Suchergebnisse

The years 2015 and 2016, in the Italian Government's agenda, should be remembered as the phase of the great constitutional reform: after several failed attempts – Joint Committees, reforms rejected by popular vote – Italian State institutions would be subjected to undergo a makeover in modernizing and efficiency way. So far, the only political-administrative institutions to be reformed effectively, during the 90's of the last century, were the local ones, primarily the municipalities. The reforms of the 90's are characterized by several trends: the centrality of the role of the Mayor; enhanced customization; greater accountability. The levels of political mediation were scaled down in favour of "direttismo". The demo-elected Mayor is now primarily aimed at consolidation of the consensus. The paper, based on the evidence so far available, tries to test the hypothesis that the achievement of consensus on the part of the mayors can connect to the kind of leadership that they exercise and the socio-professional profile. DOI:10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n6s2p707

Italian political scene and policy-making process, at local government level, have profoundly changed over the past 20 years. In the context of the Italian reforms of the 1990s, the most glary manifestations of the so-called "direttismo" were: the crisis of political parties; the personalization of politics; the fiscal crisis of the state; the need for activation of the processes of accountability. All these factors have been reflected in the role of the mayor, who because of regulatory constraints and policy needs, indulges in the use of symbolic policies. This paper attempts a more systematic definition of symbolic policies. In particular, the hypothesis which has to be developed puts emphasis on the socio-political-professional background of the mayor as a variable that can explain the level of success of symbolic policies. A first test is attempted in relation to the case study of Naples. DOI:10.5901/ajis.2015.v4n3s1p45

The years 2015 and 2016, in the Italian Government's agenda, should be remembered as the phase of the great constitutional reform: after several failed attempts – Joint Committees, reforms rejected by popular vote – Italian State institutions would be subjected to undergo a makeover in modernizing and efficiency way. So far, the only political-administrative institutions to be reformed effectively, during the 90's of the last century, were the local ones, primarily the municipalities. The reforms of the 90's are characterized by several trends: the centrality of the role of the Mayor; enhanced customization; greater accountability. The levels of political mediation were scaled down in favour of "direttismo". The demo-elected Mayor is now primarily aimed at consolidation of the consensus. The paper, based on the evidence so far available, tries to test the hypothesis that the achievement of consensus on the part of the mayors can connect to the kind of leadership that they exercise and the socio-professional profile. DOI:10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n6s2p707

The process of regime change that has taken place since 1991 in the post-Soviet space, combined with the phenomena that occurred later in the Balkans and Mediterranean Africa have undermined the certainties of the supporters of transitology. Nevertheless, some scholars have suggested a "fourth wave" of democratization. There has therefore been a revival of the debate between two analytical approaches: an approach to standardizing (transitology) and another approach to individualizing (area studies). The paper explores the strength and weakness of both interpretative schemes. DOI:10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n16p658