Luca Verzichelli – författare

The book focuses on the most recent developments in Italian politics, particularly those of the last 10-15 years. A longer historical perspective, covering the post-war period, is also supplied, providing the reader with the tools for understanding this period of change.The authors address a number of themes, paradoxes and problems inherent to Italian politics. The first theme concerns the shifting balance between the central administration and the periphery. The second theme concerns the divide between governing parties and permanent oppositions. The third theme relates to the mix of political discontinuity and instability with a simultaneous stability of political parties. Finally, the book considers the relationship between the Italian domestic system and the international system. In particular, it examines the impact of the East-West international divide on Italian politics and the Italian party system, and the relationship between Italy and Europe, and Italy's strong support of European integration.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. It has been widely acknowledged that the process of European integration and unification was started and is still pursued as an elite project, designed to put an end to debilitating conflicts and rivalries by consolidating a common power base and by pooling Europe's economic resources. Nevertheless elites have remained the known unknowns of the European integration process. The present volume is designed to change this. Based on surveys of political and economic elites in 18 European countries, it is a comprehensive study of the visions, fears, cognitions and values of members of national parliaments and top business leaders underlying their attitudes towards European integration. It also investigates political and economic elites' embeddedness in transnational networks and their ability to communicate in multicultural settings. The book strongly supports the view of an elitist character of the process of European integration on the one hand, while challenging the idea that European national elites have merged or are even merging into a coherent Eurelite on the other. As the 11 chapters of this book show the process of European integration is much more colourful and even contradictory than concepts of a straight forward normative and structural integration suggest. In particular this process is deeply rooted in, and conditional on, the social and political settings in national contexts. The empirical basis for this book is provided by the data of the international IntUne project, which has for the first time created a comprehensive database combining coordinated surveys of Europe-related attitudes at the elite and general population level.

This book analyses the multidimensional influence of COVID-19 on world politics, with a special focus on Euro-Asian relations, as well as changes in Europe caused by the pandemic. Expert international and interdisciplinary contributors analyse the measures undertaken to counter COVID, its use to justify increased governmental surveillance, the role of religion and regional institutions and the great power transformations, and the economic crisis that resulted from it. The question driving each chapter is to what extent COVID-19, and the reaction to it, transformed the world. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of International Relations, Foreign Policy Analysis, Public Diplomacy, World Politics and Security Studies. This publication will be also relevant for professionals in the corporate world, international business, state departments, political journalism and think tanks.

This book analyses the multidimensional influence of COVID-19 on world politics, with a special focus on Euro-Asian relations, as well as changes in Europe caused by the pandemic. Expert international and interdisciplinary contributors analyse the measures undertaken to counter COVID, its use to justify increased governmental surveillance, the role of religion and regional institutions and the great power transformations, and the economic crisis that resulted from it. The question driving each chapter is to what extent COVID-19, and the reaction to it, transformed the world. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of International Relations, Foreign Policy Analysis, Public Diplomacy, World Politics and Security Studies. This publication will be also relevant for professionals in the corporate world, international business, state departments, political journalism and think tanks.

While Italian politics may appear on the surface to be evolving towards a Westminster model with right- and left-wing blocs alternating in power, this impression is belied by the often nervous and disconnected way in which events unfolded in 2005. In some respects, 2005 was a classic pre-electoral year, in which the pattern of 2000 repeated itself with the roles of government and opposition reversed: the center-left coalition scored a decisive victory in the regional elections in April, provoking a crisis that ended Silvio Berlusconi’s second government, the longest-serving cabinet since the foundation of the Republic in 1948. Berlusconi was able to quickly form a new government, and went on to reform the electoral system in a way that would give him the maximum advantage in the 2006 general election, and to introduce a series of policy initiatives geared more to his own re-election than to real reform. However, while the center-right majority was able to hold together and the center-left was strengthened by its electoral victories and the astonishing success of the primaries held to choose Romano Prodi as its candidate for prime minister, conflict and divisions persisted within both coalitions, leaving the prospect of the development of a stable bipolar system in Italy still in doubt.

This open access book offers a systematic survey of the attitudes and values of European political scientists. It builds a structural interpretation based on empirical data, as well as offering reflections on the future structure of the discipline. In the middle of a delicate phase of changes marked by the effects of pandemic and the war in Ukraine, we need to pay attention to the factors that are affecting not only the ‘objects’ of Political Science as a discipline but also its interactions with the world around it. First, this book asks to what extent the work of European political scientists is impacted by the current change. Second, their attitudes and predisposition about the future goals of the discipline are analysed. In the final chapter, the authors seek to understand to what extent a diffuse but still not completely institutionalized academic discipline will be able to produce a comprehensive impact around the European society, in order to be more visible and effective in policy making and policy processes.

This open access book offers a systematic survey of the attitudes and values of European political scientists. It builds a structural interpretation based on empirical data, as well as offering reflections on the future structure of the discipline. In the middle of a delicate phase of changes marked by the effects of pandemic and the war in Ukraine, we need to pay attention to the factors that are affecting not only the ‘objects’ of Political Science as a discipline but also its interactions with the world around it. First, this book asks to what extent the work of European political scientists is impacted by the current change. Second, their attitudes and predisposition about the future goals of the discipline are analysed. In the final chapter, the authors seek to understand to what extent a diffuse but still not completely institutionalized academic discipline will be able to produce a comprehensive impact around the European society, in order to be more visible and effective in policy making and policy processes.

This book attempts to provide the first comprehensive description of the complexity and comparative homogeneity of political science methods in Europe today. It deals with the present (and future) of political science methods in Europe in order to explore a multifaceted dilemma concerning not only the prospects for the profession, but also political scientists’ ability to do their part in empowering supranational integration and democracy. Thus, the book offers a broad analytical reflection on the changing ways that political scientists use “methods” and “methodological tools” in their daily work. It examines the evolution of processes regarding the standardization and dissemination of a reliable methodological inventory and invites readers to foster a methodological pluralism and improve the quality of methods available to the community of political science scholars.In order to do so, it analyzes the development of European Political Science since the turn of the 21st century from the particular angle of the sensibility for questions of methods. In a nutshell, the common denominator of all chapters is the evolution of the “toolkit” available to political scientists, since they show that the methodological sensibility and specific methodological instruments have since spread across countries, disciplines, and generations of scholars.