refused to support the neutralists under the leadership of Giolitti. This con£ict within ..... agement'' by their own practices.60 For example, when Giovanni. Agnelli ...
Associations, civic norms, and democracy: Revisiting the Italian case HYEONG-KI KWON Seoul National University
Abstract. By exploring associational life in early modern Italy, which the arguments of neo-Tocquevillians such as Robert Putnam explore, this article critically reconsiders the e¡ects of associations upon democracy. By revealing how rich associational life resulted in the establishment of Fascism, I argue that associations do not necessarily contribute to the stabilization of democracy. In order to account better for meanings of associations, I emphasize transformation of identities of associations in a political and ideological context.
In recent democratic theories, the Tocquevillian view that the viability of democracy depends on associational life has assumed the status of conventional wisdom. 1 Few scholarly books in the past decade have generated as much debate and empirical investigation as Robert Putnam’s Making Democracy Work, which re-energized arguments about the conception of civil society. Robert Putnam, working from empirical research in Italy, has focused on associational life in civil society, arguing that ‘‘democratic government is strengthened, not weakened, when it faces a vigorous civil society.’’ In addition, Francis Fukuyama and Benjamin Barber hold that the cooperative spirit generated in civil society is a key factor for political democracy and economic prosperity. A school of ‘‘associative democrats’’ ^ for example, Paul Hirst, Joshua Cohen, and Joel Rogers ^ maintains that associations unburden the state and revitalize democratic decisionmaking. Many eminent scholars, including Putnam and Robert Bellah, lament the decline of associations in the United States. 2 The arguments of Tocqueville and the neo-Tocquevillians are concerned about the context of tendencies of modern democracy to lead to excessive individualism, which may in turn lead to dangerous trends of mass politics (i.e., mob rule and majority tyranny). As a way to counter that trend of atomistic individualism and mass politics, neoTheory and Society 33: 135^166, 2004. 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
136 Tocquevillians emphasize a sense of social solidarity nurtured by associations and social networks. In particular, ‘‘market’’ and ‘‘hierarchy’’ were discredited because of the market’s failure regarding the free-rider problem and hierarchy’s ine⁄ciency. Voluntary cooperative spirit and trust in civil society encouraged by associational life are su⁄cient to attract attention as an alternative to market and hierarchy in solving collective actions. Nevertheless, a vigorous associational life does not always contribute to consolidation of democratic order and institutional performance. 3 Contrary to the expectation of neo-Tocquevillians, civic associations can generate severe con£icts in civil society and endanger democracy. For example, hate groups in civil society may deter open deliberation through their segregated racism and parochialism; Timothy McVeigh and other co-conspirators in the Oklahoma City bombing were members of a bowling league. 4 Contrary to the Tocquevillians’ theory of ‘‘mass society’’ in the 1950s and 1960s, the establishment of Fascism and Nazism was not produced by the collapse of intermediate associations and parasitic individuals but by associations themselves. 5 Fascism in Italy occurred not in the so-called ‘‘uncivic’’ southern provinces but in ‘‘civic’’ northern and central Italy based on voluntary associational life. As I demonstrate, civic associations in Italy from 1860 to 1920, which the neo-Tocquevillian Robert Putnam correlates with a higher performance of democracy, contributed to the establishment of non-democratic Fascism. Contrary to Putnam’s claims, associations do not always contribute to the development of democracy. By investigating associational life in early modern Italy, a pursuit that provided neo-Tocquevillians such as Robert Putnam with revitalizing power in the last decade, I warn against over optimistic belief in associations and their e¡ects on democratic performance. I argue that active associations in civil society do not necessarily improve democracy. Although vigorous associational life might encourage a sense of social solidarity, civic virtues such as trust within an association do not easily spread beyond its boundaries, contrary to the expectation of neo-Tocquevillian Putnam. Furthermore, solidarity under di¡erent identities can generate severe con£icts among associations, causing disastrous consequences in a society. By examining how £ourishing associations in early modern Italy contributed to the rise of Fascism, I show that local or civic associations cannot produce speci¢c political outcomes, and that their e¡ects on democracy depend upon interactions with the larger political and ideological context. 6 Before inves-
137 tigating why the golden age of associations in early modern Italy resulted in the establishment of Fascism there, I will ¢rst critically review Robert Putnam’s neo-Tocquevillian argument about ‘‘civicness’’ and expose the correlation between associational life and Fascism.
The neo-Tocquevillian interpretation of Italian civicness Based on empirical research about the connection between democratic performance and civic engagement, Robert Putnam argues that associations in civil society are pivotal conditions for democratic performance and economic prosperity. But the golden age of associations in Italy that Putnam correlates with democracy also presaged the establishment of Fascism. The relationship between Putnam’s civicness and the rise of the Fascist movement must be addressed before one can investigate in depth the process of how £ourishing associations in civil society resulted in Fascism. Based on empirical research about institutional performance in Italy’s twenty regions, Putnam theorizes that di¡erences in institutional performance in contemporary Italy are strongly correlated to a pattern of civic engagement. Map 1, ‘‘Civic Community,’’ and Map 2, ‘‘Institu-
Map 1. The Civic Community in the Italian Regions.
138
Map 2. Institutional Performance in the Italian Regions, 1978^1985.
tional Performance in the Italian Regions, 1978^1985,’’ illustrate this correlation. Central and northern Italy recorded high levels of governmental performance and equally high levels of civic community, whereas southern Italy had lower levels. Putnam traces contemporary democratic performance back to associational life in Italy between 1860 and 1920. The index of civicness from 1860 to 1920 closely correlates with the contemporary civicness (r = .93) and with the institutional performance of the regional government (r = .86). Civic traditions of the period between 1860 and 1920 extend even further back to the Middle Ages. The high civicness of northern and central Italy originates from the medieval city-state tradition, while the relative lack of civicness of southern Italy stems from the autocratic Norman regime in place there. To the question of why associational life contributes to democratic performance, Putnam claims that active involvement in secondary associations generates social capital, norms of reciprocity, and generalized trust; the ‘‘soft solution’’ of social capital generated in associational life is superior to the Hobbesian solution (a third-party enforce-
139
Map 3. The Fascist Takeover of Local Power
ment) to the dilemmas of collective action such as the free-rider, because the former facilitates spontaneous cooperation. 7 Putnam also argues that civic norms generated within an association easily spread beyond its boundaries and thus contribute to democracy at a wider polity level. Putnam says: Civil associations contribute to the e¡ectiveness and stability of democratic government ... , both because of their ‘‘internal’’ e¡ects on individual members and because of their ‘‘external’’ e¡ects on the wider polity. Internally, associations instill in their members habits of cooperation, solidarity, and public-spiritedness. 8
Putnam’s argument is that the democratic performance of northern and central Italy today depends on the civic norms of ‘‘habits of cooperation’’ that citizens learned from associational life and applied to the wider polity. However, if we look at the corruption-fed economics of Italy during the 1980s, it is hard to believe in the e¡ectiveness of civic norms. Corruption scandals that have shaken Italy since 1990 have occurred
140 Table 1. Regional Distribution of Fascist Membership, March 1921 and May 1922 March 1921 Membership
May 1922 Membership
No.
No.
%
%
Piedmont Lombardy Liguria Veneto
2,411 13,968 2,749 23,549
3.0 17.4 3.4 29.3
14,526 79,329 8,841 46,978
4.5 24.5 2.7 14.3
Northern Italy
42,677
53.1
148.774
46.0
Emilia Tuscany Umbria Marches Latium Abruzzi
17,652 2,600 485 814 1,488 1,626
21.9 3.3 0.6 1.0 1.8 2.0
51,637 51,372 5,410 2,311 9,747 4,763
16.0 15.9 1.8 0.8 3.0 1.5
Central Italy
24,657
30.6
125,240
39.0
3,550 4,211 712 3,569 1,100
4.4 5.2 0.9 4.4 1.4
13,944 20,683 2,066 9,546 2,057
4.4 6.4 0.6 3.0 0.6
Southern Italy
13,142
16.3
48,296
15.0
Totals
80,476
Campania Apulia & Lucania Calabria Sicily Sardinia
100
322,310
100
Source: De Felice, Mussolini il fascista, vol. 1, pp. 8^11; Revelli, ‘‘Italy,’’ p. 14.
mainly in so-called ‘‘civic’’ regions. 9 In addition, the immediately apparent e¡ects of the civicness of central and northern Italy between 1860 and 1920 on liberal democracy in the early 1920s contrast starkly with the civic climate of the 1980s, negating the claim that ‘‘civic associations contribute to the e¡ectiveness and stability of democratic government.’’ 10 In fact, Fascists seized power based on their movement in central and northern Italy. As illustrated by Map 3, ‘‘The Fascist Takeover of Local Power,’’ and Maps 1 and 2, Fascist regions correspond almost exactly with Putnam’s ‘‘civic’’ regions of central and northern Italy. Table 1, ‘‘Regional Distribution of Fascist Membership’’ shows the regional distribution of the Fascist movement in the early 1920s in more detail. Fascism rose rapidly in Putnam’s civic regions of central and northern Italy, rather than in the uncivic regions of southern Italy. The civicness of central and northern Italy, such as Lombardy, Veneto, Emilia and Tuscany, were fertile soil for the Fascist
141 movement rather than democratic stability. Putnam evaluates the civicness of 1860^1920 Italy by the strength of mass-based parties in 1919^1920, the incidence of cooperatives in 1889^1915, membership in mutual help societies in 1873^1904, electoral turnout in 1919^1920, and the longevity of local associations. But the indicators of civicness that Putnam detects during this period were actually indicators of violence and bitter con£icts. Contrary to the optimistic neo-Tocquevillian explanation, social capital fostered by associational life did not extend to the wider polity. The massive electoral turnout, combined with bitter con£icts not only at mass parties but also among associations inspired by Radicalism, destabilized the liberal regime, resulting in the establishment of Fascism. Cooperatives and mutual help societies in 1860^1920 Italy should be understood by their identities in the political and ideological context. The voluntary associations in early modern Italy emerged, pursuing mutual aids, but later transformed into proponents of radical Republicanism and Socialism. The sense of social solidarity nurtured by associational life was utilized in an idea of radical nationalism and Socialism, ¢nally transforming into Fascism in the turbulent political context. Fascism grew rapidly in the short period from September 1920 (the ‘‘Occupation of the Factories’’ under the leadership of Socialism) to October 1922 (the ‘‘March on Rome’’ by Fascists), by taking advantage not only of organizational skills learned from associational life, but also of the political vacuum created by bitter con£icts among associations. Why and how did £ourishing associations between 1860 and 1920 contribute to the establishment of Fascism? To answer this question, I examine ¢rst how the associations destabilized the liberal regime; then, I explore what roles associations in civil society played in competition for power as an alternative to liberal democracy.
Liberals and associational life The growth of associational life endangered, rather than contributed to, the establishment of cooperative and democratic society in Italy in the early modern era, although Putnam rightly characterizes the late nineteenth century in Italy as ‘‘the golden age of mutual help societies.’’ 11 This section investigates in detail how these associations destabilized liberal regimes, and how the liberal regime failed to capitalize on the sense of social solidarity fostered by the associations.
142 At the end of the pre-modern era, especially when the feudal estate system was abolished in the early nineteenth century, there was considerable growth in the number of voluntary associations such as reading rooms, scienti¢c associations, associations for the improvement of arts and industry, aristocratic clubhouses, and recreation clubs. 12 Rede¢ning the social geography and reconstructing the spaces of elite life, these associations contributed to the prevalence of liberalism in Italy. Adrian Lyttelton rightly describes the growth of associations and liberalism: The expansion of liberalism in Italy in the decade before the revolutions of 1848 coincided with a ‘‘mania for associations.’’ The ‘‘spirit of association,’’ in fact, can be considered as ‘‘a metaphor for liberalism,’’ de¢ned as the selforganization of a carefully delimited civil society. 13
Voluntary associations in early modern Italy not only raised future liberal politicians but also di¡used liberal and national fervor. Nevertheless, the characteristics of these associations are not as simple as socalled ‘‘devices for the development of social capital.’’ It is noteworthy that the members of these associations were not ordinary people, but the rich, prestigious upper classes comprised of aristocrats, landowners, professionals, o⁄cials, and rich merchants. For example, the Agrarian Societies that formed the core group of Risorgimento liberalism were constituted mainly of commercialized landlords clamoring for free trade (e.g., Camillo Cavour in Piedoment, Bettino Ricasoli in Tuscany, and Minghetti in Bologna). 14 One must note the limitations of the early liberal associations. The liberal clubs and associations failed to co-opt the spirit of associations from ordinary people after the uni¢cation of Italy. Liberal associations remained localistic, and based on personal relationships; thus, they failed to integrate the nationalistic fervor of the majority of the populace, losing the initiatives to radical Republicans. 15 Because citybased notables in northern Italy had little contact with countryside folk, it was di⁄cult for elite clubs and associations to reach out to nonelite people in rural areas. After uni¢cation, popular (mass-based) associations £ourished, inspired by patriotic Republicanism and Socialism. 16 In the 1870s, mutual help societies and Republican fraternities spread widely in rural areas. For example, the Artisan Brotherhoods, inspired by Mazzini, broadly di¡used popular Republicanism in northern and central Italy. In the 1880s, the middle- and workingclasses began to form their own associations. About one hundred workers’ associations emerged in Milan by 1881. The most popular form
143 of association was mutual help societies. At the turn of the century, 936,000 members were registered in mutual help societies, whereas cooperatives maintained 500,000 members and Socialist-inspired trade unions about 250,000. 17 Liberals failed to integrate the spirit of associations in ordinary people within national democratic institutions. Under the stresses of the task of national uni¢cation and the di⁄culty in controlling the church, Risorgimento Liberals changed their ‘‘society-centered’’ model to a ‘‘state-centered’’ model. Many Liberals, struggling with the project of national uni¢cation, began to regard associations based on local elites and the primacy of communal loyalties as an obstacle to the establishment of a nation-state. On the other hand, due to the papacy’s denial of the new nation-state, liberal elites were not comfortable with the spontaneous forces of civil society. Despite their adherence to the statecentered model, Liberals failed to dissolve popular associations or prohibit meetings legally. In the ¢rst several years after uni¢cation, moderate Liberals tried to promote and control mass-based associations, but they ultimately failed to win over popular associations, losing them in competition with the Catholic Church. In order to control the Church’s in£uence, Liberals relied on statist bureaucratic devices. Another method used to check the spirit of associations in ordinary people was to close o¡ the access of popular associations to the public realm, but this tactic was challenged by the Republicans. Through this process, Liberals lost their mass-based associations and failed to develop a popular associative base. 18 Because of the Liberals’ shallow mass base, the liberal regime was propped up by two main poles. The ¢rst was a restricted franchise; in 1870, about two percent of the total population had the right to vote on account of the restriction of male franchise and property quali¢cation. Although there had been several electoral reforms, the franchise remained restricted. 19 It is not surprising, then, that the adoption of proportional representation and the extension of franchise in 1919 brought the Liberals a great defeat. Another pole supporting the liberal state was the system of clientele-patronage networks. Before the emergence of the Socialist party, no nation-wide mass party system existed. Liberals existed in a ‘‘tendency’’ in which many groups combined or dissolved according to their local or group interests. 20 Voters in small towns, especially in the south, were easily manipulated by local magnates. The local magnates acted as ‘‘grand electors’’ within patronage networks. In this political structure, the prime minister
144 created a majority in parliament and ruled Italy, ‘‘by patronage and by ceaseless negotiation with the leaders of the £uctuating regional or personal groupings of deputies.’’ 21 Although the liberal regime in the Giolittian era (1900^14) was relatively stable because of its alliances with Catholics, which were a counterweight to Socialists, these new alliances were fragile. To understand the collapse of the liberal regime and the establishment of Fascism, one must note the political and ideological context generated in the First World War. Italy’s disappointment with the outcome of the war caused the growth of interventionist nationalism, contrasted with Russia, and the enormity of non-compensated Italian sacri¢ce caused the repudiation of established Italian politicians (i.e., anti-liberalism), compared unfavorably to France and Britain. In this political and ideological context of anti-liberalism and interventionist nationalism, the upsurge of popular participation and the Catholic non-expedit became critical to the liberal regime. Italy’s military intervention in 1914 was actually the Liberals’ desperate measure to maintain power, hoping that military intervention would generate popular support for liberal leadership of the country. 22 The result, however, was exactly the opposite of what the Liberals had hoped for. The Italian people disassociated themselves even more severely from the Liberals not only because the Liberals broke their own promise on political economic reforms, but also because war produced severe con£icts within liberal factions, especially among paci¢sts, democratic interventionists, and revolutionary interventionists. Liberals on the right wing (Salandrra, Sonnino, Orlando) and the moderate left (Nitti) refused to support the neutralists under the leadership of Giolitti. This con£ict within the liberal state produced the ‘‘ministerial crisis’’ in which no liberal factions could constitute stable government just before Mussolini’s March on Rome in 1922. 23 Although the liberal regime fell into crisis in postwar Italy, this collapse did not lead automatically to the Fascist revolution; instead, Socialists gained mass support in the mood of anti-liberalism and discinnovismo immediately after the First World War. 24 The next section will examine this and other alternatives to liberalism, leading to possible ideological solutions for ‘‘awakening’’ and ‘‘less submissive’’ Italians.
145 Alternatives to liberalism In postwar Italy, there were two large mass parties (Catholic and Socialist) that could provide an alternative interpretative framework to the Italian people, particularly in regards to mass movement based on popular associations. Political options as alternatives to the liberal regime must be examined before we begin to explore why the political currents failed or succeeded in competition for popular support from voluntary associations. The ¢rst feasible option to the liberal regime was Catholic democracy. Considering that Liberals in France and Britain could stabilize liberal democracies by the Center-Right coalitions, a collaboration between the Catholics and the Liberals might have stabilized early postwar Italy. But the Catholic Popular Party (Partito popolare) vetoed the formation of a national government, a decisive point in the collapse of the liberal regime. The basic reason why the popolari did not collaborate with the Liberals was because of con£icts between the Italian state and the Vatican. The con£ict came from ideological symbols (the Liberals’ anti-clericalism and the Vatican’s non-expedit), rather than the ‘‘uncivic’’ character of Catholicism. Catholics’ non-expedit (the abstention of Catholics from public life in Italy) and Liberals’ anti-clericalism arose from the bitter con£ict centered on the ‘‘Roman Question’’ in Italian uni¢cation. The uni¢cation of the Italian state required the inclusion of Rome as its own territory because of Rome’s unique symbolic signi¢cance and the persistent memories of the Roman empire. For the Vatican, the Roman Question depended on the Pope’s temporal power and spiritual authority. The papacy could not permit itself to be subjected to the jurisdiction of any state, and could not be merely Italian while remaining universally Catholic. The papacy considered temporal sovereignty in Rome essential to its spiritual performance. 25 As a result, Catholics were forced to withdraw from participation in elections. However, Catholics were free to organize ordinary people in local politics through charity and mutual help societies. In addition, with the rise of Radicalism, Catholic associations formed ‘‘clerico-moderate’’ alliances with conservative Liberals, which were countered by democratic blocs composed of Radicals, Republicans, and Socialists. As the franchise increased while Liberals failed to co-opt a popular associative base, Liberals needed su⁄cient votes to defeat Socialists.
146 On the side of the Church, the Vatican also revised its opposition to the liberal state in the face of the menace of radicalism. The Vatican thought that it was better to spread spiritual authority through schools, hospitals, and charitable trusts under a compromise with the liberal state. 26 Thus, in the Giolittian era, the Catholic lay associations, which Putnam describes as ‘‘uncivic’’ because of their hierarchical structure, fostered stability in the liberal regime. The e¡ects of Catholic associations on democracy were determined not by associational internal character, but by the relationship between the Vatican and the liberal state. By the end of Leo XIII’s ponti¢cate, the non-expedit became little more than symbolic, and was canceled formally. However, the symbol remained ideologically powerful enough to deter the Catholic Popular Party from participating in national government. Furthermore, anticlericalism was still a powerful force among Liberals. On January 22, 1922, when Benedict XV died, the Minister of Justice paid an o⁄cial condolence call at the Vatican, shocking almost all Liberals. Shortly thereafter, on February 1, 1922, the eve of parliament’s assembly, the newly formed Democratic Group called on its friends inside the cabinet to withdraw, an act inspired by the Liberals’ anti-clericalism. 27 These events led to a revival of the non-expedit symbol. In contrast with France, the con£ict between anti-clericalism and the Church’s non-expedit was decisive in the breakdown of the liberal state in postwar Italy. In France, anti-clericalism was also revived with the Dreyfus A¡air as in Italy, but the Poincare government in 1912 was able to reorganize a ‘‘concentration’’ majority through the relaxation of anti-clericalism. 28 An alliance between Catholics or Liberals and Socialists was another option for stabilizing a democratic regime. In the postwar era, reformists led by Turati focused on constitutional reform, leading Giolitti and the Liberals to think that a national government should include Socialist-reformists. Catholics also tried to collaborate with Socialists. But such attempts at creating alliances between moderate Socialists, Liberals, and Catholics failed mainly because Socialists became more radical after the war. 29 The growing militancy of the masses, workers’ factory occupation, and the Russian Revolution in the postwar context further contributed not only to the radicalization of Socialism, but also to splits of the Socialist movement. But the ‘‘inclusive’’ factory occupation in 1920, a peak of Socialist movement, sharpened ideological con£icts among reformists, maximalists, and communists without
147 moderating the party’s parliamentary intransigence. On account of the party’s parliamentary intransigence and radical situation, even reformists were careful in forming alliances with Liberals. 30 Although radical Socialists took initiative in postwar mass movement, they did not succeed in their revolution. It was the Fascists who succeeded in giving the Italian people an appealing and e¡ective alternative to liberalism. Before 1920, however, Fascism was just ‘‘a movement of elite adventurers or intellectuals.’’ 31 Fascism grew into a mass movement rapidly, ¢lling the political and ideological vacuum that neither Socialists nor popolari could ¢ll. In October 1919, when the ¢rst Fascist Congress was held in Florence, Fascist groups claimed 40,385 members. But by the middle of 1920, the Fascist movement quickly became a mass movement in the wake of the crisis of the parliamentary system and the catastrophic failure of the ‘‘Occupation of the Factories’’ by workers, jumping from 88 fasci and 80,476 members in December 1920 to 471 fasci and 98,399 members in April 1921, 1,318 fasci and 217,256 members in November 1921, and 2,124 fasci and 322,310 members in May 1922. 32 A main component of the Fascist movement was radical nationalism, in£uenced by war intervention and its aftermath. Although there was a broad spectrum of middle-class associations, such as voluntary professional associations and cultural and patriotic groups, they su¡ered from various cleavages of interests. The only unifying force among the middle-class associations was patriotism. During the war, many interventionist groups, such as the Comitato di Resitenza Interna (Committee of Internal Resistance) and the Fascio Rivoluzionario Interventisa (Fascist Revolutionary Interventionists), were formed. At the end of the war, this Committee of Internal Resistance was transformed into the Progressive Association, which tried to perpetuate the interventionist alliance and the unity of ‘‘moderates’’ (anti-clerical middleclass shopkeepers and employees) and ‘‘democrats’’ (the landowners and professionals). 33 In addition, the Progressive Association connected with the National Association of War Veterans (Associazione Nazionale di Smobilitate). It was this kind of combination of various popular associations that formed the Fascist mass movement. The formation of Fascist organizations came from two main directions, local as well as national. Local Fascism appeared in spontaneous popular associations called fasci and led by ras; national Fascism existed inside parliament, led by Mussolini. The spontaneously formed
148 local Fascist organizations did not have hierarchical connections with the Fascist Party (PNF). Local leaders, or ras, ‘‘were less ready to accept without question instructions from a newspaper editor in distant Milan.’’ 34 This meant that the Fascist mass movement was not established with a hierarchical structure or a consistent program. This spontaneous movement contained contradictory and con£icting elements such as anti- and pro-parliamentarism, anti-clericalism and Mussolini’s pro-clericalism, and workerism and pro-employerism. These con£icts within the Fascist movement were resolved through the mediation of radical nationalism. Mussolini needed organized forces of local fasci, while local fasci needed a national symbol like Mussolini. Through this pragmatic compromise, the spontaneous Fascist movement developed rapidly, competing with the Catholics and Socialists for the support of popular associations.
Competing for members of associative groups: A regional examination Social capital fostered by mutual help societies in early modern Italy did not necessarily contribute to the establishment of cooperative and well-performing democratic society. Social capital and social solidarity nurtured by associational life were utilized by identities and ideas of associations. Associations in early modern Italy changed their identities from mutual aid to radical nationalism or Socialism, and later to Fascism. Without an understanding of the constitution and transformation of identities, it is hard to identify the e¡ects of associations on democracy. This section investigates in detail why associations transformed their identity and political faith, leading to the support of Fascism. Even as a ‘‘late-comer’’ to the political scene, Italian Fascism seized power by gaining the supporters who had formerly identi¢ed as Socialists and Catholics. For example, according to E. Spencer Wellhofer’s (2003) recent empirical study of 1919 and 1921 regional elections based on the data of 54 electoral districts and the 6,110 local municipalities, Fascism’s electoral success in May 1921, which aided its march to power even though the election did not mean a wholesale conversion process, was mainly explained by 1919^1921 voter transitions rather than property holding arrangements and violence. Based on the 1919 and 1921 election data that Wellhofer discovered recently in his ¢eld research, he argues that ‘‘the municipalities more likely to vote Fascist
149 were those located in districts where the 1919 Center-Left and Socialist vote was higher and where the Socialist rural organizational membership density was higher.’’ 35 In the 1919 election, approximately 64% of contract laborers and 61% of day laborers supported the Socialists. But in the 1921 election, approximately 70% of contract laborers and 56% of day laborers supported the Fascists; consequently, support for the Left dramatically declined to 44.9% in contract laborers and 21.5% in day laborers. Sharecroppers, who supported the Center-Left in 1919 by 34%, shifted to the Fascists in 1921 by 31%, dropping their support to the Center-Left by only 8.6%. It is noteworthy that the same organizations of popular associations shifted their identities. For example, in the 1919 election, approximately 63% of Socialist rural organization members, 60% of Socialist rural trade union members, and 76% of the una⁄liated trade union members voted for the Socialists. In the 1921 election, however, approximately 51% of Socialist rural organizational members, 56% of Socialist trade union members, and 34% of una⁄liated trade union members voted for the Fascists. Why did the Italian people change their identity and political faith? How did Fascism win over the associative people in early modern Italy? Violence of the Fascist squads does not explain the whole story of Fascist success. 36 For example, Fascist achievements in Bologna, where violence reached the highest levels, were considerably more modest than those of Ferrara. In addition, recent statistical studies reveal that violence was not the decisive factor, although important, and that there is no signi¢cant correlation between violence and the Fascist vote in 1921. 37 Based on extensive study of Ferrara, Paul Corner argues that too much attention to violence misses something important. Corner rightly points out that ‘‘Some people were beaten into submission, certainly, but many came to Fascism spontaneously and for varying reasons.’’ 38 This article emphasizes the transformation of identities in a political and ideological context that interactions among associations continuously constituted in the wake of Italy’s disappointment with the outcome of the war and the upsurge of popular participation in postwar Italy. First, I focus on regional di¡erences in the ways in which Italian Fascism made inroads into Socialist and Catholic associative groups; then I explore in detail the means of competing for popular support of associative groups.
150 Problems of southern Italy As Map 3 ‘‘The Fascist Takeover of Local Power’’ and the table detailing ‘‘Regional Distribution of Fascist Movement’’ show, Fascists did not appeal to ordinary people in the so-called ‘‘uncivic’’ areas of southern Italy, whereas they made rapid inroads in the civic areas of central and northern Italy. This section explores why Fascists, as well as Socialists, were weak in southern Italy. In the early twentieth century, Italy was an unevenly industrialized country. While central and northern Italy modernized rapidly during the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century, southern Italy lagged behind. Most modern industrial enterprises were densely concentrated in the Milan-Genoa-Turin Triangle. Commercialized farming was centered in the fertile valley of the Po River. Although less developed than northern Italy, central Italy moved away from the feudal system, and mezzadria (small peasant leaseholding and small peasant proprietorship) prevailed. By contrast, most regions of southern Italy retained a feudal system, latifundium. In social and economic terms, southern Italy was the least developed region of the country. The reason the appeal of Socialists and even popolari (politically active Catholics) was weak was not simply because of the area’s underdevelopment; it also hinged on the status of associational life in southern Italy. Associational life can be a strong resource for mass movement, although it cannot determine the direction of mass movement. In southern Italy, with the exception of Apulia, Fascism and Socialism were hard to ¢nd. As in other regions of Italy, discontent after World War I created a new atmosphere of militancy in southern Italy. Without pre-existing organizational bases, however, peasant revolts in the postwar era were the expression of this atmosphere, following the traditional style of sporadic peasant jacqueries. Gramsci writes that ‘‘the South can be described as an area of extreme social disintegration, [t]he peasants [. . .] have no cohesion among themselves.’’ 39 Among peasants, there existed only weak solidarity. The social conditions of southern Italy made peasant rebellion endemic, but peasant rebellions had no coherent long-term goals because of the absence of organization to articulate people’s discontents. The ¢rst reason for weak solidarity among southern peasants can be found in the social conditions of southern Italy that a¡ected people’s life-style. In southern Italy, the semi-feudal latifundium was hardly
151 touched. Peasants lived in scattered strips of tenure land. The land under this semi-feudal tenure system was divided into tiny plots cultivated by a single, isolated family. This traditional system militated against any broad cooperation among peasants. In addition, emigration was a major ‘‘safety valve,’’ draining o¡ the discontented. 40 Because most emigrants were young men between 20 and 40 years old, southern people lost their potential organizational leaders. Furthermore, the southern pattern of strong clientele relationships deterred peasants from creating their own organized movements. In central and northern Italy, city-based notables had little personal contact with countryside people and did not control voluntary associations in the countryside. By contrast, in southern Italy, both landowners and peasants settled in the same area. Based on the direct contact and strong clientelistic bondage, southern notables were able to exercise an inclusive and e¡ective hegemony. Thus, Republicans, Socialists, and even popolari had di⁄culty in penetrating the clientele-patronage network in southern Italy. 41 Finally, ideological e¡ects of the Catholic non-expedit also prevented southern Italians from developing a secular associational and political movement. For example, voters’ abstention due to the Vatican’s nonexpedit highlighted the distribution and strength of clericalism. Even when con£ict between the Vatican and Liberals was tapering, the percentage of voters’ abstention remained high. 42 One exception in southern Italy was Apulia, where the Socialist movement was strong because clericalism was weak. 43 In Apulia, landless workers developed local and provincial associations and, through these associations, cooperated for economic bene¢ts. By 1911, these associations created a strong labor movement. 44 The situation in Apulia con¢rms that clericalism, speci¢cally the non-expedit, was one of the main reasons for the weak status of Socialists, Fascists, and even popolari. The case of southern Italy shows that development of democratic society requires associational life and sense of social solidarity, although the associational life still leaves much room for various consequences. In the absence of solidarity among associative people, or in the condition of socially disintegrated individuals, authoritarian order like feudalistic nobles’ rule can easily prevail, as southern Italy showed, and which Tocquevillians worried about. In southern Italy, the clerical non-expedit and the tradition of strong clientele networks deterred any political movement of democratic reform and national integration from taking root among ordinary people.
152 Competition in central and northern Italy The main area of competition for Fascists, Socialists, and popolari was central and northern Italy, where voluntary associations £ourished; for example, about 94 percent of a national total of 443 mutual help societies in 1862 were located in central and northern Italy. 45 It was in these so-called ‘‘civic’’ regions that Fascists established their ¢rst and strongest footholds. Initially, popular associations in postwar Italy contributed to the growth of Socialism. But people in the civic associations changed their identity and political faith, re£ecting their own practices in a turbulent political context. In this environment, Fascism grew rapidly, competing mainly with Socialism, by focusing on di¡erent groups of the population. In the summer and fall of 1920, when the Socialist movement was at its height, peasant and labor struggles directly raised the question of power and placed the prerogatives of property in jeopardy. In cities such as Milan, Turin, and Genoa, workers occupied factories and managed production for themselves. In the countryside, peasants occupied lands. 46 In addition, on a political level, the Socialist party won national and provincial elections in the fall of 1920. 47 The victory of the Socialist party in local and provincial elections e¡ected the passing of local power from the hands of the traditional ruling classes to Socialists. The victory of the Socialist movement in 1920 meant not just victory over the Liberals but also victory over the popolari; on local levels, it was a victory over the clerical-liberal alliance. Before the war, there were two main local currents among popular associations: Socialist and Catholic associations. These were based on mutual help societies, cooperatives, and recreational associations. These popular associations con£icted mainly on the issue of town governance, forming two main coalitions of anti-clerical leftists and clerical-Liberals. The anticlerical left consisted mainly of the working class and so-called ‘‘Democrats’’ (local anti-clerical middle-class shopkeepers and employees). The clerical-liberal coalition comprised by Catholics and so-called ‘‘Moderates’’ (landowners and professionals). The latter clero-moderate connubio was a local variant of the national liberal-Catholic alliance against the Socialist movement in the Giolittian era, during which the Moderates dominated the local a¡airs on the basis of the clero-moderate alliance. 48 But this situation changed in 1919 and 1920, when the Socialist movement reached its climax. Socialists made in-
153 roads into the Catholic associative base as peasants and unskilled laborers from rural backgrounds transformed their political faith from Catholicism to Socialism. 49 However, Socialists failed to accomplish their own revolution even at this climax, paradoxically losing their own associative base to Fascists. Why did this happen? The failure cannot be blamed entirely on internecine splits among Socialists. It was also the result of people in the Socialist movement facing unexpected consequences of their own practices, such as disappointment in utopianism, fear of an uncertain future, and new con£icts. In order to understand the reasons for the failure of the Socialist movement, we must ¢rst recognize changes in existing coalitions of popular associations as unskilled workers appeared in the political arena. In the Giolittian era, mechanization produced enormous numbers of unskilled workers. But at that time, the unskilled were not an in£uential factor in the political arena. Before World War I, workers at the local level expressed their demands mainly through the anti-clerical left, the so-called ‘‘Popular Coalition’’ against the clero-moderate alliance. The Popular Coalition was mainly made up of skilled workers and lower-middle-class groups. 50 However, the tremendous participation of ‘‘awakened’’ unskilled workers in the political arena after the war caused changes in both the anti-clerical Popular Coalition and in the clero-moderate alliance. A postwar in£ux of radical unskilled workers challenged the leadership of moderates and democrats in each alliance, causing internal con£icts within each movement, of which the Fascists took advantage. 51 Although ‘‘awakened’’ unskilled workers gave the initial revolutionary impetus to the Socialist movement ^ membership in the Socialist trade union increased enormously in a very short time on account of the recruitment of unskilled workers, from 249,039 in 1918, to 1,150,062 in 1919, and to 2,200,100 in 1920 52 ^ the massive recruitment of radical unskilled workers promoted con£icts among workers, for example, between contract laborers and day laborers, as shall be examined later in detail. One of the reasons for these con£icts was the under-representation of the unskilled. For example, in the Socialist party’s electoral list of the Sesto area in 1920, seven of the nine candidates were either artisans or skilled workers. 53 Dissatisfaction of newly recruited workers caused them to defect to the Fascists. A Socialist press in April 1921 confessed this defection, saying that ‘‘the present defections are the work of those who came last to the proletarian organization because they are unhappy with the regime of
154 social and working-class justice brought about through the labor exchanges.’’ 54 Additionally, skilled workers could not control the enthusiasm of the new recruits, who were ¢lled with radical vision and discianovismo. Skilled workers and existing Socialists were swamped by the new recruits’ radical spontaneity. 55 The division among workers furthered existing con£icts in their Socialist party. It is hard to deny that the failure of the Socialist movement at its climax was precipitated by its internecine schisms. 56 The deeprooted schism between maximalists and minimalists in the Socialist movement led ¢rst to the formal split between Socialists and Communists in January 1921. Then, in October 1922, the reformist faction led by Fillipo Turati was expelled by the maximalists of the Socialist party. Maximalists and Communist currents rooted in the Chamber of Labor argued for immediate sovietization, while minimalists rooted in the Category Federations insisted on democratic reform. The disunity of the Socialist movement appeared to be crucial in terms of the organizational e⁄ciency of a united movement. But a more important consideration is that con£icts among Socialists left not only suspicion and hostility among party activists but also a sense of demoralization and discouragement among ordinary workers. Il Domani, the maximalist-oriented Socialist paper, pointed out the profound sense of discouragement that had overtaken ordinary workers: Deprived of a goal [. . .] their loss of faith is therefore more justi¢ed. How can we hope for their loyalty and discipline when their leaders destroy [the movement] in the name of purity? 57
Another important factor in the failure of the Socialist movement was this disillusionment and discouragement among workers. Associative people under Socialist leadership took from their experiences of ‘‘Occupation of Factories’’ a great disappointment that led to a change in their ideological identities. During their factory occupations, workers acknowledged that ‘‘the di⁄culty of replenishing raw materials and obtaining money for wages brought some sense of reality into Utopia.’’ 58 Laborers felt neither technologically nor morally equipped to manage factories. Angelo Tasca writes of this discouragement among workers: The occupation of the factories denoted the decline of the working-class movement .... The former ‘‘victors’’ were demoralized; they had attempted a superhuman e¡ort, and had drunk at the intoxicating springs of free production only to ¢nd themselves at the end in an atmosphere of a wake ^ and more seriously, without prospect for the future. 59
155 The ‘‘Occupation of Factories’’ showed workers the harsh reality of their utopian vision, rather than the illusion of a Socialist victory. The Socialist idea of workers’ autonomous management or sovietization surrendered to an emerging ‘‘bourgeois’’ ideology of ‘‘scienti¢c management’’ by their own practices. 60 For example, when Giovanni Agnelli, president of Fiat, formally proposed handing over the management of the enterprise to the labor organizations, laborers refused it. 61 As disillusionment replaced the enthusiasm and militancy that rapidly emerged among the rank-and-¢le, particularly newly recruited workers, Fascist practical programs became attractive to workers. Fascism ¢lled the void at this critical point, becoming a mass movement. As Wellhofer rightly points outs, ‘‘adapting to local conditions, the Fascists settled strikes on more favorable terms than the Socialists or the Catholics proposed.’’ 62 In April 1921, the Fascist ‘‘economic unions’’ were founded, and they became full-£edged in February 1922. Fascist propaganda of ‘‘scienti¢c management’’ appealed to many workers, especially those disappointed and ‘‘tired’’ after factory occupation. 63 The Fascists also co-opted many unemployed workers because the Fascists could provide jobs by means of their connections with capitalists. In addition, the Fascists tried to promote and appeal to cultural associations such as concert and drama-reading groups. 64 The Fascists also proposed ‘‘leisure-time activity’’ in inter-class rather than classbound terms. For example, the Fascists founded sports associations such as soccer and billiards leagues. Even when riots and revolutionary talk swept Italy, workers, middle-class citizens, and war veterans played soccer together. The Fascists also organized billiards tournaments to raise funds for a monument for the war dead. Through these cultural activities, the Fascists instilled a sense of national duty and provided moral uplift. These Fascist cultural activities erased class con£icts and steered workers away from class-oriented Socialist movements. Solidarity and generalized consensus raised through associational activities were mobilized for the purpose of the Fascist movement, instead of contributing to stabilizing democracy.
Competition for ex-combatants Winning the support of ex-combatants was very important to the Fascists. Most young Italian men, especially peasants, were mobilized
156 during World War I, and their ideological impact on postwar society when they returned to their old positions in the community was considerable. As illustrated by the peasant revolt in the Roman campagna, 65 ex-combatants were at the forefront of mass movements because the war had changed the mentality of peasant soldiers, making them sensitive to their rights and apt to organize. Early in the postwar era, Socialist unions (CGL) and Catholic unions (CIL) increased their membership enormously by recruiting these ex-combatants. 66 However, neither the Socialists nor the popolari succeeded in fully coopting ex-combatants because they did not understand their complex psyches. When the ex-combatants returned to civil life, most of them retained a hatred of war, but they were also angry at statements that ‘‘the war had been in vain.’’ The Socialists and the popolari did not take the hurt nationalism and heroism among ex-combatants into account. In particular, the Socialists criticized not only war leaders but also humble combatants. Ordinary ex-combatants were ‘‘despised for their gullibility and often barred from party membership.’’ 67 The Socialists’ doctrinaire action alienated thousands of ‘‘embryo Socialists’’ (excombatants) from their movement. By contrast, Fascists succeeded in appealing to ex-combatants. First, Mussolini changed the title of Il Popolo d’Italia from ‘‘The Socialist Daily’’ to ‘‘The Combatants and Producers.’’ Mussolini tried to keep in touch with many of the ex-combatant clubs and societies, where he tried to extend war-tension and comradeship by employing symbols such as the steel helmet, dagger, and military banners. The Fascists’ nationalism appealed to the ex-combatants, addressing the ideological needs of injured nationalism and anti-clericalism, which neither the Socialists nor the popolari covered.
Competing for peasants It was not until Fascism took root among peasants that it swelled into a mass movement. Considering that peasants constituted the majority of the Italian population after World War I, the co-optation of associative peasants was crucial. Although Socialists and Catholics ¢rst organized peasant movement successfully after the war, the Fascists quickly made inroads into the associative bases in rural areas. For example, as stated above, sharecroppers who supported the CenterLeft in 1919 by 34% defected to Fascism (31% for Fascists; 8.6% for
157 Center-Left in 1921). Although contract laborers and day laborers supported Socialists in 1919 by 64% and 61% respectively, they supported Fascists in 1921 by 70% and 56% respectively. In the 1921 election, 51% of Socialist rural organizational members and 56.4% of Socialist rural trade union members supported Fascists, while 63% and 60% of the organizational members respectively supported Socialists in 1919. 68 Fascism accomplished this success by taking advantage of fragmentation among peasants. The radicalization of the Socialist movement sharpened tensions within the Socialist agrarian trade unions. In central and northern Italy, particularly in the Po Valley, most peasants were divided into two categories as agriculture became commercialized: middle peasants such as mezzadro (sharecroppers), a⁄ttuari (leaseholders), and small proprietors on one side; contract laborers and day laborers on the other. Initially these two categories of peasants were united against landlords under Socialist leadership. However, as the war and the Russian Revolution in£amed the radical enthusiasm of those who argued for the ‘‘proletarianization’’ of all workers, the collectivization of land, and the immediate revolution, the radical changes of Socialist movement sharpened the internal tensions within the Socialist agrarian unions. First, Mezzadri who hired laborers were victims as well as bene¢ciaries of the movement against landlords. The complex feeling from the mezzadri’s dual position was bitter when they were forced to abandon their traditional practice of mutual help among themselves and were compelled by the Socialist leagues (leghe) to turn to the labor market. Mezzadri feared that further development of the movement might result in their eviction as tenants and ultimately lead to collectivization of the land. 69 Furthermore, mezzadri and other middle peasants disliked the arbitrary power of the leagues. As Socialists gained power in rural areas, leagues dictated details such as the minimum number of men and women to be employed on each crop. The leagues’ power was abused by the braccianti (wage laborers). For example, ‘‘refractory proprietors’’ were punished, non-union members were blacklisted and refractory members were ¢ned, pilloried, or ostracized. In addition, the proletarianization of all workers, abolishing the distinctions between contract laborers and day laborers, was another source for the tensions within the Socialist agrarian unions. The proletarianization caused dissatisfaction among contract laborers who maintained a high in£uence in the agrarian unions far exceeding
158 their numbers in the workforce ^ e.g., contract laborers made up 14% of the Socialist trade union members although they constituted only about 2% of the cultivators, while day laborers constituted 30% of all cultivators and 19% of them were unionized with 12% in the Socialist unions. 70 The proletarianization signaled to the contract laborers that they would lose their right of ¢rst-hire and fall into the same precarious status as day laborers. Contrary to Putnam’s neo-Tocquevillian explanation, this dissention shows that associational life did not necessarily develop solidarity even among members of an association. 71 The fears of land collectivization and the discontent with proletarianization and the leagues’ arbitrary power were resources for Fascist movement. Fascists appealed to people by pragmatic programs adapted to regional and class di¡erences. For example, in some places like Tuscany, where sharecroppers were prevalent, the Fascists appealed to sharecroppers with land redistribution, while in others, Fascists sided with day laborers by shoring up tenant rights and demanding land reforms. In response to fear of land collectivism, in the May 1921 election, Fascists o¡ered ‘‘To Every Peasant His Land!’’ 72 In several regions like Brescia, Ferrara and Tuscany, actual redistribution of lands occurred. The Fascists also o¡ered pro¢t sharing, opposing collective ownership of the land favored by the Catholic rural unions. This program appealed to contract laborers because it gave them more secure access to land. 73 In the regions like the Po Valley, where day laborers were prevalent, the Fascists built hiring halls and syndicates, providing legal services and o¡ering more favorable wage agreements than the Socialists. Fascists also o¡ered protection against ¢nes imposed by the Socialist unions. 74 Fascist unions poached socialist workers in increasing numbers. During 1921, the membership of the Socialist National Federation of Land Workers dropped from 890,000 to 294,000. 75 Agrarian laborers who thought Socialism unfeasible after the 1920s climax of the Socialist movement, began to be attracted to Fascist practical programs during a period of high unemployment. The appeal of Fascist propaganda for peasants does not indicate that there was no Fascist violence in this competition with Socialists. In southern Italy’s Apulia and central Italy’s Tuscany, Fascist violence was severe. It is noteworthy that the areas of severe violence were tended to have homogeneous peasant populations. In Apulia, for example, class divisions were clearly drawn between great estates and laborers; there were few middle-class peasants. 76 By contrast, in many
159 regions of central Italy, middle-class peasants prevailed and there were few braccianti. In these homogeneous areas, the Fascist movement rose slowly and painfully. These exceptions show that the Fascist movement grew rapidly by ¢lling the political and ideological vacuum among associative people that existing political ideologies could not.
Conclusion This article proposes some theoretical implications about the e¡ects of civic associations on democracy. In view of the example of southern Italy, we see that associations are a necessary condition to counter atomistic individualism and mass politics. In the absence of associative people’s solidarity, or on the condition of disintegrated individuals, as Tocquevillians argue, authoritarian rule can easily prevail. Nevertheless relative credit gained by criticism of excessive individualism and mass politics does not automatically con¢rm the optimistic view of associational life. As I have demonstrated here, vigorous associational life in early modern Italy, which Putnam detected as civicness, did not con¢rm the optimistic view that ‘‘Democratic government is strengthened, not weakened, when it faces a vigorous civil society.’’ 77 As the collapse of the liberal regime in postwar Italy shows, vigorous associations in postwar Italy caused severe con£icts rather than harmonious cooperation and ultimately facilitated the Fascists’ seizure of power. The fact that the Fascist movement thrived among the ‘‘civic’’ associations in northern and central Italy rather than in the ‘‘uncivic’’ regions of southern Italy reveals that civic associations also can be fertile soil for totalitarian movement. This also is con¢rmed by the case of Nazism, in which vigorous growth of voluntary associations in interwar Germany undermined the Weimar Republic and facilitated the rise of Nazism. 78 Voluntary associations may be at least one necessary condition for mass movement. But associations themselves cannot produce a certain political outcome. The reason for uncertainty in the impact of associations on democracy is that social norms, such as reciprocity in a community, are not an agent but a kind of material resource that can be used by agents to further their purpose and vision. Social capital fostered by associational life does not always contribute to democracy. Strong solidarity under the identity of radicalism can cause disabling of democratic order. Contrary to Putnam’s explanation, social capital and norms fostered in an association do not easily spread, transforming intra-norms of
160 reciprocity to the wider community. First, associational life does not necessarily generate civic norms. As the case of the Socialist movement in postwar Italy shows, vigorous associations can themselves contain internal con£icts rather than harmonious cooperation. Jane Mansbridge’s observation of a New England town meeting also con¢rms that face-to-face associational life, which neo-Tocquevillians believe are so important to nurture civic norms, does not automatically generate solidarity and democratic representation. She clearly shows the problems of face-to-face associational life: In this town meeting, as in many face-to-face democracies, the fears of making a fool of oneself, of losing control, of criticism, and of making enemies all contribute to the tension that arises in the settlement of disputes. The informal arrangements for the suppression of con£ict that result tyrannize as well as protect .... Participation in face-to-face democracies is not automatically therapeutic: it can make participants feel humiliated, frightened, and even more powerless than before. 79
Although ‘‘civic norms’’ such as trust are nurtured by associational life, the norms may not work in a wider community. Cooperative norms and solidarity developed by associational life can endanger a stable democracy. For example, although peasants in postwar Italy developed a strong solidarity in organizing their associations, their solidarity was not conducive to the development of democracy because their ‘‘hurt nationalism’’ that supported solidarity was co-opted by Fascist ideology. In order to understand the e¡ects of associations on democracy, it is more important to see the identities of associations, and their ongoing interactions in a political and ideological context, than to focus solely on the social capital of civic associations or the attributes of organizational structure (horizontal or hierarchical). Although Putnam argues that the hierarchical structure of Catholic associations in Italy prevents them from working for democracy, it was Catholic lay associations that contributed stability to the liberal regime in Giolittian Italy through clero-moderate alliances. The reason for the negative impact of the popolari on the crisis of the liberal regime after the World War I was not the Catholic hierarchical structure but the rejuvenation of the Church’s non-expedit and the Liberals’ anti-clericalism. Illiya Harik’s observation of Lebanese democratization is insightful on this point: The main reason why Lebanon’s non-Western system of democracy works is the pluralism of competing actors. Competition checks authoritarian
161 tendencies. When ¢ve or more hierarchically organized and led associations compete in one area, they check one another just as much as when ¢ve democratically run and led agencies do.
As Lebanese democracy suggests, even hierarchically organized associations, ‘‘uncivic’’ organizations in Putnam’s terms, can foster stable democracy insofar as they interact within sound democratic rules of deliberation. The fact that social corporatism in Sweden and Germany, hierarchically organized, contributed to the establishment of welfare democracy after World War II is another example to counter Putnam’s emphasis on associational structure. In order to understand the e¡ects of associations on democratic order, associations’ identities and their methods of interaction are more important than their property and characteristics. Through their identities and interpretive framework, associations use their own resources, such as solidarity, in a political and ideological context. An association’s identity is not ¢xed but is subject to ongoing changes. Voluntary associations in early modern Italy emerged in pursuit of the goal of mutual aid, but later transformed into proponents of Republicanism for constitutional reform and, even later, into champions of Socialist class movement. The radical class movement generated bitterness among association members, e.g., mezzadri (sharecroppers), and braccianti (agrarian laborers), helping the rise of the Fascist movement. Whether or not, and how, associations in civil society contribute to democratic development are determined by how they interact and change their own interpretive framework in the ongoing political and ideological terrain, rather than by the character of a speci¢c organization. Social capital fostered by civic associations can endanger democracy when civic norms of associations are not founded on sound faith in democratic rule and fail to govern interactions and con£icts among associations through peaceful processes.
Notes 1. Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); idem, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000); idem, ‘‘The Prosperous Community,’’ American Prospect 13 (Spring 1993); John Keane, ‘‘Despotism and Democracy: The Origins of Development of the Distinction between Civil Society and the State,’’ in John Keane, editor, Civil Society and the State: New European Perspectives (London: Verso, 1988). For critical review of the
162
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Tocquevillian view, see Bob Edwards, Michael W. Foley, and Mario Diani, editors, Beyond Tocqueville: Civil Society and the Social Capital Debate in Comparative Perspective (Hanover: University Press of New England, 2001). Francis Fukuyama, Trust: Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York: Free Press, 1995); Benjamin Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld: How the Planet Is Both Falling Apart and Coming Together ^ and What This Means for Democracy (New York: NY Time Books, 1995); Paul Hirst, Associative Democracy: New Forms of Economic and Social Governance (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1994); Joshua Cohen and Joel Rogers, ‘‘Secondary Associations and Democratic Governance,’’ in Erik Olin Wright, editor, Associations and Democracy (New York: Verso, 1992); Robert N. Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley, University of California Press); Putnam, Bowling Alone. On the other hand, among policy-makers, voluntary associations are also emphasized as a solution for deepening democracy and economic prosperity. Both Neo-conservatives and Progressives in the U.S. Congress agree that civil society should be revitalized in order to improve democracy and economics, although they disagree about how such a revival should be accomplished. See Dan Coats et al., ‘‘Can Congress Revive Civil Society?’’ Policy Review: The Journal of American Citizenship, no. 75 (Jan 1996). Democracy in this article is de¢ned in a broad sense. The democratic government is constituted by free election under competition, and includes accountability for the people’s demands. Fareed Zakaria, ‘‘Bigger Than the Family, Smaller Than the State: Are Voluntary Groups What Make Countries Work?’’ New York Times, Book Review (13 August 1995), 1, 25. For the ‘‘mass society’’ theory of Tocquevillians in the 1950s and 1960s, see William Kornhauser, The Politics of Mass Society (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1959); Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973); Edward Shils, ‘‘The Theory of Mass Society,’’ in Philip Olson, editor, America as a Mass Society (New York: Free Press, 1963); Bernt Hagtvet, ‘‘The Theory of Mass Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic: A Re-Examination,’’ in Stein Larsen, Bernt Hagtvet, and Jan Petter Myklebust, editors,Who Were the Fascists? Social Roots of European Fascism (Bergen, Norway: Universitetsforlaget, 1980). Recently there have been many excellent critiques of the neo-Tocquevillians’ arguments. In particular, John Ehrenberg’s Civil Society not only provides an excellent study of ‘‘history of conception of civil society’’ but also sharp criticism against neo-Tocquevillians’ arguments. Scott McLean et al., editors, Social Capital is also a noteworthy book in criticism against Robert Putnam. This article shares many views with Ehrenberg’s criticism on neo-Tocquevillians, in particular, that local associations do not necessarily produce democracy. But this article di¡ers from Ehrenberg’s book in the sense that like many other scholars such as Amy Fried, David Schultz, and Yvette Alex-Assensoh in Social Capital, Ehrenberg focuses on the e¡ects of economic interests, con£icts and inequality, while this article emphasizes transformation of associational identities through their ongoing interactions in political and ideological contexts. See John Ehrenberg, Civil Society: The Critical History of an Idea (New York: New York University Press, 1999); Scott L. McLean, David A. Schultz, and Manfred B. Steger, editors, Social Capital: Critical Perspectives on Community and ‘‘Bowling Alone’’ (New York: New York University Press, 2002).
163 7. Putnam, Making Democracy Work, 165^173. 8. Putnam, Making Democracy Work, 89^90. 9. Sidney Tarrow, ‘‘Making Social Science Work Across Space and Time: A Critical Re£ection on Robert Putnam’s Making Democracy Work,’’ American Political Science Review 90/2 (June 1996): 393. 10. Putnam, Making Democracy Work, 89. 11. Putnam, Making Democracy Work, 138. 12. For the associational life in early modern Italy, see Alberto Mario Banti, ‘‘Public Opinion and Associations in Nineteenth-Century Italy,’’ and Adrian Lyttelton, ‘‘Liberalism and Civil Society in Italy: From Hegemony to Mediation,’’ in Nancy Bermeo and Philip Nord, editors, Civil Society Before Democracy: Lessons from Nineteenth-Century Europe (Lanham: Rowman & Little¢eld Publishers, Inc., 2000). For the associational life in premodern Italy, see Gene Brucker, ‘‘Civic Traditions in Premodern Italy,’’ Edward Muir, ‘‘The Sources of Civil Society in Italy,’’ and Raymond Grew, ‘‘Finding Social Capital: The French Revolution in Italy,’’ in Robert I. Rotberg, editor, Patterns of Social Capital: Stability and Change in Historical Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 13. Lyttelton, ‘‘Liberalism and Civil Society in Italy: From Hegemoney to Mediation,’’ 62. 14. Lyttelton, ‘‘Liberalism and Civil Society,’’ 63^64; Banti, ‘‘Public Opinion and Associations in Nineteenth-Century Italy,’’ 45. 15. The fact that social capital nurtured by associations is limited by class boundary con¢rms Ehrenberg’s criticism against neo-Tocquevillians that they do not understand the e¡ects of economic structure on associational life. See Ehrenberg, Civil Society, 144, 164, 236, 246. 16. Christopher Seton-Watson, Italy from Liberalism to Fascism: 1870^1925 (London: Methuen & Co., 1967), 4^15; Frank M. Snowden, ‘‘The Social Origins of Agrarian Fascism in Italy,’’ Archieves Europeenes de Sociolgie l 13/2 (1972): 269. 17. Lyttelton, ‘‘Liberalism and Civil Society in Italy,’’ 69^71; Banti, ‘‘Public Opinion and Associations in Nineteenth-Century Italy,’’ 50^53. 18. Seton-Watson, Italy from Liberalism to Fascism: 1870^1925, 1^14; Henry Spencer, Government and Politics of Italy (Yonkers-on-Hudson, N.Y.: World book company, 1932), 140^220. 19. By electoral reforms, in 1882, 7% of the total population had the right to vote. In 1894, a su¡rage rate of 9.4% was reduced to 6.7% again by the Liberals’ repression of the labor movement. In 1912, 23.2%. See Andrew McLaren Carstairs, A Short History of Electoral Systems in Western Europe (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1980), 149^158. 20. Maurice F. Neufeld, Italy: School for Awakening Countries: The Italian Labour Movement in Its Political, Social and Economic Setting from 1800 to 1960 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1961), 201^203, 228, 232^249. 21. Seton-Watson, Italy from Liberalism to Fascism, 16^17. 22. Giovanna Procacci, ‘‘Italy: From Interventionism to Fascism, 1917^1919,’’ Journal of Contemporary History 3/4 (1968): 154; see also Charles S. Maier, Recasting Bourgeois Europe: Stabilization in France, Grmany and Italy in the Decade After World War I (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), 27. 23. Marco Revelli, ‘‘Italy,’’ in Detlet Mu«hlberger editor, The Social Basis of European Fascist Movements (London: Croom Helm, 1987), 8^10; Seton-Watson, Italy from Liberalism to Fascism, 607^609; Procacci, ‘‘Italy: From Interventionism to Fascism,’’ 154^155.
164 24. Discinnovismo literally means nineteenth-century-ism. Originally, it referred to the whole mood of revolutionary Republicanism during Italian uni¢cation in the nineteen century. The disciannovismo meant people’s initiative (Mazzini’s Republicanism), rather than politicians’ diplomacy (Cavourian liberalism). After World War I, discinnovismo refers to anti-liberalism and people’s voluntarism. 25. D. A. Binchy, Church and State in Fascist Italy (London: Oxford University Press, 1941), 60^61; Seton-Watson, Italy from Liberalism to Fascism, 55^59. 26. In addition to the menace of Socialism, there were other reasons for the Vatican’s reconciliation with Liberals. The ¢rst was the in£uence of ‘‘patriotic Catholics.’’ Many patriotic laity wanted a compromise between state and Church. Pius X himself was known as ‘‘a staunch patriot as well as an extreme conservative.’’ Second, average peasants were little interested in the ‘‘restoration of the Papal government.’’ See Binchy, Church and State in Fascist Italy, 47^54. 27. Seton-Watson, Italy from Liberalism to Fascism, 561, 599^600. 28. Maier, Recasting Bourgeois Europe, 30^31. 29. Radical currents among Socialists dominated their party after World War I. This bifurcating tendency in the Italian Socialist movement had a deep-rooted tradition. From the beginning of the labor movement, two extreme tendencies became apparent: a radical tendency based on the ‘‘Chamber of Labor’’ and a reformist tendency based on the ‘‘Category Federations.’’ Neufeld, Italy: School for Awakening Countries, 321^329; Seton-Watson, Italy from Liberalism to Fascism, 575^576. 30. In March 1920, reformist leader, Claudio Treves, described a delicate situation of 1920 to the Nitti government, saying that ‘‘This is the crux of the present tragic situation: you can no longer maintain your existing social order and we are not yet strong enough to impose the one we want.’’ Anthony L. Cardoza, Agrarian Elites and Italian Fascism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), 292. 31. Adrian Lyttelton, The Seizure of Poewr: Fascism in Italy 1919^1921 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 370. 32. Revelli, ‘‘Italy,’’ 11^13. 33. The Committee of Internal Resistance played a role in supporting the war e¡ort and reporting behaviors of local Socialists and other supporters of neutralism. See Lawrence Squeri, ‘‘Politics in Parma, 1900^1925: The Rise of Fascism,’’ Ph.D dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, (1976), 88, 113 fn1; Donald H. Bell, ‘‘Working-Class Culture and Fascism in an Italian Industrial Town, 1918^22,’’ Social History 9/1 (1984): 4, 8^9. 34. Seton-Watson, Italy from Liberalism to Fascism, 573. 35. E. Spencer Whellhofer, ‘‘Democracy and Fascism: Class, Civil Society, and Rational Choice in Italy,’’American Political Science Review 97/1 (Feb. 2003): 95. 36. Whether violence is a decisive factor for the Fascist victory is still controversial. Gentile and Smith each argue for violence, while Corner and Lyttelton each argue that too much attention to the Fascist violence misses something important. See Emilio Gentile, Storia del PNF, 1919^1922 (Bari: Laterza, 1989); Denis Mack Smith, Italy: A Modern History (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1959); Lyttelton, The Seizure of Power: Fascism in Italy, 1919^1929; Paul Corner, Fascism in Ferrara, 1918^1925 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975). 37. Dahlia S. Elazar, ‘‘Class, State, and Counter-Revolution: The Fascist Seizure of Power in Italy, 1919^1922,’’ European Sociological Review 16 (Sept. 2000): 301^321; Whellhofer, ‘‘Democracy and Fascism.’’ 38. Corner, Fascism in Ferrara, 146. 39. Antonio Gramsci, The Modern Prince and Other Writings (London: Cape, 1957), 42.
165 40. Snowden, ‘‘The Social Origins of Agrarian Fascism in Italy,’’ 289. 41. Banti, ‘‘Public Opinion and Associations in Nineteenth-Century Italy,’’ 52^54. 42. The abstention rate £uctuated, mainly in£uenced by con£icts between the church and the Italian liberal state in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Nevertheless, until 1909, the highest percentage of voter abstention was always found in the mainland south of Italy, where it rose steadily from 54% in 1870 to 72% in 1882, while that of northern Italy declined. Frank M. Snowden, Violence and Great Estates in the South of Italy: Apulia, 1900^1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 80; Seton-Watson, Italy from Liberalism to Fascism, 226. 43. In addition to the e¡ect of modernization, the reason clericalism was weak in Apulia was because of the weakness of the parish network. It was similar to the Po Valley of northern Italy in the sense that they were both frontier regions. In addition, the low quality of the Apulian clergy also weakened clericalism. For clergy, this remote and malarial region was undesirable. A series of scandals involving parishes provoked popular outrage. Finally, peasants had antagonism against clericalism because the Church itself was a farm employer. See Snowden, Violence and Great Estates in the South of Italy, 81^84. 44. Filippo Sabetti, ‘‘Path Dependency and Civic Culture: Some Lessons from Italy about Interpreting Social Experiments,’’ Politics and Society 24/1 (March 1996): 33. 45. Lyttelton, ‘‘Liberalism and Civil Society in Italy,’’ 71. 46. Seton-Watson, Italy from Liberalism to Fascism, 565; Neufeld, Italy: School for Awakening Countries, 375^380. 47. In the November 1920 national election, the Socialist party tripled its 1913 representation, capturing 156 seats and becoming a majority party, while liberal currents too got 200 seats. In local and provincial elections, the Socialist party controlled 2,162 of the Italy’s 8059 communes, compared with 300 in 1914. In provincial elections, it won 25 of 69 provinces. 48. Donald H. Bell, ‘‘Worker Culture and Worker Politics: The Experience of an Italian Town, 1880^1915,’’ Social History 3/1 (1978); idem, ‘‘Working-Class Culture and Fascism in an Italian Industrial Town, 1918-1922,’’ Social History 9/1 (1984). 49. Bell, ‘‘Working-Class Culture and Fascism in an Italian Industrial Town,’’ 5. 50. Giovanna Procacci, ‘‘Italy: From Interventionism to Fascism, 1917-1919,’’ Journal of Contemporary History 3/4 (1979): 4; Bell, ‘‘Worker Culture and Worker Politics,’’ 18. 51. Bell, ‘‘Working-Class Culture and Fascism in an Italian Industrial Town,’’ 4. 52. Neufeld, Italy: School for Awakening Countries, 368^9; Seton-Watson, Italy from Liberalism to Fascism, 519^520. 53. Bell, ‘‘Working-Class Culture and Fascism in an Italian Industrial Town,’’ 21. 54. Corner, Fascism in Ferrara, 159. 55. Seton-Watson, Italy from Liberalism to Fascism, 511, 520. 56. Neufeld, Italy: School for Awakening Countries, 379^80; Bell, ‘‘Working-class Culture and Fascism in an Italian Industrial Town,’’ 21^23. 57. October 7, 1922. Quoted in Bell, ‘‘Working-Class Culture and Fascism in an Italian Industrial Town,’’ 22. 58. Neufeld, Italy: School for Awakening Countries, 380. 59. It is re-quoted in Bell, ‘‘Working-Class Culture and Fascism in an Italian Industrial Town,’’ 7. 60. According to Charles Maier, Taylorism (‘‘Scienti¢c management’’ ideology) in the ¢rst postwar period helped relegitimate capitalist hierarchies and technical organization.
166 61. Neufeld, Italy: School for Awakening Countries, 380; Cardoza, Agrarian Elites and Italian Fascism, 293. 62. Whellhofer, ‘‘Democracy and Fascism,’’ 103. 63. Squeri, ‘‘Politics in Parma,’’ 126^127. 64. Lain Chambers and Lidia Curti, ‘‘A Volatile Alliance: Culture, Popular Culture and the Italian Left,’’ in idem, editors, Formations of Nation and People (London: Routledge, 1984), 102; Bell, ‘‘Working-Class Culture and Fascism in an Italian Industrial Town,’’ 14. 65. In 1919, returned ex-combatants occupied land in Roman Campagna spontaneously. 66. Membership in CGL leaped within a short time: from 249,039 in 1918 to 1,150,062 in 1919, and to 2,200,100 at its climax in 1920. CIL membership was 162,000 at the end of the war but leaped to 1,500,000 in 1921. See Neufeld, Italy: School for Awakening Countries, 368^369; Seton-Watson, Italy from Liberalism and Fascism, 519^521. 67. Seton-Watson, Italy from Liberalism to Fascism, 512. 68. Wellhofer, ‘‘Democracy and Fascism.’’ 69. Snowden, ‘‘The Social Origins of Agrarian Fascism in Italy.’’ 70. Wellhofer, ‘‘Democracy and Fascism,’’ 102. 71. In criticizing neo-Tocquevillian arguments for their reliance on face-to-face associations, Jane Mansbridge also argues, based on her observation of New England town meetings, that face-to-face meetings can cause tensions and suppression of free deliberation. See Jane Mansbridge, Beyond Adversary Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983). 72. Snowden, Violence and Great Estates in the South of Italy, 180; Seton-Watson, Italy from Liberalism to Fascism, 523, 574; Cardoza, Agrarian Elites and Italian Fascism, 326^327. 73. Frank M. Snowden, The Fascist Revolution in Tuscany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 97¡. 74. Cardoza, Agrarian Elites and Italian Fascism, 337^338. 75. Membership in Catholic agricultural unions fell less sharply, from 945,000 to 749,000. Seton-Watson, Italy from Liberalism to Fascism, 574. 76. Snowden, Violence and Great Estates in the South of Italy, 180. 77. Putnam, Making Democracy Work, 182. 78. See Sheri Berman, ‘‘Civil Society and The Collapse of the Weimar Republic,’’ World Politics 49 (April 1997): 401^429. 79. Mansbridge, Beyond Adversary Democracy, 70^71.
