Download or read book Government and Politics of Italy written by Robert Leonardi and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The political history of Italy has been an undeniably turbulent one. The country's political system has been repeatedly threatened by the historical existence of extremist parties on the left and right, an economy which struggles to adapt, the cleavage between a developed north and an underdeveloped south, the challenge posed by terrorist groups and organized crime, high public debt, and governments that last on average only ten months. Paradoxically, however, Italy continues to muddle through from one political crisis to another with one of the world's highest standards of living and quality of life. What is the secret of Italian politics?
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Italian Politics written by Erik Jones and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 801 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Italian Politics provides a comprehensive look at the political life of one of Europe's most exciting and turbulent democracies. Under the hegemonic influence of Christian Democracy in the early post-World War II decades, Italy went through a period of rapid growth and political transformation. In part this resulted in tumult and a crisis of governability; however, it also gave rise to innovation in the form of Eurocommunism and new forms of political accommodation. The great strength of Italy lay in its constitution; its great weakness lay in certain legacies of the past. Organized crime--popularly but not exclusively associated with the mafia--is one example. A self-contained and well entrenched 'caste' of political and economic elites is another. These weaknesses became apparent in the breakdown of political order in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This ushered in a combination of populist political mobilization and experimentation with electoral systems design, and the result has been more evolutionary than transformative. Italian politics today is different from what it was during the immediate post-World War II period, but it still shows many of the influences of the past.
Download or read book Making Democracy Work written by Robert D. Putnam and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1994-05-27 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A classic."—New York Times "Seminal, epochal, path-breaking . . . a Democracy in America for our times."—The Nation From the bestselling author of Bowling Alone, a landmark account of the secret of successful democracies Why do some democratic governments succeed and others fail? In a book that has received attention from policymakers and civic activists in America and around the world, acclaimed political scientist and bestselling author Robert Putnam and his collaborators offer empirical evidence for the importance of "civic community" in developing successful institutions. Their focus is on a unique experiment begun in 1970, when Italy created new governments for each of its regions. After spending two decades analyzing the efficacy of these governments in such fields as agriculture, housing, and healthcare, they reveal patterns of associationism, trust, and cooperation that facilitate good governance and economic prosperity. The result is a landmark book filled with crucial insights about how to make democracy work.
Download or read book Interest Groups in Italian Politics written by Joseph La Palombara and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-08 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author examines both structurally and functionally the General Confederation of Italian Industry, Italian Catholic Action, the Christian Democrats, the Italian Liberal Party, the monarchist Italian Republican Party, the neo-Fascist Italian Social Movement, and many more interest groups. The book is based on several years of field research in Italy, including interviews with scores of political figures, bureaucrats, and interest group leaders. Originally published in 1964. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Download or read book Italy Transformed written by Martin Bull and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-06-09 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The decade commencing with the great crash of 2008 was a watershed period for Italian politics, involving fundamental and dramatic changes, many of which had not been anticipated and which are charted in this book. This comprehensive volume covers the impact of the Eurozone crisis on the Italian economy and its relationship with the European Union, the dramatic changes in the political parties (and particularly the rise of a new political force, the Five Star Movement, which became the largest political party in 2013), the changing role of the Trade Unions in the lives of Italian citizens, the Italian migration crisis, electoral reforms and their impact on the Italian party system (where trends towards bipolarisation appear to be exhausted), the rise of new forms of social protest, changes to political culture and social capital and, finally, amidst the crisis, reforms to the welfare state. Overall, the authors reveal a country, which many had assumed was in quiet transition towards a more stable democracy, that suffers an immense shock from the Eurozone crisis and bringing to the fore deep-rooted structural problems which have changed the dynamics of its politics, as confirmed in the outcome to the 2018 National Elections. This book was originally published as a special issue of South European Society and Politics.
Download or read book Politics and Diplomacy in Early Modern Italy written by Daniela Frigo and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-01-28 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 2000 volume was the first attempt at a comparative reconstruction of the foreign policy and diplomacy of the major Italian states in the early modern period. The various contributions reveal the instruments and forms of foreign relations in the Italian peninsula. They also show a range of different case-studies and models which share the values and political concepts of the cultural context of diplomatic practice in the ancien régime. While Venice, the Papal States, the duchy of Savoy, Florence (later the duchy of Tuscany), Mantua, Modena, and later the kingdom of Naples may be considered minor states in the broader European context, their diplomatic activity was equal to that of the major powers. This reconstruction of their ambassadors, their secretaries, and their ceremonies offers a fascinating interpretation of the political history of early modern Italy.
Download or read book Italian Politics written by Martin J. Bull and published by Polity. This book was released on 2005 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This wide-ranging book seeks to unravel the complexities of post-1992 Italian democracy. It takes as its point of departure the dramatic political tensions of the early 1990s and evaluates these against the background of an analysis of the ‘First Republic’ that predates these changes. Martin Bull and James Newell, renowned scholars of Italian Politics, argue that the early 1990s revolution in Italian party politics should be seen both as a major cause of subsequent changes in the political system and as a consequence of longer-term, still on-going changes in the Italian polity. The books explains how we can understand in this light the mixed success of the parties in attempting to act as autonomous vehicles of reform – and therefore why, if we are witnessing a transformation to a ‘Second Republic’, many of its key features still remain to be shaped. Each of the thematic chapters clearly juxtaposes Italy as it was before the 1990s with Italy today, thereby evaluating the degree to which the early 1990s can be seen as a watershed. In this way the book offers a novel account of both contemporary political developments and their historical significance in teh context of the ‘Italian political model’ that took shape in the period after 1945. This will be essential reading for all students of Italian and Comparative Politics, who will find the clarity and breadth of the book invaluable. Equally, scholars will be fascinated by this new and compelling argument.
Download or read book The Politics of Italy written by James Newell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-01-28 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This innovative text offers a fresh approach to Italian politics and society, providing insight into subjects ranging from parliament to corruption and the Mafia. Using clear and simple language, its incisive analysis helps readers to see through common Italian stereotypes by means of a familiar comparative approach.
Download or read book The Political Economy of Italy s Decline written by Andrea Lorenzo Capussela and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Italy is a country of recent decline and long-standing idiosyncratic traits. A rich society served by an advanced manufacturing economy, where the rule of law is weak and political accountability low, it has long been in downward spiral alimented by corruption and clientelism. From this spiral has emerged an equilibrium as consistent as it is inefficient, that raises serious obstacles to economic and democratic development. The Political Economy of Italy's Decline explains the causes of Italy's downward trajectory, and explains how the country can shift to a fairer and more efficient system. Analysing both political economic literature and the history of Italy from 1861 onwards, The Political Economy of Italy's Decline argues that the deeper roots of the decline lie in the political economy of growth. It places emphasis on the country's convergence to the productivity frontier and the evolution of its social order and institutions to illuminate the origins and evolution of the current constraints to growth, using institutional economics and Schumpeterian growth theory to support its findings. It analyses two alternative reactions to the insufficient provision of public goods: an opportunistic one- employing tax evasion, corruption, or clientelism as means to appropriate private Goods- and one based on enforcing political accountability. From the perspective of ordinary citizens and firms such social dilemmas can typically be modelled as coordination games, which have multiple equilibria. Self-interested rationality can thus lead to a spiral, in which several mutually reinforcing vicious circles lead society onto an inefficient equilibrium characterized by low political accountability and weak rule of law. The Political Economy of Italy's Decline follows the gradual setting in of this spiral as it identifys the deeper causes of Italy's decline.
Download or read book Government and Politics of Italy written by Robert Leonardi and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The political history of Italy has been an undeniably turbulent one. The country's political system has been repeatedly threatened by the historical existence of extremist parties on the left and right, an economy which struggles to adapt, the cleavage between a developed north and an underdeveloped south, the challenge posed by terrorist groups and organized crime, high public debt, and governments that last on average only ten months. Paradoxically, however, Italy continues to muddle through from one political crisis to another with one of the world's highest standards of living and quality of life. What is the secret of Italian politics?
Download or read book Structuring the State written by Daniel Ziblatt and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study explores the following puzzle: Upon national unification, why was Germany formed as a federal state and Italy a unitary state? Ziblatt's answer to this question will be of interest to scholars of international relations, comparative politics, political development, and political and economic history.
Download or read book Political Institutions in Italy written by Maurizio Cotta and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2007 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses a number of themes, paradoxes and problems inherent to Italian politics, and considers the relationship between the Italian domestic system and the international system. It focuses on changes that have occurred in the last 10-15 years, contextualised within a longer historical framework, including the post-war period.
Download or read book Virtue Politics written by James Hankins and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-17 with total page 769 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Helen and Howard Marraro Prize A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year “Perhaps the greatest study ever written of Renaissance political thought.” —Jeffrey Collins, Times Literary Supplement “Magisterial...Hankins shows that the humanists’ obsession with character explains their surprising indifference to particular forms of government. If rulers lacked authentic virtue, they believed, it did not matter what institutions framed their power.” —Wall Street Journal “Puts the politics back into humanism in an extraordinarily deep and far-reaching way...For generations to come, all who write about the political thought of Italian humanism will have to refer to it; its influence will be...nothing less than transformative.” —Noel Malcolm, American Affairs “[A] masterpiece...It is only Hankins’s tireless exploration of forgotten documents...and extraordinary endeavors of editing, translation, and exposition that allow us to reconstruct—almost for the first time in 550 years—[the humanists’] three compelling arguments for why a strong moral character and habits of truth are vital for governing well. Yet they are as relevant to contemporary democracy in Britain, and in the United States, as to Machiavelli.” —Rory Stewart, Times Literary Supplement “The lessons for today are clear and profound.” —Robert D. Kaplan Convulsed by a civilizational crisis, the great thinkers of the Renaissance set out to reconceive the nature of society. Everywhere they saw problems. Corrupt and reckless tyrants sowing discord and ruling through fear; elites who prized wealth and status over the common good; religious leaders preoccupied with self-advancement while feuding armies waged endless wars. Their solution was at once simple and radical. “Men, not walls, make a city,” as Thucydides so memorably said. They would rebuild the fabric of society by transforming the moral character of its citizens. Soulcraft, they believed, was a precondition of successful statecraft. A landmark reappraisal of Renaissance political thought, Virtue Politics challenges the traditional narrative that looks to the Renaissance as the seedbed of modern republicanism and sees Machiavelli as its exemplary thinker. James Hankins reveals that what most concerned the humanists was not reforming institutions so much as shaping citizens. If character mattered more than laws, it would have to be nurtured through a new program of education they called the studia humanitatis: the precursor to our embattled humanities.
Download or read book Re inventing the Italian Right written by Stefano Fella and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-06-26 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following his third election victory in 2008, the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was the most controversial head of government in the EU. This is a cogent examination of the Berlusconi phenomenon, exploring the success and development of the new populist right-wing coalition in Italy since the collapse of the post-war party system in the early 1990s. Carlo Ruzza and Stefano Fella provide a comprehensive discussion of the three main parties of the Italian right: Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, the xenophobic and regionalist populist Northern League and the post-fascist National Alliance. The book assesses the implications of this controversial right for the Italian democratic system and examines how the social and political peculiarities of Italy have allowed such political formations to emerge and enjoy repeated electoral success. Framed in a comparative perspective, the authors: explore the nature of the Italian right in the context of right-wing parties and populist phenomena elsewhere in other advanced democracies, drawing comparisons and providing broader explanations. locate the parties of the Italian right within the existing theoretical conceptions of right-wing and populist parties, utilising a multi-method approach, including a content analysis of party programmes. highlight the importance of political and discursive opportunities in explaining the success of the Italian right, and the agency role of a political leadership that has skilfully shaped and communicated an ideological package to exploit these opportunities. Providing an excellent insight into a key European nation, this work provides a thoughtful and stimulating contribution to the research on the Italian right, and its implications for democratic politics.
Download or read book Italian Neofascism written by Anna Cento Bull and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2011-12 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Cold War Italy witnessed the existence of an anomalous version of a civil conflict, defined as a 'creeping' or a 'low-intensity' civil war. Political violence escalated, including bomb attacks against civilians, starting with a massacre in Milan, on 12 December 1969, and culminating with the massacre in Bologna, on 2 August 1980. Making use of the literature on national reconciliation and narrative psychology theory, this book examines the fight over the 'judicial' and the 'historical' truth in Italy today, through a contrasting analysis of judicial findings and the 'narratives of victimhood' prevalent among representatives of both the post- and the neo-fascist right.
Download or read book Modern Italy written by Anna Cento Bull and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Very Short Introduction considers the history of Italy from the Risorgimento (the movement leading to Italian Unification in 1861) to the present. It also discusses Italy's political system and style of government; economic modernisation; emigration, internal migration and immigration; and the modern Italian culture and lifestyle.
Download or read book The Italian General Election of 2018 written by Luigi Ceccarini and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-04-15 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a lively and comprehensive account of the unprecedented Italian general election of 2018 and of its profound significance for Italy and beyond. The contributions in this volume cover the political, economic and international contexts in which the vote took place, and consider the main election contenders in the run-up to the election as well as the campaigns. The book further examines the election outcome, analysing the votes and discussing the impact of the election on the turnover of parliamentary personnel as well as examining the outcome from the viewpoint of government formation.
