Andrea Ruggeri (University of Oxford)

The Violent Legacy of Fascism 

Neofascist Political Violence in Italy 1969-1988

Abstract  We understand local political violence in democracies studying legacies? Can local experience of fascist mobilization explain variation of violence during the Years of Lead in Italy? We provide a theory of fascist legacies based on the transmission of ideas, organizational knowledge, and violent practices. We have created an original dataset that covers the political events at subnational level in Italy between 1969 and 1988. We find that the local membership to the fascist party predicts neofascist political violence at the provincial level more than forty years later.