In a round-table discussion held at the U of Pavia on 22 April 2002, in collaboration with the Foreign Affairs Ministry & the university's political science department, the following participants offered their opinions on the effort to reconstruct Afghanistan & Italy's place in it: Enrico De Maio (special envoy to Afghanistan), Anna Dell Croce (embassy adviser), Sergio Romano (Corriere della Sera), Giovanni Porzio (Panomrama), & Giampaolo Calchi Novati (U of Pavia). They offered overviews of Afghanistan's history & the colonial experience in Central & South Asia, US foreign policy, & the war on terror. A. Siegel
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.
In this paper, the author deals with the problem of misfortune from the point of view of a normative theory of justice. In particular, it is claimed that an unlucky event engenders an entitlement to assistance for its victims. The author first takes into account the view that the demand for security addressed to institutions is linked to the idea of causality; this, in terms of political justice, entails the necessity of identifying a liability. On this view, a boundary should be traced between injustice & misfortune; while events caused by human behavior can be judged as either just or unjust, merely fortuitous ones cannot. This implies that victims are entitled to compensation for damages due to unjust events, not for damages due to unlucky events. The author argues that, despite the distinction between unjust & unlucky events, the entitlement to compensation arises in both cases. In the case of merely unlucky events, rather than following the logic of liability, the administration of justice follows a different principle: the author proposes calling this the "principle of assistance." According to this principle, every unlucky event worsening the living conditions of someone must be followed by a redistributive reallocation of resources. Unlike solidarity, the principle of assistance is a (meta )rule of justice, that can be outlined starting from a rereading of Rawls's second principle. The author argues, then, that the victims of misfortune are entitled to a "right to assistance" that has a normative grounding. Adapted from the source document.
The author offers personal insight on Italian philosopher, Norberto Bobbio. He narrates his personal relationship with Bobbio, trying to describe the professor from a different perspective than those already offered by popular bibliographies & mainstream publications. The main focus is the important contribution that Bobbio offered in the political science arena. Tracing his biography & work from his contributions to juridical positivism, all the way to his public commitment as senator, the author offers an intimate relation of Bobbio's ideals & accomplishments as he shaped Italian political science, integrating it with philosophical elements. M. Williamson
Is the referendum phenomenon a manifestation of direct democracy & hence rooted in ancient democracy, or is it the result of political conflict within the democracy of today? Are referendums in democracies the first step down the slippery slope to a plebiscitary hell, or are they the humus that can foster a wide-ranging diversification of experience while staying within the bounds of modern-day, representative democracies? The author takes the stance that the referendum phenomenon stems from modern-day, representative democracies & does not necessarily jeopardize their stability or legitimacy. As a perfect example of popular sovereignty in action, are referendums to be perceived as more favorable toward society's democratic component rather than its liberal one? The author holds that referendum voting enables both liberal & democratic issues to be faced. He discusses Sartori's analysis according to which the referendum is a manifestation of ancient democracy incompatible with the requirements of modern-day democracy, especially concerning matters of a liberal nature. In the area of referendum experiences, the author critiques Sartori's analysis & argues in favor of the compatibility between liberal democracies & referendums. 3 Tables, 58 References. Adapted from the source document.
The idea of self-ownership is often used by libertarians to deny that the state is morally authorized to modify free market transactions coercively by means of taxation &, more generally, redistributive policies. From this perspective, if I am the owner of myself, I also own, according to Lockean teaching, the outcomes of my labor. Thus, there is no room for distributive justice without violating self-ownership. In this essay, the author argues against this idea. The author demonstrates some problems with the Lockean theory of labor mixing. He criticizes the Lockean theory as it has been recently reformulated by Robert Nozick. He explains why the supposed conflict between self-ownership & distributive justice can be accommodated & why it is possible & necessary to continue to elaborate theories of justice compatible with the idea of self-ownership. Adapted from the source document.
In this essay the author chooses to develop the stimulating & intricate theme of liberal socialism from the perspective of cultural-political reviews. After a short reference to the forerunners, like John Stuart Mill & Leonard Hobhouse, the author illustrates the rebirth of a meeting proposal between liberalism & socialism in the middle of the twenties of the last century. With regard to this, beside Carlo Rosselli's notes, the contributions of Arturo Labriola & Guido De Ruggiero come out respectively in "Critica Sociale" & "La Rivoluzione Liberale." The author underlines the newness of these attitudes starting from Labriola's theories. Labriola thinks that the right time has come for the socialism to deliver its teaching from what he calls the "asiatic heritage," which exerted its influence on socialist doctrine by a choking & centralizing collectivism conditioning the individual to coercive institutions as "clan," "caste," "State," &, after 1917, the "one party system." The Italian scholar opposes to this heritage, belonging to the Eastern culture & society, the Western political tradition based on man's rights & freedom. Guido De Ruggiero's contribution -- though almost unknown to scholars -- originates from British political situation & develops in a meaning of liberty that trespasses on territory of equality creating the fundamental concept of his proposal: the "equality of opportunity." However the "equality of opportunity," needs a particular version of liberalism & socialism because it can be carried out only if liberalism is open to social action, a "new liberalism" as De Ruggiero calls it. By this way socialism cannot be Marxist & collectivist, because of freedom requirements. 20 References. Adapted from the source document.
The author analyzes the form of government of premiership with reference to the parliamentary system taking GB as a model, being "mother" of both forms of government. However, the British premiership, as it is expressed in the English Constitution, is not applicable to other situations; this is true also if we tried to reproduce exactly all the characteristics of the British system, starting from a non-written constitution. The author proves that the premiership is the evolution of the parliamentary government, that is a specification of the latter, since it maintains the trust between the government & the parliament. The premiership is characterized by having the Prime Minister, indicated (not elected!) by the electoral body, as head together with its majority; in consequence, he has a double trust, electoral & parliamentary. The Prime Minister's role becomes stronger since he holds personal & particular powers, as the appointment & the reversal of his ministers & the early dissolution of the Chambers; in this way the Prime Minister can choose when to return to his electors. In this context it is necessary to emphasize the role of the Parliament, of the parliamentary opposition & of the political parties. Adapted from the source document.
A recently established field of political studies aims at explaining historical events through models drawn from Rational Choice & Game Theory. This blend between history & theory is now generally indicated as Analytic Narratives, which is the name of an influent book published a few years ago. In this essay the author applies the approach of analytic narratives to the period immediately after WWII when the anti-Fascist parties alliance was superseded by majority governments between the Christian Democratic Party & its smaller moderate allies & the Socialist & the Communist parties were excluded from government. The paper maintains that that passage can be analyzed through the debates in the constitutional assembly elected in June 1946. It focuses on the question of the relations between the Italian Republic & the Vatican State. The Communist Party, contrary to general expectations, voted in favor of the Catholic position that eventually prevailed. The paper makes use of well-known historical documents to plot parties' positions in the political space. Then the author explains the unexpected Communist choice considering its unwillingness to face religious confrontation, & its hope to be accepted as a long-term government partner by the Catholic Party. On the basis of the spatial theory of rational voting, the paper shows that both hypotheses are consistent with the preferences of the parties & their view of the political situation. This choice reveals the disregard of the Communist Party toward the Socialist & the other Left parties, a theoretical finding confirmed by historical research. 2 Tables, 6 Figures, 45 References. Adapted from the source document.
This article analyzes (in terms of "normal science") the two typologies of democratic forms of government elaborated by Arend Lijphart in the last two decades. According to Lijphart, the different forms of government are fundamental variables to define different types of democratic regime. Lijphart marks the difference between presidentialism & parliamentarism without including semipresidentialism in his typologies. On the contrary, as pointed out by Giovanni Sartori, the semipresidential form of government keeps a specific position, both in theoretical & empirical terms. Starting from Sartori's point of view, in the second part of the article, the author elaborates a new typology of democratic forms of government. Based on Lijphart's methodological criteria, the new typology includes, together with presidential & parliamentary, also semipresidential forms of government. 5 Tables, 152 References. Adapted from the source document.
