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Article Dans Une Revue New Political Economy Année : 2024

The social and political bases of political economy: interpreting and periodising Italian developments since WWII

Résumé

We investigate the transition between Fordism and neoliberalism in Italy employing insights from International (IPE) and Comparative Political Economy (CPE). Transitions are key periods to observe how countries tend to converge towards similar political economy developments through processes of social, political and institutional adaptation. We contribute to the literature by detailing how transformations in the ‘social and political bases of political economy’ influence institutional change. We understand these transformations as movements from below (changes in sociodemographic and productive compositions, and social movements) and above (agency in political parties, trade unions,business associations and elites); we name these components ‘the social and productive composition ’and ‘the social and political representation sphere’ respectively. Employing process tracing, we identify three historical periods in post-WWII Italian political economy–state Fordism (1945–78), a transitional period we name ‘the long 1980s’ (1979–91), and neoliberalism (1992–) – delineated by two historical ruptures: a breakup moment in 1978–9 that signalled the decline of Fordism, and acritical juncture that ushered in neoliberalism in 1992. Analytically,changes within the social and productive composition during state Fordism impacted on the social and political representation sphere, andon several reforms undertaken in different institutional domains. However, since the breakup moment 1978–9 this dynamic changed together with the international political economy context. Similar too ther western countries, the main actors within the social and politicalrepresentation sphere increasingly approached institutional regulation inspired by neoliberal ideas, while the pressures coming from the more active forces within the social and productive composition faltered.
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Dates et versions

hal-04559686 , version 1 (25-04-2024)

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Emanuele Ferragina, Alessandro Arrigoni. The social and political bases of political economy: interpreting and periodising Italian developments since WWII. New Political Economy, 2024, pp.1-18. ⟨10.1080/13563467.2024.2344854⟩. ⟨hal-04559686⟩
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