Racism and economic policy: recent trends in Italy

The aim of the paper is to discuss the economic features of Italy’s neo-racism. It contends that neo-racism is a mass phenomenon that emerged over the past twenty years as a result of the degraded quality of life determined by neoliberalism. Neo-racism results from in-group/outgroup dynamics whereby people seek scapegoats that may account for their dismal economic and social conditions. Contrary to extant economic theories, the paper tries to explain the insurgence of discrimination rather than assuming that racism existed from the very beginning. The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 describes neoracism in Italy and distinguishes it from past racism. The third section discusses existing theoretical outlooks and explains why their assumptions do not fit with the evidence about Italy. The fourth section discusses Italy’s shift to neoliberalism by describing both the change in the balance of power between business and unions and the policies that reinforced this change. The fifth section discusses how these institutional changes affected people’s categorical and relational identities. It stresses that neoliberalism reduces the opportunities both for individual and collective action, thereby increasing the scope for categorical identities at the expense of relational identities. The sixth section provides a few concluding remarks.