Ph.D. project: The Italian Laboratory of Democracy

This PhD project examines whether political parties, which criticise the liberal tenets in the democracies in which they rule, uphold their ideological project once they reach power. The project focuses on the Italian experience with the fascist government (1922-1943), the Berlusconi governments (1994-1995, 2001-2006 and 2008-2011) and especially the Government of Change (2018-2019). The project is interested in whether these governments change their critique of liberal and democratic values once in power and this will be examined by analysing the governments on a textual level. Building upon Michael Freeden’s theory of ideologies as being shaped by semantics, this PhD project will analyse whether the governments change their conceptualisation of core-concepts such as democracy, liberalism, the people and the system. This will be done making a diachronic and synchronic analysis of the governments discourse.