Seen and reviewed.

Arguably, postwar Japan showed a similar pattern (Christian Democrat/Cosa Nostra = LDP/Yakuza), with American great power interests nudging things along in a similar direction. But the Japanese have the added element of deference and hierarchy that the Italians don’t have. In its place they have something else. From what I remember, Tobias Jones had a go at generalising it (“furbismo”, etc …), and did a decent enough job – but I guess that part the core of what Phil objects to as orientalism.

Anyone seen “Il Divo” by the way? Any good?

I’d go for Italy as unusually corrupt. We have good historical evidence that countries can change in their levels of corruption: whatever you may say about British politica and society now, it it much less corrupt than the eighteenth century (or contemporary Kenya, for example). On the other hand, it’s not clear that there’s been much change in the ability of governments etc at keeping things secret, unless they make extraordinary efforts at repression (e.g. some of the efforts in WW2).

Italian deep politics is sui generis, though. It’s very ideological – the lines being drawn have always got some kind of political meaning, however hard it may sometimes be to make out (“ah, so he’s one of those ex-Christian Democrats who were on the more overtly Catholic wing of Moro’s pragmatist tendency, and subsequently lined up with Berlusconi on broadly pro-family and anti-Communist grounds, then broke with Berlusconi on anti-corruption grounds, but refused to merge with that other group of ex-Christian Democrats who had broken with Berlusconi because of their position on Europe”…) And it’s very open – it’s the language they use to talk about politics.

The really odd thing is that it goes along with very high levels of political participation. There’s a market for books about contemporary politics – not just a Dan Elliott here and a Will Hutton there, but a steady production of mass-market paperbacks analysing what’s happened in the last few years. Election turnouts have historically been in the high 80%s and low 90s; anything below 80% is cause for solemn editorial comment about the decline of Italian society and/or the corruption of Italian politics. Italy has a long tradition of “anti-politics” – populist distrust of all the corrupt, hypocritical bastards – but the typical form it takes is turning out in large numbers to vote for the anti-political candidate. It’s as if there were a Ross Perot or a Martin Bell – or both – at every election. (Berlusconi has capitalised on this way of thinking, which is pretty ironic when you think about it.)

“When”?