Luca Verzichelli
Biographic Data
| ID | 822601 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Luca Verzichelli |
| GIVEN NAMES | Luca |
| FAMILY NAME | Verzichelli |
| SIGNATURE | VERZICHELLI L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Siena |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8159-5215 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 46 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 281 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 46 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Sartori’s grandchildren: The enduring legacy of a political science founder
The article focuses on the intellectual legacy of Giovanni Sartori, describing this figure as the “screenwriter” of an innovative project for Italian and European political science. Retracing the stages of Sartori’s journey as an author, academic leader, and scientific organizer, it highlights how other scholars have been able to build upon his work, showcasing the enduring impact of his vision. The article also provides data describing the scale…
Few but good? The effects of the reduction of parliamentary seats on the socio-professional profile and political careers of Italian MPs
On the eve of the final approval of the constitutional reform reducing the number of parliamentary seats in Italy (October 2020), experts and commentators speculated on its potential consequences. While political supporters emphasized cost-cutting, others highlighted possible efficiency gains and a closer alignment with international standards. Some argued a smaller parliament might improve legislative quality by pushing parties to select better …
Professionalised or not? An analysis of career patterns in the European parliament (1979–2019)
Due to the high levels of turnover displayed by its political personnel, the European parliament has been traditionally regarded as a relatively unstable institution. However, recent literature seems to hint at a re-evaluation of the EP as an increasingly desirable arena for long-term commitments. In this study we aim at confirming the effective degree of this process by observing the career patterns of every Member of the European Parliament (ME…
More equal than different? Gender and legislative turnover in the European Parliament and west European legislatures
The article investigates incumbent exit rates of women and men parliamentarians in the national chambers and European Parliament delegations of eight West European countries after elections. Relying on original data, the article uses a multi-level model to analyse the fixed effects of gender, type of delegation, and the politico-institutional context on incumbent exit rates, while also assessing random effects produced at the country level. The s…
Behind the technocratic challenge: Old and new alternatives to party government in Italy
The growing presence of technocrats in contemporary governments has emerged as a relevant phenomenon worldwide. Italy, once known as a paradigmatic case of party government and now identified as the promised land of technocracy, constitutes a crucial case to test the major short-term (critical junctures) and long-term (complexity of policy-making; party decline) factors identified to explain this phenomenon. Our analysis is based on two innovativ…
The Italian political class: Two Multilevel Datasets on the Profiles and Opinions of Elected Politicians
The datasets on the Italian political class provides two sets of information: (a) census data on a broad spectrum of individual-level variables on elected politicians, offering an updated mapping of the characteristics of more than 20,000 Italian representatives at all governmental levels; (b) survey data on politicians' attitudes towards elections, participation, public opinion, several national and international policy issues, and their views o…
What Drives the Impact of Personalization in Western Europe
The personalisation of politics has been widely studied in the past few decades, especially in Western Europe, from several viewpoints, from the electoral to the party-centered one, from the governmental to the media-related one. Nonetheless, very few contributions have focused on the determinants of personalization, even if this latter process might be linked to more general – and much relevant –societal, institutional, or party-related phenomen…
Toward a “care-sharing” model? Multilateral adjustment strategies for post-pandemic student mobility in Europe
L’article s’appuie sur les résultats de deux enquêtes sur les pratiques des universités du réseau du Groupe Coimbra en réponse à la crise du COVID-19. Nous développons d’abord un cadre théorique et soulevons quelques questions reliant la réaction à court terme face à l’épidémie à la dimension de la coopération à long terme pour protéger et améliorer la mobilité académique entre les universités. Après avoir analysé la variance entre les université…
Towards a ‘care-sharing’ model? Multilateral adjustment strategies for post-pandemic students’ mobility in Europe
L’article s’appuie sur les résultats de deux enquêtes sur les pratiques des universités du réseau du Groupe Coimbra en réponse à la crise du COVID-19. Nous développons d’abord un cadre théorique et soulevons quelques questions reliant la réaction à court terme face à l’épidémie à la dimension de la coopération à long terme pour protéger et améliorer la mobilité académique entre les universités.Après avoir analysé la variance entre les universités…
NextGenerationEU and the European Semester: Comparing National Plans and Country‐Specific Recommendations
This article examines the main features of the Recovery and Resilience Plans (RRPs) that member states have presented to access NextGenerationEU (NGEU) funds, and it explores the relationship between NGEU and the European Semester. Relying on a dataset collected for this purpose, which coded all RRPs and all recommendations received by the member states in the years preceding NGEU, we explore quantitatively the variation in the countries’ resourc…
The Territorial Representativeness of Italian Ministerial Elites: From the Regional “Parity Norm” to the Rise of Technocrats
The territorial composition of governments (that is, the geographical origin of its members) has received little attention from political scientists. However, prime ministers, ministers, and junior ministers clearly have a territorial characterization and preferential attachments to specific places that can potentially affect the way decisions are made and resources are allocated. In this article, we focus on these aspects, showing the evolution …
Going technocratic? Diluting governing responsibility in electorally turbulent times
Technocracy has recently triggered growing scholarly interest, especially as an alternative form of ruling to both party government and populism. In the context of weakened parties-citizens links and increasing external constraints faced by Western European ruling parties, technocratic appointments might help deal with the responsibility-responsiveness dilemma highlighted by Peter Mair. However, research on the explanatory factors of technocratic…
The Impossible Stability? The Italian Lower House Parliamentary Elite After a “Decade of Crises”
The article explores recent changes in the Italian parliamentary elite thanks to a novel set of data on Italian MPs between 1946 and 2018. After a first discussion on some crucial long-term trends of Italian Lower House MPs (their turnover rate, seniority, gender balance, party-related or institutional experience), we focus on the possible explanations of the profound transformation that occurred in the past decade: the rise of new party actors, …
The personalization of party politics in Western Europe (1985–2016): Evidence from an expert survey
The personalization of politics has been extensively studied from different angles and in different national contexts. Nonetheless, an easily comparable and longitudinal study of the personalization of politics at both the country and the party levels is still missing. In this article, we fill this gap by presenting data from an expert survey on the personalization of politics for around 110 parties and a series of Western European countries from…
In search of relevance: European political scientists and the public sphere in critical times
Social relevance has become a key element to assess the social legitimacy of an academic discipline. This contrasts with a widespread sentiment among political scientists about the existence of a relevance gap. The context of multiple crises Europe has experienced since the late 2000s has provided political scientists with a multitude of opportunities to demonstrate the social relevance of their work and the usefulness of the discipline. This int…
European Political Science versus the Pandemic: Patterns of Professional Adaptation
The emergence of the COVID-19 outbreak can be considered a potential driver of changes not only in academic disciplines but also, as most observers underline, in the teaching mission of higher education. This raises the main question of this article, that is, exactly whether and how an external shock such as COVID-19 can impact the comprehensive profile of academic disciplines. By focusing on European political science, the article assesses the d…
Parliamentary Representation in Six European Right-Wing Sovereignist Parties: Resemblance or Innovation
The appeal to the re-appropriation of national sovereignty has recently become the unifying trait of a heterogeneous group of right-wing parties. The underlying reasoning behind this claim is that globalised elites ignore the needs of the people—defined as a restricted and ethnically homogeneous group of natives—they are supposed to represent. After defining the perimeter of this party cluster, including populist, national conservatives and extre…
Technocratic Populism in Italy after Berlusconi: The Trendsetter and his Disciples
Notwithstanding the speculations from the literature, the empirical analyses still neglect the convergence between populism and technocracy. The Italian case can be of some interest in this perspective, given the rise of technocratic populism since Silvio Berlusconi’s rise to power in 1994. By analyzing the style of leadership and the processes of ministerial appointment and delegation, we argue that Berlusconi has been a trendsetter, more than a…
Conclusions. The populism-sovereignism linkage: Findings, theoretical implications and a new research agenda
In this article, an assessment of the sovereignism- populism linkage is offered, moving from the main findings emerged in the contributions to this special issue. The sovereignism- populism linkage is seen as a challenge for comparative politics: on the one hand, the copious literature already developed, particularly in the specific field of populist parties, offers a broad set of findings and stimuli. On the other hand, the huge application (and…
Euroscepticism in Italy from the Onset of the Crisis: Tired of Europe
Attitudes towards the European Union (EU) have changed deeply in Italy: the level of support for EU membership has dramatically declined among Italian citizens and, especially after the 2018 elections, the Italian government has often been on a collision course with the EU. The article maps attitudes towards the EU in Italy, at the level of citizens, parties, and political elites. First, we provide a longitudinal analysis where we assess the scop…
Political elites and immigration in Italy: Party competition, polarization and new cleavages
The massive wave of migration that has affected Europe since 2015 has placed European and national institutions under considerable strain, with significant implications for both EU integration and for politics within the member states. Italy, one of the first points of access for immigrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea, provides the basis for a case study showing how and why the immigration crisis has affected elitesʼ and partiesʼ positions on …
Goat-stag, chimera or chameleon? The formation and first semester of the Conte government
The article deals with the formation and the first semester of activity of the government led by Giuseppe Conte. The genesis of the new ‘yellow-green’ coalition between the Lega (League) and the Movimento Cinque Stelle (Five-star Movement, M5s) is analysed in the first section, which focuses particularly on the contract stipulated by the two parties in the month of May 2018. The second section deals with the formal process of government formation…
Revisiting Transnational European Consociationalism: The European Union a Decade After Lisbon
This article discusses the notion of consociationalism as applied to the EU and assesses whether the institutional and procedural changes introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon (ToL) and by the management of the Euro and refugee crises still warrant considering the EU as a case of consociational democracy. Our contention is that the changes introduced by the ToL bore the promise to strengthen the consociational structural traits of the Union but that…
Back to a responsible responsiveness? The crisis and challenges facing European political elites: The 2017 Peter Mair Lecture
In his later writings, Peter Mair elaborated on the deficit of responsiveness showed by «mainstream» political elites, vis-à-vis the extremely responsive (but largely irresponsible) attitudes of a number of new challengers and populist leaders. This concern was expressed by Mair, in his posthumous volume Ruling the void, with the notion of the «withdrawal of the elites». This article moves from these concerned considerations, confirming that in t…
For whom the sovereignist Bell Tolls?’ Individual determinants of support for sovereignism in ten European countries
Sovereignism and populism are increasingly making headlines, but their nature and definition still remain controversial. Moreover, while literature has often treated the two concepts separately, they are increasingly associated in the current representations and narratives of political events. In this paper, we argue that sovereignism is one of the recurrent and core themes of populism, and pre-exists it. We conceive of sovereignism as a multidim…
A critical juncture? the 2004 European elections and the making of a supranational elite
This article considers the emergence of a cohesive political elite within the European Parliament. Moving from a short review of the literature and drawing on some preliminary data, the paper discusses alternative hypotheses to explain the recruitment and career pattern of MEPs and introduces a typology of members. Afterwards, the paper compares representatives of the new EU member states with the 'pioneer parliamentarians' elected in 1979 and wi…
Going technocratic? Diluting governing responsibility in electorally turbulent times
Technocracy has recently triggered growing scholarly interest, especially as an alternative form of ruling to both party government and populism. In the context of weakened parties-citizens links and increasing external constraints faced by Western European ruling parties, technocratic appointments might help deal with the responsibility-responsiveness dilemma highlighted by Peter Mair. However, research on the explanatory factors of technocratic…
Euroscepticism in Italy from the Onset of the Crisis: Tired of Europe
Attitudes towards the European Union (EU) have changed deeply in Italy: the level of support for EU membership has dramatically declined among Italian citizens and, especially after the 2018 elections, the Italian government has often been on a collision course with the EU. The article maps attitudes towards the EU in Italy, at the level of citizens, parties, and political elites. First, we provide a longitudinal analysis where we assess the scop…
Technocratic Populism in Italy after Berlusconi: The Trendsetter and his Disciples
Notwithstanding the speculations from the literature, the empirical analyses still neglect the convergence between populism and technocracy. The Italian case can be of some interest in this perspective, given the rise of technocratic populism since Silvio Berlusconi’s rise to power in 1994. By analyzing the style of leadership and the processes of ministerial appointment and delegation, we argue that Berlusconi has been a trendsetter, more than a…
I Gruppi Parlamentari Dopo Il 1994. Fluidità E Riaggregazioni
Lo studio dei gruppi parlamentari non ha mai rivestito grande importanza in Italia, anche per la generale convergenza tra gli studiosi, politologi e giuristi, intorno alla tesi della subordinazione dei gruppi stessi rispetto ai partiti, sin dall'epoca della ricostruzione democratica del dopoguerra
The personalization of party politics in Western Europe (1985–2016): Evidence from an expert survey
The personalization of politics has been extensively studied from different angles and in different national contexts. Nonetheless, an easily comparable and longitudinal study of the personalization of politics at both the country and the party levels is still missing. In this article, we fill this gap by presenting data from an expert survey on the personalization of politics for around 110 parties and a series of Western European countries from…
Changing patterns of ministerial circulation: The Italian case in a long-term perspective
The circulation of the ruling class has been a relevant concern in political analysis, but investigation of the determinants of a successful career still remains relatively neglected. This article aims at filling this interpretative gap by focusing on long-term transformations of ministerial careers in Italy. By using an original dataset on ministerial careers between 1976 and 2015, the article explains the patterns of intra-governmental career b…
From a Technocratic Solution to a FragileGrand Coalition: The Impact of the Economic Crisis on Parliamentary Government in Italy
Italy is an interesting case to be included in a comparative analysis of the effects determined by the recent financial crisis on the European political systems, because of the distinctiveness characterising the recent development of this parliamentary democracy. The processes of making and breaking governments, in particular, have been particularly unusual: the end of the governmental experience of Silvio Berlusconi and the formation of the tech…
The parliamentary elite in transition
Only two years after the critical elections of 27 March 1994, the Italian parliamentary election of 1996 marks another important step in the transformation of the political class. The extent of turnover is declining, and the renewal of the parliamentary elite shows some signs of stabilization. This article inquires into the differences in the sociological configuration of the new elite, and whether this means that new consolidated pathways to the…
For whom the sovereignist Bell Tolls?’ Individual determinants of support for sovereignism in ten European countries
Sovereignism and populism are increasingly making headlines, but their nature and definition still remain controversial. Moreover, while literature has often treated the two concepts separately, they are increasingly associated in the current representations and narratives of political events. In this paper, we argue that sovereignism is one of the recurrent and core themes of populism, and pre-exists it. We conceive of sovereignism as a multidim…
Government ideology and party priorities: The determinants of public spending changes in Italy
The literature developed by scholars dealing with policy agendas suggests that it is more important to look at changes in governments’ priorities rather than in their ideology, and criticizes the partisan theory as inadequate. However, hypotheses based on conventional wisdom and normative theories, holding that the identity of the governing parties matters for the allocation of public expenditures, are still recurrent in the debate. And many empi…
Ministers in Italy: Notables, Party Men, Technocrats and Media Men
The study explores the long-term transformations of social and political profiles of ministerial elites, in a country where the process of democratization started in the second half of the nineteenth century and was interrupted for more than 20 years by the Fascist regime (1924-43). After presenting a brief assessment of the role and composition of the Italian cabinets along the distinct phases of democratic life, the article gives attention to s…
La Classe Politica Della Transizione
1994-1996. Un complesso periodo di rinnovamentoLa recente transizione italiana ha riaperto questioni che negli ultimi anni erano state trascurate dalle analisi politologiche, come le trasformazioni della classe politica e dei suoi modelli di selezione e carriera. Diversi contributi hanno evidenziato la nuova rilevanza assunta da tali questioni, confortati peraltro da un'ampia produzione pubblicistica che si è concentrata essenzialmente sulle cara…
Conclusions. The populism-sovereignism linkage: Findings, theoretical implications and a new research agenda
In this article, an assessment of the sovereignism- populism linkage is offered, moving from the main findings emerged in the contributions to this special issue. The sovereignism- populism linkage is seen as a challenge for comparative politics: on the one hand, the copious literature already developed, particularly in the specific field of populist parties, offers a broad set of findings and stimuli. On the other hand, the huge application (and…
Goat-stag, chimera or chameleon? The formation and first semester of the Conte government
The article deals with the formation and the first semester of activity of the government led by Giuseppe Conte. The genesis of the new ‘yellow-green’ coalition between the Lega (League) and the Movimento Cinque Stelle (Five-star Movement, M5s) is analysed in the first section, which focuses particularly on the contract stipulated by the two parties in the month of May 2018. The second section deals with the formal process of government formation…
Gli Eletti
IntroduzioneIl ricambio e la trasformazione della classe parlamentare erano i risultati più attesi dalle elezioni del 27 e 28 marzo 1994: il doppio effetto, prodotto dalla bufera di Tangentopoli e dall'adozione di un sistema elettorale maggioritario, rendeva facilmente prevedibile il mutamento, tuttavia la vittoria di uno schieramento o dell'altro avrebbe prodotto esiti diversi sia nelquantumdi novità espressa in termini di neo-parlamentari che n…
Professionalised or not? An analysis of career patterns in the European parliament (1979–2019)
Due to the high levels of turnover displayed by its political personnel, the European parliament has been traditionally regarded as a relatively unstable institution. However, recent literature seems to hint at a re-evaluation of the EP as an increasingly desirable arena for long-term commitments. In this study we aim at confirming the effective degree of this process by observing the career patterns of every Member of the European Parliament (ME…
Behind the technocratic challenge: Old and new alternatives to party government in Italy
The growing presence of technocrats in contemporary governments has emerged as a relevant phenomenon worldwide. Italy, once known as a paradigmatic case of party government and now identified as the promised land of technocracy, constitutes a crucial case to test the major short-term (critical junctures) and long-term (complexity of policy-making; party decline) factors identified to explain this phenomenon. Our analysis is based on two innovativ…
Parliamentary Representation in Six European Right-Wing Sovereignist Parties: Resemblance or Innovation
The appeal to the re-appropriation of national sovereignty has recently become the unifying trait of a heterogeneous group of right-wing parties. The underlying reasoning behind this claim is that globalised elites ignore the needs of the people—defined as a restricted and ethnically homogeneous group of natives—they are supposed to represent. After defining the perimeter of this party cluster, including populist, national conservatives and extre…
Parliament and Citizens in Italy: An Unfilled Gap
This article analyses the current relationship between parliament and citizens in Italy, after almost two decades of change and adaptation following the collapse of the post-war party system. All the remarkable changes experienced since the early 1990s, such as the alternation in government of two opposite coalitions, the consolidation of more pronounced adversarial politics and the emergence of political personalisation, have not improved the im…
Political elites and immigration in Italy: Party competition, polarization and new cleavages
The massive wave of migration that has affected Europe since 2015 has placed European and national institutions under considerable strain, with significant implications for both EU integration and for politics within the member states. Italy, one of the first points of access for immigrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea, provides the basis for a case study showing how and why the immigration crisis has affected elitesʼ and partiesʼ positions on …
Italy: Still a Pro-European, but not a Fully Europeanised Elite
The aim of this article is to analyse the attitudes of Italian political and economic elites towards European citizenship through the results of a survey conducted in 2007. We begin with a discussion of the changing patterns of pro-Europeanism among Italian elites, within the framework of the recent deep transformations of the domestic political system.\nIn order to understand how these transformations have affected the elites’ attitudes towards …
More equal than different? Gender and legislative turnover in the European Parliament and west European legislatures
The article investigates incumbent exit rates of women and men parliamentarians in the national chambers and European Parliament delegations of eight West European countries after elections. Relying on original data, the article uses a multi-level model to analyse the fixed effects of gender, type of delegation, and the politico-institutional context on incumbent exit rates, while also assessing random effects produced at the country level. The s…
In search of relevance: European political scientists and the public sphere in critical times
Social relevance has become a key element to assess the social legitimacy of an academic discipline. This contrasts with a widespread sentiment among political scientists about the existence of a relevance gap. The context of multiple crises Europe has experienced since the late 2000s has provided political scientists with a multitude of opportunities to demonstrate the social relevance of their work and the usefulness of the discipline. This int…
Misery loves company. Strategies for retrenchment in the era of constrained public finance
The policy agenda literature shows that budget cuts tend to be rarer and less extreme than budget expansions. This article argues that the character of retrenchment policies is shaped by a combination of domestic and international factors, such as budgetary procedures, intra-coalitional conflicts, and the emergence of urgency situations. Building on the findings of several quantitative studies on budgetary changes, we develop two propositions exp…
Gli Eletti
IntroduzioneIl ricambio e la trasformazione della classe parlamentare erano i risultati più attesi dalle elezioni del 27 e 28 marzo 1994: il doppio effetto, prodotto dalla bufera di Tangentopoli e dall'adozione di un sistema elettorale maggioritario, rendeva facilmente prevedibile il mutamento, tuttavia la vittoria di uno schieramento o dell'altro avrebbe prodotto esiti diversi sia nelquantumdi novità espressa in termini di neo-parlamentari che n…
Integrazione Europea E Welfare States Nazionali
Introduzione Il processo di integrazione europea è caratterizzato da una asimmetria fondamentale descritta accuratamente da Joseph Weiler (1981) come un dualismo tra le norme sopranazionali europee ed il policy-making europeo di tipo intergovernativo. Weiler ha ancora ragione nella sua critica agli scienziati politici, colpevoli di aver troppo a lungo concentrato la propria attenzione soltanto sugli aspetti della negoziazione intergovernativa e d…
I Gruppi Parlamentari Dopo Il 1994. Fluidità E Riaggregazioni
Lo studio dei gruppi parlamentari non ha mai rivestito grande importanza in Italia, anche per la generale convergenza tra gli studiosi, politologi e giuristi, intorno alla tesi della subordinazione dei gruppi stessi rispetto ai partiti, sin dall'epoca della ricostruzione democratica del dopoguerra
La Classe Politica Della Transizione
1994-1996. Un complesso periodo di rinnovamentoLa recente transizione italiana ha riaperto questioni che negli ultimi anni erano state trascurate dalle analisi politologiche, come le trasformazioni della classe politica e dei suoi modelli di selezione e carriera. Diversi contributi hanno evidenziato la nuova rilevanza assunta da tali questioni, confortati peraltro da un'ampia produzione pubblicistica che si è concentrata essenzialmente sulle cara…
The parliamentary elite in transition
Only two years after the critical elections of 27 March 1994, the Italian parliamentary election of 1996 marks another important step in the transformation of the political class. The extent of turnover is declining, and the renewal of the parliamentary elite shows some signs of stabilization. This article inquires into the differences in the sociological configuration of the new elite, and whether this means that new consolidated pathways to the…
Ministers in Italy: Notables, Party Men, Technocrats and Media Men
The study explores the long-term transformations of social and political profiles of ministerial elites, in a country where the process of democratization started in the second half of the nineteenth century and was interrupted for more than 20 years by the Fascist regime (1924-43). After presenting a brief assessment of the role and composition of the Italian cabinets along the distinct phases of democratic life, the article gives attention to s…
Much ado about something? Parliamentary politics in Italy amid the rhetoric of majority rule and an uncertain party system
This article deals with the transformation of parliamentary politics in Italy, between 1985 and 2001. An unsatisfactory performance in democratic terms and the bottom-up pressures towards a majoritarian democracy during the first part of this period created strong expectations of a new model of parliamentary representation. In spite of this, a quasi-majoritarian form of electoral rule and a totally renewed party system led to increased fragmentat…
A critical juncture? the 2004 European elections and the making of a supranational elite
This article considers the emergence of a cohesive political elite within the European Parliament. Moving from a short review of the literature and drawing on some preliminary data, the paper discusses alternative hypotheses to explain the recruitment and career pattern of MEPs and introduces a typology of members. Afterwards, the paper compares representatives of the new EU member states with the 'pioneer parliamentarians' elected in 1979 and wi…
Paths of Institutional Development and Elite Transformations
The time period covered by the DATACUBE is that during which most of the European countries have accomplished the democratization of their political system. According to the distinction proposed by Robert Dahl (1970), this has meant reaching high levels of liberalization (i.e. freedom of public contestation) and universalizing the electoral inclusion of adult citizens; or, if we prefer to put it in Rokkan”s words, overcoming the thresholds of leg…
Still a Difficult Budgetary Process? The Government, the Legislature and the Finance Bill
The so called ‘budget session’ has been the most crucial issue on the Italian parliamentary\nagenda since the late 1970s, when the annual finance bill was introduced into the political\nsystem. Since then, the practice of fiscal governance has been significantly transformed,\npaving the way for an important phase of budget consolidation throughout the period of\nconvergence to the Economic and Monetary Union. However, the effectiveness of the\npe…
Good But Not Enough: Recent Developments of Political Science in Italy
The article analyses the nature and prospects of political science in a country where a number of historical and cultural constraints have so far hampered a broad presence of the discipline. The article focuses in particular on the last twenty years, a period in which there has been a radical transformation of the Italian university system. After assessing the penetration of political science in recent academic programmes, the article provides an…
Italy: Still a Pro-European, but not a Fully Europeanised Elite
The aim of this article is to analyse the attitudes of Italian political and economic elites towards European citizenship through the results of a survey conducted in 2007. We begin with a discussion of the changing patterns of pro-Europeanism among Italian elites, within the framework of the recent deep transformations of the domestic political system.\nIn order to understand how these transformations have affected the elites’ attitudes towards …
Parliament and Citizens in Italy: An Unfilled Gap
This article analyses the current relationship between parliament and citizens in Italy, after almost two decades of change and adaptation following the collapse of the post-war party system. All the remarkable changes experienced since the early 1990s, such as the alternation in government of two opposite coalitions, the consolidation of more pronounced adversarial politics and the emergence of political personalisation, have not improved the im…
From Letta to Renzi: Preliminary data concerning the composition of the new Cabinet and the new executive’s programme (with an appendix concerning the legislative activity of the Letta government)
This article provides an initial analysis of the characteristics of the Renzi government – the 60th to take office since the 1948 constitution came into force. The focus of the article, in particular, is on the composition of the new executive (starting with the ministers’ socio-demographic traits and political careers) and on the government agenda (as indicated by the Prime Minister’s inaugural speech in parliament). A comparison between the new…
From a Technocratic Solution to a FragileGrand Coalition: The Impact of the Economic Crisis on Parliamentary Government in Italy
Italy is an interesting case to be included in a comparative analysis of the effects determined by the recent financial crisis on the European political systems, because of the distinctiveness characterising the recent development of this parliamentary democracy. The processes of making and breaking governments, in particular, have been particularly unusual: the end of the governmental experience of Silvio Berlusconi and the formation of the tech…
Looking for Eclecticism? Structural and Contextual Factors Underlying Political Science’s Relevance Gap: Evidence from the italian case
The article deals with the perception of political science’s limited social relevance, by proposing a theoretical framework of analysis through which the Italian case is addressed. Thus, we assume that the prevailing nature of the discipline (variously defined as soft/pure/divergent/rural) results in specific patterns of behaviour which strongly constrain political science’s capacity to increase the importance of its social role. This framework i…
Government ideology and party priorities: The determinants of public spending changes in Italy
The literature developed by scholars dealing with policy agendas suggests that it is more important to look at changes in governments’ priorities rather than in their ideology, and criticizes the partisan theory as inadequate. However, hypotheses based on conventional wisdom and normative theories, holding that the identity of the governing parties matters for the allocation of public expenditures, are still recurrent in the debate. And many empi…
Changing patterns of ministerial circulation: The Italian case in a long-term perspective
The circulation of the ruling class has been a relevant concern in political analysis, but investigation of the determinants of a successful career still remains relatively neglected. This article aims at filling this interpretative gap by focusing on long-term transformations of ministerial careers in Italy. By using an original dataset on ministerial careers between 1976 and 2015, the article explains the patterns of intra-governmental career b…
Shades of Technocracy: The Variable Use of Non-partisan Ministers in Italy
Amici come prima? Italy and Germany in times of crisis
The introductiry chapter to this special issue justifies the decision to focus on Italo-German relations in times of crisis – and in particular on the way in which prejudices and stereotypes affect them – in light of a long history of parallel political and economic development of the two countries and the central role that they are likely to play in the next phase of European integration. After briefly presenting the chapters that compose the sp…
Misery loves company. Strategies for retrenchment in the era of constrained public finance
The policy agenda literature shows that budget cuts tend to be rarer and less extreme than budget expansions. This article argues that the character of retrenchment policies is shaped by a combination of domestic and international factors, such as budgetary procedures, intra-coalitional conflicts, and the emergence of urgency situations. Building on the findings of several quantitative studies on budgetary changes, we develop two propositions exp…
Political elites and immigration in Italy: Party competition, polarization and new cleavages
The massive wave of migration that has affected Europe since 2015 has placed European and national institutions under considerable strain, with significant implications for both EU integration and for politics within the member states. Italy, one of the first points of access for immigrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea, provides the basis for a case study showing how and why the immigration crisis has affected elitesʼ and partiesʼ positions on …
Goat-stag, chimera or chameleon? The formation and first semester of the Conte government
The article deals with the formation and the first semester of activity of the government led by Giuseppe Conte. The genesis of the new ‘yellow-green’ coalition between the Lega (League) and the Movimento Cinque Stelle (Five-star Movement, M5s) is analysed in the first section, which focuses particularly on the contract stipulated by the two parties in the month of May 2018. The second section deals with the formal process of government formation…
Revisiting Transnational European Consociationalism: The European Union a Decade After Lisbon
This article discusses the notion of consociationalism as applied to the EU and assesses whether the institutional and procedural changes introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon (ToL) and by the management of the Euro and refugee crises still warrant considering the EU as a case of consociational democracy. Our contention is that the changes introduced by the ToL bore the promise to strengthen the consociational structural traits of the Union but that…
Back to a responsible responsiveness? The crisis and challenges facing European political elites: The 2017 Peter Mair Lecture
In his later writings, Peter Mair elaborated on the deficit of responsiveness showed by «mainstream» political elites, vis-à-vis the extremely responsive (but largely irresponsible) attitudes of a number of new challengers and populist leaders. This concern was expressed by Mair, in his posthumous volume Ruling the void, with the notion of the «withdrawal of the elites». This article moves from these concerned considerations, confirming that in t…
Political science (42 works) · Law (37 works) · Law (35 works) · Politics (35 works) · Sociology (29 works) · Political economy (24 works) · Economics (22 works) · Populism, Right-Wing Movements (20 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (19 works) · Public Administration (18 works)