Italian protest movements and their international dimension after 1968: a comparative historical approach

During the second half of the 1960s, among the younger generations – especially in the Western world – there appeared a growing consciousness of the dramatic changes which were characterizing the international situation, as well as of the economic and social changes that had shaped their countries. The protest movements in the US and in Western Europe had as primary targets of their activities, not only their own governments, but also their foreign policies. The protest against US involvement in Vietnam shaped the second half of the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s and, although local Western Communist parties played an important role in organizing manifestations (e.g. pro North Vietnam campaigns), the impact was wider and deeper than what the Communist parties could achieve. Moreover the Vietnam war was not the only international issue which characterised the interest of the protest movements and their initiatives involved opposition to other forms of western "imperialism", the activities non-governmental bodies such as the multinationals, the survival of fascist regimes in Europe (e.g. Spain and Portugal) or the creation of right-wing military regimes in Europe and in Latin America (e.g. Greece and Chile), neo-colonialism, etc.

Moreover some protest movements bordered or had some contacts with minority groups which advocated violent forms of "resistance" against "international imperialism" and terrorist organizations were active in various parts of the world and developed some cooperation. Last but not least, during the 1970s and the early 1980s, also as a consequence of the economic crisis and of the growing consciousness of the environmental problems posed by previous economic growth, protest movements began to focus their attention on issues such as pollution, the consequence of the exploitation of nuclear energy, etc.

New political actors emerged in the international arena, constituting a watershed in terms of political and cultural identities, as well as new ways to do politics. The workshop aims at analysing the international political culture of protest actors that emerged in the period between the late 1960s and the early 1980s, focusing on the Italian case but also on European and non-European study cases, in a comparative perspective.

The initiative, pursued by the Department of Political Sciences, Law and International Studies of the University of Padua, is the second event of a wider project which aims at networking junior and senior scholars who are working on such a topic.

The network already includes scholars from the University of Bologna – Forlì, the University of Augsburg, the New York University, SciencesPo Paris, LUISS University Rome and IMT Lucca, Bruno Kessler Foundation Trento, Gramsci Institute Rome, European University Institute Florence, and the University of Padua.

The working languages will be English and Italian.