History of the Department

The following section provides a short history of the Faculty of Political Science which became the Department of Political and Social Sciences in 2012. This summary comes from the detailed essay written by Marina Tesoro who was a lecturer at this university for many years; it was published in “Almum Studium Papiense. Storia dell’Università di Pavia, vol. III, 1, Il Ventesimo secolo”, Cisalpino, edited by Dario Mantovani .

The Department of Political and Social Sciences derives from the Faculty of Political Science. It was the fifth faculty of the University of Pavia, and was set up in 1926. The faculty aimed to “promote a high level of preparation in political disciplines and to give young people a scientific preparation for a career in public affairs”. On 15 November 1926, the solemn inauguration was held in the physics laboratory in front of all the academic and political authorities, together with a large crowd of students and citizens of Pavia. In his official speech, the Chancellor, Ottorino Rossi, sought to underline “the moral responsibility of the members of the Faculty (...) and the promise made to the Duce, who approved the program and was in favor of its implementation, and believed that the faculty should become a means of diffusing Italian political thought and a defense of the fortunes of the country”.

The University Statute for the academic year 1926/1927 established that students could gain access to the Faculty from either a scientific high school or if in possession of a diploma in classical studies. The course was divided into a two-year propaedeutic course with ten exams in legal and economic subjects plus one free-choice subject, including Modern History from the Faculty of Letters. The following two years of the course were divided into two sections: politics-administration and politics-diplomacy with twelve specialist exams. There were three different Institutes: Foreign Policy, Economic Policy and Studies in Public Law which opened in 1928. To graduate, it was necessary to study at two of the Institutes for at least two years and have a knowledge of at least two foreign languages. Graduates in Law, Commercial and Economic Sciences and students from other universities could enroll in the fourth year of the course by sitting a limited number of exams. This was a privilege of which many students took advantage, for example, the law graduates Ezio Vanoni and Vittorio Beonio-Brocchieri (in the photo on the left); the former was an ex-Ghisleri resident who later became a Minister of the Republic. Vanoni and Beonio-Brocchieri started the trend, which was to become increasingly popular in the future, which saw a considerable number of ex-students move on to become lecturers. In the 1920s and 1930s, it became clear that many lecturers of the Faculty, like many other active intellectuals of the time, felt they were the protagonists of a “founding” phase – of a different society, of a new State, of different relations between individuals and the institutions  – and that they truly believed they were living in an exceptional and meaningful age during which the seeds would be sown for Italy to assume a position of grandeur and power on the European and world stage. Political Science in Pavia distinguished itself from other similar Faculties because it was set up in the manner of a workshop, or rather a “think-tank”, to analyze in two important fields: foreign and diplomatic policy and the corporate model, as applied to economics and to State administration.

In the meantime, the Faculty had started publishing two journals: in 1926 the Annuario di Politica Estera,, which included a series of monographs, and in 1928 the Annali di Scienze politiche. These journals were of great value for the Faculty as they not only caught the attention of the academic community but also stimulated public debate of the day on account of the topics dealt with and the high intellectual level of most of the collaborators, most of whom were either lecturers or assistant lecturers of the Faculty.

In the second half of the 1930s, university life became increasingly controlled and governed by rules. It had to follow the strict regulations from the government because of the “clean up” carried out by the Minister for  National Education, Cesare Maria De Vecchi. A veritable change took place in a totalitarian sense, and this could be observed in changes to the titles of some courses:  Political Economics became Corporative Economic Politics and Trade Union and Labor Legislation simply became known as Labor Legislation.

The general atmosphere in the Faculty was profoundly different. Obviously, it reflected events that were taking place in the world: the war in Ethiopia, the declaration of the Empire, Italy’s participation in the Spanish Civil War, the Rome-Berlin Axis, the Anti-Comintern Pact, the creation of the Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni, and racial laws.

By the eve of the Second World War, even if some lecturers like Beonio-Brocchieri and Nino Cortese partly managed to protect their courses from the process of enforced politicization, the Faculty (and the University), at least to all appearances, seemed to have completely converted to the principles of Fascism. 

Inevitably, during the War, many people left the university. This was even more evident in Political Science, which, at the time, was a small Faculty in terms of its number of lecturers and students. Since Pavia was part of the domain of the Italian Social Republic, the decree issued by Badoglio on 27 January 1944, n. 58, which eliminated or substituted fascist topics from the university system, had no effect, neither did the subsequent decrees that suspended enrolment in the Faculty of Political Science and invited students and professors to transfer to the law faculty. The Faculty of Political Science in Pavia remained open and working until Liberation, with regular exams and graduation sessions.

Following a brief period of declassification during which it became part of a law degree course, the Faculty was reopened in 1948.  Although Chancellor  Plinio Fraccaro was himself personally sceptical towards Political Science, he had wished to accelerate the reopening of the Faculty because he was well aware that it was the only one of its kind in the public university system in Lombardy, and that this would bring benefits to the University. 

On 4 October 1948 the Faculty Council, with Ferri, Beonio-Brocchieri and Leoni as members, nominated Leoni as Dean of the Faculty. The first decision taken by the Faculty Council was to immediately reopen enrolments for all four years of the course, as was becoming standard practice in other parts of Italy, and to define the course structure. Any reference to the past Fascist period was removed and some subjects were given different names: for example, the notorious General Demography and Comparative Demography of Races became known simply as Demography. The courses made available were very similar to those that had been offered in the previous period and included the distinction between fundamental and complementary subjects. The only novelty was the setting up of the Sociology course and the inclusion of the Philosophy of Law in the Statute. 

When examining the pool of lecturers at the Faculty in the 1950s and 1960s, one can see that it was a group of sound academics, with excellent scientific backgrounds; they were well-known and admired in their respective disciplinary fields that were classified according to different value systems. Even in the Republican period, there were lecturers engaged in public or non-academic cultural activities. From an organizational and practical point of view, the first few years were quite difficult for the Faculty because of inadequate financial resources. As far as enrolments were concerned, it was a small to medium-sized Faculty, although the number of students enrolling was steadily increasing.

Not only did the Faculty flourish, but it went through an authentic golden age, particularly in the period spanning the late 50s and early 60s. Teaching activity and research rotated around politics in its multiple aspects, and seen from different disciplinary perspectives. It is not by chance that Leoni, with explicit reference to Plato’s work, named the review founded in May 1950, Il Politico. The review soon acquired prestige and authority, which reflected upon the Faculty . As well as a large number of seminars and conferences, the Faculty also organised important scientific congresses, some of which were at an international level. 

The increasingly favorable reputation of the Faculty was assisted by new Institutes and Centres that were opening. Many of these were particularly active in terms of scientific research and activity at conventions: in 1957 the Institute of History of Political Doctrines, in 1958 the Institute of Statistics with its Center for Economic and Social Research, in 1966 the Centre of European Community Studies. In 1959, the Center for Afro-Asian Studies was founded; based on a project designed by Beonio-Brocchieri, in 1960 it was known as the Center for the Study of Non-European populations, then from 1990 it was named after Cesare Bonacossa, an ex-student and patron. Political Science in Pavia rapidly established itself as a point of reference for studies in this field, thanks not only to the Centre for the Study of Non-European Populations, its language courses, its series of ad hoc studies and the well-stocked specialized library, but also due to the quality of the scientific research and the rigid methodology of prestigious historians like Giorgio Borsa and Carlo Giglio who worked from opposite perspectives; the former gave rise to a veritable “Copernican revolution” in his research on India and China, while the latter, who cultivated an authentic “cult of documents” while maintaining methodological and interpretive approaches of the past, carried out original research and launched an enormous collection of sources for the history of Africa and European possessions which remains one of its kind in Italy today.

The death of Leoni in 1967 coincided with a period of uncertainty: student demonstrations started ahead of time in Pavia. Political Science was one of the first Faculties to be occupied, from 12 to 16 December 1966. The demonstration was led by “a large group of students and nearly all the assistants”; it marked a general unease owing to the government’s delay in activating university reform and, at the same time, it highlighted specific problems that needed to be faced and solved within the Faculty. At first, the newly appointed Dean, Ferri, defended the motives of the occupants before the Senato Accademico, but as the protests continued he demanded that the occupants leave the rooms. There was another occupation in March 1967, on this occasion the protest was more radical and political. The Faculty Council reacted strongly and the ferment calmed. It now seemed that the harmonious relations that had existed between students and lecturers during Leoni’s tenure were lost. The students divided the professors into two groups: those who were “democratic”, and with whom they could relate, and the others, who were given derogatory names and were openly contested .

The “university question” was at the center of public debate: the Scaglia decree (1968) introduced important changes such as specialization courses for which the Faculty was given the freedom to organize the study plan, choosing from a long list of subjects set out by the law itself. At Political Science in Pavia, two new qualifying academic subjects were introduced : History of Political Parties and Movements  (1964, Colombo) and Political Science (1967, Albertini), and work was started on the draft of a new course structure which provided a much wider didactic offer. Student pressure forced the academic bodies into quickly approving a new course structure. After two propaedeutic years, which included nine compulsory subjects (Modern History, History of Political Doctrines, Sociology, Statistics, Political Economy, Economic and Financial Politics, Public Law, Private Law, Italian Constitutional and Comparative law ), the study paths diverged into five specializations: political-administrative, political-economic, political-international, political-social, historical-political; there were 19 exams and two foreign languages, with English being compulsory: there was a vast range of subjects provided for in the Statue. For the graduation exam, the student had to write a dissertation and two short theses which had to be discussed. The training path became more flexible. This flexibility became even more marked with the possibility for the student to combine subjects from two different study paths. 

After 1968, the “typical” Political Science student inevitably changed, albeit maintaining that particular approach that had always characterized him; as Scaramozzino would say, he had to be “a socially curious person”. There were always to be opportunities for discussions on current affairs issues in the Faculty. The new “Pavia model”, has allowed the Faculty to maintain an important position in the hierarchy of other Political Science Faculties in Italy right up until the present day.

(a cura di), Almum Studium Papiense. Storia dell’Università di Pavia, vol. III, 1, Il Ventesimo secolo, Cisalpino Milano-Università degli Studi di Pavia, 2020

My thanks go to the editor of the work,  Dario Mantovani, for his kind help. All copyright rules are reserved.