Sotto il segno del notabilato. Il radicamento territoriale della Democrazia Cristiana in Salento nel dopoguerra.

This text examines the birth of the Democrazia Cristiana (Christian De- mocrat) party of Salento and the make-up of its territorial roots post-war, identifying the political mechanisms which will take the party to a wider base, made up of “notables”. The examination of the DC in Salento begins with the assumption of how the political practices of a “notable” type are not only the exercise of power by particular so cial categories coming from a distant past, but are rather a number of strate gies which readjust to a precise organ- isational model when faced with historical change. In the new post-war de- mocratic scenario, the political notable class has in fact permitted the DC to begin the formation of the party within the territory: the demochristian no- tables have therefore developed an efficient link between the centre and the outlying edges of the party and have been a fundamental instrument of po- litical dominance in the local dimensi on. In other words, the notable struc- ture of the DC was not the result of a strategic choice and imposed from above, but was rather the result of exchanges and deals which took place on both a micro and macro political level. From this point of view, the local and national dimensions of political action reveal themselves to be totally inter- dependent and highlight how contemporary politics is the fruit of a continu- ous exchange between the activity of various operators in both the local and national sphere.