What if Italy had a federalist rather than centralist structure from unification?

raharris1973

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As @Noscoper said - something more like the unification of Germany.

Maybe start with the United Provinces of Central Italy, but including Sardinia-Piedmont as a Prussia-analogue. The Two Sicilies might be the equivalent to the south German states, and join up later.

Yeah, I'm thinking an Italy where Piedmont is constitutionally more of a Prussia analogue, instead of just annexing and incorporating the rest.
 
I don’t think it would work because the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies would dominate Italian politics because of the sheer size of its population (hence parliamentary representation), which was much bigger than any of the Northern Italian states separately. Also consider that half of Italy would be under a parallel government ran from Naples. That’s why any Northern-led Risorgimento would have to break up the Two Sicilies, hence making a federal solution very unlikely. Otherwise the situation would have been akin to a Großdeutschland solution spearheaded by Prussia, but which maintained the Habsburg crowns united and intact within the German Empire. It just wouldn’t work for Prussia.
 
I don’t think it would work because the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies would dominate Italian politics because of the sheer size of its population (hence parliamentary representation), which was much bigger than any of the Northern Italian states separately. Also consider that half of Italy would be under a parallel government ran from Naples. That’s why any Northern-led Risorgimento would have to break up the Two Sicilies, hence making a federal solution very unlikely. Otherwise the situation would have been akin to a Großdeutschland solution spearheaded by Prussia, but which maintained the Habsburg crowns united and intact within the German Empire. It just wouldn’t work for Prussia.

Yes, but the northern states would still be able to collectively outvote the south (assuming that the could get their act together).

However, how much would that matter? In a federal system, each member kingdom would be able to deal with its internal affairs itself, and the common and federal affairs would be dealt with in the federal parliament.

Also, what about the former Papal provinces, or Lombardy and Venetia? Would they end up being integrated with Sardinia-Piedmont, or would they become separate states? If they do end up being integrated, then SP will have a lot of clout in the parliament.
 
I don’t think it would work because the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies would dominate Italian politics because of the sheer size of its population (hence parliamentary representation), which was much bigger than any of the Northern Italian states separately. Also consider that half of Italy would be under a parallel government ran from Naples. That’s why any Northern-led Risorgimento would have to break up the Two Sicilies, hence making a federal solution very unlikely. Otherwise the situation would have been akin to a Großdeutschland solution spearheaded by Prussia, but which maintained the Habsburg crowns united and intact within the German Empire. It just wouldn’t work for Prussia.
Being larger doesn't necessarily mean it would dominate Italian politics(does California dominate American politics?). Especially if the Italian system weighted representation in favour of the smaller states like America's system is. And if the unification is Northern-lead they might rig the system in favour of small states even more thoroughly then America has.
 
Carlo Cattaneo (the most prominent among the federalists) was very much a fan of Switzerland, so a hypothetical federal constitution of Italy would've almost certainly resembled the Swiss one quite a lot.
 
The debate over Federalism is old like the stars in Italy, a neverending story... Italy has a long history of regionalism since the Augustean principate, because the Roman regional system essentially survived - with the opportune modifications with the times, but the only really changing one being the creation of Lombardia as the region of the Lombards and this was permeated by the local communal realities in the Middle Ages and stabilizing in Modern Time.

But effectively this stabilization consolidated the various regional identities to the point those are considered as complementation of Italian identity today. I am Italian because I am Tuscan and he is Italian because he is Lombard and she is Italian because she is Sicilian...

This mindset was valid in 1861 as for today in the country, and still it works. It's a limit but also a strenght of ours.

The issue is however the country never found a balance between centralism and regionalism since 1861. After WWI this could have been more possible but the dictatorship pushed to the extreme centralism, which consequently with the return of democracy there was a general opinion to enforce regional decentralization.

But there were other issues. By peace conditions, Italy was forced to concede autonomy to five regions, but didn't concede the same to the other fifteen, and occurred three decades so the regions could elect their councils. But there always was some lingering resentment from the ordinary statute regions towards the five autonomous ones, because the three northern ones prospered more than the others and the two southern ones instead turned to be (especially Sicily) a social and economic burden.

For this, the richest regions of the North (Veneto, Lombardy, Piedmont and Emilia Romagna) asked recently for expanded powers accordingly to the constitution. But every region had their own ideas (the Lombards just wanted to retain more local revenues, the Venetians wanted - or at least the current government - essentially the status of autonomy, and this is barred by the constitution, and besides the other regions won't surely support it)... in short is quite complex.
 
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