Talk:Forza Italia

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Contents 1 Football 2 Added explanation of the internal structure 3 NPOV 4 The article is not neutral 5 About Riccardo Pacifici 6 Ideology 7 Merge faction articles? 8 NOR

[edit] Football

What is "Football" to do with this ? To be funny ? Unbiased and unrelevant

Who says there is no democarcy in Forza Italia ? Please state

Where is the reference for the "Champions League" sentence ? please state

This is all about being weaselspeking !!!!

If you do not see how football is an important theme in Forza Italia, you might notice that the party's name is a football-stadium cry, the colour of the party is on purpose the national football team's, and that Berlusconi owns AC Milan. This is at least the origin of the name, and is therefore relevant. (And I think you meant biased and irrelevant)

If you have a statute or any internal regulation that proves that Forza Italia has a structure that allows members to topple Berlusconi's leadership, at least in a theoretical setting, integrate it into the article. Until then, it is common knowledge that Forza Italia is Silvio Berlusconi's own party, and he has the ultimate say in appointing charges within the party.

The sentence about Luciano Spaventa and Champions League can be fetched in any newspaper before the March 1994 elections.

--Orzetto 09:33, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Remember that "Forza Italia" was the slogan of the Christian Democratic party for the 1987 elections.

Remember the meaning of "forza" is force, so what is the problem with a party called Force. In the world there are plenty of parties with the word "force" in their name...

Francesco Martini, 17 November 2005

[edit] Added explanation of the internal structure

Now that part (about internal structure) is NPOV! --TheDRaKKaR 11:56, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

Should the NPOV sign be removed? The article is quite empty, and lacks of a lot of things, but I don't think it has much POV content. I also think the football comments are properly placed. --Marianocecowski 11:38, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Hi. I think this article has not a neutral point of view.

Two examples: the article reported the party is a right-wing one. In truth the party describes itself as centro-destra (from center to right). Just the oppositors say Forza Italia is right-wing. Viceversa Forza Italia says of oppositors they are left-wing instead of centro-sinistra (from center to left). This is italian politics..

Second case: the article said in Forza Italia there is no democracy. There was not description about the real internal structure!! What NPOV is it?

The argument on soccer rethorical may be a point of view but the slogan forza-someone or forza-something it is not limited to the soccer folklore.

In conclusion the article is not NPOV but sadly I cant add nothing because my english is very poor.

--TheDRaKKaR 09:18, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Thnx for your answer.

What about "The party's political thinking is defined as center-right, though some consider it more right than center". I think this is true.

I have no idea about the structure of the party, but you cannot deny there's strong verticality of power on Berlusconi. But, this could be presnted more elegantly.

You cannot neither deny the football connection of the phrase "forza italia", and the repercussion on the italian fans who ceased using it because of the political implication.

I'll try to touch things a bit. --Marianocecowski 09:44, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The article is not neutral

The article about Forza Italia is not neutral at all. I think that Wikipedia need some information to write a better article, and this is why I am writing.

A lot of things are very far form reality. There's no doubt that Berlusconi's Party is a in some way personalist, but most of Italian parties are: National Alliance, Communist Refoundation, Italy of Values, The Greens and so on.

The most important problem is that Wikipedia misjudges the identity of the party. Forza Italia is a centre party, member of the European People's Party, formed by ex-Christian Democrats, ex-Liberals and ex-Socialists. The ideology of the party ranges from Conservative Libertarianism to Christian Social-Democracy and presents itself as the party of renovament and modernization.

It can claim contemporarely to be a fresh new party, with no ties with the last governments of the so-called First Republic (unilke most of the leftish parties) and to be the heir of the best political traditions of Italy: a Christian-Democrat as Alcide De Gasperi, a Social-Democrat as Giuseppe Saragat, a Liberal as Luigi Einaudi and a Republican as Ugo La Malfa are cited in the preamble of the party's constitution as party icons.

The tone of Forza Italia can be populist, but not more populist than that of the US Republican Party or of the UK Labour Party. Forza Italia and Italian politics take inspiration always more from the anglo-saxon tradition, and always less from the french-german one, as in the past.

Most members of the party are former Christian-Democrats: Giuseppe Pisanu (former member of the leftish faction of DC, now minister of Interior), Roberto Formigoni (president of Lombardy, the biggest region of Italy) amd Claudio Scajola (minister of Industry) are only three examples.

Many members are former-Socialists, like Giulio Tremonti (minister of Economy), Franco Frattini (Vice President of the European Commission), Renato Brunetta (leading European MP) and Fabrizio Cicchitto (vice-coordinator of the party). Berlusconi himself was a close friend of Bettino Craxi, leader of Italian Socialist Party, in spite of his Christian-Democratic and Liberal background (he was a DC's activist in 1948 elections).

Many are former Liberals, Republicans and Social-Democrats: two former leaders of PLI (Alfredo Biondi, now president of Forza Italia's National Counci, and Raffaele Costa) and the former leader of PSDI (Carlo Vizzini) are all Forza Italia's parlamentarians.

Even some former Communists are leading members of the party, like Sandro Bondi (national coordinator of Forza Italia) and Fedrinando Adornato (chairman of the Constituent Assembly for the Party of Moderates and Reformers, the party in which Forza Italia, AN and UDC will merge in 2006).

The party's constitution begins with these words: "Forza Italia is a catholic party but not a confessional one, a liberal party but not an elitist one, a national party but not a centralistic one". These words explain what Forza Italia is more the than others.

I hope that Wikipedia will open a debate on Forza Italia and change the article about it.

Sorry for my 'Italian' English...

Francesco Martini, 17 November 2005

(short) Forza Italia is personality-driven more than any other political party in Italy or most-of-elsewhere. Forza Italia without Berlusconi is currently unconceivable, this is not true of most other parties (with the possible exception of Lega Nord). --Orzetto 12:08, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I think you are wrong, in fact Forza Italia is plenty of personalities and local leaders. In some regions, as Veneto Region, where I live, Forza Italia is anything else that DC with another name, plus some Liberals and without some leftish Catholics. I am sure that without Berlusconi Forza Italia won't be the same, but I guess that its experience will remain in Italian politics. Maybe for many years we will use "berlusconiano" to define a political ideology, as French use the term "Gaullist", even 35 years after De Gaulle's death. You can like him or dislike him, but Berlusconi has changed Italian politics as no-one ever did. The union between Christian Democrats and Liberals, embodied by Forza Italia, will last more than most commentators think.

Obviously this is only my opinion. We'll see in the next years, and expecially after the April elections. --Checco 16:29, 2 January 2006

[edit] About Riccardo Pacifici

About Riccardo Pacifici, it is a fact that he is a member of "Per Israele" list, which is the centre-right component of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities. Moreover he has strongly supported Berlusconi's government. See also [1]. Checco 20:15, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's not necessary to give me informations about Riccardo Pacifici because I know him better than you and I know he never backed Forza Italia. Anyway, I think the problem is solved because I noticed that you removed the entire paragraph. In conclusion ( and then I won't post anymore ), it's not fair to write false things about this or that person.(Lucano 02:02, 28 October 2006 (UTC))

Ok, but it is a fact that he has backed more the centre-right than the centre-left. In any case, if you see Riccardo say hello for me. I hold him in high regard. --Checco 07:42, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ideology

FI is a liberal and christian-democratic party. This is what the party's constitution says and what every political scientist in Italy would observe. FI was founded in 1994 by Berlusconi alongside with a group of liberals from the Italian Liberal Party (Biondi, Martino, Costa, Previti, etc.). FI is considered liberal in en.Wiki as in it.Wiki. So, why on February 16, 2007 this is not correct, or at least no more? The problem is about you, dear Sparkman. I thought you were a good user, but what has happened today that turned you into a vandal? --Checco 19:26, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, if you felt offended by my words. Anyway, I can't understand why you have decided to start something like an edit war in article that has been quiet for months. Please state why in your opinion FI is not a liberal party. --Checco 19:50, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Me a vandal? Justify that claim, please! But Christian-democracy and liberalism don’t jive for me. You can be respectably one or respectably the other. You can’t be both. You can be an economic liberal (aka American imperialist, aka Thatcherite) but not without opposing the very roots of the European Christian-Democratic tradition, which recognises the needs of the poor and dispirited. Or you can be a Millite (John Stuart Mill, I mean) whose fine notion of free speech and freedom of action was not predicated upon the consent of some pope or other. Or some investment company or other. Berlusconi founded his political party not because he was a liberal, a Christian democrat or even a politician—remember how sheerly incompetent his first administration was?—but because the respectable right-of-centre politicians of the time—Mario Segni in particular—failed to get their act together. Quite simply Forza Italia has no ideology. It only came to power by uniting with the utterly unreconciliable Lega Nord and Fini’s ex-post-fascists.

There was an edit conflict and I will just leave what I wrote above without moderating it. Of course I wasn’t trying to engage in an edit-war per se, and I wasn’t wanting to attack your contribitions to the encyclopedia in general which I have noticed often and have found good. But the attrbution of liberalism to Berlusconi struck me as absurd (as an Englishman) as an attribution of socialism to Tony Blair. These are people who like being rich. They don’t have any ideology!

—Ian Spackman 20:59, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry again for calling you "vandal". You're probably right on many things, but remember that FI is a big political party, with 300,000 members and more than 200 MPs. Berlusconi is very important, obviously, as Blair is (or has been) important for Labour, but the party is also something more than Berlusconi and his interests.

It is true that originally liberalism and Christian democracy were very different concepts, but, as you know, Christian Democrats all over Europe embraced many things of liberalism as free-market (think of Merkel, Balkenende and Aznar). Truly there are also leftish Christian Democrats (for example in Italy many members of Democracy is Freedom - Daisy, but most of them are part of the centre-right European People's Party. The social-market economy has been in many cases replaced by free-market.

Anyway FI is at the same time liberal and christian-democratic because it tries to combine liberal ideas (about the economy, welfare, pensions, the judiciary and political institutions) with Christian values, as the US Republicans combine libertarianism (as you know liberalism has a different meaning there...) with social conservatism. If it is possible in the US, why not in Europe?

The second reason that makes FI a liberal party and also a christian-democratic one is that some members (mostly former members of PLI, PRI, Rad, PSI and PSDI) of the party are truly liberals (they even expose secular values and hold secularist views), while others are Christian Democrats, mostly coming from the conservative-liberal wing of DC. They, although being Catholics, emphasize personal responsibility and personal freedom.

In the end I want you to know that FI, which was designed in order to unite in one party Catholics and secular-oriented people (as coordinator Bondi often says), gives freedom of conscience to his MPs on social and moral issues, so that in the same party people like Martino and Biondi (militant atheists) can live together with Formigoni and Pisanu (devout Catholics).

Off course FI is a very strange party, but as it enters in its 14th year it can't be seen no more as the party of Berlusconi's companies, but as an important political movement (bad or good, let voters choose), full of interesting people, exactly as other Italian parties. They can sound strange due to their unusual names (Forza Italia, Daisy, Rose in the Fist) or history (Northern League, National Alliance, Democrats of the Left), but they are pretty interesting from a political scientist's point of view. --Checco 22:11, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge faction articles?

Just as an idea, there's a lot of small but reasonably informative articles such as Popular Liberalism and Liberal-Popular Union on the factions within FI that go into the history and personalities of how they became established. As such they go beyond the current section in this article, which is a fairly basic description of ideology. Which is fair enough, as a detailed coverage of the factions would soon overwhelm this article. I think the best option would be to merge all the individual faction articles into a single article - Factions of Forza Italia or some such - which could unify them into an overview of the history and political differences. I am not the person to write that article (!!!) but I think there's the potential there for a really good article. Thoughts? FlagSteward (talk) 11:28, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree with you idea and I stick to the project of Template:Italian political party factions: in my opinion, every faction needs an article. --Checco (talk) 21:57, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] NOR

The ideology section violates Wikipedia:No Original Research. It does not use verifiable reliable, independent, external sources to sustain claims about the party ideology. All it does is take quotes from two party documents to sustain the claim that the party is liberal. External, reliable, verifiable sources are necessary stating that the party's ideology is such. Currently it comes close to violating WP:SYN "Synthesis of published material serving to advance a position". C mon (talk) 15:41, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

It is difficult to find sources about Forza Italia's ideology, but it seems self-evident that Forza Italia is a christian-democratic and liberal party. I'm very sorry that there are not such sources but we cannto invent them. Moreover, although the party is not well known and understood outside Italy, it seems self-evident that it is a christian-democratic and liberal party, a liberal-conservative party as all its EPP-mates. Forza Italia's peculiarity is however that it is fairly more liberal that other European centre-right parties.

Your source is of 2001 and the party is now a little bit different. I didn't have the possibility to read that book but it seems to me that defining FI as national-conservative is non-sense. --Checco (talk) 17:03, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia not a personal blog. What matters is not what is self evident, but what can be proven by external sources. In a handbook on European politics, written by one of the main party experts in Europe, who resides in Italy, Forza Italia is called national conservative. You provided three sources for your view, one of which was a blog (not a reliable source), one of did not refer to Forza Italia, and one which was a book on television. That's not a lot of sources for your view. C mon (talk) 17:41, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Your source of Mair and Co. is not ok: there's nothing in Forza Italia's ideology which is national-conservative. I am impressed that there are political scientist so ignorant of Italian political parties. In any case Wolfram Nordsieck of Parties and Elections has always characterized Forza Italia as liberal-conservative: he now updated his website because of the April election, but if PdL (formed by FI and AN) is liberal-conservative, also FI (the more centrist of the two parties) is liberal-conservative. It seems obvious to me. The third source was an article by Marcello Pera, liberal philosopher and formerly President of the Senate of Forza Italia, not an unknown blogger. --Checco (talk) 18:08, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

You can't say your source is not okay because it does not say what I think, this is a reliable, external, verifiable, academic source! C mon (talk) 18:34, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

But it's flawed! Also political scientists make mistakes and that is an old book... --Checco (talk) 18:59, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with C_mon -- by European standards and in European politology, Forza Italia is obviously national conservative. —Nightstallion 14:41, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Tell me something about Forza Italia which is national conservative... Forza Italia is all but national conservative: you can call it christian-democratic, liberal, liberal-conservative, conservative, centrist, even social-democratic (as some of its leading members are "proud Socialists"), but not national conservative. At all. --Checco (talk) 14:45, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

From the article on national conservatism:

"national conservatism praises the family as a home and a centre of identity, solidarity and emotion." -- yep, sounds like FI to me.

"a variant of conservatism which concentrates more on national interests than standard conservatism, while not being nationalist or a far-right approach." -- yep, sounds exactly like FI to me.

"Many national conservatives are social conservatives, in favour of limiting immigration" -- yep, sounds like FI to me.

So why are you against calling them national conservative, exactly? —Nightstallion 14:51, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Forza Italia is midly patriotic (more keen on federalism), opposes any form of statism, supports market economics, EU integration, federalism and devolution, has no official social-conservative or confessional stance... what is national conservative about that?

Forza Italia is different from other European parties because of the strenght of its liberal and social-democratic factions. No other EPP member has such big factions within its ranks. In any case Forza Italia is a christian-democratic party in the EPP line.

Family values and strict immigration policy are typical of German CDU and many other EPP (and, regarding immigration, even PES) parties. The difference is that Forza Italia has a more liberal approach than CDU and other EPP members both on the economy and traditional values. --Checco (talk) 14:59, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, what the hell. I give up on trying to convince you, but the fact remains that FI is perceived as being national conservative quite often from outside Italy... Good luck in getting C_mon to give up, though. ;) ;p —Nightstallion 15:18, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

You don't need to convince me. It is a fact that Forza Italia is a member of EPP, although having these liberal and social-democratic factions in its ranks, and I am very sorry that outside Italy this is not known. Forza Italia is not to the right of EPP, but to its left. --Checco (talk) 15:23, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I am from Italy and I have my opinions on FI's ideology, and they are different from Checco's "self-evident" ones. But what is relevant here is not my opinion, neither Checco's one. What is relevant is to cite authoritative sources, as it seems Mair et at. is. Certainly, they may be wrong, but it's better to be wrong by referring authoritative sources than by referring non-authoritative ones, or no sources at all. And (in this moment) the articles does not actually say that FI is national conservative, but that it "has been characterized as" national conservative. I think that also the ideology in the incipit and in the template should be changed.

I must tell that it is not the first time that I see Checco writing claims about Italian parties' ideology without citing sources, and arguably without having sources. See for example Daisy Civic List. I'm not sure it can be defined as "moderate-conservative". I wrote that to Checco and he said that he will think about it... --Jaqen (talk) 15:27, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Most of the times we don't have sources and as political scientists we decide what ideology put in the template. Nightstallion knows this better than me, and above all most of you know that there are no good sources about Italian political parties. Another problem with Italian parties and Wikipedia is that some parties are very disliked by most Wikipedia editors and the articles are sometimes unbalanced. To describe Forza Italia as national conservative is simply incorrect because we are taliking about a party which doesn't fit in the category at all, as I explained to Nightstallion. PdL, which has been founded by FI and AN, is classified as "liberal conservative" by Wolfram Nordsieck of Parties and Elections in Europe and I think that this is correct: as FI is more liberal that AN, there is no reason to classify FI as more conservative that PdL! Also Nordsieck classified FI as "liberal conservative" before its unification with AN.

About Daisy Civic List, I would like to observe that it is described as christian-democratic, centrist and moderate-conservative: a balanced description, I think, but eveyone could change that. My only fault here is having written that article. Everyone can rewrite it, but I think that questioning my intellectual integrity is not fair. --Checco (talk) 19:54, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

If you really believe that "Most of the times we don't have sources and as political scientists we decide what ideology put in the template". Than you are completely mistaken. Wikipedia based on verifiability, not on your own opinion. Any way since your concern is with the term "national" and not with the term "conservative", I think we can all agree with what is in the template now. C mon (talk) 21:16, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I think that it is unfair that Forza Italia is treated differently from the Union for a Popular Movement and most other EPP members. When truth is so disowned and denied I am very disappointed. Moreover if PdL is liberal-conservative (see Parties and Elections in Europe) how can Forza Italia be considered more conservative? Until Forza Italia was not into PdL, Parties and Elections regarded it as liberal conservative. What is happening is completely non-sense. --Checco (talk) 21:26, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

If The People of Freedom is liberal conservative also for C mon (see this: ok for me and definitely correct), it is at least bizzarre since Forza Italia is the more liberal and centrist component of the new party. --Checco (talk) 21:55, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

As per logic, I made the change. --Checco (talk) 12:27, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Dear Checco, please find sources for your statements. I have proof for my position, you have none for yours. Replacing referenced information with non-referenced information is wiki's way. C mon (talk) 13:52, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

There are sources, but this is not the problem. As The People of Freedom is a liberal-conservative party, how can Forza Italia be more conservative if is undoubtely the more liberal and largest component of the new party? Your position has no proof because it says something which is simply obvious: that FI is conservative. Definitely FI, as German CDU and French UMP, is in the conservative camp, the EPP, but in Wikipedia we try to be more precise: there are many kind of conservatism, and, as Forza Italia is a christian-democratic and liberal party, how can you simply define it "conservative", especially if its successor party is liberal-conservative? --Checco (talk) 14:11, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Let's look at the sources provided by Checco to support the claim that FI is liberal conservative:

• Partis politiques italiens: wher does it say that FI is liberal conservative (I cannot find it)? It seems that the author is Laurent de Boissieu: is he a reliable source?
• The Organization of Political Parties in Southern Europe by Have Published: it says "the party presented a Manifesto with a clear neo-Conservative Liberal approach".
• European politics: "Forza Italia: Berlusconi’s conservative/liberal". Author?
• Parties and Elections in Europe: it says that People of Freedom is "liberal-conserv." The author is Wolfram Nordsieck. Who is him?
• A Fatal Attraction: Public Television and Politics in Italy by Cinzia Padovani: "Forza Italia has been able to appeal to some Catholic voters by emphasising the Christian heritage of the Italian liberal/conservative tradition."
• Intute: Social Sciences: "Forza Italia is a is a Christian-democratic, liberal and liberal-conservative..."
• What is Italy's National Alliance? by Alessandro Campi (who is him?): "the liberalism of Forza Italia". Where does it say that FI is liberal conservative? --Jaqen (talk) 18:20, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I think that you're getting mad with the issue. In most articles we have classifications which are based on consensus and not on sources. Here we have sources, but it's ok even so: I fear that you are a little bit biased, Jaqen. In any case it is embarassing for me that you don't know who some of the authors are, anyway, I can tell you that both Wolfram Nordsieck (who defines PdL as lib-con and who defined FI as lib--con too before the foundation of PdL) and Laurent de Boissieu (who classify FI as lib-con: serach) are respected experts of comparative politics, the first as a researcher at university and the second as political journalist. What about Alessandro Campi? He is one of the most well-know political scientists in Italy and speakes of liberalism. That's indeed the point.

If you begin to reaserach about every single EPP party in Europe you'll never find plenty of sources with "liberal conservative", as other terms are most used: "conservative" (which in Northern Europe is used also for centrist-conservative parties), "christian-democratic" and "liberal". I would be able to produce plenty of sources about FI describing it as a liberal or a christian-conservative party and also the party program and the article reflect itself. In fact, before C mon's edits, FI was described as "christian-democratic, liberal and liberal-conservative": a sensible classification.

There is not a plenty of books on current parties and a similar discussion would be possible about the Italian Democratic Party, which is correctly classified in en.Wiki as a social-democratic, Christian-leftist and social-liberal party, even if youn won't find many sources which classify it precisely. In Wikipedia we try to be precise and to use precise classifications. If the People's Party (Spain) is classified correctly as a christian-democratic and liberal-conservative, why does FI deserve different treatement, as it is fairly more moderate and liberal than the former? I think that hammering away at this article is not reasonable.

Thus my proposal is to come back to the previous classification of FI as christian-democratic, liberal and liberal-conservative. Its policies, its program, it complexion and its membership to the EPP in 1998, before non-christian-democratic parties joined tell us that. If that is not possible I can live with the current solution (lib.-con. with chr-dem, lib and soc-dem factions). --Checco (talk) 07:15, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm very sorry but wikipedia puts sources before consensus. We need to find sources for our classifications. There are plenty of sources on the political complexion of political parties: books on comparative party politics, country studies, books on political parties of a particular country. All one needs to do is get of the web and in a library. C mon (talk) 08:00, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Why hammering away at this article? There are many articles with no sources at all, while this article is well-sources. Obviously you will find sources describing FI as conservative (as you would find foer German CDU or French UMP), but we don't need generic classifications in en.Wiki! --Checco (talk) 08:08, 21 May 2008 (UTC)