Calls by Italy¡¯s far-right governing party for a book about it to be removed from a university reading list have been met with limited resistance, Italian academics have warned, opening the door for further attacks on academic freedom in the future.

Last month, a regional branch of the League, part of Italy¡¯s governing coalition and currently the country¡¯s most popular party, demanded the removal of La?Lega di?Salvini from the reading list of a course taught by a political science professor at the University of Bologna.

The branch objected to the book¡¯s description of the party as ¡°extreme right¡± and to its criticisms of Matteo Salvini, the party¡¯s leader and Italy¡¯s deputy prime minister.

Academics have a duty of loyalty to the state, and universities should not be places of political ¡°propaganda¡±, in the Emilia-Romagna regional assembly.

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Gianluca Passarelli, a political scientist at Sapienza University of Rome and co-author of the book, told Times ÖйúAƬ that his biggest surprise had been how little reaction there had been in Italy to such an attack.

¡°From a media point of view, there has been no attention,¡± he said.

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The book, published in September 2018, draws on surveys and policy documents to examine the party, which entered government last June in coalition alongside the anti-establishment Five Star Movement.

In a sense, the book¡¯s content is ¡°quite banal¡±, Dr Passarelli said, because calling the League ¡°extreme right¡± was hardly controversial in academic literature and was something that the authors had done before in previous research.

¡°The fact that they tried to silence our book meant that they¡­do not accept their identity,¡± he said. Dr Passarelli added that the incident illustrated that the League was attempting to ¡°deny the freedom of research¡±.

The League¡¯s attack on the book was ¡°worrying¡±, said Andrea Mammone, a history lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London and a commentator on Italy¡¯s far right. It was ¡°one of the first times that someone is challenging an academic book¡±, he said. ¡°They are actually criticising researchers¡­they want to shut down opinions.¡±

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Whether the League would continue to attack academic research ¡°depends on the reaction of society and mainstream politics¡±, Professor Mammone said. ¡°For me, there was not enough reaction.¡±

Despite the League¡¯s objections, Dr Passarelli¡¯s book has remained on the reading list. There have been no further developments since the initial attack, a University of Bologna spokesman said. Nor has the Italian government enacted any concrete policies to limit academic freedom, said Professor Mammone. The country¡¯s Ministry of Education, Universities and Research is led by an independent, Marco Bussetti.

But Mr Salvini has stoked anti-academic sentiment by repeatedly disparaging the professoroni: know-it-all, elitist experts who, he claims, oppose his policies. ¡°I¡¯m worried about their overall approach,¡± Professor Mammone said, because the League sees academic freedom as a ¡°leftist bastion¡±.

¡°The Italian academy is strong,¡± said Dr Passarelli. ¡°We are not scared of the League, frankly. The problem is that they do not like universities. They assume that we are lazy, that we do not do anything¡± and ¡°do not produce anything useful to the country¡±, he warned.

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League representatives did not respond to a request for comment.

david.matthews@timeshighereducation.com