Suchergebnisse

The great Medieval fairs and the origin of modern wares. This essay briefly retraces the political, economic, organisational and communicative stages which, from the ancient world and the High Middle Ages, made possible the institution of the great european fairs. They anticipated a complex meeting-point model between wares and merchants at the base of the modern exchange, at the very origin of grand world events as the Great Universal Exhibitions.

The paper deals with the transformation of power at the local level, by making reference to Lecce, a middle city in the South of Italy (Salento), as a case study. The authors draw their empirical material from a wider sociological research on the same topic they have edited in 2014 (Cremonesini, Cristante, Longo 2014) and try to sketch how the crisis of traditional political parties has produced a renewed vitality of relational networks, yet by now unable to define a common strategy and to share common values and a common strategic project for city policies.Keywords: power, elites, salons, relational networks, local government, South Italy