The Political Cultures of Israel's Radical Right: Commentary on Ehud Sprinzak's The Ascendance of Israel's Radical Right∗

Between 1968 and 1974 Italy was subjected to an unusually virulent campaign of right‐wing terrorism and subversion. An illustrative episode associated with this so‐called ‘strategy of tension’, which was characterized by the systematic use of covert ‘false flag’ operations, was the 17 May 1973 grenade attack outside Milan police headquarters that resulted in four dead and over 40 injured. Although the perpetrator, Gianfranco Bertoli, claimed to be an ‘individualist anarchist’ and had in fact established contacts with certain anarchist and leftist groups, subsequent judicial investigations revealed that he had been an informant and infiltrator for the Italian military intelligence service, that he had long maintained links with various anti‐communist and neo‐fascist organizations, and that he apparently received ‘cover’ and some type of logistical support prior to the attack from one or more ‘international secret services’. Although many aspects of the crime still remain murky, in all probability Bertoli was an agent provocateur acting on behalf of clandestine, quasi‐official intelligence apparatuses rather than a solitary anarchist engaging in violent ‘propaganda of the deed’.     

Moral Economese of Scale? Crisis,Discursive Change and the Varying Authority of Economists

This article examines the varying authority in contemporary governance of 10 prominent economists trained and based in America during the most recent period of economic instability. Despite stemming from diverse backgrounds and adopting a variety of roles, these private actors have each increasingly sought to combine moral authority with the technical authority that has been widely challenged since the outbreak of financial crisis in 2007. The shift from esoteric scientific jargons of economese towards more explicit engagements with overtly ethical issues in a moral economese is identified as an important discursive change through which these actors sought to reconfigure their contested authority. Yet this article maintains that persistent prioritisation of market values impedes rather than supports such attempts to reassert authority. Blends of technical and moral forms of authority are considered highly unstable and not conducive to enhancing the authority of these and other prominent private actors in global governance.