Quale futuro per il passato A3 (original) (raw)

Genova, 30 May 2018, International workshop on Fascism, Populism, and Illiberal Democracy. Participants: M. Bresciani, G. Schwarz, F. Cassata, P. Ther, N. Urbinati, S. Bottoni, A. Testi In the aftermath of the geopolitical and ideological transformations of 1989-1991, which are symbolically epitomized by the fall of the Berlin Wall, the future seemed to belong to liberal democracy, as part of a “Western model” self-proclaimed winner of the Cold War. Between the 1990s and the early 2000s, this conviction intertwined with the idea of “the end of history” on both sides of the Atlantic (with different meanings and implications) and found in the project of European integration one of its most dynamic driving forces. The financial and economic crisis of 2007-2008 which transferred from the US to Europe, destabilized the European Union, and brought to the ascent of new political, social and cultural phenomena has demonstrated that the opposite is true. As a matter of fact, the very complexity of the crisis, or better the plurality of global crises developing at different regional levels, requires a huge and deep essay in understanding. In this regard a tense public debate has taken place thanks to the participation of political scientists, sociologists, and historians. On the one hand, a complex and dynamic global context, marked by the geopolitical initiatives of Putin's increasingly authoritarian regime and by his decisive role in the Ukrainian crisis, by the Syrian civil war, where the great powers were involved in different forms and at different stages, by the disrupting consequences of Brexit and of Trump's American presidency. On the other hand, the crisis of the European institutions, the severe economic difficulties of the Mediterranean countries (first of all, Greece), the massive flux of refugees and migrants from the Middle East and Africa, the hegemonic role of Germany (and its looming crisis) and the instability of the former Communist countries in East Central Europe and in the Balkans, the ascent of the “populist” movements and parties and the affirmation of illiberal governments in Hungary and in Poland. The debate has focussed on some concepts – “populism”, “illiberal democracy”, “fascism”, and “post-fascism” – by which journalists, political scientists, sociologists, and historians have tried to define, analyse, and reconstruct the sense, the forms and the background of the new political movements and experiments. This debate has made frequent reference to the term of “fascism” and to the analogy with the 1930s in order to grasp the ongoing trends and dynamics. For that matter, the never-ending question of the definition of “fascism” has been resumed, together with the discussion of its political, social, and cultural features, of its relationship with interwar Europe, and of its legacies in post-1945 Europe. In which sense the comparative reference to the historical phenomenon of “fascism” is pertinent to today's phenomena, and in which ways it is understood? Why and how can be useful the analogy with the past – the “crisis of democracy” of the 1930s – in order to better understand the present? Can the concepts of “populism” or “illiberal democracy”, and the discussions that have developed around them, offer an innovative contribution, and in which terms? These and other questions will be at the core of this workshop, aiming to confront points of view of historians and political scientists in order to clarify the aforementioned concepts and to reframe the discussion about the relationship between the today's global and European crises and the complex legacy of the twentieth century.