Ideology
The Italian Radicals are an atypical party for Italy and they are typically viewed as leftist by right-wing people, and rightist by left-wing people. Among other things, they are the only Italian party with a clear anti-clerical agenda, whereas most other parties either support the Catholic Church or are ambivalent.
They are vocal supporters of human and civil rights, which they consider to include abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, artificial insemination, stem cell research, abolition of capital punishment all around the world and legalisation of soft drugs. This put the party at odds with the mainstream centre-right parties. On the other hand their strong support of libertarian policies, the free market, liberalizations, privatizations, low taxes and privately-funded health care put it at odds with many areas of the centre-left.
In foreign policy, the Radicals are instinctively and staunchly pro-American, pro-European and were in favour of the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. They also propose an American-style reform of Italian political system, including presidentialism, competitive federalism and first-past-the-post voting. Despite being a small party, they are also keen supporters of a two-party system.
Read more about this topic: Italian Radicals
Famous quotes containing the word ideology:
“There is no religion in which everyday life is not considered a prison; there is no philosophy or ideology that does not think that we live in alienation.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“Every sign is subject to the criteria of ideological evaluation.... The domain of ideology coincides with the domain of signs. They equate with one another. Wherever a sign is present, ideology is present, too. Everything ideological possesses semiotic value.”
—V.N. (Valintin Nikolaevic)
“We must conclude that it is not only a particular political ideology that has failed, but the idea that men and women could ever define themselves in terms that exclude their spiritual needs.”
—Salman Rushdie (b. 1948)