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3 - Two roads of Italian liberalism: the Partito Repubblicano Italiano (PRI) and the Partito Liberale Italiano (PLI)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2009

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Summary

introduction; who are the italian liberals?

When identifying liberalism in Italy after the Second World War, familiar comparative distinctions between types of liberalism are indeed relevant. Such distinctions as between ‘radical’ and ‘moderate’ – or between ‘social’ and ‘economic’ or simply ‘progressive’ and ‘conservative’ forms of liberalism are all directly applicable to the Italian Republican and Liberal Parties respectively, as a broad description of their basic and somewhat divergent programmatic outlooks over time. As to that other set of distinctions between liberal parties, namely whether they are ‘historical’ or de jure as against de facto or ‘behavioural’ forms of liberalism, the PLI and PRI fall respectively into the two different categories. This is first and foremost because the former calls itself ‘liberal’ and the latter does not, although this is not to deny that the Republicans represent a ‘historical’ party in Italy of their own variety.

In other words, the PRI and the PLI express different versions of the same ideological tendency as seen in comparative terms. So far as this Italian example is concerned, any diachronic assessment of the two parties in question will show that however much they have converged strategically and programmatically in recent years they nevertheless boast separate traditions, have usually followed different paths in government and have for most of their histories possessed rather distinct social and electoral bases. Acknowledging therefore the truism that political parties are hardly static entities, such mutual movement on the part of the PRI and PLI may well be viewed as pursuing ‘two roads of Italian liberalism’.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1988

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