The unitary state and federalism in Italy

SUMMARY

In this article, Carlo Ghisalberti discusses the role of federalist and confederationalist ideas in the history of the development of a united Italy. The issue was always on the agenda after 1815 as a legacy of the Napoleonic era, which had introduced broadly similar institutions through the peninsula. At first federalist models had some support, culminating in the neo-Guelph movement of the 1840s, based on the idea of a federation presided over by Pope Pius IX, though this was already strongly challenged by Mazzini's programme for establishing a unitary republic. The actual unification of the 1860s was based on the unitary concept, and federalist alternatives were increasingly associated with conservative-clericalist factions. The article concludes that the liberalization of the unitary Kingdom of Italy, particularly under Giolitti, gave the unitary model of the state a credibility which made federalist or regionalist alternatives redundant.