How Italy’s democracy delivered from fascism to freedom
On 2 June 1946, Italians went to the polls not just to cast ballots, but to choose what kind of country they wanted to be after the trauma of fascist rule and war. It was, as Italian Ambassador Davide Giglio describes it, “a watershed moment in Italian history.”
That referendum would abolish the monarchy, found a republic, and set Italy on a path that, eight decades later, continues to define its prosperity, stability, and place in the world.
“On that day, the Italians went to the polls, free and fair polls, for the first time after 20 years of fascist dictatorship, and they chose to change the form of state,” he tells attendees of the Italian Day celebration early June.
“They switched from monarchy to the republic. So this was a very critical choice,” he adds. Critical not only because it broke with a discredited past, but also because it widened the democratic circle.
“Women were called to the polls for the first time, so it was a sign of inclusiveness from the very first start,” he notes. At a time when many war-torn societies were debating who should have a voice, Italy chose to ground its new republic in universal suffrage.
The impact of that decision was swift and far-reaching. “It was a successful choice because of that decision, frankly, Italy bounced back very quickly,” Giglio says. “It regained its place in the family of nations very promptly, possibly because of this important choice.”
In less than a decade, a defeated Axis power recast itself as a constructive participant in the emerging multilateral order, leveraging its republican legitimacy to build trust with neighbors and allies.
Eighty years on, he argues, “we can say that the Italian republic maintained its promise. It has delivered. It has delivered on many levels.” Politically, “it’s today a stable country, a prosperous one, an important and responsible stakeholder in the international community.”
The institutions founded in 1946, far from being brittle, “have proven to be pliable, flexible, resilient, and capable to accommodate all the challenges and crises that in 80 years the country has endured.”
That institutional resilience — absorbing social change, economic shocks, and political turbulence without sacrificing democratic norms — is one of the clearest dividends of the republic.
Economically, too, the shift paid off. Giglio notes that Italy “remains in the top ten of the largest and most advanced economies in the world.” It is “the seventh largest manufacturing country in the world and second in the EU, and a very important exporting country, the sixth worldwide, capable of a very diversified range of products.”
The scale of this achievement becomes starker when measured against its geography and demographics: “if you consider that Italy is a very small country, only 0.2% of the global landmass, and the population accounts for 0.7, so we are really small, but in relative terms we do a lot.”
Culturally, the republic has positioned itself as custodian and innovator. “It has delivered also from the cultural point of view because the Republic, the Italian Republic, is the custodian of a civilization that dates back at least 2,800 years, and the UNESCO heritage, all these things,” he notes.
Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Tess Dizon-De Vega, speaking from the vantage point of a partner country, echoes this assessment. Over the past eight decades, she says, Italy has become “a nation secure in its principles and place in the world, and whose enduring contributions across philosophy, the arts, fashion, music, literature, cinema, and science continue to enrich people’s lives and imaginations across the globe.”
If the referendum of 1946 was the political leap, Italy’s subsequent foreign policy choices anchored the republic in a web of alliances and institutions that reinforced its democratic identity.
“The choices that were made after 1946 were very clear,” Giglio explains. “We had made two very important choices. One was to be at the forefront of the project for the building of the European Federation. Italy was one of the six countries that contributed to the core of what has blossomed to the European Union. The other important choice was, of course, the 1949 participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.” These decisions, he adds, were “finally… crowned by the participation in 1955 in the family of the United Nations.”
At the core of this transformation is a foundational text: “The document that is at the very core of the Italian Republic is the Constitution, which was also adopted in 1946.”
That Constitution, he explains, is “basically a synthesis of the three anti-fascist political philosophies. The Christian Democrat, of course, in deference to the fact that Italy hosts the papacy, and we have a very special relationship with the papacy, the liberal tradition, and the socialist one.” Its values “coincide to a large extent with the Charter of the United Nations,” aligning domestic governance with international norms and further legitimizing Italy’s role as a promoter of multilateralism.
Today, those founding choices continue to guide Italy’s behavior on the global stage. “We are still committed to the NATO. We’re still committed, of course, to the United Nations. And of course, we’re still committed to the European Union,” Giglio affirms.
For Italy, the EU is “indispensable. It’s inseparable. Whatever Italy does is inseparable from the larger framework that is the European Union.” Within that framework, he says, “the EU provides, not only for Italy, but for all the European countries, the indispensable platform to amplify our message and our capacity to lead globally. Without the EU, we are a very small place, 0.2% of the global landmass. We’re really small. But within the EU, we become bigger.”
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