Abstract
This chapter1 explores a number of issues, one of which concerns specifically the political behaviour of women in Italy today. I am not so much interested in the political behaviour of all women, as of women who live and work in specific localities, characterized until recently by a high degree of party identification, linked to a specific political ideology, either Communist or Catholic. Gender issues, therefore, are explored in the context of changing voting patterns in Italy after the demise, as shown in the 1992 and 1994 political elections, of many of the established parties as well as the weakening of the ex-Communist Party. These electoral and political changes can be explained in part by the end of the Cold War, which has provided a powerful impulse to overcome traditional ideological and political cleavages and has taken away the raison d’être for the domination of the Christian Democratic Party. Already in the 1980s, however, a new culture based on personal success and individual values had emerged in Italy as throughout Western Europe and had started to weaken both Communist and Catholic collective solidarities.
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Bull, A. (2000). Class, Gender and Voting in Italy. In: Andrew, J., Crook, M., Holmes, D., Kolinsky, E. (eds) Why Europe? Problems of Culture and Identity. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230596641_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230596641_10
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