought to bypass the constitutional constraints of liberal democracies. As Ginsborg has argued: 'There is no idea of a level playing field ... Scant attention is paid to the benign consequences of a balance of powers within the democratic state. Judicial autonomy is regarded with anathema'.

By bringing entrepreneurial values and practices into public life, Berlusconi has altered the terms of political debate within Italy. As we will see, the parameters of postmodern populism not only defined Berlusconi's entrance onto the political stage, but shaped his political values, his conflicts, the nature of his relationship with the Italian people and ultimately the crisis in his leadership

MILANESE BACKGROUND

As Italy's financial centre, home of the Italian stock exchange, the main hub of Italy's fashion world and historically the fount of Italy's modern economic dynamism, Milan, Berlusconi's home city, remains a crucial part of his story. His rise as an entrepreneur took place against the background of Italy's 'economic miracle' of the 1950s and 1960s. It is important to recognise the massive and rapid expansion of the Italian economy from the 1950s, in which Italy moved from being a country with much dependence on agriculture to being one of the biggest exporters in the West. Its relative wealth reached its peak in the late 1980s when it became the fifth largest economy in the West, overtaking the UK in the process. Much of this wealth was driven by the new industrial districts in the North of the country. Milan symbolised this new wealth, which was evident in the fashion houses but also in the lifestyles of its citizens and the emergence of new economic elites. It was the Milan of the 1980s that provided the major opportunities for Berlusconi to increase his economic power, while the 1990s brought the possibility of combining entrepreneurial endeavour with political commitment.

The major economic transformations that took place in this period resulted in what Ginsborg has called a 'new technological paradigm', in which 'no workplace was left untouched, no entrepreneur unaffected'. In particular, the shift from a Fordist workforce to the dominance of a tertiary and service sector combined with major social and political changes to create new forms of social divisions, increasing individualism and hedonism and above all new power elites. The rise of the 'post-Fordist' industries was particularly strong in the new industrial districts of Lombardy, Veneto, Emilia Romagna and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Typified by Bennetton, they built on the strong Italian tradition of small artisan firms, while new high-tech retailing and design allowed the industries to flourish. This 'molecular capitalism', as Bonomi has called it, was responsible for a new domination of the service sector, which by 1980 already accounted for 48.3 percent of Italy's employment. It also meant that political allegiances built around the industrial working class were fragmenting; this was reflected in greater electoral volatility, with the Northern League in particular benefiting from a new working-class vote. Shifts in consumption patterns, a rise in social mobility and looser family ties also reflected a greater individualism, with new risks and uncertainties. At the same time, the Catholic and Communist ideologies that had helped shape people's ideas were entering profound and deep crisis. Milan, for example, traditionally had strong left movements in the 1960s and 1970s, whose leading political and cultural figures included the publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, the playwright Dario Fo, and more recently, Vittorio Agnoletto, leader of the 'No Global' movement.

These economic changes were of course taking place in all Western countries at this time and in Britain were symbolised by the Thatcherite generation of slick city dealers and 'yuppies'. In Milan, there was unprecedented mobility in a dynamic service industry and it is possible to discern the development of a new entrepreneurial class of business managers and tycoons, an environment ideal for someone of Berlusconi's profile. In Milan, there was a new economic and political elite which, among other things, facilitated the rise to power of Bettino Craxi, Berlusconi's close friend and Prime Minister of Italy, later found guilty of corruption. As Ginsborg describes it, the late 1980s was symptomatic of an era in which the individual entrepreneur was 'cast loose' in a new climate of hedonism and risk-taking: 'The attitudes of Italian managers were found to be dominated by individualism, autocracy, paternalism, a stress upon masculinity and a strong sense of hierarchy'. As we now know, Milan in this period was also the centre of clientelism and corruption, where the political and economic aspirations of much of the elite crossed the boundaries of legality.

Following a strict schooling and graduation in law, Berlusconi entered the booming construction industry in Milan in the early 1960s. Without his own capital he showed an early sign of entrepreneurialism by getting the owner of the bank where his father worked as a clerk to lend him money for his first ventures. After selling his first apartment blocks, with the help of advertisements in Corriere della Sera, he made his main breakthrough with the building of Milano 2 between 1970-79. Milano 2 was an enclosed residential area for 10,000 people, built on the outskirts of the city and further cut off by the tight security of its perimeter gates. Its development reflected the new dominant ethos of Milan at this time. With its artificial lakes, six schools and swimming pool, Milano 2 offered some respite from the 'Milano da bere', the 'city you can drink', one that epitomised the fast life of the new rich.

The significance of Milano 2 for Berlusconi's subsequent career was massive. In building the complex he had to deal with local bureaucracies, trade unions and airport authorities (it was close to Linate Airport and he had to win over the airport authorities to alter flight directions). These were the first of many battles in which he saw himself as the creative entrepreneur pursuing greater prosperity in the face of obstructive and politically motivated officials. As with many of his other business ventures, there was some concern over the exact source of his funds for the complex. It was also at Milano 2 that Berlusconi made his first, decisive intervention in the media, with the arrival of TeleMilano, a TV station for Milano 2's residents set up in 1974. This was the same year that he bought his 147-room villa in Arcore near Milan, at an apparently cut price offer, purchased with the help of his new lawyer, Cesare Previti.

FROM MEDIA ENTREPRENEUR TO POLITICIAN

Berlusconi's rise as a media entrepreneur is central to an understanding of his populist appeal in politics. The setting up of TeleMilano provided the chance for his first break into public life. In 1980 he turned it into the private network Canale 5 (Channel 5). The symbolic launching of Canale 5, from the artificial lake at Milano 2, with one of his now legendary quiz shows, connected with an audience that was subsequently to be served a regular diet of imported American soaps, telefilms, cartoons and variety shows. The centrality of TV in the lives of ordinary Italians owes more to Berlusconi's contribution than it does to anyone else. His skilful positioning of these programmes at peak hours on Canale 5 and his two other networks that he purchased in the early 1980s, Rete 4 and Italia 1, brought him into conflict with the state broadcaster, RAI, which at that time had a monopoly of national broadcasting. His actions changed the rules of public broadcasting in Italy. It was the beginning of an acceleration to power that eventually enabled Berlusconi to own three private networks, as well as to appoint the board of RAI. RAI under his control has subsequently moved rapidly towards privatisation.

(Continues...)

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Edition details

• Publisher: Pluto Press
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0745323677
• ISBN 13: 9780745323671
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 216