Stefano LuconiUniversity of Naples L’OrientaleItalyThe Troubled Presence of the United States in Italy’s Political Culture: An OverviewThis brief article examines the impact of US values on Italy’s political system since the end of World War II. It argues that, during the Cold War, the allegiance of the sizeable Communist Party to the Soviet Union, on the one hand, and the Catholics’ distrust of Americanism, on the other, prevented US principles from shaping the nation’s republican institutions and playing a significant influence on Italian political culture, notwithstanding Washington’s efforts to spread its own philosophy in the country. It also suggests that, after the end of the West-versus-East ideological conflict, the two major party coalitions paid only lip service to US values and referred to them mainly out of expediency while jockeying for position in their struggle for political power.
The article presents models of extra-parliamentary constitutional review of law. The starting point is the methodological discussion of various concepts of the division and types of review, i.a. political vs judicial, strong vs weak, centralized vs decentralized. Most often the constitutional review of law is classified into American-type review (judicial review) and European-type review (review performed by constitutional courts). This dichotomous classification is often replaced with the categories of “dispersed review” and “concentrated review”, which is the most often classification, at the same time clearly expressing the features distinguishing the two review mechanisms. While the American model does not raise serious discussions, the European model — also referred to as Kelsenian or Austrian model — is controversial. It can be subclassified into original (pure) model and its various mutations, referred to as the mixed European model of the constitutional review of law, most often applied in practice. Moreover, other types of review are also applied in Europe, hence the French and the Scandinavian models are also sometimes distinguished. Regardless of the classification, all review models are now being homogenized. This means that the review is performed by the courts (concrete review is introduced), the protection of rights and freedoms of an individual is emphasized, and political consequences of constitutional review are becoming more significant, as a result of which the organ performing the constitutional review becomes a political, active authority within the state.
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