I discorsi sulla laicità in Italia. Analisi di un caso studio

The word laicité, translated as "laicity", has a growing importance in national and international public, political and scientific debates. In recent decades, in Italy the "question of laicity" has gained a huge attention both in the public and in the political sphere. The first part of the thesis is a literature review aimed at reviewing the history of this concept and its meanings, both in Italy and France. Historically, laicity has its roots in the istitutional separation between State and Church, and in the idea of a State neutrality towards religion(s). Nowadays, it has lost its specificity and refers to more general concepts such as toleration or democracy. Religious traditions, on the one side, and States, on the other, are changing and the concept of laicity too, as a consequence. The second part of the thesis is a case study, based on 1680 newspaper articles. The analysis aims at identifing the frames of laicity expressed by politicians, and the main concept associated to laicity, both through qualitative and quantitative analisys. The content analysis is based on T-Lab software; the frame analysis on Atlas.ti. The main theoretical result is a grid for the analysis of laicity frames in pthe public and political sphere. The main empirical results show: the connection between laicity and democracy in the contemporary Italian debates; that the frames activation is influenced by the topic and by the political context; that frames of laicity are very different in the same coalition and also in the same political party.