The Troubled Presence of the United States in Italy’s Political Culture: An Overview
Keywords:
Italy, political culture, US values, American modelAbstract
Stefano Luconi
University of Naples L’Orientale
Italy
The Troubled Presence of the United States in Italy’s Political Culture: An Overview
This brief article examines the impact of US values on Italy’s political system since the end of World War II. It argues that, during the Cold War, the allegiance of the sizeable Communist Party to the Soviet Union, on the one hand, and the Catholics’ distrust of Americanism, on the other, prevented US principles from shaping the nation’s republican institutions and playing a significant influence on Italian political culture, notwithstanding Washington’s efforts to spread its own philosophy in the country. It also suggests that, after the end of the West-versus-East ideological conflict, the two major party coalitions paid only lip service to US values and referred to them mainly out of expediency while jockeying for position in their struggle for political power.
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