page_title: Radical Party (Italy)
section_title: Ideology
hierarchical_section_title: Radical Party (Italy) / Ideology
caption_attribution_description: English: Enzo Tortora, Marco Pannella e Domenico Modugno
context_page_description: The Radical Party was a liberal political party in Italy.
  For decades, the Radical Party was a bastion of anti-clericalism, civil libertarianism, liberalism and radicalism in Italy as well as environmentalism. The party proposed itself as the strongest opposition to the Italian political establishment, seen as corrupt and conservative. Although it never reached high shares of vote and never participated in government, the party had close relations with the other parties of the Italian left—from the Republicans and the Socialists to the Communists and Proletarian Democracy—and opened its ranks also to members of other parties through dual membership.
  The party's longtime leader was Marco Pannella, who served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies and the European Parliament, leading the party in most of the elections it contested. In 1989, the PR was transformed into the Transnational Radical Party. During the 1990s, the Radicals had formed a succession of electoral lists, without having a structured party and sometimes dividing themselves between competing lists. The latest incarnation of the party is the Italian Radicals, founded in 2001.
context_section_description: The PR gave expression to the transformation of Italian society towards more liberal behaviour and ideas in the post-war period. An anti-clerical party, it placed itself within the libertarian left, often working for the unity of all the parties of the Italian left and proposing the adoption of an American-style electoral system based on first-past-the-post voting and the transformation of Italian institutions toward a presidential system), but also often being rejected by certain areas of the left itself, especially those linked with the Italian Communist Party, due to the Radicals' strong support of anti-communism, economic liberalism and a belief in social, religious, political, economic and sexual freedoms. The party was also known for its strong belief in direct democracy and especially for its promotion of referendums.
caption: Enzo Tortora, Domenico Modugno and Marco Pannella in 1988
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