Abstract

This article focuses on a political use of resentment for establishing social order. Italian society is becoming more more competitive and individualistic, offering social actors many choices, but without promoting the conditions of equal opportunity necessary to fulfill their increasingly inflated desires. Social interactions come to be pervaded by frustration and resentment. In the modern era resentment was traditionally channelled against various scapegoats, both external—enemy nation-states—or internal: rival social classes; ethnic, religious, and cultural minorities. However, globalization and the declining welfare state have deeply changed the modalities for the sublimation of resentment by intensifying its crushing effects