Sometimes books become classics, influencing an entire generation of scholars and thinkers. This is the case with Norberto Bobbio's Profile, arguably the most authoritative Italian book in the field of political hermeneutics, in which all major political movements are analyzed in a philosophical and historical perspective. This interdisciplinary approach gives an extraordinary flavor to the book and allows the author profound insights into the complex world of Italian political life. The recent electoral results that brought the left to power in Italy for the first time if we do not consider the brief pre-constitutional government after World War In are in many ways anticipated here.
The book does not foresee the necessarily "progressive" evolution but certainly does give a key to a better understanding of the ideological background of contemporary Italy as a democracy in the making. The work also offers a stringent analysis of Italian ideological peculiarities, where internationally founded and established ideologies gain new color and different perspective once placed in the Italian environment. It is interesting, for example, to follow Bobbio describing ideological movements like Positivism and Marxism taking a new shape in their Italian interpretation. While not renouncing their roots, these ideologies found new strength in interacting with the Italian historical experience. The Catholic contribution along with those of the Socialists and Communists is analyzed in a broad perspective, which is able to offer an intriguing image of other relevant currents such as anti-democratic thought, especially in the period of Fascism.
The historical development is crucial in Bobbio's work. If a synthetic image should be used to describe this remarkable work, we should probably use Bobbio's own words: "My point of view is that of someone who has followed the tortuous development of democracy in Italy, from the beginning of the century to today, with intense participation in part as an historian who finds indifference impossible, in part as an apprehensive observer forever divided between fear and hope."
The book is about the development of democracy in Italy and is a very oriented reading of this path. Introducing intellectual figures such as Benedetto Croce, Gaetano Salvemini, Luigi Einaudi, Piero Gobetti, Antonio Gramsci, and others, Bobbio clearly offers the perspective of a thinker of the left, always concerned about the very possibility of a true democracy in Italy. Today, while the reference to the ideologies that Bobbio describes in his book are less relevant on all sides, this work offers an essential vision of the sweep of the entire century in Italy-an ideological struggle among different forces. These ideologies succeeded in finding a few moments of convergence, especially in the period just after World War II, building a paradoxical democratic experience. On one hand, stability and democratic institutions were linked to the Atlantic side, while on the other, full participation in the parliamentary and local government was given to all other competitive forces, namely the Communist party.
The political regime found a real and effective way to keep the constitution alive through two conventions: a conventio ad escludendum under which the impossibility of Communist participation in the government for reason of international equilibrium was recognized, and a conventio ad conveniendum under which, in exchange, the right of the Communist party to have an active opposition voice in the parliament, some local power, and the right of veto in relation to the most important choices were recognized. These agreements were crucial in shaping the possibility of a democratic experience in Italy. Together with these very pragmatic and political features, the ideological debate was able to nourish the Italian experience with its unique voices. Bobbio's work is a classic-able to give a full understanding of this development that made possible the astonishing transformation of Italy in this very ideological century.
By Norberto Bobbio. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1995. 239 pp.
Copyright Academy of Political Science Winter 1996/1997