La questione delle disuguaglianze e dei divari socio-economici nella storia italiana dalla fase post-unitaria alla fine dell’intervento straordinario

The issues of inequality and socio-economic gaps assume protean forms and meanings, suggesting a reconsideration, from a historical-economic viewpoint, of what has been the gap par excellence in modern Italian history, i.e. the gap between North and South. Indeed, in the wake of a deep-rooted historiographical tradition of socio-economic studies on Southern Italy (ranging from Fortunato to Saraceno, Graziani, Giannola, D'Antonio, by way of Salvemini and Nitti), the causes of the gap are usually ascribed to historical reasons dating back to economic policies introduced by the first post-unitary governments. Starting in the early twentieth century, attempts were made to fill this gap, inaugurating a first season of extraordinary legislation through the passing of a Nitti-inspired special Act for Naples in 1904. This, however, would be later included in the list of “missed opportunities” as, after a first stage of “industrial” enthusiasm, the following transwar years period (1915-1945) saw the South having a marginal role even within the context of the “IRI-established” policy of the "Entrepreneurial State". With the end of Fascism and the Second World War, a season full of novelty was inaugurated for the South, marked by its involvement in the more general debate by Rosenstein Rodan and Tinbergen on policies for the depressed areas. In particular, the period between the end of the 1940s and the 1960s was characterized by the intervention of international institutions such as the IBRD, by ERP support policies, and, above all, by the Keynesian extraordinary intervention policy of the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno. Indeed, even with all its limitations, it is in this phase that the North/South divide was considerably reduced, a fact which also assumes international significance (see Alacevich, Villani) and calls, for the first time, for an economic policy of “active convergence” (Malanima, Daniele, Lepore, Felice, and the studies of SVIMEZ in general). Without leaving aside factors and indicators deeply rooted in the literature, the aim of the project is to investigate not only the historical causes of the North/South divide, but also the role of southern political and economic elites in the relations between center and periphery in the Republican era, trying to place them into a context of major national and international changes. As a matter of fact, while the subject of changes and adaptations of the national system to global transformations appears to be well explored, less attention seems to have been given to the inverse perspective. This is quite surprising, considering the influence and power exercised by numerous local systems in the national history. Starting from the post-war period and moving up to the political-institutional crisis of the 1990s, a further aim of the study is to provide fresh interpretative keys that allow a better understanding of the North/South divides. In this perspective, unbalanced post-war development, institutional changes, economic transformations, the questioning of the Keynesian model and welfare state policies are being connected to the spread of political corruption, degeneration of party power and the emergence of forms of decay within the parties themselves. Local systems will be used as a vantage point and units of analysis to better understand this particular interaction and the way it has influenced said dynamics.