In the wake of the Italian elections, this excerpt from ‘Stagioni del populismo italiano’ examines populism in Italy’s political past and present. How did Guglielmo Giannini’s Qualunquismo movement influence the most recent forms of populism: those of the former Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and comedian-turned-politician, Beppe Grillo?

One of the most powerful international organisations is pitted against vulnerable people in the poorest country in the Americas. The accusation: that the UN is responsible for Haiti's cholera epidemic. What measures should now be taken? Who, if anyone, is to blame?

More coordination and strategy are needed in Europe's response to the sinister signs of stolen revolution. The political-strategic impulse has come from the south in the past. In the current economic crisis this should be more the case, not less.

Only recently, we were the world’s worst failed state. Look at us today.

There is no way back to an untranslated world: in our globalised era, we want to know what is happening elsewhere and we want to hear it from real people.

While the group uses reason and dialogue to act as mediator in domestic disagreements, in some cases however, the women have resorted to use of the lathis when the offenders refuse to listen.

Though intended to be temporary in nature, Agamben argues that the ‘state of exception’ has become a permanent fixture of democratic governance. This ‘war’, declared by the US and its allies against a tactic, and therefore unbound by time or space, is ongoing.