Abstract

The article aims at pointing out the main patterns of Italy’s political, economic, and social reality during the «long 1980s». The essay starts by defining the main patterns of Italy’s situation in the 1970s to compare this decade with the following one and to ask if it is possible to speak of a failed «modernisation». Then the article focuses on different issues: the internal political balance, the country’s international role, the changes in society (way of life, values, etc.), and economic development. The analysis offers a mixed interpretation of the 1980s. It is argued that there were relevant changes in the society and some development in the economy, but the change in the political context was more apparent than real and some long-term contradictions dating back to the previous decade were only temporarily concealed. As far as Italy’s foreign policy was concerned, the achievements of the 1980s were mainly the consequence of contingent favourable situations. The end of the Cold War and the Maastricht Treaty, with the creation of a different international system, contributed to the emergence of long-term domestic problems that facilitated the collapse of the political system, thus paving the way to new actors and new dynamics that would characterise Italy in the following decades