The "Plebiscite enigma"

Journal title ITALIA CONTEMPORANEA
Author/s Leonardo Rapone
Publishing Year 2018 Issue 2018/286 Language Italian
Pages 8 P. 175-182 File size 88 KB
DOI 10.3280/IC2018-286009
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

The article discusses Enzo Fimiani’s recent book on plebiscites as tools of contemporary politics. Fimiani’s work is the outcome of a twenty year-long journey in the study of plebiscites. The book uses a comparative approach to analyze, on a European scale, the use of plebiscites between the XVIII and the XXth centuries, in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes as well as in democratic and pluralistic contexts.

Keywords: Plebiscite, Mass politics, Democracy, Authoritarianism, Popular legitimisation

  1. Crook Malcom (2015), Protest voting: the revolutionary origins of annotated ballot papers cast in French plebiscites, 1851–70, in “French History”, XXIX, 3, settembre, pp. 349-369.
  2. Denquin Jean-Marie (1976), Référendum et plébiscite. Essai de théorie générale, Paris, Librairie générale de droit et de jurisprudence.
  3. Enzo Fimiani (a cura di) (2010), Vox populi? Pratiche plebiscitarie in Francia, Italia, Germania (secoli XVIII-XX), Bologna, Clueb.
  4. Fimiani Enzo (2017), “L’unanimità più uno”. Plebisciti e potere, una storia europea (secoli XVIII-XX), Firenze, Le Monnier.
  5. Fruci Gian Luca (2014), Le plébiscite, une passion italienne. Voter, élire, acclamer: des origines du Risorgimento à la fondation de la République (1797-1946), conferenza al Collège de France, https://www.college-de-france.fr/media/pierre-rosanvallon/UPL1774514799019594272_GLFruciPassionPle__b2014fr.pdf, ultimo accesso 22 gennaio 2018.
  6. Mastropaolo Antonio, 2 giugno 1946. Referendum o plebiscito?, in “Costituzionalismo.it”, http://www.costituzionalismo.it/articoli/574/, ultimo accesso 22 gennaio 2018,
  7. Rogachevsky Neil, Are plebiscites constitutional? A disputed question in the plebiscite campaign of 1870, in “French History”, XXVII, 2, giugno, pp. 249-270;
  8. Trechsel Alexander H., Esposito Frédéric, Why Plebiscite? A Critique of a Nebulous Concept, in Andreas Auer, Michael Bützer (a cura di) (2001), Direct Democracy. The Eastern and Central European Experience, Aldershot, Ashgate.

Leonardo Rapone, L’enigma plebiscitario in "ITALIA CONTEMPORANEA" 286/2018, pp 175-182, DOI: 10.3280/IC2018-286009