New republic, old enemies. Forza Italia’s anti-communist speech in the Second Republic (1994-2004)
Abstract
This paper analyses Forza Italia’s anticommunist rhetoric between 1994 and 2004, a period that comprises the founding of the party and its first two national congresses. During said period, Silvio Berlusconi brought back the communism-anticommunism chasm, which defined the political discourse of the First Italian Republic in the context of the Cold War and turned it into one of the main ideological tools of his party against the Italian left beginning with the 1994 elections. This paper argues that Forza Italia’s anticommunist rhetoric not only did work out as an instrument of ideological delegitimization of the Italian post-communist left, but also as a means of historical legitimization for an ex novo party.
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