In this double interview we finally talk about Italy with two Professors, Filippo Tronconi and Gianfranco Baldini, who are investigating Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy. This is an important interview that makes up, at least in part, for POP’s lack of attention to Italy. Being an Italian myself, I have always preferred not to deal with Italy because Italian politics (as interesting as it is) is also neurotic, unbearable, and at times incommentable.

The time to open this wound and look into it has finally come.

Tronconi and Baldini explain the electoral success of Brothers of Italy, a relatively new party that replaced Salvini’s Lega as the biggest party in the conservative camp. They help us understanding many important aspects of Brothers of Italy. First, what kind of party is it? Populist radical right? Nationalist and conservative? Neofascist? Second, how is it possible that the first female Prime Minister in Italy is not at all interested in any feminist agenda but rather proposes a traditional family model? And how did the party change once it won the elections and took power? Is Giorgia Meloni going to try and Orbanize Italy? How could she go from admiring Putin for years to endorse the sending of weapons to Ukraine?

The answers to these and many other questions in this long, dense interview.

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