Suchergebnisse

Abstract
In time of economic crisis, since the 2008 credit crunch, many Western and European countries entered in the "age of austerity" characterized by the imposition of unprecedented large cuts in welfare state provision. Even the public education institutions have been affected by government policies characterized by budget cuts, neoliberal private-oriented reforms and increase in tuition fees for students. In reaction to this, in the following years, various global waves of protests have arisen in many countries all over the world. Differently from the past, not only students have promoted these mobilizations, although they are majority, but also the education systems workforce: from professors/teachers to permanent and precarious researchers, from temporary workers to technical- administrative employees. Although these mobilizations have had specific characteristics related to the national contexts, they have shared common aspects as the defence of public education and the refusal of the commercialization/marketization and privatization process. In this paper I focus on the mobilizations in the higher education system occurred in Italy. The most important waves of protests were in 2008-2010 against the budget cuts and the university neoliberal reform promoted by the former centre-right Education Minister Gelmini. If in the 2008, students and precarious workers mainly promoted the Anomalous Wave movement, so called for its unpredictability, in the 2010, beyond the students, the open-ended researchers were the main protagonists. Notwithstanding the mass participation and the sympathy of part of the public opinion, the reform and the cuts were approved and then, the mobilizations decreased and seemed to be completely finished. I argue that these mobilizations were unsuccessful not only because of the fragmentation of student organizations and because of the low salience of higher education in Italian public opinion, but also because protesters were not supported by most university staff and hindered by the academic authorities (deans and rectors).

The Social Centres in Italy are autonomous groups set up by left-wing radical activists, who occupy and/or self-manage unused buildings, where they organize political campaigns, social and countercultural activities. In this article, a typology of decision-making and internal democracy models, based on decisional method and preferences' treatment adopted (Consensual vs. Majoritarian), is here proposed and tested through the binary comparison of two Social Centres, as empirical cases, in the same city (Catania in Sicily), with the most dissimilar characteristics (campaigns/activities, political ideological orientations, national networks, legal position, attitude towards institutions). The research, methodologically founded on participant observation, the analysis of self-produced documents and a set of semi-structured interviews, provided unexpected findings, entailing an explanation through the procedure of re-identification and/or cultural recollocation of Pizzorno. As a consequence, the diverse models of decisionmaking and internal democracy adopted by activists of the two Social Centres seem to be depended on their different ends, collective identities and political-ideological orientations

In this article, we focus on the way in which the LULU (Locally Unwanted Land Use) movements against great infrastructures have framed the issues of corruption and organized crime in Italy, with particular reference to the mafia system, and the struggle against them. Even though they may seem minor issues, they are present in many territorial struggles, from North to South: indeed, we have chosen to analyse – using documents and semi-structured interviews with key informants – as empirical cases the No Tav, No Bridge and No Muos movements. Considering the frame analysis of the activists we have found the same mechanisms of frame bridging, which connect corruption and mafia with other issues in the movements, and frame extension from the particular cases to the general issues. Moreover, the corrupt and mafia systems outlined by the Lulu activists merge into a unique "corrupt-mafia system" that produces unwanted public works. Indeed, we have defined the Lulu movements as territorial movements carrying on 'anti-system' struggles, because, while contrasting specific large-scale infrastructures and military bases, they struggle against the system that have created them and to which they belong.

IntroduzioneTra le molteplici ragioni che sollecitano uno studio del fenomeno Forza Italia, sono precipuamente due quelle da cui muove il nostro articolo. La prima è l'esigenza di fornire un contributo alla conoscenza di un fenomeno così nuovo ed originale da rendere complicato anche il semplice etichettamento. Come altrove, anche in campo politologico il termine più utilizzato per qualificare questo tipo di partito è stato quello di «azienda», che riassume il suo essere frutto di un originale e riuscito esperimento di trasferimento in campo politico di una struttura imprenditoriale e del suo leader. Ma non ne sono mancati altri altrettanto significativi. Nondimeno sembra ormai difficile parlare diflash partydopo otto anni di vita, dipartito aziendadopo l'allargamento del reticolo organizzativo, di semplicepartito carismaticodopo il parziale processo di istituzionalizzazione che negli anni è intervenuto (Poli 2001). Più utile ci sembra, riprendendo la terminologia proposta anni fa da Panebianco (1982), parlare di «partito elettoralista» (Gunther e Diamond 2002), ovvero di partito organizzativamente snello, le cui funzioni primarie sono la strutturazione del voto e la selezione dei candidati alle elezioni e, dunque, la conduzione della campagna elettorale attraverso tecniche moderne incentrate soprattutto sui mezzi di comunicazione di massa e sull'attrattiva personale dei candidati presentati, in particolare del suo leader.

This article analyzes the composition of the parliamentary groups of Forza Italia in both branches of the Italian parliament, comparing the 1994, 1996, & 2001 data. By so doing, it attempts to contribute to a better knowledge of the political movement, Forza Italia, the party founded by Prime Minister Berlusconi. After describing the social & political characteristics of the parliamentarian elite, the criteria utilized for the recruitment of the parliamentarians & their places of origin, the article analyzes the nature of Forza Italia & the changes the new party brought into the Italian political system. In the end, it raises the questions of its suitability to support its leader in order not to repeat the failure of 1994; & whether Forza Italia will be able to lead the Italian transition to completion within the mould of a majoritarian democracy. 13 Tables, 1 Figure, 31 References. Adapted from the source document.

Protest campaigns against large-scale public works usually take place within a local context. However, since the 1990s new forms of protest have been emerging. This book analyses two cases from Italy that illustrate this development: the environmentalist protest campaigns against the TAV (the building of a new high-speed railway in Val de Susa, close to the border with France), and the construction of the Bridge on the Messina Straits (between Calabria and Sicily). Such mobilizations emerge from local conflicts but develop as part of a global justice movement, often resulting in the production

Citizens' committees have become an increasingly frequent, relevant phenomenon in Italian local politics and policy over the last decade or so. This article examines protest campaigns concerning traffic policies in four medium-size cities in which such committees have played a pivotal role. Though the ability of such actors to successfully impose their preferences on the policy agenda appears to be at the very least uncertain, an analysis of these campaigns reveals some of the factors that can increase their chances of exerting influence on policy decisions. Such factors include the resources these campaigns can mobilize–-namely various forms of human, social and political capital--, how politically opportune they are, and their ability to structure public discourse within a global framework that fosters the building of coalitions supporting their claims.