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Industrial growth, patterns of trade and agricultural development, politics, and the caste system in India during the 1980s, chiefly; 10 articles. Summaries in English p. 244-7. Includes discussion of the Kashmir question.

Owing to globalization processes, the nation-state is facing the problem of re-examining its ability to create & maintain order through legislation & law enforcement, as well as its capacity to direct the economy in line with citizens' choices. The use of globalized economic & juridical patterns by private individuals is a great leap forward in economics & personal freedom, considering that the state is continuously loosing its monitoring & checking ability. At the same time, these individuals still live within the framework of the state & also acknowledge its power. Ironically, while trying to sidestep the state, the citizens still look to it to solve their everyday problems. The author investigates the reasons behind the crisis into which a specific model of state -- the Kelsenian & Keynesianan model -- has fallen in recent years. Nevertheless, the crisis of that model does not imply the loss of the possibility of managing the economy & globalization processes. The nation-state remains the most important producer of a great many services & its role in promoting advancements in knowledge & technological innovation is still a central one. One of the most important roles of the nation-state in the global era is that of removing the barriers to the global economy & pursuing the efficiency & innovation of its infrastructures & bureaucratic machinery. In the light of global changes, it is important to rethink the idea that the production of law & institutions can only be legitimated by ballots, or at least that voting always represents the best solution. Other kinds of legitimating processes should instead be considered by contemporary political theory -- for example, considering how people make their political choices like consumers in the free market. Adapted from the source document.

By raising the question on what made geopolitical equilibrium a tool for understanding international politics, the article discusses differences between classical and modern balance of power, and between balance of power and geopolitical equilibrium. The principal argument is that geopolitical equilibrium is, in scope, global. The second claim about the nature of geopolitical equilibrium concerns modern territoriality. Geopolitical equilibrium bases on occurrence of central powers in global politics, not on modern inter-state relations; therefore, it represents the tendency to stability in a pluralistic world-system. As a result, geopolitics remains a realistic alternative to cosmopolitism for understanding social order in global age. Adapted from the source document.

Research in comparative politics has shown a renewed interest in the relation between political parties and the state. However, we know comparatively little about patronage -- defined as the power of political parties to distribute public sector posts -- as a key dimension of the linkage between political parties and the state. This article, based on comparative empirical evidence on patterns of patronage in 15 European democracies, has two central goals. First, it seeks to empirically evaluate commonalities and differences among European democracies with respect to patronage and its pervasiveness, logic and mechanics. Second, it considers the new light that the empirical analysis sheds on the contemporary explanations of patronage. The empirical analysis suggests that it is the interaction of administrative legacy effects with patterns of party system consolidation and crisis that accounts for the differences in contemporary patronage practices. Adapted from the source document.

The review article analyzes some of the most recent developments in political communication with particular concern for those processes involving the notions and the practices of citizenship in contemporary democracies. Some of the contributions taken into consideration can be regarded as seminal books supporting the view that popular media, infotainment and new media are all new channels of political information and, notwithstanding their oversimplification, may be useful to extend citizens' political knowledge. The review aims also at offering some insights on specific features of political communication in Italy through the analysis of contributions dealing with the processes of personalization and popularization of politics as well as with the increasing role of internet in Italian politics. Adapted from the source document.

Examines the democratic transition and consolidation process in South Africa; the Apr. 1994 multi-racial elections, regional economic integration, politics in southern Africa, constitutional revision, and other issues; 6 articles. Summaries in English p. 290-2.

In the organization of the recent presidential elections in Somaliland, the implementation of specific political techniques (namely the registration of voters by means of digital fingerprint and facial recordings) took on very distinctive meanings, guaranteeing the international community involved in the process and local political actors of the "free and fair" character of the electoral competition and assuring a complete transition from a political system based on the "government of the community" to one based on western style democratic institutions (a multi-party presidential system). The reality however proved to be not that simple: the registration of voters actually caused conflicts or ignited those already existing, contributing to extend the long and hazardous period of preparation to the polls. In the process, the relationships between "technique" and "politics" appeared far more complex than expected: political techniques determine a space of interaction which eventually produces the assimilation of local political practices to the dominant forms of political organization, specific cultures of voting and a specific electoral body. Technique here operates as a form of self-legitimization which promises neutrality in order to have conformity. The article situates itself in contemporary debates on political development in post-conflict societies but it also reminds how artificial is the opposition between clan or tribal politics and western style democratic politics, generally seen as one of the most specific features of politics in Africa, in particular in Somali history. In reality, a continuous negotiation between corporate and collective forms of participation and activism on the one side and individual expression of vote on the other represents a typical feature shared by the two systems. Adapted from the source document.

The debate about the rule of law and the role it plays as driver of democratization processes is now fairly developed and diffused worldwide. Despite that, the concept is still contended and its semantic characterized by a byzantine complexity. Firstly and foremost, political scientists do not share a common conception of rule of law encompassing formal and substantial aspects of the "government based on rules rather than on men". This paper wants to encourage the development of a dialogue between law and politics, legal studies and political science, in order to investigate better and reach a deeper understanding of how and why under specific conditions governments ruled by rules -- which are still made by men -- represent favorable conditions to democratic processes and processes of state building. The readers are led through a vast literature, then provided with a proposal of a framework that covers both the conception of rule of law as precondition and as outcome of socio-political processes. Adapted from the source document.

The debate between realists and liberals in the field of International Relations concerning the causes and effects of economic interdependence among states has led to a remarkable branch of empirical literature, but hardly any research has studied such dynamics in the period following the Cold War, which is so often defined "the age of globalization". This article is based on a quantitative analysis of the influence of international politics on commercial flows in the post-bipolar period and it performs such analysis on two datasets: the first one including all countries of the system for which data are available and the second one focused on the countries that previous similar studies have identified as great powers. The results show that the contemporary international system is marked by a high degree of complexity and by the simultaneous action of different and even contrasting logics. Liberal variables such as democracy and economic international institutions exert a remarkable effect on international trade, especially at the global level, but international security and even power politics issues are still relevant, particularly for the great powers in their reciprocal relationships. Adapted from the source document.

Italy is a society with a long history of urbanization, which reflects on the present. Urban growth has gone on uninterrupted from the Unity to the present day, but the traditional contraposition between town and countryside has disappeared, substituted by a novel type of sprawling urban settlements. Not differently from what happened in other countries, but with a more negative impact on social and political institutions, large part of the urban settlement has now taken the form of a sprawling periurban. In the Italian literature on politics there is little consideration for the relation between urban or spatial morphology and political system. Politics as such is highly valued while urban geography, aside from the traditional regional differences, is hardly considered more than an inert frame of reference. The main contention of this essay is that, having disregarded the mutations in the urban settlement patterns, or even worse, having misrepresented them, often through obsolete ideological frames of thought, people not only has prevented a sound administrative handling of these changes, but it has contributed considerably to let them become unmanageable. This work will sketchily trace the main trends of urbanization from the Italian unification to today. For reasons of space, however, it will above all concentrate on the post WWI period with the two major interrelated cycles: that of the creation of the "first generation metropolis" in coincidence with the so called "economic miracle" and that of the formation of the "second generation" metropolises or meta-cities that characterizes the present time. Adapted from the source document.