Our essay aims to offer a biography of Elena Sengal (1911–1962), an Italian citizen of Ethiopian origin, whose life offers important elements to better understand both Fascist and postwar Italy. Elena was born into an Italo-Ethiopian family and became an Italian citizen after the naturalisation of her father, Sengal Workneh, a former Italian colonial subject and a lecturer in Amharic and Tigrinya at

This article offers a critical rereading of the historiography on the role of women in the Italian Resistance. It starts with the postwar period, marked by a general silence and the prevailing image of women as mothers and staffette. In the 1970s, the first historical elaboration of women’s experiences began in all northern regions, leading to the now iconic concept of the ‘silent Resistance’. In the

The 2016 Colombian Peace Agreement was expected to bring an end to more than fifty years of armed conflict and build a sustainable peace. However, the country continues to be rife with violence, discrimination, and exclusion. Although the Peace Agreement’s state of implementation has been subject to academic debates, a critical discussion of the document has been missing. To address this gap, the article

Scion of one of Grenada’s oldest, best-known, most distinguished families, Maurice Rupert Bishop (1944-1983) has been, since his death, inextricably linked with the origins, course and conclusion of the Grenada Revolution (1979-83). This biographical essay attempts to recreate the major events of his personal history, as well as the historical background that shaped his personality. Descendiente de

Through the analysis of a series of different documents preserved in the Fondo Tremaglia, I reconstruct the genesis and development of the National Day of Italian Labour Sacrifices in the World (Giornata nazionale del sacrificio del lavoro italiano nel mondo). The holiday was conceived by Minister for Italians in the World Mirko Tremaglia and designated by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at the end

This article provides an overview of the main interpretations in contemporary historiography of the role of Italian political actors in the management of public debt during the First Republic, also in the context of European integration. In order to fill the gaps in historical research on this crucial issue, the conclusion proposes some questions and insights for future research.

In the new millennium, amidst a crisis of antifascism as a source of political legitimacy, there has been a revival of antifascism in a more accessible and popular form, integrated into collective imagination and everyday practices. Events and themes of the Resistance have been revisited in venues and contexts beyond the traditional, utilising new approaches and languages outside conventional frameworks

The aim of this study is to explore the experiences of those who observe war from a distance and to gain insights into how war affects communities and societies at a distance from direct hostilities. We compare the reactions to the outbreak of war both behind (in Lviv—considered a safe city in an invaded country) and beyond (in Wrocław, Poland, which neighbors Ukraine) the frontline. These cities represent

A growing body of research argues that development assistance bolsters authoritarian regimes in Africa, but its impact on regime dominance remains underexplored. This article traces the material legacy of an ambitious rural development project in Ethiopia, including its ideational elements, and reveals its consequences for the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the incumbent

This article introduces a special issue on Paraguay’s stalled democratization and enduring authoritarian legacies following the fall of Alfredo Stroessner’s dictatorship. Despite formal political reforms, the country remains dominated by elite rule, institutional fragility, and clientelist governance, reinforced by the near-continuous hegemony of the Colorado Party. The article surveys key turning

This paper examines the Dread culture that emerged during and after the Grenada Revolution through the lens of a pro-revolutionary song and memorial inscription to assess how different memories commemorate the event. This paper puts forth the central argument that Dread culture signifies a resistive memory aesthetic that define the people’s experiences with the Grenada Revolution. It locates organic

The traditional narrative of Europe’s first wave of democratization is that elites extended the franchise in response to revolutionary threats and reformed majoritarian electoral systems to limit rising working-class parties. This stylized account does not fit early twentieth-century South America, where democratization was driven by internal competition within incumbent parties, without strong working-class

This article discusses development theories concerning agro-extractivism, providing a perspective from the Global South based on a brief historical and current review of Paraguay’s relationships with international markets These types of relationships are referred to as enclave economies; the concept denotes the exploitation of natural resources without ties (or with very weak ones) to national economies

This study examines Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visual transformation on the social media platform Instagram after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. While the populist style often involves politicians artificially triggering perceptions of crises to underscore their unique leadership qualities, the crisis Zelensky faced was undeniably real. Therefore, I argue the existential threat

The process of democratization in Central and Eastern Europe has been shaken by the growth of counter-hegemonic narratives contesting the Western-type model of liberal democracy. The “illiberal turn” in Poland frequently targets progressive values, manifesting as a cultural war around the meaning of the signifier “normality.” This article focuses on an illiberal neo-traditionalist discourse coalition

This introduction to this special issue of Modern Italy explores how the emphasis on fascism in recent scholarship and public discourse risks its mythification and cultural rehabilitation, and urges a rebalancing of historiography to highlight the pivotal role of the Italian Resistance in shaping Italy’s democratic identity. Marking the eightieth anniversary of Italy’s liberation and the thirtieth

This article reviews the evolution of the representation of Italy’s ‘Catholic partisan’. In essence, this involved adaptation of the model of the Catholic soldier, who was able to kill out of love and ‘without hatred’, to the context of a civil war. With particular reference to the case of the central Veneto, this examination looks back to earlier Italian experiences during wartime to help explain

We analyze how new technologies can be used to foster individual engagement that limits deliberation and reduces people’s capacity for political action within parties. We present the results of an analysis of the case of the Argentinean Propuesta Republicana (PRO). Using data from in-depth interviews with key actors—party elites and political consultants—we show that new technologies helped to mobilize

This article examines the shifting rural social relations in Paraguay’s soybean complex, with a specific focus on the role of farmer cooperatives in the commercialization of Paraguay's agriculture. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in the departments of Itapúa and southern Alto Paraná in 2021 and 2022, this paper adopts an agrarian political economy perspective to argue that cooperatives in Paraguay serve

Initially, kin-states introduced ethnic cards to strengthen ties with kin-minorities. Today the ethnic card has transformed into an important and effective tool of migration policy, aimed at attracting new immigrants and potential future citizens. Its purpose has changed from reinforcing identity and cultural ties with a diaspora to encouraging the holders to settle and filling labor and demographic

During the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the Paraguayan Chaco suffered profound social, productive, and ecological transformations due to investments that, through deforestation, expanded the agricultural frontier for the production of livestock and grains. This article analyzes the factors that made the Paraguayan Chaco an attractive location for capitalist expansion as well as the

Scholars of deservingness emphasize the attitudes of host societies toward migrant communities and inter-ethnic stances of migrant groups but not in-group perceptions of deservingness. Based on interviews with Ukrainian citizens who received temporary protection in the Czech Republic and Poland after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, we show that participants classified the fleeing

This paper empirically tests whether populists in power or economic wellbeing influence civil society and civic culture. It conceptualizes civic culture broadly by focusing on citizen mobilization and evaluation of both national and supranational political institutions. The longer populists hold government positions, the stronger their control over civil society organizations, affecting participation

Remittances following economic and wartime migration are behind the huge number of remittance houses and entire remittance landscapes that have grown up in Kosovo in recent decades. The houses emulate the style and comfort of the villas of European and American suburbia but also in many respects reflect the local life style, the traditional life of (joint) families, but also the dramatic changes that

Environmentalism and pro-environmental behavior are widely thought to correlate with political attitudes. In particular, both empirical and anecdotal evidence suggests that left-leaning individuals have more favorable dispositions toward environmentalism and practices that are regarded as environmentally friendly. We test this hypothesis using election data from Hungary. The main novelty of our result

Since its inception in 1831, the French Foreign Legion, a specialised unit within the ranks of the French military, has played a prominent role in the wars of both colonisation and decolonisation. This article seeks to trace the origins, development and eventual decline of an Italian and international ‘Legionary issue’ regarding the recruitment and employment of Italian volunteers in a foreign military

This article analyzes Paraguayan economic elites and the construction of their political practices, based on the study of three livestock agricultural sector business organizations: the Union of Production Trade Associations, the Rural Association of Paraguay, and the Paraguayan Chamber of Exporters and Marketers of Cereals and Oilseeds. The article examines the political profile of the groups, whose