Empty piazze . The waning of urban civism in Italian politics.

This paper examines the success of Berlusconi's political formula in the context of urban changes and their effects on political participation. It argues that the suburban sprawl, or the urbanized countryside, needs to be looked at as a phenomenon that describes more than changes in human settlements; it both reflects and causes transformations in social practices with hefty consequences for political engagement. In Italy, the combination of suburban sprawl with mobility technologies, especially those related to individual and information mobility, has contributed to drag the agora into the den and to create a massive atomized audience. With a diminished public dialogue now negatively affecting the natural competition of ideas, as well as the liveliness and fairness of the democratic process, the retreat into the home has provided the breeding ground for demagoguery of the kind delivered by Berlusconi's formula of authoritarian manipulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]