Suchergebnisse

The report explores the impact of the recent migration flows on the asylum and international protection regimes in Italy during the years 2011-2017 and also seeks to identify some best practices and policy recommendations. Through empirical evidence, statistics, expert interviews, discourse analysis and an overview of academic literature, the report examines the response of the Italian authorities to the growing number of applications for international protection (and therefore, the consequent growth of a strong anti-immigrant narrative). In particular, when comparing the legal framework and its effective implementation, the report stresses the existence of 3 different dimensions of the concept of protection in the Italian experience: - the constitutional dimension: at the top of the Italian system of the sources of law, Art.10, par. 3 of the Italian Constitution recognizes the right of asylum for every foreigner who, in his/her country, is denied the effective exercise of the democratic freedoms established by the Constitution itself; - the international and supranational dimension: for the purpose of implementing the Geneva Convention of 1951 as well as EU Law (inter alia, Art. 18 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Directive 2004/83/EC), Italian legislation introduced 2 forms of international protection: refugee and subsidiary protection (in particular, Legislative Decrees nos. 251/2007 and 142/2015); - the domestic legislative dimension: in addition to the types of protection deriving from international and supranational law, domestic legislation has introduced some specific forms of protection, and in particular humanitarian protection (Art. 5 of the Consolidated Act of provisions concerning immigration introduced humanitarian protection). In 2018, Decree-Law no. 113/2018 abolished the humanitarian protection. Currently, the art. 20 of the Consolidated Act identifies 7 cases in which a national temporary permit to stay could be issued for specific reasons.

AbstractWhile scholars have investigated how media frame human mobility and securitize irregular border crossings, little research has been dedicated to how European Union (EU) actors are portrayed in media coverage of migration across the Mediterranean. By integrating framing into narrative analysis through the Narrative Policy Framework, our article fills this gap. Specifically, we provide a content analysis of Italian, Maltese, and Spanish newspapers and identify the key narratives underlying the portrayal of specific EU actors. We show that, overall, lack of EU solidarity is the prevalent issue in Italian, Maltese, and Spanish newspapers alike, followed by the alleged inefficiency of EU actors. Accordingly, the EU and its key actors are regularly narrated as either villains, responsible for the crisis and deserting member states in need of solidarity, or as weaklings unable to take effective action. These narratives appear remarkably consistent across countries, over time, and newspapers with different ideological orientation.

At the crossroads of EU studies and public policy analysis, a vast literature identifies global crises as one of the main triggers of change. The present article provides a test of this hypothesis in the case of health care in the aftermath of the pandemic crisis that hit Europe between 2020 and 2022. We use Italy as an extreme case, where both the magnitude of the Covid-19 outbreak and the effect of the pre-existent domestic cost-cutting strategy potentially opened a large window of opportunity for change. Through the lenses of historical institutionalism, we aim to shed light on policy change in multi-level health governance systems. Evidence collected through semi-structured interviews, triangulated with secondary sources, proves that the governance of health care in Italy has experienced no paradigmatic change. We show that "governance feedbacks" have reinforced pre-existing dynamics and inhibited more radical forms of change.

This article examines Performance Management Systems (PMSs) as socio-technical policy instruments for shaping power relations in megaprojects. Employing an abductive approach, it innovatively applies Foucault's Panopticon theory to the case of the Lyon-Turin railway, a megaproject funded by the European Union's Trans-European Transport Network policy. Our research reveals that PMSs operate as intellectual technologies that enable megaproject promoters to establish control over participants and align their collective behavior with planned policy objectives. We find that this process follows three Foucauldian panoptic principles: hierarchical observation, where participants are organized under nested managerial tiers, establishing vertical lines of command; examination, which uncovers performance flaws; and normalization, which standardizes behavior across the megaproject field. We argue that: PMSs can be employed by policy-makers as instruments to instil governability and shape the collective behavior of megaproject participants consistently with planned policy goals; no matter how effective the panoptic scheme is, there are always avenues of resistance available among those perceiving the megaproject as a threat; and, the configuration and constitution of power relations in megaprojects involve a complex interplay of discipline, sovereignty, and security mechanisms.

AbstractMegaprojects are increasingly common across countries and attract substantial political attention from a variety of actors. Recent studies have highlighted the need to move from an understanding of megaprojects as linear and rational processes towards a more nuanced approach that accounts for non-linear and conflictual aspects. Participatory governance is often proposed as a valuable resource in this regard. In this paper, we investigate the setting and design of two participatory venues operating in the context of the implementation of the Lyon-Turin high-speed railway megaproject: the Italian Observatory for the Turin-Lyon Railway and the French Public Inquiry. Empirical evidence shows that the Italian case featured substantial structural barriers to effective democratic participation. As for the French case, while better designed and implanted in its context, it featured important agentic limitations that undermined its democratic potential. On the basis of our case study, we therefore argue that both the Observatory for the Turin-Lyon Railway and Public Inquiry failed to promote democratic participation. We thus propose a deliberative approach to (the study of) of megaprojects. Whereas deliberative democratic ideas command growing interest across disciplines, these have found only limited application in the study of megaprojects. We contend that a deliberative democratic approach holds promise to improve the democratic and epistemic qualities of decision making on megaprojects.

Pensions at the European level have been, since the sovereign debt crisis, affected by several decision-making innovations. Retirement policy has been embedded in the European Semester, which strengthened the hitherto inadequate European socioeconomic policy coordination mechanisms. Given that the additional powers bestowed upon the Commission were qualified, a supranational response followed. With the effect of strengthening its rational-legal authority, in line with neo-functionalist spillover assumptions, evidence-based standards have been progressively applied to EU retirement policy formation. This innovative turn warrants the employment of a policy analysis theoretical framework. In particular, the article applies the concepts underpinning policy evaluation to the study of pensions within the Semester. Using a mixed-methods approach, which combines case study with statistical analysis, and following a novel in-depth coding of country-specific recommendations and Country Reports, this article argues that member states' pensions are now assessed within a structured, formal and polycentric evaluation cycle. This has been gradually constructed by increasing the coherence between the yearly interim ex post evaluations of pension policy output (the Country Reports) and the final ex post evaluations of pension policy outcomes (the Ageing and Pension Adequacy Reports) that are published every 3 years. The result is a streamlined, technocratic, knowledge-based approach to retirement policy at the supranational level. Even though the generation of technical knowledge is no substitute for toothless conditionality, greater reliance on evidence is aimed at socializing national decision-makers and may eventually influence their policy choices. The unconventional pension evaluation cycle that sprung up around the Semester may, hence, serve as a model applicable to other socioeconomic policy domains.

Abstract
This article analyses the humanitarianism and securitisation nexus in effect to migration controls in Italy and Hungary. Noteworthy for our purposes is how the humanitarian discourse is undervalued as the EU border states emphasise either full securitisation or else securitisation as a condition for humanitarianism when it comes to border management and refugee protection measures. Our goal is to trace, on the one hand, how politicians conceptualise humanitarianism for the self and for the extension of the self; and, on the other, how they subscribe to humanitarianism for the other as long as the other follows what the self demands. Reflecting on the institutional and discursive nexus of humanitarianism and securitization in effect to migration controls, we trace political narratives of Europeanisation geared to affect the public. We refer to how securitisation challenges humanitarianism while undervaluing human rights for the other and foregrounding human rights for the self.

This article analyses the humanitarianism and securitisation nexus in effect to migration controls in Italy and Hungary. Noteworthy for our purposes is how the humanitarian discourse is undervalued as the EU border states emphasise either full securitisation or else securitisation as a condition for humanitarianism when it comes to border management and refugee protection measures. Our goal is to trace, on the one hand, how politicians conceptualise humanitarianism for the self and for the extension of the self; and, on the other, how they subscribe to humanitarianism for the other as long as the other follows what the self demands. Reflecting on the institutional and discursive nexus of humanitarianism and securitization in effect to migration controls, we trace political narratives of Europeanisation geared to affect the public. We refer to how securitisation challenges humanitarianism while undervaluing human rights for the other and foregrounding human rights for the self.

Cet article adopte une approche interprétative pour étudier la manière dont les décideurs politiques locaux représentent et justifient leurs propres visions des initiatives de gouvernance numérique au niveau municipal. Notre enquête se concentre sur les projets de villes intelligentes soumis par diverses municipalités belges dans le cadre de l'appel à propositions « Territoire intelligent » lancé en 2019 par la Région wallonne. Nous utilisons la théorie des ordres de valeur de Boltanski et Thévenot et combinons analyse quantitative et analyse qualitative du contenu pour catégoriser les différentes justifications élaborées par les gouvernements municipaux. Les résultats empiriques soulignent la nature polysémique du concept de ville intelligente et mettent en évidence la diversité des opportunités offertes par les politiques de ville intelligente selon les décideurs municipaux. D'une manière générale, notre étude contribue à la compréhension de la variété des interprétations qui sous-tendent la construction des initiatives de gouvernance numérique. Elle confirme donc l'idée selon laquelle il n'existe pas d'approche universelle des politiques de villes intelligentes, les décideurs politiques locaux pouvant leur attribuer des significations différentes et formuler des solutions TIC adaptées à ce qu'ils perçoivent comme les problèmes les plus urgents de leur territoire. Remarques à l'intention des praticiens Les autorités gouvernementales peuvent se servir des projets de villes intelligentes pour atteindre une série d'objectifs politiques. Ces objectifs politiques visent, par exemple, à stimuler le développement économique local, à améliorer l'efficacité des services municipaux, à renforcer les liens sociaux entre les membres de la communauté locale, à promouvoir la préservation écologique des environnements urbains et à améliorer la collaboration entre les citoyens et les administrations publiques. Les collectivités locales peuvent se servir de manière adaptative des technologies intelligentes pour résoudre de multiples problèmes environnementaux, sociaux et économiques liés à un lieu donné. Les gouvernements locaux devraient considérer les technologies urbaines intelligentes comme des moyens de résoudre différents problèmes sociétaux et d'atteindre différents objectifs politiques, plutôt que comme une fin en soi.

This article adopts an interpretive approach to investigate how local policy-makers portray and justify their own visions of digital governance initiatives at the municipal level. Our investigation focuses on smart city projects submitted by various Belgian municipalities in the framework of the 'Intelligent Territory' call for proposals initiated in 2019 by the Walloon Region. We use Boltanski and Thévenot's theory of orders of worth and combine quantitative and qualitative content analysis to categorize the different justifications elaborated by municipal governments. The empirical results point to the polysemic nature of the smart city concept and highlight the diversity of opportunities offered by smart city policies according to municipal policy-makers. Overall, our study contributes to the understanding of the varieties of interpretations underpinning the construction of digital governance initiatives. It therefore supports the argument according to which there is no one-size-fits-all approach to smart city policies as local policy-makers may attribute different meanings to them and may formulate place-based ICTs solutions to what they perceive as the most pressing problems of their territories. Points for practitioners Smart city projects can be used by governing authorities as instruments to achieve a variety of policy goals Examples of policy goals are to boost local economic development, to improve the effectiveness of municipal service provision, to strengthen social bonds across local community members, to promote the ecological preservation of urban environments and to improve the collaboration between citizens and public administrations Local governments can adaptively use smart technologies as instruments to overcome multiple place-based environmental, social and economic problems Local governments should frame smart urban technologies as means to solve different societal problems and achieve different policy goals – rather than an end per se

Building on the RESPOND national country reports, this report discusses the most relevant trends underlying legislative and policy measures implemented between 2011 and 2017 in Austria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iraq, Italy, Lebanon, Poland, Sweden,Turkey, and the United Kingdom, in the light of critical literature and scholarly debate. The aim is to provide a comparative legal and institutional analysis of migration governance across countries, highlighting trends and similarities, as well as differences and relevant inconsistencies in the response to mass migration. In doing so, the report offers analytical insights for evaluating the potential implications of the dynamics of migration management in the aforementioned countries. In all countries, the legal framework concerning migration and asylum/international protection is extremely complex and hypertrophic. In each country, legislation has been changing continuously and not necessarily coherently, frequently law makers resorting to decrees instead of proper statutes/acts of Parliament. The outcome is a stratified legal framework, that is extremely fragmented and difficult to be consistently interpreted and implemented. Therefore, the legal enforcement and guarantee of fundamental rights is jeopardized, and often it largely depends on the discretionary power of single offices and individuals. Against the fundamental axiom of legal certainty and predictability, the legal status of migrants and asylum applicants is more and more based on uncertainty.

AbstractThe study of scientific advisory committees (SACs) is a recurrent topic of research in public policy and public administration. Scholars are increasingly interested in analyzing the scientization of policy advice as well as the role played by knowledge‐based policymaking processes. Despite recent developments in the field, SACs studies continue to face an analytical and empirical gap due to the lack of parsimonious conceptualizations of the characteristics that enable them to be both theoretically relevant and effective in driving comparative analysis. To fill this research gap, this article proposes a novel typology of SACs based on a specific conceptualization of the motivations of policymakers that allows the selection of two classificatory criteria: the origin of the members and the degree to which their expertise is homogeneous. The theoretical relevance of this typology is illustrated by applying it to the SACs established in the Italian regions to address the COVID‐19 pandemic. The article highlights the relevance of the typology to the theory underlying the empirical analysis. In doing so, it provides relevant insights into the composition and nature of SACs that is useful not only for the academic debate on evidence‐based policymaking but also for both practitioners and decision‐makers.