Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T21:18:17.408Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

From the other shore: American political science and the ‘Italian case’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Alfio Mastropaolo
Alfio Mastropaolo*
Affiliation:
University of Turin, Department of Political Studies
*
∗Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines a number of the major works on Italy conducted by political scientists from the United States in the second half of the twentieth century. Focusing on the research of Banfield, Almond and Verba, Tarrow and Putnam, it discusses the interpretations of Italy offered by these scholars and examines the contribution they have made to the political and intellectual debate surrounding the so-called ‘Italian case’. It concludes that the image presented of Italy by American researchers is generally critical and often simplified and stereotypical. Moreover, rather than highlighting the clichés frequently present in such accounts, Italian intellectuals have tended instead to use them in order to construct a wholly negative perspective of Italy and, in many instances, have distorted the original intentions of those American political scientists whose work is cited as evidence.

Keywords

Political ScienceItalyamoral familismsocial capitalclientelism
Type
Contexts & Debates: LʼItalia Vista da Fuori
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , August 2009 , pp. 311 - 337
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adcock, R. 2007. Interpreting behavioralism. In Modern political science: Anglo-American exchanges since 1880 , ed. Adcock, R., Bevir, M. and Stimson, S.C., Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Alberoni, F., ed. 1967. L'attivista di partito. Una indagine sui militanti di base nel PCI e nella DC . Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Allum, P. 1973. Politics and society in post-war Naples . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [Italian translation: 1975. Potere e società a Napoli nel dopoguerra. Torino: Einaudi].Google Scholar
Almond, G.A., and Verba, S.. 1965. The civic culture: Political attitudes and democracy in five nations . Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co.Google Scholar
Amato, G. 1976. Economia, politica e istituzioni in Italia . Bologna, Il: Mulino.Google Scholar
Asor Rosa, A. 1975. La cultura. In Storia d'Italia, volume IV, Dall 'Unità ad oggi . Torino: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Bagnasco, A. 2006. Ritorno a Montegrano. In Le basi morali di una società arretrata , ed. Banfield, E.C., Bologna, Il: Mulino.Google Scholar
Banfield, E.C. 1951. Government project . Glencoe, IL: Free Press.Google Scholar
Banfield, E.C. 1958. The moral basis of a backward society . Glencoe, IL: Free Press [Italian translation: 1961, 1967, 1976, 2006. Le basi morali di una società arretrata. Bologna: Il Mulino].Google Scholar
Banfield, E.C. 1963. American foreign aid doctrines . Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.Google Scholar
Banfield, E.C. 1979. Note su Montegrano rivisitato. In Marginalità e lotte dei marginali , ed. Bianchi, A., Granato, A.F. and Zingarelli, D., Milano: Franco Angeli.Google Scholar
Barzini, L. 1964. The Italians . New York: Atheneum.Google Scholar
Bibes, G. 1974. Le système politique italien . Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Blackmer, L.M., and Tarrow, S.G.. 1976. Il comunismo in Italia e Francia . Milano: Etas Libri.Google Scholar
Bollati, G. 1983. L'Italiano. Il carattere nazionale come storia e come invenzione . Torino: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Bossi, U. 1996. Il mio progetto: discorsi su federalismo e Padania . Milano: Sperling & Kupfer.Google Scholar
Briquet, J.-L. 2009. Scholarly formulations of a political category: Clientelism and the sociohistorical interpretation of the ‘Italian case’. Modern Italy 14, no. 3: 339–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calamandrei, P. 1955. La Costituzione e le leggi per attuarla. In Dieci anni dopo, 1945–1955 , ed. AA VV. Bari: Laterza.Google Scholar
Cartocci, R. 2007. Mappe del tesoro. Atlante del capitale sociale in Italia . Bologna, Il: Mulino.Google Scholar
Cavazza, F.L., and Graubard, S.R., eds. 1974. Il caso italiano . Milano: Garzanti.Google Scholar
Chasseriaud, J.P. 1965. Le Parti Démocrate Chrétien en Italie . Paris: Armand Colin.Google Scholar
Chubb, J. 1982. Patronage, power and poverty in Southern Sicily . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Coleman, J.S. 1990. Foundations of social theory . Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Colombis, A. 1976. Organizzazione sociale e familismo amorale a Chiaromonte. Critica della tesi di E C. Banfield da parte di un familista. Sociologia dell'organizzazione 4: 437–88.Google Scholar
De Masi, D. 1976. Arretratezza del Mezzogiorno e analisi sociologica. In Le basi morali di una società arretrata , ed. Banfield, E.C., Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Esping-Andersen, G. 1997. La politica senza classe? In Il paese dei paradossi. Le basi sociali della politica in Italia , ed. Negri, N. and Sciolla, L., Roma: La Nuova Italia Scientifica.Google Scholar
Fenoglio, B. 1954. La malora . Torino: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Galli, G. 1966. Il bipartitismo imperfetto; comunisti e democristiani in Italia . Bologna, Il: Mulino.Google Scholar
Galli, G., ed. 1968. Il comportamento elettorale in Italia. Una indagine ecologica sulle elezioni in Italia fra il 1946 e il 1963 . Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Gayre, G.R. 1946. Italy in transition: Extracts from the private journal of G.R. Gayre . London: Faber & Faber.Google Scholar
Gemelli, G. 2000. La recherche en dehors de l'Université dans l'Italie des années soixante et soixante-dix: le cas des sciences sociales. La Revue pour l'histoire du CNRS 3: 22–39.Google Scholar
Ginsborg, P. 1990. A history of contemporary Italy: Society and politics, 1943–1988 . London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Ginsborg, P. 2004. Silvio Berlusconi: Television, power and patrimony . New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Graziano, L., and Tarrow, S.G., eds. 1979. La crisi italiana . Torino: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Grynszpan, M. 1999. La théorie des élites aux Etats-Unis: Conditions sociales de réception et d'appropriation. Genèse 37: 27–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lange, P., and Tarrow, S.G., eds. 1980. Italy in transition . London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Leonardi, R., Nanetti, R.Y., and Putnam, R.D.. 1987. Il caso Basilicata. L'effetto Regione dal 1970 al 1986 . Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
LaPalombara, J. 1957. The Italian labor movement: Problems and prospects . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
LaPalombara, J. 1964. Interest groups in Italian politics . [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press [Italian translation: 1967. Clientela e parentela. Studio sui gruppi di interesse in Italia. Milano: Comunità].Google Scholar
LaPalombara, J. 1965. Italy: Fragmentation, isolation and alienation. In Political culture and political development , ed. Pye, L.W. and Verba, S., Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
LaPalombara, J. 1987. Democracy Italian style . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press [Italian translation: 1988. Democrazia all'italiana. Milano: Mondadori].Google Scholar
Lijphart, A. 1977. Democracy in plural societies: A comparative exploration . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Meynaud, J. 1964. Rapport sur la classe dirigente italienne . Lausanne: M. Meynaud.Google Scholar
Miller, R.A. 1974. Are familists amoral? A test of Banfield's Amoral Familism Hypothesis in a South Italian village. American Ethnologist 3, no. 1: 515–35.Google Scholar
Moe, N. 2002. The view from Vesuvius: Italian culture and the southern question . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Mutti, A. 1998. Capitale sociale e sviluppo. La fiducia come risorsa . Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Nevola, G. 2004. From the ‘Republic of parties’ to a 'Fatherland for the Italians: The Italian political system in search of new principle of legitimation’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 2, no. 8: 249–65.Google Scholar
Newell, J.L. 2004. Interpretive approaches and the study of Italian politics. Modern Italy 2, no. 9: 47–61.Google Scholar
Padoa Schioppa, T., and Graubard, S.R., eds. 2001. Il caso italiano 2. Dove sta andando il nostro paese? Milano: Garzanti.Google Scholar
Pasquino, G. 1973. Il sistema politico italiano tra neo-trasformismo e democrazia consociativa. In Materiali sul'Italia in trasformazione , ed. Bologna, AA VV.: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Piattoni, S. 2005. Il clientelismo: l'Italia in prospettiva comparata . Roma: Carocci.Google Scholar
Piattoni, S. 2007. Le virtù del clientelismo. Una critica non convenzionale . Bari: Laterza.Google Scholar
Pitt-Rivers, J.A. 1954. The people of the Sierra . New York: Criterion Books.Google Scholar
Pizzorno, A. 1967. Familismo amorale e marginalità storica, ovvero perché non c'è niente da fare a Montegrano. Quaderni di sociologia 3: 349–62 [Also in Banfield, E. C., ed. 1976. Le basi morali di una società arretrata. Bologna: Il Mulino].Google Scholar
Putnam, R.D. 1973. The beliefs of politicians . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Putnam, R.D. 2002. Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community . New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Putnam, R.D., Leonardi, R., and Nanetti, R.Y.. 1985. La pianta e le radici. Il radicamento dell'istituto regionale nel sistema politico italiano . Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Putnam, R.D., Leonardi, R., and Nanetti, R.Y.. 1993. Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press [Italian translation: 1993. La tradizione civica nelle regioni italiane. Milano: Mondadori].Google Scholar
Rokkan, S. 1964. Review: The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations, by Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba. American Political Science Review 3, no. 58: 676–9.Google Scholar
Roux, C. 2003. La culture de défiance italienne dans la science politique américaine de l'après-guerre: l'œuvre d'Edward C. Banfield. Revue internationale de politique comparée 10, no. 3: 463–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rusconi, G.E. 1997. Patria e Repubblica . Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Sabetti, F. 2000. The search for good government: Understanding the paradox of Italian democracy . Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sani, G. 1980. The political culture of Italy: Continuity and change. In The civic culture revisited , ed. Almond, G. and Verba, S., Boston, MA: Little Brown.Google Scholar
Sartori, G. ed. (1963). Il parlamento italiano . Napoli: Esi.Google Scholar
Sartori, G. 1965. Partiti e sistemi di partito: corso di scienza politica . Firenze: Editrice Universitaria.Google Scholar
Sartori, G. 1966. European political parties: The case of polarized pluralism. In Political parties and political development , ed. La Palombara, J. and Weiner, M.. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sartori, G. 1982. Teoria dei Partiti e Caso Italiano . Milano: Sugarco.Google Scholar
Sciolla, L. 1997. Italiani. Stereotipi di casa nostra . Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Sciolla, L. 2004. La sfida dei valori. Rispetto delle regole e rispetto dei diritti in Italia . Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Sills, D., ed. 1968. International encyclopedia of the social sciences . New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Tarrow, S.G. 1967. Peasant Communism in Southern Italy . New Haven: Yale University Press. Italian translation: Partito comunista e contadini nel Mezzogiorno. Torino: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Tarrow, S.G. 1975. Between center and periphery: Grassroots politicians in Italy and France . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Tarrow, S.G. 1977. The Italian party system between crisis and transition. American Journal of Political Science 2, no. 21: 193–224.Google Scholar
Tarrow, S.G. 1989. Democracy and disorder: Protest and politics in Italy, 1965–1975 . Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Tarrow, S.G. 2006. Confessions of a recovering structuralist. European Political Science 1, no. 5: 7–20.Google Scholar
Trigilia, C. 1986. Grandi partiti e piccole imprese. Comunisti e democristiani nelle regioni a economia diffusa . Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Turiello, P. 1882. Governo e governati in Italia . Bologna: Zanichelli.Google Scholar