The Southern Question (la questione meridionale)
From unification on, the South (the Mezzogiorno) lags the North in wealth, jobs and services, and the gap becomes Italy's most persistent argument.
- Darkest Italy: The Nation and Stereotypes of the Mezzogiorno, 1860–1900 — John Dickie, Macmillan (1999)
- Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy — Robert D. Putnam, Princeton University Press (1993)
- A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics, 1943–1988 — Paul Ginsborg, Penguin (1990)
- The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796 — Christopher Duggan, Allen Lane (2007)
The Mezzogiorno, the South of the mainland plus Sicily and Sardinia, entered united Italy with great landed estates worked by poor day labourers, high illiteracy and little industry. Northern officials who came south after 1860 often described it in terms of backwardness and barbarism, and the war against brigandage hardened those views.
- Darkest Italy: The Nation and Stereotypes of the Mezzogiorno, 1860–1900 — John Dickie, Macmillan (1999)
The gap widened. Industry concentrated in the “industrial triangle” of Milan, Turin and Genoa, while millions of southerners emigrated. After 1950 the state’s Cassa per il Mezzogiorno poured money into roads, land reform and heavy industry, with real gains but also waste, “cathedrals in the desert” and political patronage. Internal migration took millions of southerners to northern factories, where they often met prejudice.
- A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics, 1943–1988 — Paul Ginsborg, Penguin (1990)
- The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796 — Christopher Duggan, Allen Lane (2007)
Today the South still has much lower average incomes and higher unemployment than the North. The question of why, and who is to blame, remains unresolved and politically charged.
- Italy and Its Discontents, 1980–2001 — Paul Ginsborg, Allen Lane (2001)
- Italy — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
Southern intellectuals from Gaetano Salvemini to Antonio Gramsci argued that the new state served northern industrialists and southern landlords at the expense of southern peasants, with tariffs, taxes and investment tilted north. Many southerners feel the South was treated as a colony.
- Darkest Italy: The Nation and Stereotypes of the Mezzogiorno, 1860–1900 — John Dickie, Macmillan (1999)
- The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796 — Christopher Duggan, Allen Lane (2007)
Many northerners see the South as held back by clientelism, organised crime and wasted public money, and resent transfers from northern taxpayers. Robert Putnam's influential study traced the gap to centuries-old differences in civic tradition, a thesis many historians criticise as too deterministic.
- Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy — Robert D. Putnam, Princeton University Press (1993)
- Italy and Its Discontents, 1980–2001 — Paul Ginsborg, Allen Lane (2001)
The South was already poorer in some respects in 1861, but the gap widened after unification and again after 1945. Causes were many: geography, land tenure, state policy and choices made in Rome. John Dickie shows how northern stereotypes of a "barbarous" South were part of the problem.
- Darkest Italy: The Nation and Stereotypes of the Mezzogiorno, 1860–1900 — John Dickie, Macmillan (1999)
- A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics, 1943–1988 — Paul Ginsborg, Penguin (1990)
Why it matters today
The North–South divide shapes Italian life: incomes in the South are far below the North, young southerners still move north or abroad for work, and stereotypes run both ways, from the northern "terrone" slur for southerners to southern resentment of a smug, exploitative North. In the 1990s the Northern League even called for the North to secede. Any conversation about Italian politics sooner or later becomes a conversation about the South.