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9 - An Exceptional Exception: The Rise and Fall of Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi
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- By Ruthie Pertsis, Jerrold M. Post, The George Washington University
- Jerrold M. Post, George Washington University, Washington DC
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- Book:
- Narcissism and Politics
- Published online:
- 05 November 2014
- Print publication:
- 17 November 2014, pp 134-145
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- Chapter
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Summary
The preceding chapter dealt with the issues of entitlement and political affairs, but no work on these themes would be complete without considering a man who has not only become synonymous with inappropriate sexual behavior while in political power, but who has also used and thoroughly abused his country’s legal and media systems to shamelessly further his own personal interests. Silvio Berlusconi dominated Italian politics for nearly two decades, making “Berlusconismo” his own unique political brand. And, even though he spent much of that time actively undermining some of the most basic features of his country’s democracy, it was only the tremendous outside pressure exerted in the form of the Euro crisis that eventually removed him from power in November 2011. Between changing laws at the highest levels in order to free himself from prosecution and ultimately securing control of roughly 90 percent of the Italian media, it is a wonder that he still had time to socialize with women much younger than himself, even being accused of having sex with an underage prostitute. It would not be an exaggeration to say that, for the past two decades, Italy has been more a reflection of Berlusconi than Berlusconi has been of Italy, a feat attributable to his intensely narcissistic character.
BACKGROUND
To understand how he managed for so long to run his party – and Italy – like his own personal fiefdom, it is important to understand how he came to power in the first place and his appeal to the Italian public. Without delving too deeply into Italian political history, it is enough to note that postwar Italy was dominated by a communist ideology that appealed to the masses because of the horrors that characterized the wartime fascist system of Benito Mussolini. But when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down in 1989, leading to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and communism lost what was left of its already severely weakened appeal, the Italian people decided that it was time for their country to reinvent itself.
13 - Leaders by Default: Second-Choice Sons
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- By Ruthie Pertsis, Jerrold M. Post, The George Washington University
- Jerrold M. Post, George Washington University, Washington DC
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- Book:
- Narcissism and Politics
- Published online:
- 05 November 2014
- Print publication:
- 17 November 2014, pp 196-216
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
There is a small group of important international leaders who were not their parents’ first choices to occupy the seats of power. They were raised in politically oriented families, chose their own paths in life (having embraced their own unique interests and skills), but were pushed into leadership positions because their brothers, the initially designated choices to carry on the family torch, died before they were able to fulfill the parents’ dreams of glory. The devastated parents then turned to the sons who were next in line, who had grown up in the shadows of their brothers, and compelled them to abandon their own career ambitions and step in, paving the way for the “second-choice sons” to become leaders by default.
It is interesting to explore how they and their leaderships were impacted by the knowledge that they were not originally selected for the important positions that they eventually came to occupy and by the accompanying pressure that they surely felt at being under the watchful eyes of overbearing parents whose narcissistic needs were suddenly and belatedly projected onto them. What does it mean to grow up in the shadow of the blinding son, the designated hero, eclipsed by his larger-than-life stature?