A description of the Italian political landscape from a community organizing perpective

1. Postcards from Italy Diego Galli

2. “The vivacity of the Italian
character, the love of spectacle
and entertainment, the
dominance of the Church, and
above all the radical cynicism of
Italians guarantee that a closely
knit civil society cannot come
into being in Italy”
Giacomo Leopardi, Discourse on
the Present State of Customs of
the Italians, 1824
Pulcinella with acrobats
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo,
1793

3. Amoral familism
• “The inability of the
villagers to act together for
their common good or,
indeed, for any end
transcending the
immediate, material
interest of the nuclear
family”
• Study of a small village in the
south of Italy conducted in
1955 by the University of
Chicago and later Harvard
professor Edward C. Banfield

4. Civic traditions
• "Civic traditions turn out to be a
uniformly powerful predictor of
present levels of
socioeconomic development,
even when we hold constant
earlier levels of development."
• Harvard professor Robert Putnam
evaluates institutional
performance of the 20 Italian
regional governments over more
than 20 years
• His central finding is that wide
variations in the performance of
these governments are closely
related to the vibrancy of
associational life in each region

5. Putnam traces the roots of civic traditions in northern Italy back to the self governing
city-states of the late medieval period, which created a tradition of civic cooperation. In
contrast, a Norman aristocracy imposed a hierarchical regime in southern Italy, creating
a tradition of patron-client relationships that hindered cooperation.

6. Italy until 1861

7. Salvatore (the owner):
“It’s painful to tell because I was born there and for me it is like a mother.
But Italy is sick. I see public television programs here. They showed a poll
and it said that 60% of the population don’t see any future for themselves
and for the country”

8. Gianfranco
Spadaccia
“I don’t want to discourage you, nor to
be too pessimistic, but in this moment I
don’t see in Italy a whatsoever leverage
to use for an alternative of legality,
morality and democracy.
Unfortunately immorality, political and
criminal degeneration generate only
justified populist revolts that slide
towards fascism and racism like the
Northern League in Italy and Marie Le
Pen in France”

9. Tor Sapienza - Rome

10. Tor Sapienza - Rome
•12.713 residents
•1 big public housing development
•2 Roma people camp
•1 refugee residential center: 36 adolescents and 30
adults

12. The neighborhood committee has been petitioning the city council for years to ask:
- more police control
- better waste removal
- more lightning
- stop of prostitution (and sexual intercourses) in the street...

13. ...and the closing down of the illegal Roma people camp, where very often Roma
people burn stolen cables to get copper and other metals that they later resell. This
causes dioxin fumes

14. Roma people camp in Tor Sapienza

15. The Roma and immigration business
• Every year the city of Rome spends 24 million of euros for Roma
camps that goes always to the same cooperatives, associations and
specialized enterprises
• «This year I made € 40 million (US$ 49 million) off the gypsies. Do you
know how much I profit from immigrants? Drug trafficking is less
profitable».
Wiretapped conversation of Salvatore Buzzi, president of the Cooperative 29
June, arrested on Dec 2 for the “Mafia in Rome” judicial trial
• Luca Odevaine, member of the Committee for Reception of
Immigrants, who could influence the committee in favor of Buzzi’s
cooperatives, allegedly received € 5,000 per month in bribes
• Former Rome mayor Alemanno, who was among those arrested on
Dec. 2, told the Sunday Times in 2012 that “in the south of Italy, the
Mafia is the problem, in Rome it is immigration.”

16. Roma camps and immigration centers in
Rome

17. Roma camps in Milan

18. Political entrepreneurs of social distress
Matteo Salvini with Marie Le Pen

19. Political entrepreneurs of social distress
Mario Borghezio, Northern League, visits Tor Sapienza and makes the
fascist salute with his right hand (November 2014)

20. The numbers of the so called “invasion”
• 4.4 million foreign citizens in 2013, the equivalent of 7.4% of
the total number of residents
• 500.000 are the estimate numbers of illegal immigrants
•On January 1, 2012 there were 58.060 refugees in Italy
•According to the Ignorance Index, an Ipsos MORI survey
carried out in 14 countries, Italians are the least informed on
the subject, believing that immigrants make up 30% of the
population

21. The racket of public housing in Milan, Rome,
Bologna, etc.
Milan, 17 november 2014:
Police officers try to evict
illegal occupiers of public
homes.
Two different ways to get a
home in the black market:
the “political housing
machine” comprised of
social centers and
antagonistic groups; and the
“criminal housing machine”
controlled by north africans
and Roma people.

22. family occupies
a home illegally
one every two
family occupies
a home illegally
The electrical meters of illegal
occupiers are switched to the
condominium meter in order
to have electricity. 22 out of
50 meters are tampered

23. Public housing and housing in Italy
• 30.000 families in the waiting list for public housing
• 5.000 families have illegally occupied a public home (only 300 of those have
been evicted)
• Between 30 and 40.000 public houses are empty because regional bodies
don’t invest in rehabbing
• 68.000 families will be evicted this year for delinquency: 7.743 in Rome,
4.924 in Milan, 3.492 in Turin. Evictions for delinquency are 30.000 a year:
practically every day 140 families risk to lose their home
• Empty and non rented homes in Italy are around 200.000

24. Unemployment and poverty
• In 2013, Italy’s GDP contracted by 1.9%, bringing the economic activity back to a
level slightly below that of 2000. The real GDP per capita level was the same as in 1996
• in 2013, employment has decreased by 478.000 units, -2.1% compared to 2012,
more than during the worst period of the crisis (-380 thousand units in 2009).
• The unemployment rate of the population aged 15-24 years is 44.2% (17% in the
US)
• Households living in conditions of relative poverty totaled 12.7% of resident
households, thus making over 9.5 million poor individuals, or 15.8% of the resident
population. Absolute poverty involves 4.8 million individuals
• Average earned net income for households is 29,956 euros, approximately 2,496
euros a month
• The level of satisfaction of persons with their economic situation pass from 69.2 percent
in Bolzano/Bozen to 25.3 percent in Sicily

25. Accountability
US version
• uninominal first past the post
electoral system
• district representation
• constituents based
• non partisan
• 15 alderpersons for Milwaukee
Milwaukee aldermanic map

26. Accountability - Italian version
• Party lists based
• Proportional electoral system
• 48 city council members elected city wide in Rome (not districts)
• 9 political parties got enough votes to be elected
• Minimum numbers of votes for a candidate to be elected was 1000 citywide

27. But Mafia knows how to hold them
accountable through its “relational power”...

28. ...through preference voting
• In local elections within each party candidates are elected on the basis of
preference votes.
• It is used by 90% of the voters in Naples region, by 23,3% in Milan region
• «With 8-10.000 euros we get in the way and we gather 300-400 votes»,
telephone interception from a judicial investigation on Camorra in Naples.
• «The threshold to be elected in Milan is between 1.500 and 2.500
preferences, that means that the margin is a few hundreds votes. But
independent candidates not backed by “preferences packets” have hard
times being elected». Milan city council member from Radical Party, Marco
Cappato
• «It is sufficient to control a part of the 30% of voters that use preference
voting and channel them to the chosen candidate and the game is over. The
others use preference voting in a free way on minor candidates. Therefore a
small minority of voters decide the composition of our political class». An
independent candidate letter found online

29. Other kind of broad based institutions:
Churches in Italy
• Baptized catholics are 58.769.882 (97,9% of the population)
• 91% have received religious education, 88% in schools.
• 79% of the population declare to be catholic
• 63% is in favor of some kind of legal recognition of gay couples
• 65% is ok with in vitro fertilization
• 74% want living will
• 63% in in favor of the opening of Mosques

30. Religion in Italy
• There are 226 Catholic dioceses, 25.706 parishes, 414 bishops, 30.518
priests, 15.815 members of religious orders and 3.707 deacons, 235.306
catechists.
• Catholic Church got 1,148 millions euros through State taxation in 2013
• The biggest protestant church, the Waldensians (Valdesi), got only 14,2
millions
• Catholic weekly church attendance is 18,5% of the population
• Jews are 35.000
• In Rome there are 234 churches: 150 for catholics, 25 for Christian orthodox,
22 for protestants, 22 for muslims, 7 for Jews, 6 for buddhists, 1 for hinduists

31. Private donations to Churches - City of Parma
• Between 2012 and 2013 a 10/15% decreases in donations because of the
crisis
• Monticelli parish has 4k parishioners and gets 30.000 euros a year (mass
offers plus candles, easter benedictions and church improvement works)
• San Paolo Apostolo, 5k residents in the area, raised 10.000 euro. Not
sufficient to sustain church expenses.

32. Unions
• The biggest Union, CGIL, has 2.700.000 members
• Only 30% are less than 34 years old
• Only 3% are precarious or unemployed workers
• 91,8% has a regular permanent job contract
• Employees without a regular contract are 5,5 millions. 45% has an annul
income of 15.000 euros. Only 46,2% said that survive without some help
from their parents
• 30.000 precarious workers demonstrated in Rome in april 2011

33. Immigrants
• Totally around 5 millions
• 86% live in the Centre and North of Italy
• Non-national foreign population (aged 15-64) shows similar level of education
to nationals
• Non-national labour force represent 10.6% of the total labour force
• The employment rate for non-nationals is higher than for Italians (64.7% in
comparison with 60.6%), as is the unemployment rate (14.1% and 10.3%,
respectively)

34. Immigrants associations
• 2.114 immigrants associations
• 59,7% have between 10 and 100 members
• 12,2% have between 100 and 200 members
• 6% more than 500 members
• 21,1% have been created between 2010 and 2014
• 79,3% have as a purpose the immigrants integration

35. A small town near Bologna
• Anzola dell’Emilia – BO, 12.300 residents
• 3 Catholic churches for a total number of 500-600 people that attend mass
on a given Sunday
• A space used as a Mosque with 100 people on a given Friday
• A sport association with 1500 members (from kids to elders)
• A senior citizens center with more than 1000 member
• 20 volunteering associations