19/05/2026 - 12:45 - Doyen 22 

Fabio Mariani

(UCLouvain, LIDAM, IRES)

will give a presentation on 

The shadow of Rome: Fascism, nation building and the political legacy of history.

Abstract

In pre-WWII Italy, the Fascist regime mobilized the country’s shared Roman heritage for nation-building. Roman history offered a unifying identity and a rich repertoire of nationalist symbols for a country that had remained fragmented since the fall of the Roman Empire. We advance and empirically test the hypothesis that this narrative resonated more strongly in municipalities with a deeper Roman legacy, proxied by the presence of Roman settlements and inscriptions (from archaeological records).

We show that this translated into stronger support for post-Fascist nationalist parties following the return to democracy. Conversely, municipalities with a more tangible Roman past were less susceptible to centrifugal political forces and were less likely to vote for regionalist parties, particularly the Lega following its independentist turn. We explore potential mechanisms linking Roman heritage to local political identity through cultural and ideological values.

Finally, we show that in the absence of a political reactivation of history, past Roman presence does not predict the success of nationalist parties.

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