Il quadro tematico della tesi è la storia politica e culturale delle relazioni tra il cattolicesimo democratico di origine «popolare» e la tradizione del liberalismo italiano, in un arco cronologico compreso tra l'antifascismo dell'Aventino e la fondazione della Democrazia Cristiana. L'ipotesi della ricerca è che proprio in questo «lungo viaggio» la classe dirigente del cattolicesimo politico (a cominciare dalla leadership di Alcide De Gasperi) abbia completato quel processo di acculturazione in senso «liberale» che le avrebbe consentito di guidare consensualmente l'uscita dal fascismo nel secondo dopoguerra. ; The framework of the thesis deals with the political and cultural history of the relationship between the democratic Chatolicism stemming from the Italian Popular Party and the tradition of the Italian Liberalism, from the antifascist coalition of the «Aventino» to the establishment of Christian Democracy. The assumption of the research is that in its «long way» the political membership of the political Catholicism (starting with De Gasperi leadership) had go through with a process of «liberal» acculturation, that would allow it to lead the exit-strategy from Fascism in the Second post-World War.
Una Guerra, si sa, non è mai fine a sé stessa. Nemmeno secondo il parere della Chiesa. Fu proprio la Chiesa, infatti, ad attribuire alla Seconda Guerra Mondiale un significato di purificazione e di espiazione delle colpe commesse dal genere umano attraverso la preghiera. O almeno era quello che fece intendere al popolo, povero ed ignorante. In realtà, le intenzioni della Chiesa erano espansionistiche e di potere, sia sociale che politico. Potere che la Chiesa riuscì ad acquisire e ad incrementare grazie al soccorso prestato ai popoli in guerra. In questo lavoro ho analizzato la situazione economico-sociale del Molise durante gli anni della Seconda Guerra Mondiale fino alla ricostruzione, partendo proprio dai documenti appartenenti alla Chiesa: archivi diocesani, parrocchiali, privati, Vaticano per poi sconfinare anche in altri archivi come quello di Stato di Campobasso e il Centrale dello Stato di Roma. Una ricerca a tutto tondo, basata soprattutto su documenti inediti, per ricostruire, analizzando il punto di vista del Clero molisano, la situazione di una piccola regione contadina che, a proprie spese, rappresentò un punto cruciale della Seconda Guerra Mondiale soprattutto dopo la firma dell'armistizio del 8 settembre 1943. Il Molise, dopo quella data, fu bombardato, ci furono morti e feriti, gli alleati presero possesso di gran parte del territorio contribuendo al cambiamento della fisionomia regionale. Papi, Vescovi, sacerdoti e tutto il Clero, nelle sue tante sfaccettature, in vario modo, fu presente su questo campo di battaglia. La Chiesa, se da un lato, aiutò, sia moralmente che fisicamente, i molisani a sopravvivere in quel periodo di ristrettezze e di difficoltà, dall'altro, con la propria presenza sociale sul territorio, riuscì a ritagliarsi un importante ruolo di leadership, ruolo che in Molise diventò anche politico con la costituzione di partiti di chiara impronta cattolica come fu con il Partito Popolare Italiano, prima, e la Democrazia Cristina, poi. Anche le stesse associazioni cattoliche, come l'Azione Cattolica o la Fuci o le Acli, avevano assunto un segno chiaramente politico. E in Molise come anche in altre regioni del Regno Italiano, la Chiesa si schierò apertamente contro il Comunismo, nemico dichiarato della fede cristiana nonché "rinnegatore di Dio", come lo definì anche sua Santità Pio XII. I documenti utili per la stesura del lavoro sono stati consultati presso i seguenti Archivi nazionali e regionali: Archivio Segreto Vaticano Archivio Centrale di Roma Archivio della Diocesi di Campobasso – Bojano Archivio della Diocesi di Trivento Archivio della Diocesi di Termoli – Larino Archivio della Diocesi di Isernia – Venafro Archivio di Stato di Campobasso Libri Cronistorici di: Convento Sacro Cuore dei Cappuccini di Campobasso Convento San Giovanni ai Gelsi di Campobasso Parrocchia di Sant'Antonio di Padova di Campobasso Archivio privato della famiglia Gargano Archivio comunale di Capracotta ; A war is always made with a purpose. This sentence will surely be shared by The Church, that meant the Second World War as a spiritual purifying process due to the mankind to get absolution of the sin. Or at least using this interpretation, they largely influenced miserable and ignorant common people. What was the Church really aiming for? The real intention of the Church was to keep on conquering new territories and properties in order to enhance social and political supremacy, by supporting the miserable people oppressed by the war. The present work analyses socio-economical situation of a rural land as Molise Region from the Second World War up to the Reconstruction Period. The main sourced I considered, were: • Papers belonging to the Church: diocesan archives, • parish archives, • private archives, • Vatican archive, • State Archive of Campobasso, • Central State Archive of Rome. The main goal of this essay is to make a focus on the situation of a rural land that was able to represent a crucial point in the SWW, especially after the Armistice Day. The region was under the bomb, many citizens died, the allies took possession of it and changed radically the social-political environment. The rule of the Church was very important. On one hand they spiritually and economically supported this wasted land, on the other hand achieved a relevant leadership. This influence gradually led to the creation of political parties, clearly influenced by the Church. Such as Partito Popolare Italiano, at first, and the Democrazia Cristina, later. Even the same Catholic associations, such as theAzione Cattolica or the Fuci or the Acli, taken a sign clearly political. Moreover in Molise region, such as in the rest of Italy, the Church never hided, but explicitly opposed the Communism, considered as declared enemy of the religion and the Church. The documents used in the preparation of this work were consulted at the following National Archives and regional: Vatican Secret Archives Central Archive of Rome Archive of the Diocese of Campobasso – Bojano Archive of the Diocese of Trivento Archive of the Diocese of Termoli – Larino Archive of the Diocese of Isernia – Venafro State's Archive of Campobasso Historical books of: Convent of the Sacro Cuore of the Cappuccini in Campobasso Convent of San Giovanni dei Gelsi in Campobasso Parish of St. Anthony of Padua in Campobasso Private archive of the family Gargano Municipal Archive of Capracotta. ; Dottorato di ricerca in Storia della società italiana XIV-XX secolo (XXV ciclo)
Dottorato di ricerca in Società, istituzioni e sistemi politici europei (19.-20. secolo) ; Una tesi di storia urbana che ha per oggetto l'attività della Società generale immobiliare di lavori di utilità pubblica e agricola (comunemente nota come Società generale immobiliare o Immobiliare tout court) nella Roma del secondo dopoguerra, e che si concentra su un case study rappresentato dal quartiere delle Valli, sorto per sua iniziativa nella periferia settentrionale tra gli anni Cinquanta e Settanta. L'Immobiliare, operatore di primo piano a livello italiano ed internazionale, era tra i maggiori proprietari fondiari e in linea di massima il più importante promotore edilizio della città. Tanto dagli osservatori contemporanei quanto nelle ricostruzioni successive, essa è stata sovente considerata una delle massime espressioni, e spesso un vero e proprio simbolo, delle forze della speculazione fondiaria ed edilizia che hanno negativamente condizionato il processo di crescita della capitale. Nel primo capitolo si illustra dunque nei suoi termini generali l'espansione urbana di Roma nei tre decenni successivi alla fine del secondo conflitto mondiale, considerando le dinamiche demografiche, i flussi immigratori, le forme dello sviluppo, le caratteristiche della "città pubblica" e della "città privata", il governo dell'espansione e i problemi urbanistici e sociali ad essa legati, nonché le principali letture che di tali processi sono state date nel corso del tempo. Nel secondo si offre invece una rapida panoramica dell'attività e degli interventi edilizi dell'Immobiliare, in modo da poter valutare il ruolo da essa complessivamente svolto nel processo di crescita della città. Vengono ricostruite le idee guida, le strategie operative e le realizzazioni della società, presentando sia le iniziative effettivamente sviluppate (nuclei edilizi, comprensori e interi quartieri) che quelle rimaste sulla carta. I capitoli successivi sono infine dedicati al quartiere delle Valli. Oggetto di indagine sono il contesto territoriale in cui esso è sorto, la proprietà fondiaria e l'utilizzo dell'area fino alla sua acquisizione da parte dell'Immobiliare, le operazioni di lottizzazione ed edificazione realizzate da quest'ultima, le dinamiche demografiche e la composizione sociale, il sistema della mobilità e la dotazione di servizi e infrastrutture, i luoghi e le forme della socialità, l'identità di quartiere, le lotte dei cittadini e la vicenda del "pratone". Intento della ricerca è ricostruire come è nato e si è sviluppato il quartiere, definirne le caratteristiche intrinseche ed i rapporti con gli insediamenti circostanti e la città nel suo complesso, nonché analizzare come ci si è vissuto, per poter adeguatamente valutare gli esiti di questa iniziativa dell'Immobiliare sotto il profilo della tenuta urbanistica e della qualità della vita. Più in generale, il lavoro vuol essere un contributo utile ad approfondire la conoscenza della crescita e delle trasformazioni della capitale, con particolare riguardo a quella "città privata" le cui caratteristiche e dinamiche di sviluppo – al di là di trattazioni generali e anche di diffusi stereotipi - restano ancora ampiamente da indagare. L'arco cronologico considerato coincide sostanzialmente con il primo trentennio repubblicano, anche se vengono ampiamente esplorati il contesto precedente e gli sviluppi successivi delle varie vicende illustrate. Relativamente alle fonti, la tesi è frutto dell'intreccio di documentazione di vario genere e provenienza: dalla bibliografia ai dati statistici, dalla stampa alla cartografia, dalle diverse fonti archivistiche scritte a quelle audiovisive, iconografiche, materiali, orali e telematiche. Di primaria importanza per la ricerca è stato il fondo della Società generale immobiliare conservato presso l'Archivio centrale dello Stato, che riveste enorme interesse per la storia urbana contemporanea e numerosi altri settori di ricerca, ma è tuttora in corso di riordinamento e consultabile quindi solo in parte e con qualche difficoltà. ; This is an urban history thesis on the activity of the Società Generale Immobiliare in Rome in the period following the Second World War, which concentrates on the case study of the Quartiere delle Valli, a neighbourhood initially developed by the Company on the northern outskirts of Rome in the 1950-1960s. The Società Generale Immobiliare was an important property developer in Italy and abroad, and it was one of the principal land owners and the leading building company in Rome. It has been considered, both by contemporaries and afterwards by scholars, as a symbol of the forces of the land and building speculation, which negatively conditioned the urban growth of Rome. Therefore the first chapter of the thesis deals with the urban development of Rome in the three decades following the end of World War II, illustrating various aspects such as the demographic dynamics, the immigration flows, the public and private forms of development, the town planning and social problems and the administration of the expansion, and the different interpretations of these historical processes. The second chapter contains a survey of the activity and the numerous building initiatives of the Società Generale Immobiliare, in order to evaluate its role in the urban growth of Rome. Leading ideas, operating strategies and projects are illustrated, presenting both those initiatives which were carried out and those which were not. The other chapters are dedicated to the Quartiere delle Valli. They deal with the territorial context in which it developed, the property and the use of the area until its acquisition by the Società Generale Immobiliare, its parcelling out and building operations, the demographic dynamics and the social composition of the inhabitants, transport, public services and infrastructures, the public and communal spaces, neighbourhood identity, and the struggles of the citizens for the green area known as "pratone". The aim of the research is both to describe how the Quartiere delle Valli rose and developed, defining its own characteristics and its relations with the surrounding neighbourhoods and the whole city, and to analyse how people lived there, in order to evaluate the outcome of this initiative from the point of view of the town planning results and of the quality of life. In broader terms, the thesis wishes to contribute to a wider knowledge of the growth and transformations of Rome, especially with respect to that "private city", whose characteristics and dynamics of development – beyond general studies and widespread stereotypes - are still largely to be investigated. Strictly speaking, the chronological span of the research is the first three decades after the Second World War, but both the previous context and subsequent developments of the various matters under consideration are widely explored. The thesis is the result of the combination of various sources: bibliography, written and audiovisual archive sources, iconographical, material and oral sources, statistics, press, cartography and internet sites. The most important source has been the records of the Società Generale Immobiliare, conserved at the Archivio Centrale dello Stato (National Archives), which contain very interesting documentation regarding contemporary urban history and other research fields, but which are still being rearranged and consequently can be consulted only in part and with some difficulties.
This article deals with some aspects of political–diplomatic relations between Italy and Latin America in the period between the immediate post–World War II period and the mid–1950s. This is a period not yet investigated by historiography, except for some works by Aldo Albónico, based on a first analysis of the Italian diplomatic documentation – which date back to the end of the 1980s – and the subsequent ones by Ludovico Incisa di Camerana. The article is based, as well as on the existing literature, on the collection of Italian diplomatic documents, to date until June 30, 1952, and, as regards the Chilean case, on the documents available at the Historical–Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
L'autore ricostruisce ed esamina la storia dei rapporti italo-tedeschi negli anni immediatamente precedenti la riapertura ufficiale delle relazioni diplomatiche tra Italia e Repubblica federale tedesca. Un riavvicinamento economico e politico progressivo, ma che suscitò forti contrasti tra i principali attori della diplomazia italiana. Il saggio si basa su una documentazione conservata presso l'Archivio storico del ministero degli Esteri, l'Archivio centrale dello Stato, l'Archivio storico della Banca d'Italia e l'Archivio Politico del ministero degli Esteri della Repubblica federale. L'autore sostiene che le relazioni economiche italo-tedesche assunsero un ruolo centrale nel processo di elaborazione della politica estera italiana sulla questione tedesca nel corso di questi anni. Prima dell'istituzione della Repubblica federale tedesca, l'Italia divenne un partner economico fondamentale per la Germania occidentale. Tra il 1945 e il 1949 l'Italia fu il primo paese europeo favorevole alla rinascita di un nuovo stato tedesco non sottoposto alla diretta influenza dell'Unione Sovietica. Il presidente del Consiglio De Gasperi e il ministro degli Esteri Sforza per sostenere la nuova Germania attuarono una precisa azione diplomatica di riavvicinamento politico, promuovendo diversi scambi di visite e di incontri con i rappresentanti tedeschi. ; The author analyzes the history of the principle phases of the reorganization of the Italian-German relationship before the formal re-opening of the diplomatic relations. A political rapprochement that caused disapproval in many actors of Italian diplomacy. The sources analysed in the historical Archive of the Italian and German Foreign Ministry highlight the fact that between 1945-1949 the restoration of economic exchanges were fundamental in the process of elaboration of the Italian foreign policy attitude towards Germany. The essay will therefore attempt to demonstrate how and why foreign commerce became the first real link between the two nations thus allowing Italy to become firstly a fundamental economic partner and later a political one for Western Germany before the institution of the Federal Republic of Germany. Between 1945 and 1949 Italy was the first European country to develop a policy on the German Question favourable to the revival of a new German state far from any Soviet influence. The Italian prime minister De Gasperi and the Italian Foreign Minister Sforza implemented a precise diplomatic action of political rapprochement, promoting exchanges of visits and meetings.
The phenomenon of military internment in Germany provides a thought-provoking context that attracts various disciplinary interests. Within this volume, the author employs a primarily archival approach, interweaving historical and anthropological perspectives. The aim is to analyze and present a complex source that defies conventional categorization. The «diary» of sailor Giulio Bogino (1923-2013) – an evolving work in progress continuously revised until the early 2000s – can indeed be considered as the testimony of an internment survivor in a concentration camp in the hinterland of Hamburg, who reinterprets the memories of his captivity throughout his lifetime, ultimately transmuting them into a sort of 'popular narrative' imbued with occasional epic undertones. This volume offers a comprehensive introduction to the source itself, highlighting its distinctive features. The diary (1943-1948) is meticulously edited and presented alongside an extensive apparatus of explanatory footnotes, accompanying documents, as well as a rich collection of photographs and cartographic materials.
This article examines aspects of the consequences of Anglo-American bombing on Southern Italy during the Second World War. In particular, it aims to analyse and link together different aspects of the issue: the reasons of the Allied military and political leaders for bombing the regions of Southern Italy; the failure of the Fascist regime's passive defences to protect both artistic cities and the population from the air raids; and the civilians' reactions to Allied bombing and liberation. While seeking to address crucial questions posed by the most recent historiography on the air war on civilians in the Second World War, this contribution presents the results of a research pursued in the Unites States of America and the United Kingdom, as well as in both national and local Italian archives. The article suggests that the population in the South shared much of the same experience of Northern Italians, but with more extreme consequences, due to a more accentuated lack of resources, in particular in the cases of food provision and of civil mobilisation to confront the material impact of the raids.
Il «goriziano» (Goriška), the border area between Slovenia and Italy, has been (and still is) a place of contested memories, where different groups construct their identities on different, very often opposing interpretations of the region's past events. What for one side is a source for memory building, sinks for the other into oblivion, what one side celebrates, the other forgets. The territory was ravaged by acts of violence in both the First and Second World Wars, as well as in postwar years. Younger generations are reminded of the past chiefly through memorials, crypts and military burial grounds, silent witnesses to the atrocities that the twentieth century inflicted on the region. The monuments, (hi)stories and preserved narratives that construct the national heritage act on the 20th century as ruptures of history, requiring all the collective groups to collaborate and accept different constructions of memory, interpretations of the past and our own complex story.
The article presents the various activities of 'the Salesians' as teachers and educators during the Second World War, indicating also the social and political structures of the country. After the outbreak of the war, the educational efforts of the Salesians were stopped, but not eliminated from everyday life. However, on the basis of archival documents, the destiny of some religious was rediscovered, guided by the courageous and heroic acts of 'teaching in secret', creation of boarding schools, orphanages and pastoral care and demonstrating with their lives, a phenomenal dedication to youths' education, risking of imprisonment, permanent enclosure in a concentration camp, and in many cases, death by martyrdom. ; The article presents the various activities of 'the Salesians' as teachers and educators during the Second World War, indicating also the social and political structures of the country. After the outbreak of the war, the educational efforts of the Salesians were stopped, but not eliminated from everyday life. However, on the basis of archival documents, the destiny of some religious was rediscovered, guided by the courageous and heroic acts of 'teaching in secret', creation of boarding schools, orphanages and pastoral care and demonstrating with their lives, a phenomenal dedication to youths' education, risking of imprisonment, permanent enclosure in a concentration camp, and in many cases, death by martyrdom. ; The article presents the various activities of 'the Salesians' as teachers and educators during the Second World War, indicating also the social and political structures of the country. After the outbreak of the war, the educational efforts of the Salesians were stopped, but not eliminated from everyday life. However, on the basis of archival documents, the destiny of some religious was rediscovered, guided by the courageous and heroic acts of 'teaching in secret', creation of boarding schools, orphanages and pastoral care and demonstrating with their lives, a phenomenal dedication to youths' ...
The three defeated Axis powers – Japan, Italy and Germany – incorporated a prohibition on wars of aggression into their democratic constitutions. This book covers the years of the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials and the constituent assemblies of 1947– 49 through to current debates on the adaptation of the pacifi st articles in line with new "humanitarian" wars. Aspects relating to the birth of the three countries' constitutions are treated in great detail in three appendices.
This article traces the development of the politics of memory of the European Union. It analyses how the EU has slowly moved into a policy field that until then had been the exclusive prerogative of the nation state. It discusses the role that the Holocaust has played for the promotion of a European founding myth and how it transformed into the yardstick with which other political developments are being measured. By concentrating in particular on the last decades, it uncovers the main memory conflicts arising within the European Union after each enlargement and analyses how the different institutions deal with them. It furthermore investigates to what extent and by whom the antitotalitarian paradigm is being promoted and the consequences this has within the EU.
The European Axis policy remains largely unwritten. Little is known about the factors that united or divided the Fascist regime and the Nazi Reich regarding the post-war order. Furthermore, even less is known about the Italian plans for a fascist Europe, which wartime events soon relegated to the margins of Axis policy. This book reconstructs the debate on the new European order developed from the 1930s to the spring of 1943 by Fascist politicians, philosophers, writers, anthropologists, and geographers. The debate progressed alongside the evolution of the international framework and in parallel with the war. The diachronic examination of these projects, where distinctive elements of Fascist ideology were instrumentally entwined with Latin and Catholic tradition, allows us to recover the thread of relations between Italy and Germany and between Italy and the minor allies of the Axis. The very choice of words - Fascist Europe, Axis Europe, Catholic Europe or Europe of Nations - reflects a shift in the balance of power: from collaboration to competition, from fear to an attempt to regain prominence. In 1943, the idea of a Europe of nations with an explicitly anti-German intent was the final, unrealistic assertion toward a new order where Axis Europe was not just Nazi Europe.
Over the last few years the diplomatic language of UN resolutions has repeatedly been questioned for the excessive presence of vagueness. In an era of expanding international contacts between different legal systems, international institutions such as the UN are constantly faced with the need to overcome cultural divergences of their recipient countries. In order to meet these requirements, UN diplomatic texts may use vague words quite extensively. Such terms, whose meaning is very flexible, variable and strictly dependent on context and interpretation, have been defined by Mellinkoff (1963: 21) as "weasel words". The use of vague terms could be connected to the genre of diplomatic texts, as resolutions should be applicable to every international contingency. However, excessive vagueness could also lead to biased or even strategically-motivated interpretations of resolutions, undermining their legal impact and triggering conflicts instead of diplomatic solutions. This doctoral thesis is based on two main research aims: A first section aims at investigating on whether the use of strategic vagueness in Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq has contributed to the breakout of the second Gulf war instead of a diplomatic solution of the controversy. Using the qualitative Discourse-Historical approach (Wodak 2000) and quantitative analysis tools (Antconc and Sketch Engine), special attention is given to the historical/political consequences of vagueness used in that framework, and to the study of vague 'weasel words' (Mellinkoff 1963), modals, and adjectives contained in the corpus. The hypothesis of intentional vagueness is further reinforced through an analysis of the American legislation related to the outbreak of the war, to reveal how the U.S. has interpreted UN legislation and to understand the purposes and consequences of vague language contained in it. A second section of the study was originated by the desire to understand whether the same patterns would be used in resolutions relating to the Iranian 2010 nuclear crises revealing a relationship between the choice of vague linguistic features and intent to use intentional vagueness as a political strategy. The findings indicate that: - Vagueness in resolutions has triggered the Iraqi conflict instead of diplomatic solutions. - Similar patterns can also be found in resolutions relating to the Iranian 2010 nuclear crises: although being less vague than the resolutions relating to Iraq in order to avoid the same historical consequences, the legislation related to the Iranian nuclear controversy still suggests the UN intentional use of some vague linguistic patterns as a political strategy.
This research theorizes an ongoing, global, grand trend of geopolitical disintegration, in the Post-Cold War, and increasingly in post-1989 time. The proposed paradigm may be useful to analyze redistribution of internal power within every state, from developed old Western powers, to new developed powers as China and India, well beyond the dissolved former real-socialist countries and the so-called failing states. The focus is on not empirical description of each local request of more autonomy, self-government, or even independence, but on the reached limits of the centuries-long and planet-wide integration process, from which the modern states and contemporary world have arisen, and that has now left room to a time of disintegration. This insight draws on a wide range of positions and contributions from International Relations theorists, along with other political scientists and scholars of geopolitics, anthropologists and sociologists, political geographers and economists, historians of colonialism and nationalism, experts of secession, critics of globalization and postmodern intellectuals, federalists and anarchists. * The first of the three parts of this study, is dedicated to an historical insight about the geopolitical integration process that had westernized and globalized the entire world. War, the state and expansionism, were not an inevitable destiny. Instead, a very small group of modern states, in competition and imitation amongst themselves, started a particularly steady conquering march on the planet. Their power expanded in intensity and extension for centuries and, with and because of the Industrial Revolution, culminated in totalitarian states and in total wars. * * The second part treats the social and national movements that have led to the end, in 1989, of the bipolar paramountcy of the two industrial superpowers, United States and Soviet Union. Along with the dissolution of blocs and states, a steady decreasing of states wars, crimes and violences, is registered and explained in the study. A slippery use of the word and concept of nationalism, particularly in post-1989 geopolitical crises, is frontally attacked in this part, drawing from early works of Ernest Gellner and Tom Nairn. Under the umbrella term of nationalism, integrationist projects and their victims, colonizers and colonized, oppressors and resistants, are likely to be confused. An early intuition of Karl Deutsch about the social awareness and mobilization of people in post-totalitarian, post-industrial and post-colonial societies, is here crossed with the work about coercion, capital, inclusion and consent of Charles Tilly. Masses, once enslaved in industrialized obedience, have evolved in networks of active citizens – and netizens – able, in a less violent international system, to claim for more personal liberties but also, as communities, for social, economical, and geopolitical change. A theoretical conjecture is also presented in this second part: in the Post-Cold War, no old or new powers will be able to keep enough concentration of power, in order to compete for world domination. We have entered a permissive state of disintegration. Redistribution of power from center to peripheries, empowerment of federal units, multiplication of small states, may occur, from now on, because there is nobody and nothing capable of preventing it. From this geopolitical point of view, the 1989 is at the very beginning. While sharing certain premises of a well-known thoughtful article by Alexander Wendt, on the inevitability of a world state (2003), this work reaches a different conclusion. * * * In the third and last part, the scope and the nature of the break in the sameness of international life is explored, with normative purposes. History is not repeating, and integration prejudices along with integrationist projects should be overcome. Every state may substantially devolve powers to its internal authorities, or even breakup, and many new smaller states, or self-governing units within states, might come out. In this increasing number of polities, an overwhelming number of citizens may go well beyond electoral democracy and have direct access to power. They may coalesce around what Brian Ferguson defined an «identerest» complex: constructed identities and tangible interests, inextricably intertwined. Citizens and netizens demanding power on their own territories and disintegration of their states, are required to take care of citizenry's duties, not only citizenship's rights. A model of responsible, moderate, pragmatic, «princely citizenry», echoing Machiavelli and Gramsci, is here proposed. -|- Acquisitions of this study are bluntly offered as a contribution to political action in a time of geopolitical change, in which it would be important to rely on expertise, but also on compassion, and on a real interest in the historical and geographical, spiritual and material pathways that each local, concrete human community is pursuing. Western-led state-building hubris, for instance, should be put aside in Afghanistan and many other corners of the world, it is recommend by this study. In favor of bottom-up cantonization, for example, an ancient Swiss wisdom which would deserve more consideration in a changing world. While burdened by the contradictions of modernity and menaced by recurrent economical and ecological crises, local princely citizenries, demanding sovereignty in their place of dwelling, are probably the main and the best possible challengers to the status quo. Concentrating on their territory and population, they may change their everyday reality, overcoming political corruption, bureaucratic impotence, economical inequality, ecological destruction. It may reveal be easier to scale down, rather than tear down, the pyramids of oppression. Leopold Kohr, Ivan Illich and don Lorenzo Milani's prophecies of justice and peace in geopolitical smallness, may become inspiring visions, in a time of disintegration.