|
Showing 1 - 5 of
5 matches in All Departments
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.
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 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.
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.
|
|