A new paradigm for a new Mezzogiorno

The debate on the south of Italy is by now filled with common places that have replaced any form of informed debate. At the centre there is the image of an helped south at the mercy of the illegality when not of the crime. The image of the south that emerges is distorted and functional to policies of progressive and substantial pauperization. There is no place to deny the existence of phenomena as those described by the dominant narratives, but on one hand we need to underline the lack of homogeneity of the southern regions, on the other hand we have to deconstruct the discourses founded on models and categories that build a dependence of the south by themselves. The overthrow of the dominant fictions could be realized by a rethink of the development models that overcomes the false dilemma laissez-faire-decreasing. Having specified such goal, the research, we are realizing, explores a plurality of roads. In the first place a critical revision of the interpretative paradigms of the south (see Cassano 2009) and of the dominant narratives. The analysis of the macro-theoretical pictures helps interpret adequately the different seasons of the national policies toward the south. In the second place a critical rereading of the policies toward the southern Italy, that on one side puts them in their historical contingence embedding them in the discourses of which they are imbued, on the other side measures their realizations and the effects. Finally there is the sketch of possible sceneries that should not be subaltern with respect to the dominant formulations. Such sceneries have to confront with some likely institutional transformations (from the federalism to the secession ) that are present in the Italian debate, having care to contest the premises on which they are founded. On one hand it is not possible to give as a self-evidence a solidarity and a unitary spirit of the Italian people if they exist no more, on the other the social and territorial cleavages on which are founded the federalist and secessionist hypothesis should be redefined. The frame within which such rethink could be realized is that of the autonomy. The declinations of the thought of the autonomy are manifold and it is our goal to analyse it to enucleate the risks and the possibilities of such thought. The autonomy constitutes the Alexander’s answer to the Gordian knot of the southern development only if it promotes a critical reflection on the geopolitical position of the south with reference both to the national and to the international frame, refusing any localist and protectionist temptation, but refusing also a naturalist vision of the market. To such end the institutional dimension is central. Is a not dependent and not aided south possible? Which paradigm does consent to decline this possibility? The essay will look for tracing the guide lines of these experiments and of the process of search that it implicates