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Abstracts

Alessandro Campi, Populism and Democracy: Ideological Abuses, Political Misunderstandings, and Conceptual Confusions

Populism is often described as a chameleon—an ambiguous and elusive concept, a polemical political term capable of adapting, as contemporary experience also demonstrates, to a wide range of political and ideological contexts. It is virtually impossible to identify the essence of populism or to provide a single, comprehensive definition. This essay proposes a historical-political interpretation of the phenomenon, connecting its emergence and rise, on the one hand, with the phases of the birth and consolidation of a democracy, and on the other, with the moments in which a mature democracy can no longer respond effectively to citizens’ demands or sustain the expectations and levels of performance that it has itself generated. From this perspective, “democratic malaise” represents the key to understanding populism and the features that define it: the appeal to the people, distrust of established power, democratic radicalism, and so forth.

Keywords: Populism, Democracy, New Right, Power, Democratic malaise

Claudio Capo, Guillaume Faye, GRECE’s Rebel Intellectual: Advocating “Esperia” Against Western Civilization

Guillaume Faye, a relatively unknown and controversial figure in the intellectual landscape of the late 20th century, is often reduced to quotations and stereotypes, despite being one of the most original and provocative authors of his generation. Born in 1949, he quickly developed a radical critique of Western civilization and bourgeois values, influenced by Nietzsche, Heidegger, and French Situationism. This study aims to fill the academic gap surrounding his thought by analyzing his works produced between 1979 and 1986.

Keywords: Guillaume Faye, Metapolitics, New Right, Western civilization, Culture

Lorenzo Ferraro, Saint-Simon for a New Europe? Converging Perspectives in Carlo Curcio and Armando Saitta

This article analyses the reception of Saint-Simon’s De la réorganisation de la société européenne in Italy at the collapse of the fascist regime, when it was designated as an important source of inspiration by historians Carlo Curcio and Armando Saitta in the debate regarding the future of Europe. This case study provides the comparative analysis on how this legacy was preserved by those historians who had very different backgrounds, a contrast which emerged in their pages where Saint-Simon’s project of a European union is described ranging between liberalism and socialism, politics and economy, democracy and the threat of technocracy.

Keywords: Europe, Fascism, Carlo Curcio, Armando Saitta, History

Luisa Borghesi, George F. Kennan, Henry Kissinger, and Cold War Tragic Realism

The article centers on Cold War political realism, focusing on the perspectives of George F. Kennan and Henry Kissinger—two of the principal figures of that period. George Kennan, regarded as the father of containment, and Henry Kissinger, the architect of détente and the opening to China, are both prominent figures of political realism. Their perspectives, however, are not identical. While Kennan managed to preserve a tragic sensibility in his understanding of history, characterized by an awareness of the limits of the American role and an appeal, albeit from a position of firm opposition, to coexist with the adversary, Kissinger’s outlook was more oriented toward overcoming the tragic.

Keywords: Political Realism, Tragedy, Cold War, George Kennan, Henry Kissinger, Vietnam

Maurizio Serio, Founding the Political Bond Among Need, Innovation, and Creativity: A Rhapsodic Path Through the Intellectual History from Antiquity to the Middle Ages

Since ancient times, need and lack have been suggested as the primary driving forces of change and, by extension, of social and political organization itself. But if necessity is undoubtedly a powerful lever, it is certainly not the only, nor the main one, to shape political innovation. Rather, along the history of ideas this latter has been rooted in a richer network of ideal, relational and existential drives, even towards transcendence. This study attempts to explore, from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, the intellectual dynamics of change whose target was creating political communities oriented towards the common good.

Keywords: Democracy, Common good, Political Innovation, Creativity

Cristian Leone, Towards a Liberal Reformism: Social Justice and the Trade Union Question

The Italian Liberal Party, in the new mass society that emerged at the end of the war, must reformulate its programs and structures to be competitive with other political parties. In fact, unlike other groups that enjoy broad popular support, the liberals are still structurally organized according to a notable model, no longer suited to the renewed Italian political landscape. The aim of this essay, therefore, is to reconstruct, between 1943 and 1945, the evolution of the PLI in an attempt to reform itself through a renewed political and ideological organization.

Keywords: Benedetto Croce, Liberalism, Political party, Reformism

Vittorio Lornzo Tumeo, A Biography of Vincenzo Piccolo Cupani (1834–1905): Magistrate, Colonial Advisor, and Deputy of the Kingdom of Italy

The research aims to be a first attempt to reconstruct the institutional biography of Vincenzo Piccolo Cupani, a little-known but important figure of the political and judicial institutions of the Kingdom of Italy. By the application of a historical-institutional method and through the analysis of various public and private archive sources, important data have been recovered relating to the judicial, legal and political activity of Piccolo Cupani. Initially student of the Consulta di Sicilia and actively involved in the Sicilian Revolution of 1860, he had his first assignment as lawyer. In 1861 he became district Judge and then, although after many years, King’s Procurator, then Counselor of Appeal Court. In 1890 Francesco Crispi, of whom he was friend, sent Piccolo Cupani to Eritrea as Counselor for Internal Affairs. The colonial experience, in which he developed interesting legislative projects, was intense but also brief. Continuous quarrels with the Governor Gandolfi, the denunciation of murders scandals involving Italian military, the “risk” of “de-militarization” of institutions represented by the actions of Piccolo Cupani, and also the change of government between Crispi and Di Rudinì, contributed to determining the magistrate’s return to Italy. After, began his political career as member of Italian Parliament for six legislatures, from the end of 1890 to the beginning of 1905, in the ranks of the Left-wing. In 1890s he was also appointed President of Court of Appeal Section and, finally, Councilor of Cassation. The rediscovery of this figure is part of the historical studies on the judiciary, on the first Italian colonialism and on the Parliament of the liberal age.

Keywords: Judiciary, Colonialism, Eritrea, Parliament, Italian Kingdom