Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/23248823.2023.2168338
Andrea Locatelli
actions are deemed immoral. In this respect, the history of international relations has shown that, for the sake of peace and mutual agreement, shared interests between nations can drive relations among regimes of a different nature. This is probably an intrinsic consequence of an international system rooted in an unfair global order where the most powerful nations are privileged compared to the others and in which the EU alone is not capable of reorganizing the world order. Ultimately, even the authors appear to acknowledge this problem when they contend that the very existence of a world of nation states prevents the realization of genuine international justice, whose pursuit fuels their overall analysis. This is in line with a more realistic viewpoint. Today, the EU’s diplomacy should be considered a tool to strengthen alliances with international actors that chose to share the same global institutional architecture and are trying to uphold liberal values in an increasingly challenging environment (Treaty of Lisbon, Article 21 TEU). Accordingly, the ultimate objective of the EU’s external action is to safeguard its values and fundamental interests, thereby promoting an international system based on stronger multilateral cooperation and good global governance. The emerging compromise is, as this research points out, not always immune to double standards. But on the other hand, one may wonder whether the other players in the international system, upholding very different values, are really consistent with their own ‘ethos’ or rather open to settlements, and what this means for contemporary international politics (e.g. for the definition of the ‘global justice’ the authors hope to be officially framed and enacted). The answer to this question could deepen further the excellent analysis of this book and open the door to more ambitious investigations.
{"title":"Renderli simili o inoffensivi. L’ordine liberale, gli Stati Uniti e il dilemma della democrazia","authors":"Andrea Locatelli","doi":"10.1080/23248823.2023.2168338","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2023.2168338","url":null,"abstract":"actions are deemed immoral. In this respect, the history of international relations has shown that, for the sake of peace and mutual agreement, shared interests between nations can drive relations among regimes of a different nature. This is probably an intrinsic consequence of an international system rooted in an unfair global order where the most powerful nations are privileged compared to the others and in which the EU alone is not capable of reorganizing the world order. Ultimately, even the authors appear to acknowledge this problem when they contend that the very existence of a world of nation states prevents the realization of genuine international justice, whose pursuit fuels their overall analysis. This is in line with a more realistic viewpoint. Today, the EU’s diplomacy should be considered a tool to strengthen alliances with international actors that chose to share the same global institutional architecture and are trying to uphold liberal values in an increasingly challenging environment (Treaty of Lisbon, Article 21 TEU). Accordingly, the ultimate objective of the EU’s external action is to safeguard its values and fundamental interests, thereby promoting an international system based on stronger multilateral cooperation and good global governance. The emerging compromise is, as this research points out, not always immune to double standards. But on the other hand, one may wonder whether the other players in the international system, upholding very different values, are really consistent with their own ‘ethos’ or rather open to settlements, and what this means for contemporary international politics (e.g. for the definition of the ‘global justice’ the authors hope to be officially framed and enacted). The answer to this question could deepen further the excellent analysis of this book and open the door to more ambitious investigations.","PeriodicalId":37572,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Italian Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44058088","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/23248823.2023.2167317
James L. Newell
At the beginning of 2023, Italy was governed by a coalition of parties whose pursuit of an unambiguously right-wing policy agenda reflected its solid parliamentary majority (amounting to 237 of 400 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 115 of 200 seats in the Senate) and the weaknesses of the forces of the left. The period since the Government had been sworn in on 22 October had provided ample confirmation that its assumption of office had been the prelude to a clear rightward shift in Italian politics. The election of Ignazio La Russa and Lorenzo Fontana as presidents of the Senate and Chamber respectively had raised eyebrows in view of their past expressions of support for farright causes. The early introduction of legislation ostensibly outlawing rave parties gave rise to a minor public outcry (forcing the government to amend the legislation) when it became apparent that one implication of it would be to outlaw demonstrations and other legitimate expressions of protest. Less than two months after taking office, the Government was locked in conflict with humanitarian vessels rescuing asylum seekers at risk of drowning in the Mediterranean. In December, it was busy keeping its promise to dismantle the anti-poverty citizenship income as well pursuing so-called ‘flat tax’ proposals in conflict with principles of progressivity. It was not surprising, therefore, that in reflecting, on 4 January, on the new government’s first 100 days (or, more accurately, its first 74 days), la Repubblica editor, Maurizio Molinari, was moved to observe that in a country with 15 million people living below the poverty threshold there was a real risk of growing inequality arising from the Government’s agenda. Extreme inequality not only significantly restricts the power and opportunities available to the many at the bottom of the distribution it also restricts the ability of governments to invest in meeting the challenges of the twenty-first century such as climate change. For example, the authors of the ‘World Inequality Report 2022’ make the point that steeply progressive taxation was crucial to ensuring the political and social acceptability of the increased taxation that made possible the rise of the modern welfare states of the middle of the twentieth century. They point out that given the very large volumes of wealth increasingly concentrated at the top of the distribution, even ‘modest progressive taxes can generate significant revenues for governments’. Wealth concentration in Italy is high – in 2021, the top 10% of the population owned 48% of household wealth, while the bottom half held just 10% – but lower than in most EU countries. Therefore, while it is not as significant a problem as in comparable countries, it is unlikely to lose its salience as a political issue. For example, bearing in mind that income and wealth inequalities are tightly connected to differences in contributions to climate change and that such differences are extreme, it is clear that e
2023年初，意大利由一个政党联盟执政，该联盟对明确的右翼政策议程的追求反映了其稳固的议会多数席位（众议院400个席位中有237个，参议院200个席位中的115个）和左翼势力的弱点。自10月22日政府宣誓就职以来的这段时间充分证实，政府的就职是意大利政治明显右倾的前奏。Ignazio La Russa和Lorenzo Fontana分别当选为参议院和众议院议长，这让人感到惊讶，因为他们过去曾表示支持各种事业。早期出台的表面上禁止狂欢派对的立法引起了轻微的公众抗议（迫使政府修改立法），因为它的一个含义显然是禁止示威和其他合法的抗议表达。上任不到两个月，政府就与在地中海营救有溺水风险的寻求庇护者的人道主义船只发生冲突。去年12月，它正忙于履行取消反贫困公民收入的承诺，并推行与进步原则相冲突的所谓“统一税”提案。因此，《共和国报》编辑毛里齐奥·莫里纳里在1月4日回顾新政府成立的头100天（或者更准确地说，是成立的头74天）时，感动地注意到，在一个有1500万人口生活在贫困线以下的国家，政府议程确实存在着不平等加剧的风险。极端的不平等不仅严重限制了许多处于分配底层的人的权力和机会，还限制了政府投资应对气候变化等21世纪挑战的能力。例如，《2022年世界不平等报告》的作者指出，大幅累进税对于确保增税在政治和社会上的可接受性至关重要，增税使20世纪中期现代福利国家的崛起成为可能。他们指出，鉴于大量财富越来越集中在分配的顶端，即使是“适度的累进税也能为政府带来可观的收入”。意大利的财富集中度很高——2021年，收入最高的10%人口拥有48%的家庭财富，而收入最低的一半人口只拥有10%——但低于大多数欧盟国家。因此，虽然它不像可比国家那样是一个重大问题，但它不太可能失去作为一个政治问题的突出性。例如，考虑到收入和财富不平等与气候变化贡献的差异密切相关，而且这种差异是极端的，很明显，有效的气候政策需要更多地针对富裕的污染者。例如，在意大利，2019年排放量最高的1%的国家平均人均产生63.0吨二氧化碳，排放量最低的50%为5.2吨。法国的经验——2018年，法国上调了碳税，并废除了《2023年当代意大利政治》，第15卷，第1期，第1-4页https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2023.2167317
{"title":"Italian politics at the start of 2023","authors":"James L. Newell","doi":"10.1080/23248823.2023.2167317","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2023.2167317","url":null,"abstract":"At the beginning of 2023, Italy was governed by a coalition of parties whose pursuit of an unambiguously right-wing policy agenda reflected its solid parliamentary majority (amounting to 237 of 400 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 115 of 200 seats in the Senate) and the weaknesses of the forces of the left. The period since the Government had been sworn in on 22 October had provided ample confirmation that its assumption of office had been the prelude to a clear rightward shift in Italian politics. The election of Ignazio La Russa and Lorenzo Fontana as presidents of the Senate and Chamber respectively had raised eyebrows in view of their past expressions of support for farright causes. The early introduction of legislation ostensibly outlawing rave parties gave rise to a minor public outcry (forcing the government to amend the legislation) when it became apparent that one implication of it would be to outlaw demonstrations and other legitimate expressions of protest. Less than two months after taking office, the Government was locked in conflict with humanitarian vessels rescuing asylum seekers at risk of drowning in the Mediterranean. In December, it was busy keeping its promise to dismantle the anti-poverty citizenship income as well pursuing so-called ‘flat tax’ proposals in conflict with principles of progressivity. It was not surprising, therefore, that in reflecting, on 4 January, on the new government’s first 100 days (or, more accurately, its first 74 days), la Repubblica editor, Maurizio Molinari, was moved to observe that in a country with 15 million people living below the poverty threshold there was a real risk of growing inequality arising from the Government’s agenda. Extreme inequality not only significantly restricts the power and opportunities available to the many at the bottom of the distribution it also restricts the ability of governments to invest in meeting the challenges of the twenty-first century such as climate change. For example, the authors of the ‘World Inequality Report 2022’ make the point that steeply progressive taxation was crucial to ensuring the political and social acceptability of the increased taxation that made possible the rise of the modern welfare states of the middle of the twentieth century. They point out that given the very large volumes of wealth increasingly concentrated at the top of the distribution, even ‘modest progressive taxes can generate significant revenues for governments’. Wealth concentration in Italy is high – in 2021, the top 10% of the population owned 48% of household wealth, while the bottom half held just 10% – but lower than in most EU countries. Therefore, while it is not as significant a problem as in comparable countries, it is unlikely to lose its salience as a political issue. For example, bearing in mind that income and wealth inequalities are tightly connected to differences in contributions to climate change and that such differences are extreme, it is clear that e","PeriodicalId":37572,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Italian Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47454846","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/23248823.2022.2057046
S. Panebianco
ABSTRACT Situated on the EU’s Mediterranean borders, Italy provides the setting for a case study aimed at understanding Mediterranean migration governance in the 2010s. We adopt an actor-centred approach to explore how the Italian coast guard’s humanitarian agency was constrained and reshaped in a changed environment. We draw upon the sense-making of Italy’s political leaders and its impact on the humanitarian practices of the Italian coast guard. Migration politics is marked by political discourses framing interests and priorities according to the sense-making of the political leadership. In the last decade, Italian political leaders have constructed and reconstructed discourses on migration, providing a different understanding of the technical capacity to respond to crisis situations. In a few years, the Mare Nostrum operation was dismantled and replaced by a restrictive ‘closed-ports’ strategy to guarantee border control. Humanitarian operations at sea, a pillar of migration governance in the mid-2010s, were de facto constrained. Focusing on the pivotal role of the Italian coast guard in conducting maritime operations, we explain why its role of vanguard in developing humanitarian practices was marginalized over time.
{"title":"Mediterranean migration governance and the role of the Italian coast guard: varying political understandings of maritime operations in the 2010s","authors":"S. Panebianco","doi":"10.1080/23248823.2022.2057046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2022.2057046","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Situated on the EU’s Mediterranean borders, Italy provides the setting for a case study aimed at understanding Mediterranean migration governance in the 2010s. We adopt an actor-centred approach to explore how the Italian coast guard’s humanitarian agency was constrained and reshaped in a changed environment. We draw upon the sense-making of Italy’s political leaders and its impact on the humanitarian practices of the Italian coast guard. Migration politics is marked by political discourses framing interests and priorities according to the sense-making of the political leadership. In the last decade, Italian political leaders have constructed and reconstructed discourses on migration, providing a different understanding of the technical capacity to respond to crisis situations. In a few years, the Mare Nostrum operation was dismantled and replaced by a restrictive ‘closed-ports’ strategy to guarantee border control. Humanitarian operations at sea, a pillar of migration governance in the mid-2010s, were de facto constrained. Focusing on the pivotal role of the Italian coast guard in conducting maritime operations, we explain why its role of vanguard in developing humanitarian practices was marginalized over time.","PeriodicalId":37572,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Italian Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44267813","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/23248823.2023.2170121
Fabio Bolzonar
True, such an abundance of evidence could have been investigated further, but this does not challenge the argument per se. In conclusion, just one issue needs to be raised: while the author systematically delves into the realist scholarship, other approaches are neglected. Borrowing from Lakatos’ terminology, one may be tempted to question whether the argument presented stands up to a threecornered fight. Constructivism in particular is almost absent from the investigation, despite the many contributions published from this perspective on both US foreign policy and the international order. Nonetheless, Natalizia’s book deserves praise for the theoretical and methodological rigour underlying the analysis. The reader is guided by the author’s sober prose through the conceptual subtleties of the IR literature, a number of compelling critiques, his working hypothesis and, finally, a historical tour-de-force. For sure, this volume makes a welcome addition to the growing Italian scholarship on this topic.
{"title":"The Masks of the Political God. Religion and Political Parties in Contemporary Democracies","authors":"Fabio Bolzonar","doi":"10.1080/23248823.2023.2170121","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2023.2170121","url":null,"abstract":"True, such an abundance of evidence could have been investigated further, but this does not challenge the argument per se. In conclusion, just one issue needs to be raised: while the author systematically delves into the realist scholarship, other approaches are neglected. Borrowing from Lakatos’ terminology, one may be tempted to question whether the argument presented stands up to a threecornered fight. Constructivism in particular is almost absent from the investigation, despite the many contributions published from this perspective on both US foreign policy and the international order. Nonetheless, Natalizia’s book deserves praise for the theoretical and methodological rigour underlying the analysis. The reader is guided by the author’s sober prose through the conceptual subtleties of the IR literature, a number of compelling critiques, his working hypothesis and, finally, a historical tour-de-force. For sure, this volume makes a welcome addition to the growing Italian scholarship on this topic.","PeriodicalId":37572,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Italian Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44732984","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1080/23248823.2022.2163453
Alessandro Chiaramonte
ABSTRACT On 25 September 2022, in an election that saw a record low turnout, the coalition of the centre-right emerged as the clear winner and Fratelli d’Italia (FdI) as the most-voted party. As a result, the centre-right political forces agreed to form a government headed by FdI’s leader, Giorgia Meloni, who became the first female Prime Minister in Italy’s history. The aim of this article is to gain a better understanding of the election outcome and of its implications for the transformation of the Italian party system. The main ‘lessons’ of the results have to do with voters increasingly dissatisfied with parties and prone to abstaining or to changing their vote choice, and with a party system that has become more polarized and de-institutionalized.
{"title":"Italy at the polls. Four lessons to learn from the 2022 general election","authors":"Alessandro Chiaramonte","doi":"10.1080/23248823.2022.2163453","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2022.2163453","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT On 25 September 2022, in an election that saw a record low turnout, the coalition of the centre-right emerged as the clear winner and Fratelli d’Italia (FdI) as the most-voted party. As a result, the centre-right political forces agreed to form a government headed by FdI’s leader, Giorgia Meloni, who became the first female Prime Minister in Italy’s history. The aim of this article is to gain a better understanding of the election outcome and of its implications for the transformation of the Italian party system. The main ‘lessons’ of the results have to do with voters increasingly dissatisfied with parties and prone to abstaining or to changing their vote choice, and with a party system that has become more polarized and de-institutionalized.","PeriodicalId":37572,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Italian Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46296582","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-05DOI: 10.1080/23248823.2022.2150934
Antonio Martella, F. Roncarolo
ABSTRACT The 2022 Italian election campaign, taking place as it did in the middle of the summer following a government crisis, offered interesting suggestions concerning leaders’ and media strategies aimed at mobilizing people in a challenging context. Our results show that the ‘expected winner’, Giorgia Meloni, was able to focus the attention of leaders, the media and users on herself despite competing with leaders and parties (Matteo Salvini and the Five-star Movement) that were more established online. Although the competition took place in the context of an electoral system having a majoritarian component, Meloni’s main competitor, Democratic Party leader, Enrico Letta, does not seem to have been able to polarize the competition sufficiently due to the fragmentation of the parties of the centre-left. In contrast, ex-prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, and the leader of the third pole, Carlo Calenda, deployed contrasting but successful strategies on Facebook, ones that may have contributed to their electoral performances. In this context, the limited media attention devoted to the campaign seems to have mirrored citizens’ feelings of disaffection and distrust: feelings that were, in all probability, heightened by the incomprehensibility of the government crisis that led to the elections.
{"title":"Giorgia Meloni in the spotlight. Mobilization and competition strategies in the 2022 Italian election campaign on Facebook","authors":"Antonio Martella, F. Roncarolo","doi":"10.1080/23248823.2022.2150934","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2022.2150934","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The 2022 Italian election campaign, taking place as it did in the middle of the summer following a government crisis, offered interesting suggestions concerning leaders’ and media strategies aimed at mobilizing people in a challenging context. Our results show that the ‘expected winner’, Giorgia Meloni, was able to focus the attention of leaders, the media and users on herself despite competing with leaders and parties (Matteo Salvini and the Five-star Movement) that were more established online. Although the competition took place in the context of an electoral system having a majoritarian component, Meloni’s main competitor, Democratic Party leader, Enrico Letta, does not seem to have been able to polarize the competition sufficiently due to the fragmentation of the parties of the centre-left. In contrast, ex-prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, and the leader of the third pole, Carlo Calenda, deployed contrasting but successful strategies on Facebook, ones that may have contributed to their electoral performances. In this context, the limited media attention devoted to the campaign seems to have mirrored citizens’ feelings of disaffection and distrust: feelings that were, in all probability, heightened by the incomprehensibility of the government crisis that led to the elections.","PeriodicalId":37572,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Italian Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43431004","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/23248823.2022.2132904
A. Donà
ABSTRACT The European Union considers gender equality to be a key issue for post-pandemic recovery. The establishment of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) required member states to present their National Recovery and Resilience Plans and commit themselves to considering gender equality a horizontal objective. As Italy’s Recovery and Resilience Plan was, in terms of resources, the largest national plan under the RRF, it had the potential to be a ‘turning point’ for gender equality in Italy. This article offers a preliminary analysis, based on the categories elaborated by feminist policy research, aimed at assessing whether the National Plan initiated a process of policy and institutional change and if so, in what direction. It is argued that under pressure from the European vincolo esterno, the scope of gender equality has been narrowed and the measures aimed at promoting gender equality have become more bureaucratized and aligned with a managerial and technical policy turn, thus promoting a shift towards the depoliticization of gender equality.
{"title":"Gender equality in the Italian Recovery and Resilience Plan: the depoliticizing effects of the technocratic Draghi government","authors":"A. Donà","doi":"10.1080/23248823.2022.2132904","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2022.2132904","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The European Union considers gender equality to be a key issue for post-pandemic recovery. The establishment of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) required member states to present their National Recovery and Resilience Plans and commit themselves to considering gender equality a horizontal objective. As Italy’s Recovery and Resilience Plan was, in terms of resources, the largest national plan under the RRF, it had the potential to be a ‘turning point’ for gender equality in Italy. This article offers a preliminary analysis, based on the categories elaborated by feminist policy research, aimed at assessing whether the National Plan initiated a process of policy and institutional change and if so, in what direction. It is argued that under pressure from the European vincolo esterno, the scope of gender equality has been narrowed and the measures aimed at promoting gender equality have become more bureaucratized and aligned with a managerial and technical policy turn, thus promoting a shift towards the depoliticization of gender equality.","PeriodicalId":37572,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Italian Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45390999","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/23248823.2022.2127647
Arianna Tassinari
ABSTRACT Liberalizing labour market reforms have topped the agenda of structural reforms implemented in Italy over the last two decades, with detrimental effects on employment quality, wage dynamics and productivity. In 2021, Italy’s then Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, promised that the investments outlined in Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) would ‘transform Italy’s labour market’. How and to what extent does the labour market policy agenda enshrined in Italy’s NRRP deviate from the prior trajectory of policy change? What balance of economic, political and class interests does it reflect? And to what extent does it adequately tackle the long-standing challenges of Italy’s labour market? This article addresses these questions combining in-depth analysis of the labour market policy measures in Italy’s 2021 NRRP and interviews with experts and elites involved in the policy process. Contrary to claims of discontinuity, the findings highlight substantive continuity of the NRRP labour market policy agenda with the prior trajectory of liberalization. The Plan maintains a narrow focus on supply-side labour market interventions – primarily the strengthening of active labour market policies (ALMPs) – without re-regulatory interventions to tackle labour market insecurity or wage stagnation. Exogenous conditionality and domestic political dynamics that systematically advanced the preferences of employer organizations in the design of the NRRP account for the limited extent of policy change. Due to the neglect of demand-side labour market interventions and the uncertainties surrounding the implementation of the ALMP reforms, the transformatory potential of the NRRP’s labour market agenda is likely to remain limited.
{"title":"Labour market policy in Italy’s recovery and resilience plan. Same old or a new departure?","authors":"Arianna Tassinari","doi":"10.1080/23248823.2022.2127647","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2022.2127647","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Liberalizing labour market reforms have topped the agenda of structural reforms implemented in Italy over the last two decades, with detrimental effects on employment quality, wage dynamics and productivity. In 2021, Italy’s then Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, promised that the investments outlined in Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) would ‘transform Italy’s labour market’. How and to what extent does the labour market policy agenda enshrined in Italy’s NRRP deviate from the prior trajectory of policy change? What balance of economic, political and class interests does it reflect? And to what extent does it adequately tackle the long-standing challenges of Italy’s labour market? This article addresses these questions combining in-depth analysis of the labour market policy measures in Italy’s 2021 NRRP and interviews with experts and elites involved in the policy process. Contrary to claims of discontinuity, the findings highlight substantive continuity of the NRRP labour market policy agenda with the prior trajectory of liberalization. The Plan maintains a narrow focus on supply-side labour market interventions – primarily the strengthening of active labour market policies (ALMPs) – without re-regulatory interventions to tackle labour market insecurity or wage stagnation. Exogenous conditionality and domestic political dynamics that systematically advanced the preferences of employer organizations in the design of the NRRP account for the limited extent of policy change. Due to the neglect of demand-side labour market interventions and the uncertainties surrounding the implementation of the ALMP reforms, the transformatory potential of the NRRP’s labour market agenda is likely to remain limited.","PeriodicalId":37572,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Italian Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43766640","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/23248823.2022.2132350
Maurizio Cerruto, Domenico Cersosimo, Francesco Raniolo
ABSTRACT This contribution focuses on the potential geographical impact of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) given its constraints, objectives and resources. The article analyses the NRRP as a great development opportunity, especially for the Mezzogiorno regions. The Plan has been presented as another ‘historic opportunity’ to narrow the North-South divide; as a symbolic turning point that should trigger a virtuous spiral of growth, social cohesion and sustainability. More specifically, starting from the multiple current structural crises affecting the society and economy of Italy’s less developed regions, attention is focused on the complex policies involved in the implementation of the Plan in order to achieve the expected results in these regions and on the central role played by the (financial, organizational and political) resources mobilized.
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Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/23248823.2022.2132588
James L. Newell
As we were going to press at the beginning of October 2022, the political conjuncture in Italy was one of transition between the outgoing Draghi government and the formation of the new government, which seemed almost certain to be led by Giorgia Meloni as Italy’s first female prime minister. It was unlikely to be before the end of October that the new Cabinet would meet for the first time. As former Economist editor, Bill Emmott, noted, for foreign observers of Italian politics it was likely to seem strange that such a long period of time had to elapse between the 25 September general election and the new government’s assumption of office. It was likely to seem the stranger, one might add, as the election had delivered – for the first time since 2008 – a clear seat majority for one of the contending electoral coalitions. In fact, there was a very straightforward institutional explanation for the time gap; for the new government’s assumption of office was dependent on the completion of a series of procedures none of which could begin before successful completion of the one before it. First, it would take until 13 October, when the Senate and Chamber of Deputies were scheduled to meet for the first time, for the newly elected parliamentarians to be inducted, to have their official photographs taken and to complete the various other bureaucratic tasks associated with the assumption of their new roles and responsibilities. Then the two branches of the legislature would have to elect their respective presidents, doing so by means of secret ballot and, in the case of the Chamber, only with the support of at least two-thirds at the first two rounds of voting. Only then would it be possible for the newly elected presidents to supervise the formation of the parliamentary groups. And only then would the president of the Republic be in a position to confer a mandate for the formation of a government – on Meloni, one had to assume – having first consulted the former heads of state, the presidents of the two branches of the legislature and the party leaders and parliamentary group leaders. Prime ministers designate usually accept their mandates conditionally (con riserva) – thus enabling them to consult the parliamentary group leaders with a view to establishing the existence (or otherwise) of a parliamentary majority willing to sustain a government they might lead. With that procedure out of the way, they can then accept their mandates unconditionally (sciogliere la riserva) and present the head of state with a list of proposed government ministers, whose appointment is, in accordance with article 92 of the Constitution, a bene placito of the president of the Republic. At that point, the new government can be sworn in and powers officially pass from the outgoing to the incoming Prime Minister. However, there is then one further ritual that must be observed before the new government fully assumes its responsibilities: On the basis of a declaration of the new
正如我们将在2022年10月初报道的那样，意大利的政治形势是即将离任的德拉吉政府和新政府的组建之间的过渡，新政府似乎几乎肯定会由Giorgia Meloni领导，成为意大利首位女总理。新内阁不太可能在10月底之前举行首次会议。正如前《经济学人》编辑比尔·埃莫特所指出的那样，对于意大利政治的外国观察家来说，从9月25日大选到新政府就职之间相隔如此长的时间似乎很奇怪。有人可能会补充说，这似乎更奇怪，因为这次选举自2008年以来首次为一个竞争的选举联盟提供了明显的多数席位。事实上，对时间差距有一个非常直接的制度解释；因为新政府的就职取决于一系列程序的完成，而在成功完成之前，这些程序都无法开始。首先，要到10月13日，参议院和众议院计划首次开会，新当选的议员才能就职，拍摄他们的官方照片，并完成与承担新角色和职责相关的各种其他官僚任务。然后，立法机构的两个分支机构必须通过无记名投票的方式选举各自的总统，就众议院而言，只有在前两轮投票中获得至少三分之二的支持。只有到那时，新当选的总统才有可能监督议会小组的组建。只有到那时，共和国总统才能在首先咨询了前国家元首、立法机构两个部门的主席以及政党领导人和议会小组领导人后，授予梅洛尼组建政府的授权。候任总理通常有条件地接受他们的授权（con riserva），从而使他们能够与议会团体领导人协商，以确定（或以其他方式）议会多数派的存在，他们愿意维持他们可能领导的政府。有了这一程序，他们就可以无条件地接受自己的授权（sciogliere la riserva），并向国家元首提交一份拟议的政府部长名单，根据《宪法》第92条，这些部长的任命是共和国总统的职责。届时，新政府可以宣誓就职，权力从即将离任的总理正式移交给即将上任的总理。然而，在新政府完全承担责任之前，还必须遵守另一个仪式：在新总理宣布其政府计划的基础上，立法机构的两个部门将被要求通过对新行政部门的确认信任投票。《当代意大利政治2022》，第14卷，第4期，397-401https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2022.2132588
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