ABSTRACT
Italian politics in the 1970s revolved around two opposing world-views. One view conceived political conflict as a physiological element of liberal-democratic societies. The other one perceived conflict as a wound, a trauma which must be overcome in order to achieve a harmonious unity among all parts. The divorce referendum represented a turning point in Italian political history. It revealed a secularized civil society, 'more advanced than its political class', to use an expression coined at the time, and, above all, less prone to accept the parties' directives. The gap between civil society and political society was at its widest in the years of the historic compromise and national solidarity. The Christian Democrats and the Italian Communist Party attracted votes which were remarkably similar from the point of view of their geographical location and sociological characteristics. Beyond the contradictions of the political cultures of the advocates of organicism, a series of external factors inhibited the accomplishment of a system change.
