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A state within a state: the role of the church in two Italian political transitions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2016

John Pollard
John Pollard*
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge, UK
*
∗ Email: jfp32@cam.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article analyses the parallels between the role played by the Church, first during the Crisis of the Liberal State in the early twentieth century and then during the transition from the Christian Democratic regime to the ‘bi-polar’ Second Republic more than 70 years later. It explores both the particular, contingent forces at work in each, and the underlying explanations as to why the Church was able to successfully exploit these two processes of transition in the political history of Italy to its advantage. It concludes by arguing that the experience of these two crises demonstrates that the Church is not only a powerful force in Italian civil society but also effectively ‘a state within a state’ in relation to the functioning of Italy's political structures.

Keywords

VaticanTangentopoliFascismChristian Democratic regimeBerlusconi
Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , November 2011 , pp. 449 - 459
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

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