Partito Radicale
Encyclopedia
The Radical Party was a political party in Italy. For decades it was a bastion of liberalism and radicalism in Italy
Liberalism and radicalism in Italy
- Background :The formation of political groups in the 19th century in divided Italy is based on personalities, like Camillo di Cavour and Giuseppe Mazzini. Both the Historical Right and the Historical Left were composed of monarchist liberals, while radicals organised themselves as the Radical...

 and proposed itself as the strongest opposition to the Italian political establishment, which was seen as corrupt
Political corruption
Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...

 and conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...

. Although the party never reached high shares of vote and it never took part in government, it had close relations with the other parties of the Italian left, from the Republicans
Italian Republican Party
The Italian Republican Party is a liberal political party in Italy.The PRI is party with old roots that originally took a left-wing position, claiming descent from the political position of Giuseppe Mazzini...

 and the Socialists
Italian Socialist Party
The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy founded in Genoa in 1892.Once the dominant leftist party in Italy, it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party following World War II...

 to the Communists
Italian Communist Party
The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party . Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played...

 and Proletarian Democracy
Proletarian Democracy
Proletarian Democracy was a political party in Italy.-1970s:DP was founded in 1975 as a joint electoral front of the Proletarian Unity Party , Workers Vanguard and the Workers Movement for Socialism...

, and opened its ranks also to members of other parties, through "double membership".

In 1989, the party was transformed into the Transnational Radical Party
Transnational Radical Party
The Transnational Radical Party is a political association of citizens, parliamentarians and members of government of various national and political backgrounds who intend to use nonviolent means to create an effective body of international law with respect for individuals and the...

. The current incarnation of the party is called Italian Radicals
Italian Radicals
Italian Radicals is an Italian political party which describes itself as a liberale, liberista e libertario political movement .It was...

, which was founded after a period in the 1990s
1990s
File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...

, when the Radicals presented electoral lists (including the Pannella List
Pannella List
Pannella List was a strongly libertarian Radical electoral list active in the 1990s in Italy. Its long-standing leader and standard-bearer was Marco Pannella, who had been the historical leader of the Radical Party from 1963 to 1989....

 and Bonino List
Bonino List
Bonino List was a strongly libertarian Radical electoral list active in the 1990s and the 2000s in Italy. Named for Emma Bonino, a leading Radical who had been member of the European Commission from 1995 to 1999 , after the unsuccessful "Emma for President" campaign, it was the successor of the...

) for Italian general elections, without having a structured party and sometimes dividing themselves in competing lists.

History

The Radical Party was founded in 1955 by the progressive left-wing of the Italian Liberal Party
Italian Liberal Party
The Italian Liberal Party was a liberal political party in Italy.-Origins:The origins of liberalism in Italy came from the so-called "Historical Right", a parliamentary group formed by Camillo Benso di Cavour in the Parliament of the Kingdom of Sardinia following the 1848 revolution...

 as the ideal continuation of the historical Radical Party
Radical Party (Italy, 1877)
The Radical Party was a radical political party in Italy.It was founded in 1877 by Agostino Bertani and Felice Cavallotti as a radical-liberal party of what was then considered the "far left", from the name of the parliamentary group the Radicals formed with Andrea Costa, the first Socialist...

, active from 1877 to 1925, emphasising liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

 and secular
Secularism
Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...

 issues, such as the effective separation of church and state
Separation of church and state
The concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....

 and the full implementation of the Constitution. Leading members of the new party included Bruno Villabruna
Bruno Villabruna
Bruno Villabruna was an Italian lawyer and liberal politician.Born in Santa Giustina, near Belluno in the Veneto, he was first elected to parliament in 1921...

, Mario Pannunzio, Ernesto Rossi
Ernesto Rossi
Ernesto Rossi was an Italian politician, journalist and anti-fascist activist. His ideas contributed to the Partito d'Azione, and subsequently the Partito Radicaleco-authur of the Ventotene Manifesto. Rossi was born in Caserta....

, Leo Valiani
Leo Valiani
Leo Valiani was an Italian politician and journalist.He was born in Rijeka , on the Adriatic, which is today in independent Croatia but was then a leading seaport for the largely landlocked Austro-Hungarian Empire...

, Guido Calogero, Giovanni Ferrara, Paolo Ungari, Eugenio Scalfari
Eugenio Scalfari
Eugenio Scalfari is an Italian journalist, editor of the news magazine L'espresso , former member of parliament in the Italian Chamber of Deputies , co-founder of the newspaper La Repubblica and its editor from 1976 to 1996.-Biography:A law graduate with a interest in journalism and politics,...

 and Marco Pannella
Marco Pannella
Giacinto Pannella, better known as Marco Pannella is an Italian politician.He is the historic leader of the Italian Radicals...

.

After a temporary disbandment, the party was re-founded by Marco Pannella and Gianfranco Spadaccia in 1963 and came to political success in the 1976
Italian general election, 1976
The Italian elections of 1976 were held on June 20. The seventh Parliament of republican Italy was selected. These were the first elections where 18-year-old boys and girls were allowed to vote....

, when the Radicals entered Parliament with 4 deputies: Marco Pannella, Emma Bonino
Emma Bonino
Emma Bonino is an Italian politician, former Member of the European Parliament and current Member of the Italian Senate. She is a leading member of the Italian Radicals, a political party that supports economic and social libertarianism, and human rights...

, Adele Faccio
Adele Faccio
Adele Faccio was an Italian politician and deputy of the Radical Party .-Abortion activism:...

 and Mauro Mellini. In 1979 general election
Italian general election, 1979
The Italian election of 1979 was held on June 3. The eighth Parliament of republican Italy was selected. This election was called just a week before the European vote: the lack of matching between the two elections caused much controversy for wasting public money.Terroristic attacks by the Red...

 the party won 3.5% of the vote and elected 18 deputies and 2 senators, its best result ever. The relative success of the party (Pannella was very disappointed of the 1979 result) was a consequence of the new line impressed by Pannella who moved the party's focus to issues like divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...

 and abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...

, also by winning three referenda on those issues in 1974 and 1981.

In the 1980s
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...

 the party focused more on international and European issues. Pannella was member of the European Parliament
Member of the European Parliament
A Member of the European Parliament is a person who has been elected to the European Parliament. The name of MEPs differ in different languages, with terms such as europarliamentarian or eurodeputy being common in Romance language-speaking areas.When the European Parliament was first established,...

 since 1979, and led the party into new battles against hunger and in favour of European integration
European integration
European integration is the process of industrial, political, legal, economic integration of states wholly or partially in Europe...

. In 1989 the party was transformed into the Transnational Radical Party
Transnational Radical Party
The Transnational Radical Party is a political association of citizens, parliamentarians and members of government of various national and political backgrounds who intend to use nonviolent means to create an effective body of international law with respect for individuals and the...

, a NGO
Non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...

 working at the UN
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 level and coordinating the efforts of several national parties and groupings mainly in support of human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

. Radicals continued to participate in Italian political life through the Rainbow Greens
Rainbow Greens
Rainbow Greens was a green Italian political party.It was founded in 1989 by splinters of Proletarian Democracy and some leading Radicals .It took part in the 1989 European Parliament elections,...

, the Pannella List
Pannella List
Pannella List was a strongly libertarian Radical electoral list active in the 1990s in Italy. Its long-standing leader and standard-bearer was Marco Pannella, who had been the historical leader of the Radical Party from 1963 to 1989....

 and the Bonino List
Bonino List
Bonino List was a strongly libertarian Radical electoral list active in the 1990s and the 2000s in Italy. Named for Emma Bonino, a leading Radical who had been member of the European Commission from 1995 to 1999 , after the unsuccessful "Emma for President" campaign, it was the successor of the...

 (see disambiguation
Italian Radicals (disambiguation)
Italian Radicals is a political party of Italy.Italian Radicals may also refer to:* Radical Party , a far left/left-liberal parliamentary group, 1877–1922...

). In 2001, the Radicals re-organised themselves into the Italian Radicals
Italian Radicals
Italian Radicals is an Italian political party which describes itself as a liberale, liberista e libertario political movement .It was...

.

Ideology

The Radical Party was the first party in Italy to give expression to the transformation of Italian society towards more liberal behaviour and ideas in the post-war period. It placed itself strongly in the left-wing
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...

 of Italian politics, often working for the unity of all the parties of the Italian left (thus proposing the adoption of an American-style electoral system based on [|first-past-the-post voting]] and the transformation of Italian institutions toward a presidential system
Presidential system
A presidential system is a system of government where an executive branch exists and presides separately from the legislature, to which it is not responsible and which cannot, in normal circumstances, dismiss it....

), but also often being rejected by certain areas of the left itself, especially those linked with the Italian Communist Party
Italian Communist Party
The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party . Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played...

, due to the Radicals' strong belief in libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...

 policies, both socially and economically speaking. The party was also known for its strong belief in direct democracy
Direct democracy
Direct democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...

 and especially for its use of referenda
Referendum
A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...

.

Its first victorious campaign was the creation in the mid 1960s
1960s
The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...

 of the Italian League for Divorce (Lega Italiana per il Divorzio, LID) which was the first to succeed in marshalling together all the secular political forces into a unified political alliance thus getting the law on divorce approved.
During the 1970s
1970s
File:1970s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil...

, the Radical Party succeeded in starting up a vast movement in favour of civil rights by setting up the Women's Liberation Movement (Movimento di Liberazione della Donna, MLD), by supporting the activities of the Italian Centre for Sterilisation and Abortion (Centro Italiano Sterilizzazioni e Aborti) and by giving its support to the Italian Revolutionary Homosexual United Front (Fronte Unitario Omosessuale Rivoluzionario Italiano, FUORI), one of the first Italian gay
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

 associations. All these groups, as well as many others, were part of the Radical movement, that was always organised as a federation of single-issue associations rather than a united party.

Popular support

The PR never gained massive support in elections, due to its loose organisation and eclectic profile: the party did not file candidates for all the elections and sometimes even supported abstention from voting. The party's best result was in the 1979 general election
Italian general election, 1979
The Italian election of 1979 was held on June 3. The eighth Parliament of republican Italy was selected. This election was called just a week before the European vote: the lack of matching between the two elections caused much controversy for wasting public money.Terroristic attacks by the Red...

, when it won 3.5% of the vote. Although support for the party was uniform all around the country, it did better in the North
Northern Italy
Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...

 (and especially in Piedmont
Piedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...

) than in the South and generally speaking in large cities (Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

, Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

 and Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

).

In the 1990s
1990s
File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...

 the two main successors of the party, the Pannella List
Pannella List
Pannella List was a strongly libertarian Radical electoral list active in the 1990s in Italy. Its long-standing leader and standard-bearer was Marco Pannella, who had been the historical leader of the Radical Party from 1963 to 1989....

 and the Bonino List
Bonino List
Bonino List was a strongly libertarian Radical electoral list active in the 1990s and the 2000s in Italy. Named for Emma Bonino, a leading Radical who had been member of the European Commission from 1995 to 1999 , after the unsuccessful "Emma for President" campaign, it was the successor of the...

, that emphasised economic issues and supported a strongly libertarian approach, did particularly well in Northern regions, while the Italian Radicals
Italian Radicals
Italian Radicals is an Italian political party which describes itself as a liberale, liberista e libertario political movement .It was...

 (the new incarnation of the PR since 2001) lost many votes to Forza Italia
Forza Italia
Forza Italia was a liberal-conservative, Christian democratic, and liberal political party in Italy, with a large social democratic minority, that was led by Silvio Berlusconi, four times Prime Minister of Italy....

 after Radicals decided to return into the centre-left
Centre-left
Centre-left is a political term that describes individuals, political parties or organisations such as think tanks whose ideology lies between the centre and the left on the left-right spectrum...

 camp in 2005.

Leadership

  • Secretary: Mario Pannunzio (1956–1959), Leopoldo Piccardi (1959–1962), Bruno Villabruna
    Bruno Villabruna
    Bruno Villabruna was an Italian lawyer and liberal politician.Born in Santa Giustina, near Belluno in the Veneto, he was first elected to parliament in 1921...

     (1962–1963), Marco Pannella
    Marco Pannella
    Giacinto Pannella, better known as Marco Pannella is an Italian politician.He is the historic leader of the Italian Radicals...

     (1963–1967), Gianfranco Spadaccia (1967–1968), Mauro Mellini (1968–1969), Angiolo Bandinelli (1969–1970), Roberto Cicciomessere (1970–1971), Angiolo Bandinelli (1971–1973), Giulio Ercolessi (1973–1974), Gianfranco Spadaccia (1974–1976), Adelaide Aglietta
    Adelaide Aglietta
    Born Maria Adelaide Aglietta Turin 4 June 1940 - 20 May 2000 . She was an Italian politician, deputy for Radical party since 1979 to 1985 and 1987 to 1989...

     (1976–1978), Jean Fabre (1978–1979), Giuseppe Rippa (1979–1980), Francesco Rutelli (1980–1981), Marco Pannella
    Marco Pannella
    Giacinto Pannella, better known as Marco Pannella is an Italian politician.He is the historic leader of the Italian Radicals...

     (1981–1983), Roberto Cicciomessere (1983–1984), Giovanni Negri (1984–1988), Sergio Stanzani (1988–1989)
  • President: Elio Vittorini
    Elio Vittorini
    Elio Vittorini was an Italian writer and novelist. He was a contemporary of Cesare Pavese and an influential voice in the modernist school of novel writing. His best-known work is the anti-fascist novel Conversations in Sicily, for which he was jailed when it was published in 1941. The first U.S...

     (1962–1964), Gianfranco Spadaccia (1964–1967), Marco Pannella
    Marco Pannella
    Giacinto Pannella, better known as Marco Pannella is an Italian politician.He is the historic leader of the Italian Radicals...

     (1967–1975), Adele Faccio
    Adele Faccio
    Adele Faccio was an Italian politician and deputy of the Radical Party .-Abortion activism:...

     (1975–1976), Marco Pannella
    Marco Pannella
    Giacinto Pannella, better known as Marco Pannella is an Italian politician.He is the historic leader of the Italian Radicals...

     (1976–1981), Enzo Tortora
    Enzo Tortora
    Enzo Tortora , was a popular TV host and anchorman on national RAI television, who was falsely accused of being a member of the Camorra and drug trafficking...

     (1981–1986), Marco Pannella
    Marco Pannella
    Giacinto Pannella, better known as Marco Pannella is an Italian politician.He is the historic leader of the Italian Radicals...

     (1986–1989)

  • Party Leader in the Chamber of Deputies
    Italian Chamber of Deputies
    The Italian Chamber of Deputies is the lower house of the Parliament of Italy. It has 630 seats, a plurality of which is controlled presently by liberal-conservative party People of Freedom. Twelve deputies represent Italian citizens outside of Italy. Deputies meet in the Palazzo Montecitorio. A...

    : Marco Pannella
    Marco Pannella
    Giacinto Pannella, better known as Marco Pannella is an Italian politician.He is the historic leader of the Italian Radicals...

     (1976–1978), Emma Bonino
    Emma Bonino
    Emma Bonino is an Italian politician, former Member of the European Parliament and current Member of the Italian Senate. She is a leading member of the Italian Radicals, a political party that supports economic and social libertarianism, and human rights...

     (1978), Marco Mellini (1979), Marco Pannella
    Marco Pannella
    Giacinto Pannella, better known as Marco Pannella is an Italian politician.He is the historic leader of the Italian Radicals...

     (1979), Adelaide Aglietta
    Adelaide Aglietta
    Born Maria Adelaide Aglietta Turin 4 June 1940 - 20 May 2000 . She was an Italian politician, deputy for Radical party since 1979 to 1985 and 1987 to 1989...

     (1979–1982), Emma Bonino
    Emma Bonino
    Emma Bonino is an Italian politician, former Member of the European Parliament and current Member of the Italian Senate. She is a leading member of the Italian Radicals, a political party that supports economic and social libertarianism, and human rights...

     (1982–1983), Marco Pannella
    Marco Pannella
    Giacinto Pannella, better known as Marco Pannella is an Italian politician.He is the historic leader of the Italian Radicals...

     (1983–1984), Roberto Cicciomessere (1984), Francesco Rutelli (1984–1988), Giuseppe Calderisi (1988–1992), Marco Pannella
    Marco Pannella
    Giacinto Pannella, better known as Marco Pannella is an Italian politician.He is the historic leader of the Italian Radicals...

     (1992–1994)

Sources

  • General chronology of the Radical Party, 1955–1989
  • Massimo L. Salvadori, Enciclopedia storica, Zanichelli, Bologna
    Bologna
    Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

     2000
  • Massimo Teodori
    Massimo Teodori
    Massimo Teodori is an Italian author and politician; his books mainly focus on the differences between Europe and the United States....

    ; Piero Ignazi; Angelo Panebianco, I nuovi Radicali 1955–1977, Mondadori, Milan
    Milan
    Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

     1977
  • Lorenza Ponzone, Il Partito Radicale nella storia politica italiana: 1962–1989, Schena, Fasano
    Fasano
    Fasano is a town and comune in the province of Brindisi, Apulia, southern Italy.It marks the border between the Altosalento and the province of Bari. It is equidistant from three of the provincial capitals in Puglia, namely Bari, Taranto and Brindisi...

    1993
  • David Busato, Il Partito Radicale in Italia da Mario Pannunzio a Marco Pannella, 1996
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