Processes of political delegitimization in Italy, France, Germany, UK, and USA from the 1870s to post-WW II

The article reports the findings of the Bologna research Unit on Delegitimation. The Author and the members of the research unit have analyzed the electoral campaign of France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy and USA n order to find out how delegitimation has taken place during the election in democratic country. Starting from the hypothesis that the contemporary era shows the “emergence of political delegitimization as a typical feature of contemporary politics: delegitimization as an inevitable component of the electoral game, a theme in the intellectual debate and discussions of social science, as well as a symbolic and argumentative technique of political propaganda”, Electoral campaigns were taken as being the moment when tensions emerged within the liberal-democratic systems of the European and American area; they thus formed an outstanding observation post from which to study the processes by which the opponent is “ruled out of court” or delegitimised. The analyses excludes dictatorial regimes like fascism, Nazism and the GDR because when elections do take place under dictatorships, their purpose differs from the democratic equivalent. Under the fascist dictatorships elections took the form of plebiscites and sought to show the outer world how compact the regime was. The research has underlined first of all the difference between delegitimization of the individual and delegitimization of a group or overall political line. Then the analysis has pointed out that verbal or active delegitimization does tend to peak during elections held at critical moments. In general the research confirms the need to distinguish between “legitimate and illegitimate delegitimization”, tactics that are compatible with political stability versus those that may lead to the system itself being delegitimized