Sara Gentile

Sara Gentile is associate professor of political science at Catania University. She has studied Weber's categories of power and historical cases of charismatic power, in particular the case of Charles De Gaulle and the experience of the establishment of the Fifth Republic. She has also analyzed the Sarkozy presidency as an example of a Bonapartist tradition mixed with modernizing features, as a significant case of government populism.

For the past two years Sara Gentile has been examining European populism and particularly the case of Jean Marie Le Pen's Front National in comparison with Italian populist parties. She has also analyzed the Macron presidency and the effect of its irruption into French political life. Now she explores Macron's second term in office, as he faces two oppositions in the National Assembly.

The project

Title: The right-wing wave in Europe: two comparative case studies, Italy and France

"For many years now, the geopolitical map of Europe has been showing an advance of the right, either the traditional right, or the extreme right in its various declinations (populist, nationalist, sometimes mixed with technocratic components), a variety that is not easy to define with precision in political analysis. What is clear is that this wave of right-wingers is not a temporary phenomenon, but is present in many parliaments and is in government in many countries. That's why it's so important to ask ourselves the following questions: why are the right-wingers winning? What are the reasons for this consensus? What is the role of the left, torn apart for many reasons? How can we build an alternative social bloc? What is the fate of democracy in this period of rapid change? Putin's war in Ukraine and the Israeli-Palestinian war are accentuating the problems of global equilibrium, closely affecting European countries. It is therefore important to reflect on countries in the Mediterranean area where the right has developed its power, by analyzing in comparative perspective the political situation in France and Italy, where the extreme right has progressed in a reality that presents both analogies and differences."

Hosting institution: Centre d'Études de la Vie Politique Française (CEVIPOF) – Sciences Po

Selective Bibliography

• S. Gentile, Macron bifronte, La Francia di Macron fra populismo e sconfitta della gauche, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2019.
• S.Gentile, Il populismo nelle democrazie contemporanee. Il caso del Front National di Jean Marie Le Pen, F.Angeli 2008.
• S. Gentile, La Francia della V Repubblica. Istituzioni politiche e sistema partitico, Milano F. Angeli 2005.
• S. Gentile, Mitterrand, il monarca repubblicano. La trasmissione del carisma nella V Repubblica, Milano F. Angeli 2000.
• S. Gentile, Capo carismatico e democrazia: il caso De Gaulle, Milano F. Angeli 1998.