Jan-Werner Müller (2011, pp. 11,12) ISBN: 978-0-300113211 (vet toegevoegd)
%% citaat %% : Across Europe the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century saw a series of struggles over the franchise and the nature of political representation.
Both liberal and conservative elites thought they could master what increasingly looked like a comprehensive crisis in representation – in terms both of who was represented and of what kinds of political claims could be made and reconciled within the political system as it was.
Italy proved a paradigmatic example: the liberals there gambled that they could slowly extend the franchise and yet contain social conflict through the strategy of trasformismo: drawing ever more groups into the system by making them share some power – while, more importantly, rewarding them with spoils (and inducing them to moderate their claims). So they gave the vote to peasants by removing literacy requirements, betting that the peasants would stay politically quiescent or at least controllable.
As Giovanni Giolitti, a liberal and past-master of trasformismo (and in fact originator of the word), explained in 1901: ‘No one should deceive himself into thinking that the lower classes can be prevented from acquiring their share of economic and political influence. %% einde citaat %%
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