Contemporary Italian Politics最新文献

{"title":"Renderli simili o inoffensivi. L’ordine liberale, gli Stati Uniti e il dilemma della democrazia","authors":"Andrea Locatelli","doi":"10.1080/23248823.2023.2168338","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2023.2168338","url":null,"abstract":"actions are deemed immoral. In this respect, the history of international relations has shown that, for the sake of peace and mutual agreement, shared interests between nations can drive relations among regimes of a different nature. This is probably an intrinsic consequence of an international system rooted in an unfair global order where the most powerful nations are privileged compared to the others and in which the EU alone is not capable of reorganizing the world order. Ultimately, even the authors appear to acknowledge this problem when they contend that the very existence of a world of nation states prevents the realization of genuine international justice, whose pursuit fuels their overall analysis. This is in line with a more realistic viewpoint. Today, the EU’s diplomacy should be considered a tool to strengthen alliances with international actors that chose to share the same global institutional architecture and are trying to uphold liberal values in an increasingly challenging environment (Treaty of Lisbon, Article 21 TEU). Accordingly, the ultimate objective of the EU’s external action is to safeguard its values and fundamental interests, thereby promoting an international system based on stronger multilateral cooperation and good global governance. The emerging compromise is, as this research points out, not always immune to double standards. But on the other hand, one may wonder whether the other players in the international system, upholding very different values, are really consistent with their own ‘ethos’ or rather open to settlements, and what this means for contemporary international politics (e.g. for the definition of the ‘global justice’ the authors hope to be officially framed and enacted). The answer to this question could deepen further the excellent analysis of this book and open the door to more ambitious investigations.","PeriodicalId":37572,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Italian Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44058088","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Italian politics at the start of 2023","authors":"James L. Newell","doi":"10.1080/23248823.2023.2167317","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2023.2167317","url":null,"abstract":"At the beginning of 2023, Italy was governed by a coalition of parties whose pursuit of an unambiguously right-wing policy agenda reflected its solid parliamentary majority (amounting to 237 of 400 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 115 of 200 seats in the Senate) and the weaknesses of the forces of the left. The period since the Government had been sworn in on 22 October had provided ample confirmation that its assumption of office had been the prelude to a clear rightward shift in Italian politics. The election of Ignazio La Russa and Lorenzo Fontana as presidents of the Senate and Chamber respectively had raised eyebrows in view of their past expressions of support for farright causes. The early introduction of legislation ostensibly outlawing rave parties gave rise to a minor public outcry (forcing the government to amend the legislation) when it became apparent that one implication of it would be to outlaw demonstrations and other legitimate expressions of protest. Less than two months after taking office, the Government was locked in conflict with humanitarian vessels rescuing asylum seekers at risk of drowning in the Mediterranean. In December, it was busy keeping its promise to dismantle the anti-poverty citizenship income as well pursuing so-called ‘flat tax’ proposals in conflict with principles of progressivity. It was not surprising, therefore, that in reflecting, on 4 January, on the new government’s first 100 days (or, more accurately, its first 74 days), la Repubblica editor, Maurizio Molinari, was moved to observe that in a country with 15 million people living below the poverty threshold there was a real risk of growing inequality arising from the Government’s agenda. Extreme inequality not only significantly restricts the power and opportunities available to the many at the bottom of the distribution it also restricts the ability of governments to invest in meeting the challenges of the twenty-first century such as climate change. For example, the authors of the ‘World Inequality Report 2022’ make the point that steeply progressive taxation was crucial to ensuring the political and social acceptability of the increased taxation that made possible the rise of the modern welfare states of the middle of the twentieth century. They point out that given the very large volumes of wealth increasingly concentrated at the top of the distribution, even ‘modest progressive taxes can generate significant revenues for governments’. Wealth concentration in Italy is high – in 2021, the top 10% of the population owned 48% of household wealth, while the bottom half held just 10% – but lower than in most EU countries. Therefore, while it is not as significant a problem as in comparable countries, it is unlikely to lose its salience as a political issue. For example, bearing in mind that income and wealth inequalities are tightly connected to differences in contributions to climate change and that such differences are extreme, it is clear that e","PeriodicalId":37572,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Italian Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47454846","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mediterranean migration governance and the role of the Italian coast guard: varying political understandings of maritime operations in the 2010s","authors":"S. Panebianco","doi":"10.1080/23248823.2022.2057046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2022.2057046","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Situated on the EU’s Mediterranean borders, Italy provides the setting for a case study aimed at understanding Mediterranean migration governance in the 2010s. We adopt an actor-centred approach to explore how the Italian coast guard’s humanitarian agency was constrained and reshaped in a changed environment. We draw upon the sense-making of Italy’s political leaders and its impact on the humanitarian practices of the Italian coast guard. Migration politics is marked by political discourses framing interests and priorities according to the sense-making of the political leadership. In the last decade, Italian political leaders have constructed and reconstructed discourses on migration, providing a different understanding of the technical capacity to respond to crisis situations. In a few years, the Mare Nostrum operation was dismantled and replaced by a restrictive ‘closed-ports’ strategy to guarantee border control. Humanitarian operations at sea, a pillar of migration governance in the mid-2010s, were de facto constrained. Focusing on the pivotal role of the Italian coast guard in conducting maritime operations, we explain why its role of vanguard in developing humanitarian practices was marginalized over time.","PeriodicalId":37572,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Italian Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44267813","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Masks of the Political God. Religion and Political Parties in Contemporary Democracies","authors":"Fabio Bolzonar","doi":"10.1080/23248823.2023.2170121","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2023.2170121","url":null,"abstract":"True, such an abundance of evidence could have been investigated further, but this does not challenge the argument per se. In conclusion, just one issue needs to be raised: while the author systematically delves into the realist scholarship, other approaches are neglected. Borrowing from Lakatos’ terminology, one may be tempted to question whether the argument presented stands up to a threecornered fight. Constructivism in particular is almost absent from the investigation, despite the many contributions published from this perspective on both US foreign policy and the international order. Nonetheless, Natalizia’s book deserves praise for the theoretical and methodological rigour underlying the analysis. The reader is guided by the author’s sober prose through the conceptual subtleties of the IR literature, a number of compelling critiques, his working hypothesis and, finally, a historical tour-de-force. For sure, this volume makes a welcome addition to the growing Italian scholarship on this topic.","PeriodicalId":37572,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Italian Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44732984","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Italy at the polls. Four lessons to learn from the 2022 general election","authors":"Alessandro Chiaramonte","doi":"10.1080/23248823.2022.2163453","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2022.2163453","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT On 25 September 2022, in an election that saw a record low turnout, the coalition of the centre-right emerged as the clear winner and Fratelli d’Italia (FdI) as the most-voted party. As a result, the centre-right political forces agreed to form a government headed by FdI’s leader, Giorgia Meloni, who became the first female Prime Minister in Italy’s history. The aim of this article is to gain a better understanding of the election outcome and of its implications for the transformation of the Italian party system. The main ‘lessons’ of the results have to do with voters increasingly dissatisfied with parties and prone to abstaining or to changing their vote choice, and with a party system that has become more polarized and de-institutionalized.","PeriodicalId":37572,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Italian Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46296582","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Giorgia Meloni in the spotlight. Mobilization and competition strategies in the 2022 Italian election campaign on Facebook","authors":"Antonio Martella, F. Roncarolo","doi":"10.1080/23248823.2022.2150934","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2022.2150934","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The 2022 Italian election campaign, taking place as it did in the middle of the summer following a government crisis, offered interesting suggestions concerning leaders’ and media strategies aimed at mobilizing people in a challenging context. Our results show that the ‘expected winner’, Giorgia Meloni, was able to focus the attention of leaders, the media and users on herself despite competing with leaders and parties (Matteo Salvini and the Five-star Movement) that were more established online. Although the competition took place in the context of an electoral system having a majoritarian component, Meloni’s main competitor, Democratic Party leader, Enrico Letta, does not seem to have been able to polarize the competition sufficiently due to the fragmentation of the parties of the centre-left. In contrast, ex-prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, and the leader of the third pole, Carlo Calenda, deployed contrasting but successful strategies on Facebook, ones that may have contributed to their electoral performances. In this context, the limited media attention devoted to the campaign seems to have mirrored citizens’ feelings of disaffection and distrust: feelings that were, in all probability, heightened by the incomprehensibility of the government crisis that led to the elections.","PeriodicalId":37572,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Italian Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43431004","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Gender equality in the Italian Recovery and Resilience Plan: the depoliticizing effects of the technocratic Draghi government","authors":"A. Donà","doi":"10.1080/23248823.2022.2132904","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2022.2132904","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The European Union considers gender equality to be a key issue for post-pandemic recovery. The establishment of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) required member states to present their National Recovery and Resilience Plans and commit themselves to considering gender equality a horizontal objective. As Italy’s Recovery and Resilience Plan was, in terms of resources, the largest national plan under the RRF, it had the potential to be a ‘turning point’ for gender equality in Italy. This article offers a preliminary analysis, based on the categories elaborated by feminist policy research, aimed at assessing whether the National Plan initiated a process of policy and institutional change and if so, in what direction. It is argued that under pressure from the European vincolo esterno, the scope of gender equality has been narrowed and the measures aimed at promoting gender equality have become more bureaucratized and aligned with a managerial and technical policy turn, thus promoting a shift towards the depoliticization of gender equality.","PeriodicalId":37572,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Italian Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45390999","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Labour market policy in Italy’s recovery and resilience plan. Same old or a new departure?","authors":"Arianna Tassinari","doi":"10.1080/23248823.2022.2127647","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2022.2127647","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Liberalizing labour market reforms have topped the agenda of structural reforms implemented in Italy over the last two decades, with detrimental effects on employment quality, wage dynamics and productivity. In 2021, Italy’s then Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, promised that the investments outlined in Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) would ‘transform Italy’s labour market’. How and to what extent does the labour market policy agenda enshrined in Italy’s NRRP deviate from the prior trajectory of policy change? What balance of economic, political and class interests does it reflect? And to what extent does it adequately tackle the long-standing challenges of Italy’s labour market? This article addresses these questions combining in-depth analysis of the labour market policy measures in Italy’s 2021 NRRP and interviews with experts and elites involved in the policy process. Contrary to claims of discontinuity, the findings highlight substantive continuity of the NRRP labour market policy agenda with the prior trajectory of liberalization. The Plan maintains a narrow focus on supply-side labour market interventions – primarily the strengthening of active labour market policies (ALMPs) – without re-regulatory interventions to tackle labour market insecurity or wage stagnation. Exogenous conditionality and domestic political dynamics that systematically advanced the preferences of employer organizations in the design of the NRRP account for the limited extent of policy change. Due to the neglect of demand-side labour market interventions and the uncertainties surrounding the implementation of the ALMP reforms, the transformatory potential of the NRRP’s labour market agenda is likely to remain limited.","PeriodicalId":37572,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Italian Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43766640","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The policy for Southern Italy’s development in the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan","authors":"Maurizio Cerruto, Domenico Cersosimo, Francesco Raniolo","doi":"10.1080/23248823.2022.2132350","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2022.2132350","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This contribution focuses on the potential geographical impact of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) given its constraints, objectives and resources. The article analyses the NRRP as a great development opportunity, especially for the Mezzogiorno regions. The Plan has been presented as another ‘historic opportunity’ to narrow the North-South divide; as a symbolic turning point that should trigger a virtuous spiral of growth, social cohesion and sustainability. More specifically, starting from the multiple current structural crises affecting the society and economy of Italy’s less developed regions, attention is focused on the complex policies involved in the implementation of the Plan in order to achieve the expected results in these regions and on the central role played by the (financial, organizational and political) resources mobilized.","PeriodicalId":37572,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Italian Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46276838","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Italy in the Autumn of 2022: a country in mezzo al guado","authors":"James L. Newell","doi":"10.1080/23248823.2022.2132588","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2022.2132588","url":null,"abstract":"As we were going to press at the beginning of October 2022, the political conjuncture in Italy was one of transition between the outgoing Draghi government and the formation of the new government, which seemed almost certain to be led by Giorgia Meloni as Italy’s first female prime minister. It was unlikely to be before the end of October that the new Cabinet would meet for the first time. As former Economist editor, Bill Emmott, noted, for foreign observers of Italian politics it was likely to seem strange that such a long period of time had to elapse between the 25 September general election and the new government’s assumption of office. It was likely to seem the stranger, one might add, as the election had delivered – for the first time since 2008 – a clear seat majority for one of the contending electoral coalitions. In fact, there was a very straightforward institutional explanation for the time gap; for the new government’s assumption of office was dependent on the completion of a series of procedures none of which could begin before successful completion of the one before it. First, it would take until 13 October, when the Senate and Chamber of Deputies were scheduled to meet for the first time, for the newly elected parliamentarians to be inducted, to have their official photographs taken and to complete the various other bureaucratic tasks associated with the assumption of their new roles and responsibilities. Then the two branches of the legislature would have to elect their respective presidents, doing so by means of secret ballot and, in the case of the Chamber, only with the support of at least two-thirds at the first two rounds of voting. Only then would it be possible for the newly elected presidents to supervise the formation of the parliamentary groups. And only then would the president of the Republic be in a position to confer a mandate for the formation of a government – on Meloni, one had to assume – having first consulted the former heads of state, the presidents of the two branches of the legislature and the party leaders and parliamentary group leaders. Prime ministers designate usually accept their mandates conditionally (con riserva) – thus enabling them to consult the parliamentary group leaders with a view to establishing the existence (or otherwise) of a parliamentary majority willing to sustain a government they might lead. With that procedure out of the way, they can then accept their mandates unconditionally (sciogliere la riserva) and present the head of state with a list of proposed government ministers, whose appointment is, in accordance with article 92 of the Constitution, a bene placito of the president of the Republic. At that point, the new government can be sworn in and powers officially pass from the outgoing to the incoming Prime Minister. However, there is then one further ritual that must be observed before the new government fully assumes its responsibilities: On the basis of a declaration of the new ","PeriodicalId":37572,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Italian Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44767384","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}