Anna Cento Bull | University of Bath (original) (raw)

Papers by Anna Cento Bull

Oxford University Press eBooks, Oct 27, 2016

After the First World War, the country was torn apart by competing visions of what modern Italy s... more After the First World War, the country was torn apart by competing visions of what modern Italy should stand for and which values should bind Italians together. Against a background of high inflation, high unemployment, widespread social protests, soaring trade-union membership, and militancy, liberals, Catholics, socialists, nationalists, and fascists vied with each other for popular support. ‘Alternative projects of nationhood’ outlines Benito Mussolini’s fascist movement describing its failure as a totalitarian project. It then describes the rise and decline of the Christian democratic take on modern nationhood after the Second World War, before looking at the Second Republic’s modernization project epitomized by Silvio Berlusconi, which embraced consumerism and media culture.

The Italianist, Jun 1, 1992

... THE LEGA LOMBARDA. A NEW POLITICAL SUBCULTURE FOR LOMBARDY'S LOCALIZED INDUSTRIES* A... more ... THE LEGA LOMBARDA. A NEW POLITICAL SUBCULTURE FOR LOMBARDY'S LOCALIZED INDUSTRIES* Anna Cento Bull ... 'local production systems' (Garofoli, 1983) or 'industrial districts' (Becattini, 1987; Goodman, Bamford, and Saynor, 1989). ...

Modern Italy, 1997

However, the question of Gentile's contemporary relevance and importance as a thinker remains ver... more However, the question of Gentile's contemporary relevance and importance as a thinker remains very much unanswered in both books. In order to solve this problem in a satisfactory manner, one would have to evaluate the possibility of reading Rousseau, Hegel and Marx in the way that Gentile did, and then examine how Gentile attempted to apply his philosophical conclusions to the problems facing the post-Risorgimento Italian state which was, as everyone knew, far from Hegelian or ethical. Rather than simply blaming this on obvious would-be 'traitors' like Giovanni Giolitti, however, Gentile did attempt a bold synthesis of Rousseau, Hegel, Marx and other thinkers which does merit a thorough critical examination surpassing the limits of H.S. Harris' The Social Philosophy of Giovanni Gentile (University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1960). We still await a re-evaluation of Gentile along these lines.

Springer eBooks, 2018

Operation Condor was a Latin American organization—the relationship between General Augusto Pinoc... more Operation Condor was a Latin American organization—the relationship between General Augusto Pinochet and the Italian Neo-Fascists also provides a fascinating and unique picture of Fascism’s transnational features. Firstly, it demonstrates the persistence of transnational relations between Fascists and Fascist sympathizers over decades. The influence of Fascism on Chilean nationalist movements and the link between Pinochet and Junio Valerio Borghese, who represented a myth for different Fascist generations, is illustrative. This feature ensured the survival of the Fascist transnational network, which originated from the relations that revolved around the spreading of Fascism at a transnational level, throughout several decades. A further factor fostering the survival of the network was the logistic support provided by friendly regimes to the network’s members. Former Nazi and Fascist militants wanted for war crimes as well as Italian Neo-Fascists seeking to avoid judicial prosecution in Italy were all welcomed by sympathetic regimes such as Spain, Chile and Argentina. The opportunity of finding a safe refuge in those countries also promoted regular exchanges between the interwar Fascist generation and the post-war one. This chapter examines the dynamic transnational trajectories of Fascist militants and ideas and the resilience of relations within the transnational network. The collaboration between Pinochet and Italian Neo-Fascists was mutually beneficial—in 1975, they cooperated in the attempted murder of Bernardo Leighton in Rome. In 1976, thanks to the transnational links between Latin American Juntas, Fernandez Larios and Pinochet’s agent Michael Townley obtained fake Paraguayan passports which they used to enter the US and assassinate Orlando Letelier.

Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2000

ABSTRACT This article focuses on changing voting patterns in Italy after the demise of the tradit... more ABSTRACT This article focuses on changing voting patterns in Italy after the demise of the traditional parties and explores two main issues. Has voting become ‘individualised’, with a breakdown of class‐based and locally based sub‐cultures? Have gender voting patterns become homogenised or is there a re‐emergence of a gender gap in voting (as detected in other European countries)? Having established that a marked discrepancy between male and female voters exists in Italy today, the article assesses the nature of the discrepancy and its consequences in terms of the political influence of male and female voters and the resilience of political sub‐cultures.

Bossi’s movement appeared on the political scene just at the moment that many commentators were i... more Bossi’s movement appeared on the political scene just at the moment that many commentators were interpreting the end of the Cold War and the subsequent decline of the traditional, ideologically-based, mass parties as marking the end of Italy’s anomalous status in Western Europe. The country seemed to be heading for a relatively conventional party system in which a constellation of post-materialist, single-issue (smaller) parties existed alongside larger parties broadly representative of socio-economic interests. Such large and moderate parties were expected to be able to elaborate and implement distinct political programmes and form coalitions which would alternate in power.

In the spring of 1985, an obscure party known as the Lega Autonoma Lombarda (a name shortened to ... more In the spring of 1985, an obscure party known as the Lega Autonoma Lombarda (a name shortened to Lega Lombarda the following year) took 13,000 votes in local elections in the wealthy Alpine province of Varese: 2.5 per cent of the votes cast. The Lega took a seat in the provincial assembly and gained further seats on Varese city council and in the neighbouring town of Gallarate. Apart from a handful of activists, nobody really knew what the new party stood for. Its electoral symbol was a stylish image of a medieval warrior with a drawn sword superimposed over an outline map of Lombardy. When told that the warrior was one Alberto da Giussano, a twelfth-century knight who in 1167 had led an army drawn from the city-states of northern Italy against the invading forces of Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor, most people just sniggered. They laughed even louder — or walked out in disgust — when the Lega’s newly elected representative to the provincial assembly eschewed all formality and gave his first speech in the guttural local dialect. Certainly nobody then imagined that within a decade the Lega, by then renamed the Lega Nord, would have contributed half a dozen cabinet ministers to a national government, won a mayoral election in Milan and several other major cities with record pluralities, and have become the largest political party in Italy’s rich industrial North.

In the present time, the process of globalization and its destabilizing effects upon nation state... more In the present time, the process of globalization and its destabilizing effects upon nation states are increasingly debated by economists, sociologists and political scientists, with varying ‘solutions’ being put forward to ensure that governance can still be both effective and meaningful and politics does not become subordinated to the exigencies of the ‘market’. This chapter argues that the process of economic globalization has a direct relevance for recent socio-political developments in Italy and can contribute to explaining the rise and success of the Lega Nord, as well as its more recent electoral decline. It also argues that current debates on the role of politics in the new global environment can help us understand the positioning of the other Italian political parties vis-a-vis both the project carried out by the Lega and the needs and demands of its regionally-based electoral constituency, as identified in Chapter 3. Indeed, the political debate in Italy revolves increasingly around the issue of the loss of economic competitiveness of the country in recent years and the choices the state is faced with in its efforts to devise a new political and institutional order and to both adapt and respond to the process of globalization.

At the general elections of 14 June 1987, the Lega Lombarda obtained 0.5 per cent of the votes na... more At the general elections of 14 June 1987, the Lega Lombarda obtained 0.5 per cent of the votes nationally and 3 per cent in Lombardy, winning one seat in the Chamber of Deputies. Five years later, on 5 April 1992, the newly named Lega Lombarda-Lega Nord obtained 8.7 per cent of the votes nationally and almost 20 per cent in the northern regions, gaining 55 seats. The party was especially successful in traditionally ‘white’, that is, Catholic-dominated, north-eastern provinces, but it also attracted the support of many voters in the large urban conurbations and in the North-West. In the general elections of 27 March 1994, the Lega obtained 8.4 per cent of the votes nationally, losing votes to Berlusconi’s Forza Italia in the large cities and in the North-West, but also showing that it could rely on a remarkably stable electorate in eastern Lombardy and the Veneto.

This chapter has a threefold purpose. First, to describe the Lega’s decision to press for the sec... more This chapter has a threefold purpose. First, to describe the Lega’s decision to press for the secession of all northern Italy from Tuscany upwards from the Italian state and to found a new ‘Republic of Padania’. This is certainly the aspect of the Lega’s political activity that has attracted most international attention. Hundreds of journalists from all over the world attended the symbolic foundation of Padania in Venice in September 1996.

Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, 1991

The paper compares three European textile communities, Como (Italy), Leicester (UK) and Lyons (Fr... more The paper compares three European textile communities, Como (Italy), Leicester (UK) and Lyons (France), chosen on the basis of the large numbers of small firms operating within them and using data collected by the authors via a postal questionnaire and one-to-one interviews. ...

Anthropological Quarterly, 2003

Page 1. BOOK REVIEW Anna Cento Bull University of Bath SJ Yanagisako. 2002. Producing Culture and... more Page 1. BOOK REVIEW Anna Cento Bull University of Bath SJ Yanagisako. 2002. Producing Culture and Capital: Family Firms in Italy. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. This is a welcome and refreshing addition ...

Berghahn Books, Sep 26, 2022