Discorsi agli elettori. A cura di Pietro Finelli; Gian Luca Fruci; Valeria Galimi

Premessa
Pietro Finelli, Gian Luca Fruci, Valeria Galimi pp. 635-646

L'abito della festa dei candidati. Professioni di fede, lettere e programmi elettorali in Italia (e Francia) nel 1848-49
Gian Luca Fruci pp. 647-672

"Una citazione a comparire". Concezione del mandato, memoria risorgimentale e identit politiche nei discorsi elettorali dell'Italia liberale (1860-1897)
Pietro Finelli pp. 673-696

"Formare una democrazia illuminata e pensante". Il discorso agli elettori dell'estrema sinistra (1875-1900)
Emma Mana pp. 697-724

Il discorso politico elettorale nella Spagna della "Restauracíon"(1876-1890)
Marcella Aglietti pp. 725-746

Parole di guerra per vincere in pace. I leader liberali e le elezioni del 1919
Andrea Baravelli pp. 747-766

"Pain, paix et liberté". Strategie comunicative nella Francia del Fronte popolare
Valeria Galimi pp. 767-792

Abstracts:
The electoral speeches

Gian Luca Fruci, The «Candidates’ Party Dress». Professions de Foi, Letters and Electoral Programs in Italy (and France) between 1848 and 1849.
The article consists of two parts. Firstly, it attempts a comparative investigation of what may be seen as a strong tension holding between prevailing social conceptions and widespread practical experiences. Such a tension is a heritage of the Great Revolution’s electoral tradition, and may be found both in France and in the old Italian States. On one side, then, we have social conceptions criticising professions de foi and electoral speeches for being mere «candidates’ party dresses». On the other, we have practices reflecting a widespread use by the actors taking part in the apprentissage process of representative mechanisms based on a democratic or capacitaire and cénsitaire idea.
Secondly, it focuses on languages, paying special attention to the Italian case. Here the main issue is the acknowledgement of some common traits in the structure of speeches and arguments, even when they belong to different contexts and communicative typologies. Namely, these are: a) a three-folded narrative scheme, corresponding to the three-folded role played by the member of parliament as representative of the Nation, of the State and of the local community; b) an overlapping between the property of being «the most capable» and that of being a «patriot»; c) the idea of independence war as developing in the framework of a general national harmony. Thus, from the viewpoint of languages and symbolic structures, the electoral events taking place in Italian States between 1848 and 1849 deserve to be studied at least as much as the first Italian elections. They are in fact a sort of «national electoral discourse» workshop, in which rhetorical schemes and images which will be central in unified Italy’s electoral history are investigated.

Pietro Finelli, “Una citazione a comparire”. Representation, Memory of Risorgimento and Political Identities in the Liberal Italy’s Electoral Speeches (1860-1897)
This article analyses the political language of the Italian Nineteenth Century liberalism starting from the electoral speeches of the most important political leaders collected in La politica italiana dal 1848 al 1897, by Luigi Lucchini. In the first part, it focuses on the conceptions of the representation emerging from the electoral speeches of Nineteenth Century Italy, based on a very strong responsivity and having reference much more to the family and affection lexicon than to the one of law or economics. In the second part, the article examines two primordial issues cleaving the Italian liberals in opposite «interpretative communities»: the memory of Risorgimento and the declinations and interpretations of the word «liberale». In conclusion, the study of the electoral speeches suggests the persistence of a cleavage between right and left wing of the liberal constellation, in fact deeper and longer than the one usually considered by a historiography focused only on politics.

Emma Mana, “Creating an Enlightened and Thinking Democracy” - the Speech to the Electors in the Extreme Left (1875-1900)
The essay starts from the gradual achievement of the habit of speeches meant for the electors and grasps its progressive variations according to the different political cultures.
The attention is focused on the political democratic family with a particular interest in the seventies and eighties of the 19th century, that is the period preceding the establishment of definite party identities. The ways of relating to the electors and the speech habits are analysed as evidences of the idea of popular sovereignty, of representation and of political mandate practice. A closer analysis of the messages points out the aspiration towards the establishment of a “great democratic party” operating in the country and in Parliament with the mottoes “freedom, change, progress”; a party carrying on a project of political as well as social reform. It is an aspiration tightly linked to the outlining of the relationship between past and present and to the judgement about the results of the Italian Risorgimento process and the features of present day Italy. A particular attention is given to the vocabulary in terms of origin, innovations, adaptations and semantic sliding.
Finally the communicative strategies of the candidates are taken into account, stressing the differences due to the different school curricula and professional situations of extreme left members themselves.

Marcella Aglietti, The Electoral Political Discourse during the Restauración in Spain (1876-1890)
The article consists in an accurate study on the language and the conceptual patterns which may be found within the electoral speeches during the Restauración. In effect, especially some elements – which represent the symbolic core within the political conceptual imagery of Spanish Liberalism – seem to recur with significant frequency and tend to converge towards several main concepts. That is – on one hand: Catholicism, public order and the building of a specific national identity; on the other hand: mainly the complaint for scandals and for the corruption of a Government which reveals itself as absolutely inadequate to represent the country.
By all means, these concepts – which have been soon converted in self-referred stereotypes – have ended up by deeply influencing the politicians’ lexicon and the electoral rhetorics. Moreover, also the whole process of “nation building”, as well as the perception itself of the Spanish Nation, seem to have been shaped by these very same images. Thus, it is the representative and parliamentary system itself which suffers – together with the liberal regime – a progressive process of lack of legitimisation.

Andrea Baravelli, War Words to Win in Peace. Italian Liberal Leaders and the Elections of 1919
This article focuses on the relationship between the memory of the war and the political discourse. In effect, in some specific countries – particularly in France and Great Britain – we happen to see how the ruling classes seem to adequately master the rhetorical means related to the memory of the war, in order to strength their own political position. On the contrary, the study of the Italian case shows us how this peculiar opportunity fails to be taken into consideration at all. Besides, aim of the article is to analyse the liberal leaders’ electoral speeches, in order to enlighten which – within their imagery – the memory of the conflict has been. More specifically, the different existing hermeneutic patterns according to different possible paths of personal legitimisation have been investigated.
Then, the specific role played by the war itself within each individual rhetorics and the most important M.P’s single words have been taken into account. Therefore, the leading liberal classes’ lack of union, as well as the postwar wound generated by the 1915’s “radiose giornate di maggio”, have been shown as one of the main difficulty in the use of such a device. Moreover, one of the most relevant consequences has been that of giving an astonishingly important legitimacy to those new political organisations clearly against the liberal government.

Valeria Galimi, “Pain, paix et liberté.” Electoral Speeches and Communication Strategies in Popular Front France
Valeria Galimi examines political candidates’ speeches during the French elections of 1936 which brought to power the Rassemblement populaire, known as the Popular Front. By analyzing the corpus of documentation – declarations of faith (profession de foi), party platforms, radio addresses, films and documentaries, posters, and pamphlets – one is able to grasp the continuity and variations in the political language, as well as the effectiveness of the discursive strategies adopted.
The use of the radio and, to a lesser extent, propaganda films, as well as changes in the political system and international order, all contribute to the restructuring of speeches because, after all, the electorate prefers simple and incisive expressions and formulas dealing with general and fundamental themes (“pain, paix et liberté” or, on the other side, “Le Front populaire, c’est la guerre”).
Furthermore, the presence of the socialist and communist parties’ platforms almost completely replace the declaration of faith (profession de foi), which increasingly surrenders its discursive function through which the connection between the candidate and his constituency is reinforced. On the other hand, the speeches to adherents of the radical party, which is not structured as a popular party, preserve this role, like the speeches of rightwing parliamentary groups.
This allows us to observe the persistence of traditional models and political conceptions, for the entire period between the two world wars. Finally, as a result of studying the models of argumentation and the political vocabulary, one finds elements of great innovation in the communist rhetoric, which has distanced itself from tones of class struggle and moved towards expressions of national reconciliation.