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The author returns, after a few years, to the theme of the nomination of life senators on the part of the president of the republic, in order to give an account of the recent applications of the relative norms &, in particular, of the paths leading to reform of those norms within the wider context of constitutional reform. The author also takes note of the recent "extra-institutional" phenomenon consisting in the fact of numerous "candidatures" being put forward informally &, conversely, the three nominations made by the current president Ciampi (2001/2004). The author concludes with some critical considerations concerning the utility of the institution of presidential nomination of life senators. Adapted from the source document.

The democratic reforms introduced in many sub-Saharan African countries during the 1990s involved the restoration of multipartism. The re-emergence of party politics spurred a number of analyses of the continent's new parties & party systems, largely based on theories & concepts derived from the study of advanced democracies. The article reviews & critically examines recent works on Africa's parties & party systems by presenting the dominant themes & issues & by investigating the utility of Western-derived models for the analysis of new multiparty regimes. In spite of a quantitative increase & a qualitative improvement in the study of Africa's parties & party systems, the latter still suffers a scarcity of empirical & theoretical investigations. At the same time, the use of political science tools for the study of party politics south of the Sahara is part of a broader positive trend towards a better integration of the analysis of African politics with that of politics in other world areas. Tables, Appendixes, References. Adapted from the source document.