Abstract
Looking at Italy, the article argues that government serves as an intervening variable that can mediate the implication of federalism and social division. Its overall argument is that the Italian state maintained its unity through a governmental practice of configuring social division so as not to align on the North/South divide, while engaging in a comprehensive devolution of competencies to the subnational level. Through readings of Carlo Cattaneo and Guiseppe Mazzini, the first part of the article considers the conjunctural factors that allowed for the creation, against all odds, of Italy as a unitary state. The second part considers by what strategies the political parties colluded in preserving the unity of the national territory, and by what forms of devolution power was transferred to the subnational level. In conclusion, the article considers the rise of federalism in Italian politics from the 1990s.
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