Rossi-Doria’s Commitment against Fascism and to Development of Southern Italy

The framework and content of the lecture, to commemorate the centennial of the birth of Manlio Rossi-Doria, are grounded on the strong and constant nexus between Rossi-Doria’s opposition to the fascist regime and his personal and professional commitment to development of Southern Italy. A nexus already evident in his early professional and political choices, leading to clandestine opposition to fascism – that cost him long years of jail and confinement - and subsequently confirmed by his far-flung analyses and proposals for sustainable economic and social development in the Mezzogiorno. In a synthesis of the various phases of his technical and political commitment –that brought about his election to the Senate from 1968 to 1975 – specific attention is devoted to the evolution of his views on the agrarian reform and on the nature and implementation of public policies in the southern regions. A clear indication of the need for the competence of both scholar and technician in politics is salient in this overview of Rossi Doria’s work : a vital interconnection that is presently vanishing in Italian public life, and the absence of which is increasingly and patently felt.