Bulletin n. 1/2012
June 2012
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Cioli Monica
    Sulamith e Maria. Il «modello Italia» in Germania tra il 1840 e l’unificazione
    in Giornale di storia costituzionale , n. 22, 2/2011 ,  2011
    The essay analyzes the impact of the Italian model on the unification of Germany and the political and cultural transfers between the two countries between 1840 and 1870, focusing on the reception of the “moderate” current of the Italian Risorgimento by the forces of German liberalism which opted for a ‘small-german’ solution of the German question. Liberal public opinion in Germany after 1840 had a different perspective on Italy than in the decade before, what can be explained by the constitutional history of Germany. The accumulation of contradictions at the beginning of the 1840s, culminating in the revolution of 1848/49, made a gradual affirmation of liberal and constitutional principles impossibile: in such a context the german liberals were increasingly attracted by the formation of a moderate, antirevolutionary liberal movement in Italy. German liberalism welcomed this tendency, represented by Gioberti, Balbo, Mamiani, Bianchini and above all by Massimo D’Azeglio, as a sign of growing political maturity. After the revolution, German liberalism inevitably had to cope with the new experience of failure, a severe restriction of political spaces, a period of political repression and dramatic economic and social change. Liberalism started to adapt his ideas to the Zeitgeist right from the beginning of the decade. The problems mentioned had a decisive impact on the process of redefining liberal political thought in terms of Realpolitik in the years after the revolution. It doesn’t come as a surprise that in this context the liberal sectors of public opinion in Germany were in favour of Piedmont and Cavour. Doubtless the events of 1859 and 1860 had a stimulating and illuminating effect on public opinion in Germany. In Prussia the Italian model did prepare the ground for an alliance between Bismarck and the national movement. But this alliance has other roots as well. It is based on the anti-french myth of the anti-napoleonic Befreiungskriege and on the more recent turn to Realpolitik of the 1840’s which gained momentum after the failed revolution of 1848.
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