Social science disciplines

Social science covers a broad range of disciplines.

Demography and social statistics, methods and computing

Demography is the study of populations and population changes and trends, using resources such as
statistics of births, deaths and disease.
Social statistics, methods and computing involves the collection and analysis of quantitative and
qualitative social science data.

Development studies, human geography and environmental planning

Development studies is a multidisciplinary branch of the social sciences which addresses a range of
social and economic issues related to developing or low-income countries.
Human geography studies the world, its people, communities and cultures, and differs from physical
geography mainly in that it focuses on human activities and their impact - for instance on environmental
change.
Environmental planning explores the decision-making processes for managing relationships within and
between human systems and natural systems, in order to manage these processes in an effective,
transparent and equitable manner.

Economics, management and business studies

Economics seeks to understand how individuals interact within the social structure, to address key
questions about the production and exchange of goods and services.
Management and business studies explores a wide range of aspects relating to the activities and
management of business, such as strategic and operational management, organisational psychology,
employment relations, marketing, accounting, finance and logistics.

Education, social anthropology, and linguistics

Education is one of the most important social sciences, exploring how people learn and develop.
Social anthropology is the study of how human societies and social structures are organised and
understood.
Linguistics focuses on language and how people communicate through spoken sounds and words.

Law, economic and social history

Law focuses on the rules created by governments and people to ensure a more orderly society.
Economic and social history looks at past events to learn from history and better understand the
processes of contemporary society.

Politics and international relations

Politics focuses on democracy and the relationship between people and policy, at all levels up from the
individual to a national and international level.
International relations is the study of relationships between countries, including the roles of other
 organisations.

Psychology and sociology

Psychology studies the human mind and try to understand how people and groups experience the
world through various emotions, ideas, and conscious states.
Sociology involves groups of people, rather than individuals, and attempts to understand the way
people relate to each other and function as a society or social sub-groups.

Science and technology studies

Science and technology studies is concerned with what scientists do, what their role is in our society,
the history and culture of science, and the policies and debates that shape our modern scientific and
technological world.

Social policy and social work

Social policy is an interdisciplinary and applied subject concerned with the analysis of societies'
responses to social need, focusing on aspects of society, economy and policy that are necessary to
human existence, and how these can be provided.
Social work focuses on social change, problem-solving in human relationships and the empowerment
and liberation of people to enhance social justice.

http://www.esrc.ac.uk/about-us/what-is-social-science/social-science-disciplines/

Social science is a major category of academic disciplines, concerned with society and the relationships among
individuals within a society. It in turn has many branches, each of which is considered a "social science". The
social sciences include economics, political science, human geography, demography, psychology, sociology,
anthropology, archaeology, jurisprudence, history, and linguistics. The term is also sometimes used to refer
specifically to the field of sociology, the original 'science of society', established in the 19th century. A more
detailed list of sub-disciplines within the social sciences can be found at Outline of social science.

Positivist social scientists use methods resembling those of the natural sciences as tools for understanding
society, and so define science in its stricter modern sense. Interpretivist social scientists, by contrast, may use
social critique or symbolic interpretation rather than constructing empirically falsifiable theories, and thus treat
science in its broader sense. In modern academic practice, researchers are often eclectic, using multiple
methodologies (for instance, by combining the quantitative and qualitative researchs). The term social research
has also acquired a degree of autonomy as practitioners from various disciplines share in its aims and methods.

The history of the social sciences begins in the Age of Enlightenment after 1650, which saw a revolution within
natural philosophy, changing the basic framework by which individuals understood what was "scientific". Social
sciences came forth from the moral philosophy of the time and were influenced by the Age of Revolutions, such
as the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution.[1] The social sciences developed from the sciences
(experimental and applied), or the systematic knowledge-bases or prescriptive practices, relating to the social
improvement of a group of interacting entities.[2][3]

The beginnings of the social sciences in the 18th century are reflected in the grand encyclopedia of Diderot, with
articles from Jean-Jacques Rousseau and other pioneers. The growth of the social sciences is also reflected in
other specialized encyclopedias. The modern period saw "social science" first used as a distinct conceptual field.
[4] Social science was influenced by positivism,[1] focusing on knowledge based on actual positive sense
experience and avoiding the negative; metaphysical speculation was avoided. Auguste Comte used the term
"science sociale" to describe the field, taken from the ideas of Charles Fourier; Comte also referred to the field
as social physics.[1][5]

Following this period, there were five paths of development that sprang forth in the social sciences, influenced by
Comte on other fields.[1] One route that was taken was the rise of social research. Large statistical surveys were
undertaken in various parts of the United States and Europe. Another route undertaken was initiated by mile
Durkheim, studying "social facts", and Vilfredo Pareto, opening metatheoretical ideas and individual theories. A
third means developed, arising from the methodological dichotomy present, in which social phenomena were
identified with and understood; this was championed by figures such as Max Weber. The fourth route taken,
based in economics, was developed and furthered economic knowledge as a hard science. The last path was
the correlation of knowledge and social values; the antipositivism and verstehen sociology of Max Weber firmly
demanded this distinction. In this route, theory (description) and prescription were non-overlapping formal
discussions of a subject.

Around the start of the 20th century, Enlightenment philosophy was challenged in various quarters. After the use
of classical theories since the end of the scientific revolution, various fields substituted mathematics studies for
experimental studies and examining equations to build a theoretical structure. The development of social science
subfields became very quantitative in methodology. The interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary nature of
scientific inquiry into human behaviour, social and environmental factors affecting it, made many of the natural
sciences interested in some aspects of social science methodology.[6] Examples of boundary blurring include
emerging disciplines like social research of medicine, sociobiology, neuropsychology, bioeconomics and the
history and sociology of science. Increasingly, quantitative research and qualitative methods are being integrated
in the study of human action and its implications and consequences. In the first half of the 20th century, statistics
became a free-standing discipline of applied mathematics. Statistical methods were used confidently.

In the contemporary period, Karl Popper and Talcott Parsons influenced the furtherance of the social sciences.[1]
Researchers continue to search for a unified consensus on what methodology might have the power and
refinement to connect a proposed "grand theory" with the various midrange theories that, with considerable
success, continue to provide usable frameworks for massive, growing data banks; for more, see consilience. The
social sciences will for the foreseeable future be composed of different zones in the research of, and sometime
distinct in approach toward, the field.[1]

The term "social science" may refer either to the specific sciences of society established by thinkers such as
Comte, Durkheim, Marx, and Weber, or more generally to all disciplines outside of "noble science" and arts. By
the late 19th century, the academic social sciences were constituted of five fields: jurisprudence and amendment
of the law, education, health, economy and trade, and art.[2]

Around the start of the 21st century, the expanding domain of economics in the social sciences has been
described as economic imperialism.

The social science disciplines are branches of knowledge taught and researched at the college or university
level. Social science disciplines are defined and recognized by the academic journals in which research is
published, and the learned social science societies and academic departments or faculties to which their
practitioners belong. Social science fields of study usually have several sub-disciplines or branches, and the
distinguishing lines between these are often both arbitrary and ambiguous.

Anthropology is the holistic "science of man", a science of the totality of human existence. The discipline deals
with the integration of different aspects of the social sciences, humanities, and human biology. In the twentieth
century, academic disciplines have often been institutionally divided into three broad domains. The natural
sciences seek to derive general laws through reproducible and verifiable experiments. The humanities generally
study local traditions, through their history, literature, music, and arts, with an emphasis on understanding
particular individuals, events, or eras. The social sciences have generally attempted to develop scientific
methods to understand social phenomena in a generalizable way, though usually with methods distinct from
those of the natural sciences.

The anthropological social sciences often develop nuanced descriptions rather than the general laws derived in
physics or chemistry, or they may explain individual cases through more general principles, as in many fields of
psychology. Anthropology (like some fields of history) does not easily fit into one of these categories, and
different branches of anthropology draw on one or more of these domains.[8] Within the United States,
anthropology is divided into four sub-fields: archaeology, physical or biological anthropology, anthropological
linguistics, and cultural anthropology. It is an area that is offered at most undergraduate institutions. The word
anthropos () is from the Greek for "human being" or "person". Eric Wolf described sociocultural
anthropology as "the most scientific of the humanities, and the most humanistic of the sciences."

The goal of anthropology is to provide a holistic account of humans and human nature. This means that, though
anthropologists generally specialize in only one sub-field, they always keep in mind the biological, linguistic,
historic and cultural aspects of any problem. Since anthropology arose as a science in Western societies that
were complex and industrial, a major trend within anthropology has been a methodological drive to study
peoples in societies with more simple social organization, sometimes called "primitive" in anthropological
literature, but without any connotation of "inferior".[9] Today, anthropologists use terms such as "less complex"
societies or refer to specific modes of subsistence or production, such as "pastoralist" or "forager" or
"horticulturalist" to refer to humans living in non-industrial, non-Western cultures, such people or folk (ethnos)
remaining of great interest within anthropology.

The quest for holism leads most anthropologists to study a people in detail, using biogenetic, archaeological, and
linguistic data alongside direct observation of contemporary customs.[10] In the 1990s and 2000s, calls for
clarification of what constitutes a culture, of how an observer knows where his or her own culture ends and
another begins, and other crucial topics in writing anthropology were heard. It is possible to view all human
cultures as part of one large, evolving global culture. These dynamic relationships, between what can be
observed on the ground, as opposed to what can be observed by compiling many local observations remain
fundamental in any kind of anthropology, whether cultural, biological, linguistic or archaeological.

Communication studies deals with processes of human communication, commonly defined as the sharing of
symbols to create meaning. The discipline encompasses a range of topics, from face-to-face conversation to
mass media outlets such as television broadcasting. Communication studies also examines how messages are
interpreted through the political, cultural, economic, and social dimensions of their contexts. Communication is
institutionalized under many different names at different universities, including "communication", "communication
studies", "speech communication", "rhetorical studies", "communication science", "media studies",
"communication arts", "mass communication", "media ecology", and "communication and media science".

Communication studies integrates aspects of both social sciences and the humanities. As a social science, the
discipline often overlaps with sociology, psychology, anthropology, biology, political science, economics, and
public policy, among others. From a humanities perspective, communication is concerned with rhetoric and
persuasion (traditional graduate programs in communication studies trace their history to the rhetoricians of
Ancient Greece). The field applies to outside disciplines as well, including engineering, architecture,
mathematics, and information science.

Economics is a social science that seeks to analyze and describe the production, distribution, and consumption
of wealth.[12] The word "economics" is from the Greek [oikos], "family, household, estate", and
[nomos], "custom, law", and hence means "household management" or "management of the state". An
economist is a person using economic concepts and data in the course of employment, or someone who has
earned a degree in the subject. The classic brief definition of economics, set out by Lionel Robbins in 1932, is
"the science which studies human behavior as a relation between scarce means having alternative uses".
Without scarcity and alternative uses, there is no economic problem. Briefer yet is "the study of how people seek
to satisfy needs and wants" and "the study of the financial aspects of human behavior".
Economics has two broad branches: microeconomics, where the unit of analysis is the individual agent, such as
a household or firm, and macroeconomics, where the unit of analysis is an economy as a whole. Another division
of the subject distinguishes positive economics, which seeks to predict and explain economic phenomena, from
normative economics, which orders choices and actions by some criterion; such orderings necessarily involve
subjective value judgments. Since the early part of the 20th century, economics has focused largely on
measurable quantities, employing both theoretical models and empirical analysis. Quantitative models, however,
can be traced as far back as the physiocratic school. Economic reasoning has been increasingly applied in
recent decades to other social situations such as politics, law, psychology, history, religion, marriage and family
life, and other social interactions. This paradigm crucially assumes (1) that resources are scarce because they
are not sufficient to satisfy all wants, and (2) that "economic value" is willingness to pay as revealed for instance
by market (arms' length) transactions. Rival heterodox schools of thought, such as institutional economics, green
economics, Marxist economics, and economic sociology, make other grounding assumptions. For example,
Marxist economics assumes that economics primarily deals with the investigation of exchange value, of which
human labour is the source.

The expanding domain of economics in the social sciences has been described as economic imperialism.

Education encompasses teaching and learning specific skills, and also something less tangible but more
profound: the imparting of knowledge, positive judgement and well-developed wisdom. Education has as one of
its fundamental aspects the imparting of culture from generation to generation (see socialization). To educate
means 'to draw out', from the Latin educare, or to facilitate the realization of an individual's potential and talents.
It is an application of pedagogy, a body of theoretical and applied research relating to teaching and learning and
draws on many disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, computer science, linguistics, neuroscience,
sociology and anthropology.[14]

The education of an individual human begins at birth and continues throughout life. (Some believe that education
begins even before birth, as evidenced by some parents' playing music or reading to the baby in the womb in the
hope it will influence the child's development.) For some, the struggles and triumphs of daily life provide far more
instruction than does formal schooling (thus Mark Twain's admonition to "never let school interfere with your
education"). Family members may have a profound educational effect often more profound than they
realize though family teaching may function very informally.

Geography as a discipline can be split broadly into two main sub fields: human geography and physical
geography. The former focuses largely on the built environment and how space is created, viewed and managed
by humans as well as the influence humans have on the space they occupy. This may involve cultural
geography, transportation, health, military operations, and cities. The latter examines the natural environment
and how the climate, vegetation and life, soil, oceans, water and landforms are produced and interact.[15]
Physical geography examines phenomena related to the measurement of earth. As a result of the two subfields
using different approaches a third field has emerged, which is environmental geography. Environmental
geography combines physical and human geography and looks at the interactions between the environment and
humans.[16] Other branches of geography include social geography, regional geography, and geomatics.

Geographers attempt to understand the Earth in terms of physical and spatial relationships. The first
geographers focused on the science of mapmaking and finding ways to precisely project the surface of the earth.
In this sense, geography bridges some gaps between the natural sciences and social sciences. Historical
geography is often taught in a college in a unified Department of Geography.
Modern geography is an all-encompassing discipline, closely related to GISc, that seeks to understand humanity
and its natural environment. The fields of urban planning, regional science, and planetology are closely related to
geography. Practitioners of geography use many technologies and methods to collect data such as GIS, remote
sensing, aerial photography, statistics, and global positioning systems (GPS).

History is the continuous, systematic narrative and research into past human events as interpreted through
historiographical paradigms or theories.

History has a base in both the social sciences and the humanities. In the United States the National Endowment
for the Humanities includes history in its definition of humanities (as it does for applied linguistics).[17] However,
the National Research Council classifies history as a social science.[18] The historical method comprises the
techniques and guidelines by which historians use primary sources and other evidence to research and then to
write history. The Social Science History Association, formed in 1976, brings together scholars from numerous
disciplines interested in social history.

The social science of law, jurisprudence, in common parlance, means a rule that (unlike a rule of ethics) is
capable of enforcement through institutions.[20] However, many laws are based on norms accepted by a
community and thus have an ethical foundation. The study of law crosses the boundaries between the social
sciences and humanities, depending on one's view of research into its objectives and effects. Law is not always
enforceable, especially in the international relations context. It has been defined as a "system of rules",[21] as an
"interpretive concept"[22] to achieve justice, as an "authority"[23] to mediate people's interests, and even as "the
command of a sovereign, backed by the threat of a sanction".[24] However one likes to think of law, it is a
completely central social institution. Legal policy incorporates the practical manifestation of thinking from almost
every social science and the humanities. Laws are politics, because politicians create them. Law is philosophy,
because moral and ethical persuasions shape their ideas. Law tells many of history's stories, because statutes,
case law and codifications build up over time. And law is economics, because any rule about contract, tort,
property law, labour law, company law and many more can have long-lasting effects on the distribution of wealth.
The noun law derives from the late Old English lagu, meaning something laid down or fixed[25] and the adjective
legal comes from the Latin word lex.[26]

Linguistics investigates the cognitive and social aspects of human language. The field is divided into areas that
focus on aspects of the linguistic signal, such as syntax (the study of the rules that govern the structure of
sentences), semantics (the study of meaning), morphology (the study of the structure of words), phonetics (the
study of speech sounds) and phonology (the study of the abstract sound system of a particular language);
however, work in areas like evolutionary linguistics (the study of the origins and evolution of language) and
psycholinguistics (the study of psychological factors in human language) cut across these divisions.

The overwhelming majority of modern research in linguistics takes a predominantly synchronic perspective
(focusing on language at a particular point in time), and a great deal of itpartly owing to the influence of Noam
Chomskyaims at formulating theories of the cognitive processing of language. However, language does not
exist in a vacuum, or only in the brain, and approaches like contact linguistics, creole studies, discourse analysis,
social interactional linguistics, and sociolinguistics explore language in its social context. Sociolinguistics often
makes use of traditional quantitative analysis and statistics in investigating the frequency of features, while some
disciplines, like contact linguistics, focus on qualitative analysis. While certain areas of linguistics can thus be
understood as clearly falling within the social sciences, other areas, like acoustic phonetics and neurolinguistics,
draw on the natural sciences. Linguistics draws only secondarily on the humanities, which played a rather
greater role in linguistic inquiry in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Ferdinand Saussure is considered the father
of modern linguistics.

Political science is an academic and research discipline that deals with the theory and practice of politics and the
description and analysis of political systems and political behaviour. Fields and subfields of political science
include political economy, political theory and philosophy, civics and comparative politics, theory of direct
democracy, apolitical governance, participatory direct democracy, national systems, cross-national political
analysis, political development, international relations, foreign policy, international law, politics, public
administration, administrative behaviour, public law, judicial behaviour, and public policy. Political science also
studies power in international relations and the theory of great powers and superpowers.

Political science is methodologically diverse, although recent years have witnessed an upsurge in the use of the
scientific method,[28][page needed] that is, the proliferation of formal-deductive model building and quantitative
hypothesis testing. Approaches to the discipline include rational choice, classical political philosophy,
interpretivism, structuralism, and behaviouralism, realism, pluralism, and institutionalism. Political science, as
one of the social sciences, uses methods and techniques that relate to the kinds of inquiries sought: primary
sources such as historical documents, interviews, and official records, as well as secondary sources such as
scholarly articles are used in building and testing theories. Empirical methods include survey research, statistical
analysis or econometrics, case studies, experiments, and model building. Herbert Baxter Adams is credited with
coining the phrase "political science" while teaching history at Johns Hopkins University.

Psychology is an academic and applied field involving the study of behaviour and mental processes. Psychology
also refers to the application of such knowledge to various spheres of human activity, including problems of
individuals' daily lives and the treatment of mental illness. The word psychology comes from the ancient Greek
, psyche ("soul", "mind") and logy ("study").

Psychology differs from anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology in seeking to capture
explanatory generalizations about the mental function and overt behaviour of individuals, while the other
disciplines focus on creating descriptive generalizations about the functioning of social groups or situation-
specific human behaviour. In practice, however, there is quite a lot of cross-fertilization that takes place among
the various fields. Psychology differs from biology and neuroscience in that it is primarily concerned with the
interaction of mental processes and behaviour, and of the overall processes of a system, and not simply the
biological or neural processes themselves, though the subfield of neuropsychology combines the study of the
actual neural processes with the study of the mental effects they have subjectively produced. Many people
associate psychology with clinical psychology, which focuses on assessment and treatment of problems in living
and psychopathology. In reality, psychology has myriad specialties including social psychology, developmental
psychology, cognitive psychology, educational psychology, industrial-organizational psychology, mathematical
psychology, neuropsychology, and quantitative analysis of behaviour.

Psychology is a very broad science that is rarely tackled as a whole, major block. Although some subfields
encompass a natural science base and a social science application, others can be clearly distinguished as
having little to do with the social sciences or having a lot to do with the social sciences. For example, biological
psychology is considered a natural science with a social scientific application (as is clinical medicine), social and
occupational psychology are, generally speaking, purely social sciences, whereas neuropsychology is a natural
science that lacks application out of the scientific tradition entirely. In British universities, emphasis on what tenet
of psychology a student has studied and/or concentrated is communicated through the degree conferred: B.Psy.
indicates a balance between natural and social sciences, B.Sc. indicates a strong (or entire) scientific
concentration, whereas a B.A. underlines a majority of social science credits. This is not always necessarily the
case however, and in many UK institutions students studying the B.Psy, B.Sc, and B.A. follow the same
curriculum as outlined by The British Psychological Society and have the same options of specialism open to
them regardless of whether they choose a balance, a heavy science basis, or heavy social science basis to their
degree. If they applied to read the B.A. for example, but specialized in heavily science-based modules, then they
will still generally be awarded the B.A.
Sociology is the systematic study of society and human social action. The meaning of the word comes from the
suffix "-ology", which means "study of", derived from Greek, and the stem "soci-", which is from the Latin word
socius, meaning "companion", or society in general.

Sociology was originally established by Auguste Comte (17981857) in 1838.[29] Comte endeavoured to unify
history, psychology and economics through the descriptive understanding of the social realm. He proposed that
social ills could be remedied through sociological positivism, an epistemological approach outlined in The
Course in Positive Philosophy [18301842] and A General View of Positivism (1844). Though Comte is generally
regarded as the "Father of Sociology", the discipline was formally established by another French thinker, mile
Durkheim (18581917), who developed positivism as a foundation to practical social research. Durkheim set up
the first European department of sociology at the University of Bordeaux in 1895, publishing his Rules of the
Sociological Method. In 1896, he established the journal L'Anne Sociologique. Durkheim's seminal monograph,
Suicide (1897), a case study of suicide rates among Catholic and Protestant populations, distinguished
sociological analysis from psychology or philosophy.[30]

Karl Marx rejected Comte's positivism but nevertheless aimed to establish a science of society based on
historical materialism, becoming recognized as a founding figure of sociology posthumously as the term gained
broader meaning. Around the start of the 20th century, the first wave of German sociologists, including Max
Weber and Georg Simmel, developed sociological antipositivism. The field may be broadly recognized as an
amalgam of three modes of social thought in particular: Durkheimian positivism and structural functionalism;
Marxist historical materialism and conflict theory; and Weberian antipositivism and verstehen analysis. American
sociology broadly arose on a separate trajectory, with little Marxist influence, an emphasis on rigorous
experimental methodology, and a closer association with pragmatism and social psychology. In the 1920s, the
Chicago school developed symbolic interactionism. Meanwhile, in the 1930s, the Frankfurt School pioneered the
idea of critical theory, an interdisciplinary form of Marxist sociology drawing upon thinkers as diverse as Sigmund
Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche. Critical theory would take on something of a life of its own after World War II,
influencing literary criticism and the Birmingham School establishment of cultural studies.

Sociology evolved as an academic response to the challenges of modernity, such as industrialization,

urbanization, secularization, and a perceived process of enveloping rationalization.[31] Because sociology is
such a broad discipline, it can be difficult to define, even for professional sociologists. The field generally
concerns the social rules and processes that bind and separate people not only as individuals, but as members
of associations, groups, communities and institutions, and includes the examination of the organization and
development of human social life. The sociological field of interest ranges from the analysis of short contacts
between anonymous individuals on the street to the study of global social processes. In the terms of sociologists
Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, social scientists seek an understanding of the Social Construction of
Reality. Most sociologists work in one or more subfields. One useful way to describe the discipline is as a cluster
of sub-fields that examine different dimensions of society. For example, social stratification studies inequality and
class structure; demography studies changes in a population size or type; criminology examines criminal
behaviour and deviance; and political sociology studies the interaction between society and state.

Since its inception, sociological epistemologies, methods, and frames of enquiry, have significantly expanded
and diverged.[32] Sociologists use a diversity of research methods, drawing upon either empirical techniques or
critical theory. Common modern methods include case studies, historical research, interviewing, participant
observation, social network analysis, survey research, statistical analysis, and model building, among other
approaches. Since the late 1970s, many sociologists have tried to make the discipline useful for non-academic
purposes. The results of sociological research aid educators, lawmakers, administrators, developers, and others
interested in resolving social problems and formulating public policy, through subdisciplinary areas such as
evaluation research, methodological assessment, and public sociology.

New sociological sub-fields continue to appear such as community studies, computational sociology,
environmental sociology, network analysis, actor-network theory and a growing list, many of which are cross-
disciplinary in nature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_science

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Italian-Liberal-Party

Italian Liberal Party

political party, Italy
Written By:
The Editors of Encyclopdia Britannica
See Article History
Alternative Titles: Partito Liberale Italiano, PLI

Italian Liberal Party, Italian Partito Liberale Italiano (PLI), moderately conservative Italian political party that
dominated Italian political life in the decades after unification (1861) and was a minor party in the period after
World War II.

The Liberal Party was first formed as a parliamentary group within the Piedmont assembly in 1848 by Count
Camillo di Cavour, who eventually brought about the unification of Italy and became the new nations first prime
minister (1861). His followers, who favoured a centralized government, a restricted suffrage, regressive taxation,
and free trade, became known in the new national parliament as Liberals. There was no tightly organized
Liberal Party as such but merely various parties and parliamentary groups that formed a dominant voting bloc
of basically conservative deputies in the national parliament. The Liberals split into right and left blocs in the
1860s, with the Left Liberals gaining control of the party in 1876. Liberal coalition governments continued to
dominate Italian politics until World War I, after which the partys strength seriously declined. The party existed
clandestinely during the fascist period, and in 1944 it reemerged as a minority party, conservative but untainted
by fascist associations.

The Liberals maintained a strong anticommunist stance after World War II and subsequently were able to sustain
themselves as small but important allies of the dominant Christian Democratic Party, earning important
government posts. The modern Italian Liberal Party favoured free enterprise, backed NATO, and drew its chief
support from small businessmen. Caught up in various corruption scandals after 1992, the party was dissolved in
the mid-1990s, with most Liberals joining the centre-right Forza Italia party.

For what reasons did liberal Italy collapse in 1922? (8)

There are many reasons for the collapse of Liberal Italy in 1922. The Rise of Fascism can be directly related to
the collapse of Liberal Italy as factors that contributed to the Rise of Fascism only made liberal Italy weaker.

After the war, Italy was in a state of turmoil. Politically, economically and militarily, she was devastated. The
financial cost of keeping the soldiers armed and fed had placed a heavy burden on the Italian treasury.
Borrowings had proved inadequate to pay for the war and the government had resorted to printing money. This
had a dramatic effect. Inflation spiralled as ever greater quantities of paper money chased ever scarcer goods.

Inflation hit everyone in Italy, middle classes in particular. This brewed discontent and caused many Italians to
change in their political views.

The end of the war led to a wave of labour militancy. Wartime discipline in the factories, enforced by the military,
was relaxed. Workers who had resented the longer hours, the fall in real wages caused by inflation and the ban
on industrial action vented their frustration. During 1919 over a million workers took part in strikes and the
membership of Socialist trade unions shot up. As the economy worsened political divisions widened. The
industrial workers flocked to the Socialist Party, whose membership rose from about 50,000 in 1914 to about
200,000 by 1919. The party had long abandoned the commitment to gradual reform that Giolitti had tried to
encourage during the pre-war years. It now advocated revolution. Inspired by the Russian Revolution of 1917,
socialists called for the overthrow of the liberal state.

Many middle classes were terrified. In this state of fear, many conservative Italians were disgusted that the
government appeared to be doing nothing to meet the threat. Instead of using the power of the state to crush
strikes and to harass Socialists, the Liberal government of Francesco Nitti was urging industrialist to make
concessions to workers. Shopkeepers had been alienated in June 1919, by what they saw as government
surrender to rioters who were protesting against the spiralling price of food. To government had set up food
committees that had requisitioned supplies and set prices. The continuing inflation that had provoked the foot
riots was taken to be proof of government incompetence.

In addition, landowners were appalled by the governments failure to halt the spread of revolution to the
countryside. Here many peasants were occupying uncultivated land and farming it for themselves.

It was not only over the issue of the supposed Socialist threat that the right condemned the government.
Nationalists, who had always considered the Liberals weak and incompetent at running the war, were now
convinced that the government would fail to defend Italian interests at the peace conference. The Treaty of St
Germain did cede Austrian land in the south Tyrol and the Trentino, but when Britain and the USA refused to had
over Fiume, the Nationalists blamed Liberal weakness. When, in addition, it became apparent that Italy would be
denied Dalmatia because so few Italians lived there, and would not share in the division of German colonies in
Africa, Nationalists were outraged. To them Italy had been cheated. Her sacrifices had won only a mutilated
peace, and Liberalism was the culprit!

Demobilised soldiers, struggling to adjust to civilian society and with work difficult to find, saw the peace
settlement as a further humiliation. Many ex-officers, in particular, feared that the vibrant, expansionist Italy they
had fought for was being undermined by a weak government. Their Italy was falling into the hands of Socialist
revolutionaries who had opposed the war from the start and who had done their best to sabotage the war effort.
For such men, Liberalism and the parliamentary system had proved abject failures. A powerful, dynamic Italy
would have to be achieved by other methods

Benito Mussolini made political capital out of this disorder. His Popolo dItalia took every opportunity to
exaggerate the socialist threat and to depict Fascists not as violent thugs but as selfless individuals devoted to
creating their vision of Italy.

Mussolinis Political skills were astute. He avoided committing himself to any clear policy and altered his
message according to the audience he was addressing. His ability to reassure Liberals proved vital in securing
his appointment as PM in October 1922.

The church played a huge role also. The Popolari had withdrawn its support for the Liberals when Giolitti
proposed to introduce a tax which would have had the side-effect of hitting the Vaticans financial investments.
Without the tacit support of this Catholic party, with its 107 deputies in parliament, it was now virtually impossible
for any government to survive, yet the Popolari were suspicious of the anti-clerical traditions of Liberalism and
was willing to destroy any government that offended it.

There was an underlying problem with the system of government itself; Proportional Representation had led to a
plethora of disparate parties, and ensured that there was a series of ineffectual coalition governments.
Proportional Representation gave disproportionate power to small, special-interest parties. To make matters
worse, the Liberals were divided among themselves. Liberalism was still plagued by factions centred on
prominent politicians, notably Giolitti, Salandra, Facta and Orlando, and these leaders actively disliked one
another. In such circumstances it was not surprising that the three Italian governments between May 1921 and
October 1922 were fragile and unable to introduce the decisive measures needed to cope with the industrial
disruption and the collapse of law and order.

Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy had a huge role in the collapse of Liberal Italy in 1922. The King, who had little
love for the existing liberal politicians, thought that politically (bearing in mind the chaos Italy was in), Fascism
was not a unattractive option. His decision, during the March on Rome, to withdraw orders for Martial Law, led to
the resignation of Facta and Mussolinis appointment as chancellor.

http://www.markedbyteachers.com/as-and-a-level/history/for-what-reasons-did-liberal-italy-collapse-in-
1922.html

Italy: the Failure Of The Liberal State 1876-1914

Introduction
In 1861 Italy was united under a Piedmontese king, Victor Emmanuel II. The creation of a unified Italian State
(completed with the acquisition of Venetia in 1866 and the Papal States in 1871) is often seen as the
culmination of a series of developements stretching back to the first stirrings of nationalist sentiment in the the
late 18th century.1 Yet its creation occurred almost by accident and the Italy that was formed disappointed many
of its makers. Cavour, Piedmontese Prime Minister, had only urged Victor Emmanuel to act for unification of all
Italy when Garibaldis success threatened to unite Italy outside of Piedmonts control and domination and on
more radical terms than were acceptable. This meant that Italy was united in a rush with little consideration of
the finer points of how this should happen; for example, whether Italy should be a single nation state or a federal
body, monarchial or republican. As it was, Italy was united by force of Piedmontese arms and therefore Piedmont
and the conservative Liberalism present there would dominate united Italy. This is what lies behind B.A.
Haddocks assertion that from the very outset it [united Italy] was a hollow achievement.2 The united Italy that
was created was simply the Piedmontese state writ large, which to many nationalists, particularly the more
radical was unacceptable. Piedmont had been allowed to triumph because, after the experience of 1848, most
nationalists felt that constituitional and social issues should come second to the unification of Italy and its freeing
from foreign domination. Many nationalists were disatisfied because political change had always been
associated with social change and economic and cultural renewal while the Piedmontese unification was
essentially a conservative one designed to accomplish far reaching political changes while preserving the social
status quo.3

Not only did the unification, as it occurred under the control of a narrow Piedmontese elite, enjoy little support
among the nationalists, but it also was opposed by the Church (particularly after 1870 when Rome was taken
over by the Italian state). This was significant because the Church was much closer to the people at large than
the political elite, and the Churchs opposition to the new state meant it was deprived of an important popular
legitmacy from the very outset. The Liberal political culture which dominated the new state further weakened its
legitimacy and support by adopting wholesale Piedmontese law and administrative structures and even the
Piedmontese constituition for the new Italy. For a country of such vastly differings regions all accustomed to
different practices this was nothing short of disastrous. Coupled with the brutal suppression of civil unrest in the
south in 1861-5 which was to sour relations between the north and south for generations to come4 it is not
difficult to see why some of the central themes [of] .. Italian history since the Risorgimento [have been] the
incapacity of the elites to establish their hegemony over the classes that lay below them [in fact Italians in
general], the weakness and inefficiency of the state [and] the enduring problem of the south.5 It was the
challenge to the Liberal state in this period to overcome all the handicaps with which it had been encumbered
from the outset and to secure the support of Italians for Italy, to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the people for the
Liberal state. In this it failed, why and how is what I will discuss in the rest of this essay.

Coercion and Conciliation: The Liberal State 1876-1900

It was only when Agnostino Depretis became Prime Minister in 1876 that the new Liberal State began in any
great way to coerce or reconcile the various groups opposed to the united Italy that had been created. Up to this
point government had been in the hands of the Right, landowning northern aristocrats, who had done little to
gain legitimacy for the new state and little to make Italians greater than vague nationalistic sentiments of loving
Italy. The entrance of the Left, professional middlemen and politicians from the South, ushered in an era of low
politics, where opposition was bought off, and that which couldnt be was coerced.

In some ways Depretis 11 years in office were succesful. Large state spending particularly on the navy and
railways helped to start Italys industrialisation and created an economic boom. The creation of a national railway
infrastructure would obviously be a massive boost for national unity in such a diverse and geographically divided
country. And if Italy were to become a modern nation state it had to move away from an agriculture dominated
economy to a modern industrial one. However there were several problems. First the industrialisation in this
perod (1876-1887) further exacerbated the north-south divide with the south actually losing industry (e.g. the silk
industry). Second the industrialisation failed to take off and in fact after 1887 the Italian economy entered its
darkest years. This reversal coupled with free trade, which had been terrible for landowners, led to the adoption
of protection in a major way in 1887 which not only did great damage to the Italian economy in the short term but
was a measure which favoured certain small interest groups against the population at large. Protection had in
large part been demanded by landowners who were being hit by the Europe wide agricultural depression, and
again Depretis only satisfied a small but politically powerful group. The peasants particularly in the south had
actually suffered from unification through the combination of removal of large tariff barriers, the selling off of
demesne land which simply resulted in the loss of communal grazing rights for the peasants, the imposition of
large land taxes, and harsh suppression of any popular unrest. Thus in agricultural and industrial affairs Depretis
term did lead to new groups being attached to the regime (namely southern middlemen and the new
industrialists) but it stored up problems for the future in other areas and did not gain support from several major
areas of the populace.

In other areas Depretis did even less. Education was one of the major areas in which the new state could act to
try and make Italians. Most Italians could not speak the Italian language let alone write it. Outside of Tuscany
and Rome it is estimated only 0.6% of the population knew Italian and in the 1881 census 61.9% of the
population was illiterate. Not only that, these figures disguise the fact that literacy was also a major dividing
factor in Italy, with the north in general far more literate than the south. Considering this, one would have thought
that the government of the Left would have made a large effort in the area of education. It did little. In 1877
primary education was made compulsory but only for two years which was probably inadequate, and the time
was only raised to three years in 1888. Moreover compulsion was a sham: in the south it is estimated that
truancy ran at 80%. Despite the intention of the Liberal ruling class to make Italians through state run schools
primary education enticed so few children into regular attendance that arguably it made little difference what
was taught there.6 The inabilility of most Italians to speak or read the national language was obviously a major
impediment to making Italians and gaining legitimacy for the national state. The fact that Depretis government
did so little about the problem is a major failure in any attempt to solve the problems facing the Liberal Italian
state.

The other major failing of the Depretis government was that its method of gaining legitimacy (and perhaps the
only one in the face of so many opposing forces) was to buy off opposition and politicise the state. The Liberal
state felt it could not give too much power away to instituitions over which it did not have control. Thus the police
were often used for political purposes (to harry opponents of government candidates at elections) and their
powers were, at best, illiberal.7 The judiciary was almost an entirely political instituition and it did not form an
independent branch of the State. They [judges] could not protect themselves, let alone anyone else from political
abuses.8 The states instituitions were corrupted into being political tools rather than backbones of a modern
legitimate state, and the way these instituitions behaved could only further undermine support for it. Along with
the distrust of local government by the central one and the large scale corruption on both local and national
scales, and the narrow suffrage (widened in 1882 but still less 7% of the population) it is not surprising the
government enjoyed little support from both the general populous and even some of the political classes.
The era of Depretis was the era of the integration of the southern deputies into the political system. Some other
groups were also reconciled, for example some of the nationalists including Garibaldi, but many groups were
not. With the extension of the vote in 1882, working men in the north could now vote and this would eventually
mean the rise of a socialist party opposed to the Liberal state. Depretis failed also to reconcile the most
important section of the opposition to the Italian state, namely the church. The 1880s were the classic era of
trasformismo, i.e. of governments led by Depretis transforming opponents into supporters9 but it was usually
only the support of a small elite and it was not permanent support. In the end the governments of Depretis did
little to contribute to the legitimizing of the Italian state, their most important legacy was the corruption of
parliamentary rule. Though perhaps given the nature of unification it was inevitable, arguably it was better that
governments should buy off the Southern elites, rather than simply ignore them, or repress them. This was
parliaments real function in the new united Italy: to make Piedmontese rule acceptable elsewhere.10

Depretis had focused on buying off elites, but the period 1887-1890 saw the rise of popular organisations
opposed to the Liberal state which could not be bought off without endangering the whole Liberal edifice. This
was in no small part due to Francesco Crispi who became Prime Minister on Depretis death in 1887. Crispi
Prime Minister 1887-1891 and 1893-1896 was a crusader of the Liberal Right, determined to abolish corruption,
strengthen the executive, reinforce the army, defend Italys interests abroad and promote social reforms. But
Crispi with little concern for the complexity of Italy, succeeded mainly in disrupting the economy, endangering
the whole Liberal regime, and provoking far more widespread and effective movements of political opposition.11

One of the major problematical areas of this period was the economy. With the failing of the boom of the early
1880s the government came under pressure to impose tariffs. The two major groups who pushed for protection
were northern: it was essentially a North Italian alliance of textile manufacturers and Po valley landowners.12
The protectionists got what they wanted and in 1887 a new general tariff was introduced. But this was only half
the story, since the general tariff did not apply to countries which had a trade treaty with Italy. France, Italys
biggest trading partner, had a trade treaty but it expired in 1888. It was not renewed and in February of that year
a trade war between Italy and France began, which was to prove disastrous for Italy. Not only was protectionism
bad for the Italian economy but it had several other serious repercussions. The tariff war resulted in the removal
of foreign investment from the country. This led to pressure on many banks which had overextended themselves
in the earlier boom. Several banks failed and worse, as a result, the government allowed the six note-issuing
banks, as a perk of bailing out smaller banks and finance houses, to print money. This resulted in 50 million lire
of illegal currency being in circulation, but at the same time did little to save other banks. At the end of 1893 the
two largest credit instituitions in Italy, the Banca Generale and the Societa Generale di Credito Mobilare, closed
their doors. These banks had financed industry, agriculture, commerce and railways as well as property and their
fall was an economic disaster.13 Even the Banca Romana, a note issuing bank, collapsed at the end of 1893.
This was not so serious economically as politically. Banco Romana had been in trouble since the late 1880s and
had solved its financial problems by simply printing money. In 1889 a report had been commisioned by Crispi
which strongly condemned the banks practices, but the report was shelved because many of the banks losses
had been incurred from loans granted to tottering businesses favoured by the governments or politicians [and]
the Banca Romana, like other banks, had made large loans to leading politicians, often without expecting any
interest.14 Eventually, though, Radicals managed to get hold of the report. The Banca Romana collapsed, and a
new committee in November 1893 reported about the financial irregularities. More importantly the committee
also named twenty-two deputies who had received loans from the bank, including Giolitti, who at this point was
Prime Minister. The Giolitti government resigned and Crispi, who had been let off by the committee, became
prime Minister again. This was not all however. In December 1894 Giolitti handed over documents to the
President of the Chamber which showed that not only had Crispi borrowed money from the bank but so had his
wife and relatives. Crispi did not resign but simply stalled. It was the defeat of the Italian army at Adowa by the
Abyssinians (the first time a European army had been defeated by an African one), that finally brought Crispi
down. The economic and colonial failures along with the domestic scandals of this period did not fatally weaken
the Liberal state, but they continued to discredit it, particularly in their provocation of a more organised and vocal
opposition. It is to the question of oppositon and the governments method of dealing with it that I now turn.

This period saw the rise two major opposition groups to the Liberal state, -the Socialists and the Catholics- the
golden age of radicalism/Republicanism and also two major popular insurrections. From the very beginning the
Church had been opposed to the Italian state and particularly the anti-clerical Liberal one, but in the 1890s the
church increased substantially in secular society, this was due to two factors. First the Liberal opposition to the
Church intensified under Crispi and his successors, and the reform of the charities in 1890 in particular made it
even more vital for Catholics to gain or share control of local government15. Second, the growth of Socialism
was a profound threat to the Church, and one way for the Church to deal with it was to support its own social
reform: Papal Socialism was to combat Red Socialism0. This led to an increase in Catholic activity. For
example a clerico-moderate alliance took over Milan in 1895, and this was the great era of the Opera [dei
Congressi, the most important Catholic lay organisation]. However the success of social Catholicism led to
problems. More and more Catholics felt an inevitable further step must be the relaxation of Pius IXs non
expedit which had prohibited Catholics from taking part in the parliamentary (state) elections, but this presented
difficulties: As the Opera became more lay and more social, it seemed likely to evolve into some kind of a
political party. Yet if it did that , would the clergy and the hierachy be able to retain control of it? The success of
the Catholic movement seemed also to threaten the Liberal regime. In 1897 di Rudini, the Prime Minister,
decided to crack down, and Prefects were instructed to close down Catholic associations and journals. With the
bread riots of 1898, and the participation of a small number of Catholics (e.g. Don Albertario) the whole Catholic
network of social, educational, and economic bodies, so laboriously built up over the previous decades, was
crushed. Surprisingly the Church did not seem too distressed by the turn of events. In fact, the persecution of
1897-98 .[led] to traditional intransigence [being] quietly dropped. The Church was scared by the radicalism
of its own and felt it more prudent to defend itself by allying with the Right-wing Liberals, Catholic politics moved
into an era of clerico-moderate alliances at both national and local level; the Catholics threat had apparently
been absorbed.16
The other threat to the Liberal state came from the opposite of the spectrum to the conservative Church, namely
the Socialists and the Radicals. Socialism, particuliarly in a grassroots form of local labour organisations had
already begun before this period (POI), but there were many different groups all committed to different aims and
ideologies. It is only with the national labour congress in 1892 in Genoa that an Italian Socialist Party was
formed. The main problem it encountered throughout the 1890s was periodic repression by the state. In 1893-4
there had been widespread disturbances in Sicily by Socialist led Fasci. The disturbances were harshly put down
by Crispi, Fasci leaders were sentenced to long terms, all workers associations were shut down, and Socialists
were purged from the electoral roles. Moreover Crispi went further, in October 1894 he dissolved the Socialist
party altogether, electoral roles were amended, and Socialist deputies were arrested. In 1897-8 it was again
repressed by di Rudini, particularly after the widespread bread riots in 1898, and then by General Pelloux in
1899-1900. The result of all of this was to move the Socialists towards Radicals in demands for bourgeois
liberties and reform as opposed to revolution, and despite all the governments efforts by 1898 the PSI was an
important part of the coalition against the government.17 While the Socialists represented the nascent populist
party on the left, the Radicals while more significant in 1890s were on the way out. Nevertheless with the
constant emphasis on the failings of the Liberal state and their fight for liberties the Radicals were significant,
particularly in the way they influenced future leaders like Zanardelli. The Radicals were the intellectual opinion
formers for the centre ground which included the left of the Liberals and the reformist right of the Socialists.

The 1890s had been an era of great turmoil for the Liberal state but what was the result? Strong government
where parliament was disregarded and parties were banned with abandon was discredited. The elections of
1900 were a victory for the Left and the constituitional Liberals. At the same time many of the supposed
subversive groups had been absorbed into the system - perhaps not altogether but now they were the
defenders of liberty and the Constituition, against many conservative groups.18 However there was a flip side
to this in that there were now groups of the Right (who had become particularly vocal in the constituitional crisis
of 1899-1900) who were opposed to the state in the form it existed. It was out of this conservative disaffection
fertilised with the memory of Adowa that the nationalists, the greatest threat to the Liberal state, would spring.
Essentially the 1890s had been period where the government had bullied because it could not bribe, and despite
the seeming reconciliation of some groups, the Italian state as it existed commanded little if any legitimacy in the
eyes of Italians.

The Age of Giolitti 1900-1914

Giolitti was the great conciliator of the Liberal state, he wished to conciliate opposition groups, to reconcile real
Italy to legal Italy, but in the long run, his policies did not work.19 Giolitti never resolved the fundamental
problem of the Liberal state: that the Liberal elite was never willing to give up real power, and how was it to gain
legitimacy if it did not. The people were to be ruled not taken seriously, Giolitti like all Liberals had no wish to see
fundamental political change, and certainly did not intend to allow the Socialist, of the Radicals, or the Catholics,
or the Nationalists, any autonomous role in Italian politics. These groups -or rather, their leaders - had to be
bought off,20 not given equality within a democratic pluralistic system.

Giolitti was able to buy off so many groups in part because of the upturn in the Italian econcomy after 1896. Just
as troubles in the 1890s had been associated with the depression after 1887 so the tranquility for the decade
after 1900 is due in no small part to the improved economic conditions. Firstly the better state of the economy
meant that employers were more willing to make concessions to workers, and in agriculture there would be no
repetition of the bread riots of 1898. Secondly the state had more money, and for example could spend large
amounts on relief for the South, designed to promote economic growth or at least buy off unrest.21 In the North
the state subsidized much of heavy industry, particularly indirectly through Navy contracts etc. Unfortunately in
the long term none of this was very good. The South despite subsidies was left behind by the North, further
increasing the already dangerous divide. Subsidies and interference in the North meant that in many leading
sectors - steel, shipping, sugar - it was a handful of State-sponsored, tariff-protected, cartelized firms that
succeeded; and they succeeded by virtue of their financial connections and their political weight.22 In other
words, major areas of the Italian economy were corrupt, inefficient and dependent on the state for their survival.
All of this stored up trouble for the future (for example the steel industry now needed naval orders to survive and
thus became a lobbyist for nationalist expansionism).
This was true of most other areas of Giolitti conciliation. He could reconcile groups temporarily with some titbit or
other but could never permanently win their support. In fact often recconciling one group annoyed another one,
Giolitti was a good political juggler but even he could not keep all the balls in the air at once.23 Perhaps most
significantly, Giolittis conciliation throughout this period of the Left eventually failed as worsening of economic
conditions led to a hardening of line among Socialists, while at the same time alienating powerful groups on the
Right (e.g. the landowners and industrialists.) Concession is also temporary, concessions lead to more
concessions, and not only to the same groups, if one group gets concessions then all groups want them. Giolitti
had other problems in that the period saw the rise of the nationalists, a group who could not be absorbed. The
nationalists preying on Italians feeling of inferiority among the other European powers and memories of Adowa
were extremely successful and with their tendency to right wing authoritarianism they presented a major threat to
the Liberal state. With the widening of the suffrage in 1912 which meant the beginnings of a mass Catholic party
the Liberal state seemed in dire straits. Giolitti was an extremely able politician but he solved none of the
essential problems. In 1914 there was still no central constituitional (Liberal) party, and there were several
parties which had little time for the Liberal state and despised democratic liberties. The end of Giolitti marked the
end of the Liberal era - the Liberal state. After 1914 most governments in Italy were either nationalist, or
Catholic, or both.24

Conclusion
This essay is entitled The Failure of the Liberal State. By this I meant that the Italy formed after 1861 -the
Liberal state - failed to gained legitmacy for itself, failed to reconcile legal Italy and real Italy, and thus failed to
ensure the its own survival. In 1914 the divide between North and South was, if anything, worse, with the South
still a agricultural semi-feudal society while the North industrialized. In the 1911 census 37% of Italians were still
illiterate, and the proportion was massively higher in the South than in the North, and in the countryside as
opposed to the towns. Italy remained a divided country with little agreement among Italians on basic ideological,
educational or social aims.25 The Liberal state had bribed or bullied the people, never given them control. The
country was still governed by a narrow elite with no legitimacy, which manipulated the people it despised. In the
authoritarianism and failure of Liberal rule lay the rise of Fascism and modern Italys crisis.

https://rufuspollock.com/nonfiction/italy-the-failure-of-the-liberal-state-1876-1914/

Theocracy, government by divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided. In many
theocracies, government leaders are members of the clergy, and the states legal system is based on religious
law. Theocratic rule was typical of early civilizations. The Enlightenment marked the end of theocracy in most
Western countries. Contemporary examples of theocracies include Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Vatican. See also
church and state; sacred kingship.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/theocracy

theocracy http://www.dictionary.com/browse/theocratic

1.
a form of government in which God or a deity is recognized as the supreme civil ruler, the God's or deity's laws
being interpreted by the ecclesiastical authorities.
2.
a system of government by priests claiming a divine commission.
3.
a commonwealth or state under such a form or system of government.

Countries With A Theocratic Government Today

These recognized sovereign states are ruled by people and/or laws considered to have divine authority.

7. Afghanistan
Afghanistan is an Islamic state with a theocratic government. Here, Islam is the official religion of the country,
with the major foundations of the political institution of Afghanistan being based on Islamic sharia law. The
ultimate aim of the countrys fundamentalist regime is to unify the Afghani people under a common religious law.
Political control lies almost exclusively in the hands of the religious leaders of the fundamentalist regime.

6. Iran
The Islamic Republic of Iran is a revolutionary theocratic state. Here, the constitution denotes that the ruler of the
state is best qualified to interpret Islam and ensure that the people of the state strictly adhere to the principles of
the Shia Islamic religious practices. Prior to the formation of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the country was ruled
by the Shah (monarch), Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, who was well-known for his secular attitudes. In 1979,
following a revolution, the Shah was overthrown from his position by the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. As
the leader of the revolution, Khomeini then became the leader of Irans new Islamic State. He implemented an
orthodox rule in the country based on traditional Islamic beliefs. Today, that role is held by Ali Khamenei.

5. Mauritania
Mauritania, a small country in the Maghreb region of western North Africa, is an Islamic republic with a theocratic
government. The legal system of the country is based on sharia law, and most of its national symbols, including
the national flag, symbolize Islam. Before 1960, Mauritania did not exist as a separate political entity, but
emerged as one after its creation following the departure of the Colonial French government. Mauritania came
into existences in association with tradityional Arab-Berber theocratic practices. Even though in its initial days the
country had a Western-styled government structure and a relatively liberal disposition, situations changed in the
1980s. At that time, Colonel Mohammed Khouna Ould Heydallah, the military head of the country, enhanced the
countrys orientation towards sharia law, with the introduction of strict Islamic jurisprudence governing the
country.

4. Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, an Islamic theocratic monarchy, has one of the most tightly controlled governments in the world.
The country is also home to two of Islams most holy sites, the cities of Mecca and Medina. Since 1932, the land
has been ruled exclusively by the House of Saud, and the legislation of this country is firmly rooted in sharia law.
The Holy Quran and the Sunni School of Islam even serve as the countrys constitution. Although law does not
directly forbid other religions to be practiced in the country, in real situational practice, the practice of religions
other than Islam is abhorred by the Saudis' Islamic-dominant society. Anyone in the country caught in an attempt
to insult Islam or promoting any other faith there is subjected to strict punishment, which may go as far as death.

3. Sudan
In Sudan, the theocratic rule of the Sudanese Government, and the establishment of a legal system based on
Islamic laws, are primarily used as tools by the countrys leaders to manipulate and conform the Muslim
population of the country, which forms about 97% of the total population. Even though the constitution of the
country mentions the sharia-derived laws, it also leaves space for a more liberal attitude towards people of other
beliefs than Islam. This allows the Government punish anyone when deemed necessary as per the dictates of
the sharia law, while at the same time protecting itself from allegations of religious intolerance.

2. Vatican
Though all the other discussed countries are ruled in some form by a theocratic Islamic Government, the Vatican
City is the only country in the world with an absolute theocratic elective monarchy that is guided by the principles
of a Christian religious school of thought. The Pope is the supreme power in the country, and leads the
executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Vatican government. This is also perhaps the only monarchy
in the world that is non-hereditary in nature.

1. Yemen
Yemen, like most of the other mentioned countries, is also based on theocratic governance with Islamic sharia
law dictating the executive, legislativ, and judicial branches of the government. Recently, Yemen has also been
going through a period of intense political turmoil, wherein conflicts between several different political groups
have led to a civil war type of situation in the country. The main forces in the fight involve the Zaidi Shia rebels
(or Houthis) against the loyalists of the displaced President of Yemen, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.

http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-theocratic-governments-today.html