It is titled “Dragons or chaos. The great disintegration: does Italy have a way out?” the new book of Lodovico Festa and Giulio Sapelli, published by Guerini and goWare. A cultured book that will make people discuss for the political proposals it contains, the main one of which is the hope that Mario Draghi is elected President of the Republic. A respectable opinion but one that raises a big question.
In unsuspecting times FIRSTonline wrote that actually Draghi would need two – one for the Quirinale and one for Palazzo Chigi – but which, not even SuperMario being able to double, it would be preferable for him to remain in Palazzo Chigi. Sapelli and Festa claim the opposite and they are not alone. They believe that the rise of Draghi al Colle would be the only possible way to stop the great disruption which affects Italy. But, with all due respect to the personal choices of the prime minister and those of Parliament, there is an inescapable question What would arise if the premier went up to the Quirinale: without Draghi, would the political forces be able to immediately form a government capable of implementing the PNRR and completing the reforms in the crucial months of 2022? Worse if you went to early elections and to the interruption of the legislature precisely at the crucial moment in which Italy, after an impressive rebound in GDP in 2021, has the unrepeatable and unique opportunity to raise its growth potential beyond the emergency. Is it true or is it not true that this is the greatest national interest? That is, to create the foundations, modernizing the country, for high and long-lasting growth, which requires a quality government that does its part immediately and to the end as the Draghi government is doing. In politics as in life, timing is everything and this magical moment is today and to seize it Draghi - with all due respect for the thesis of the two authoritative authors - is more useful to the leadership of the Government (where it has no real alternatives) than at the Quirinale.
We have collected in this book "Dragons or chaos - The great disintegration: does Italy have a way out?" many analyzes carried out by both on the political and economic-social state of Italy.
Italy is certainly fully integrated into the increasingly unified trends of the ongoing globalization processes, which with a homogeneous trait were also expressed in the fight against the pandemic that broke out in 2020. But on the other hand, we Italians are dealing with a political crisis and institutions which is largely original.Democracy is put to the test all over the world, authoritarian regimes are asserting themselves even in states that had begun a process of affirmation of the freedoms and rights of the person. However, the type of vertical crisis of the State that began in Italy in 1992, with the destruction or disbandment of the fundamental parties in the history of the Republic and with a shift of power from the elected assemblies to the judiciary, is an original phenomenon.
Just as it is, after 2011, the substantial commissioning of our government by the Quirinale, in agreement with the Franco-German axis that dominates the European Union.
There are many reasons that explain our drift: the inability and difficulty of transforming our Republic, which had and still has some of its foundations in the context determined by the Cold War. The need to deal with the financial crisis of 2008 and the sovereign debt crisis of 2011 prompted the top management of the Republic to seek a special "emergency" relationship with the European Commission which largely led to that sort of receivership we said earlier.
If the roots of the phenomena we describe are understandable, one cannot fail to observe how the partial and progressive emptying of politics has caused a profound disintegration of our society. At the time of writing, however, it seems to us that we seize an opportunity to begin to reverse the trend to which we have been subject. The appearance in the institutional framework of a personality like Mario Draghi, esteemed for his competence and international relations, perhaps offers an opportunity to start a recovery work.
Italy's destinies may be different: if by a miracle the European Union were to become a true federal institution, many of our contradictions would be resolved at that level. However, the hypothesis of a sort of definitive disintegration of our nation should not be erased: this happened in the "near" 1400s when we were in the vanguard of the West.
However, even the path of recovery is not yet completely precluded. But the condition for its affirmation, since authoritarian solutions are not foreseeable in the medium term, lies in a revival of politics as an essential form of society's relations with the institutions.
The presidency of Mario Draghi can help the affirmation of such a process only if he exercises from the Quirinale a guarantor and arbitrator function that leaves to the parties (and to the citizens who must be allowed to give, through the vote, a national political direction and not just to express a choice of party preference) the central role that belongs to them in a democratic state. Guarantor in the international political-financial context; arbiter in setting some rules for political choices which, here and today, cannot fail to take into account the guidelines of the European Union. It would be a shame to miss this opportunity and think that "expertise" alone can remedy the Italian faults, by not evaluating the systemic issues we have to face.
This conviction prompted us to write a short essay divided between an analysis of what is happening and has happened, and the political proposal that we derive from it.
Introduction to the book "Dragons and Chaos" by Lodovico Festa and Giulio Sapelli
