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The paper brings to the scientific attention the increasing diffusion of new forms of volunteering in Italy, centred on targeted initiatives, time-limited and related to specific needs and emergencies. In this line, the article focuses on a request for occasional participation launched in the city of Como with the aim to organize a new temporary homeless shelter for the winter. The ethnographic study at the basis of the paper examines the reasons behind this civic initiative. It also analyses the experience of those who joined the project, investigating both the specificity of their of their caring activities in relation with the homeless population and the ways in which volunteers may redefine their expectations, roles and range of action. Finally, the article summarizes the main implications associated to this form of episodic involvement, identifying a series of stimuli that can be useful for elaborating on the emerging paths of volunteering in Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Italy is a frontrunner in the process of population ageing, which is affecting most high-income countries in Europe and elsewhere. Increasing longevity, paired with decreasing fertility and a much slower pace in the reduction of later life morbidity, has and will lead to an increasing mismatch between long-term care needs and resources. Within this context, it is important to understand the extent to which (scarce) care resources are distributed in society. As a matter of fact, inequality in access to long-term care in later life can add to pre-existing inequalities and further aggravate already existing disadvantages. In the present paper, we present a systematic review of existing studies focusing on the social stratification of access to long-term care among the older Italian population. Three dimensions of social stratification are considered: education, income, and wealth. Previous results suggest that education is a key factor in the unequal distribution of care resources, especially in terms of formal care. Regarding access to informal care and the role of income and wealth, previous literature reports mixed findings. The review also identifies several significant limitations in previous studies on the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical studies have repeatedly shown a progressive reduction of educational inequalities by social class of origin in most European countries (Breen et al. 2009; Ballarino et al. 2008; Barone and Ruggera 2018). However, in most contributions, parental wealth has been largely overlooked as a specific and independent dimension of parental SES, and only a few contributions have investigated the variation of wealth gaps over time (Pfeffer 2018). This work aims to contribute to the literature in two main directions. First, it aims to provide an empirical assessment of trends in wealth gaps in Upper Secondary and Tertiary education over the last three decades in Italy. Second, it aims to assess whether and how these gaps have varied along different segments of the wealth distribution. Using the Historical Archive of the Household Survey on Income and Wealth (SHIW-HA), the paper analyses the variation of wealth gaps in upper secondary graduation rates for children born in the '70s, '80s, and '90s, and tertiary graduation rates for children born in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. Results show a progressive reduction of adjusted wealth gaps in upper secondary education. Compared to the '70s birth cohort, an increase in upper secondary graduation rates is observed around the median of the wealth distribution for children born in the '80s, followed by an increase occurring at the bottom for the '90s birth cohort. Conversely, wealth gaps in tertiary attainment have persisted, if not increased. Between the '60s and '70s birth cohorts, wealth gaps in tertiary widened, following an increase in graduation rates that occurred exclusively at the top of the wealth distribution. Between the '70s to the '80s birth cohorts, tertiary graduation rates converged upwards, with a greater increase in the bottom half of the wealth distribution. The net balance between the '60s and '80s cohorts shows a slight increase in wealth gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple job-holding represents not only a widespread working condition but also a particularly multifaceted phenomenon. Although it has drawn research attention from various disciplines over the last decades, a comprehensive understanding of its current articulation and its recent transformations is still lacking. Hence, in the light of the changing socio-economic scenario, the paper aims at identifying the structural characteristics of the contemporary forms of multiple job-holding in Italy. It does so through a mixed-methods approach: a quantitative analysis of ISTAT and EUROSTAT data, aimed at identifying the main profiles of the multiple job-holders, is complemented by a qualitative analysis conducted through 27 semi-structured interviews oriented to deepen the main determinants (push or pull factors) underlying the choice to carry out more than one job at the same time and the consequences in terms of individual enrichment or depletion. The empirical analysis points out the emergence of three clusters of contemporary multiple job-holders, each displaying peculiar traits. Overall, the paper offers a threefold contribution. First, it proposes a systematization of the broad debate on the variety of multiple job-holding, still fragmented and discontinuous. Second, it offers an analytical framework for investigating the complex phenomenon of multiple job-holding - lacking in the literature - based on the Italian experience but transferable also to other labour markets characterized by different regulatory and institutional configurations. Third, it updates the debate undertaken in Italy since the 1980s on the issue of multiple job-holding by investigating the specificities of contemporary forms of multiple employment in the light of the transformed socio-economic and regulatory scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper stems from the «Progetto Pilota Natalità» in the province of Modena of the Emilia-Romagna region, Italy. Run between 2019 and 2021, the project introduces new evidence related to family policies in the Province of Modena. Specifically, we integrate primary qualitative firm-level evidence gathered during the Covid-19 pandemic with data on the voluntary organizations operating in the Italian third sector obtained just before the Covid-19 outbreak. We provide meaningful insights at the intersection of the public, the private and the voluntary sectors, while setting some guidelines to move forward in the design and implementation of family policies that are sensible across the territory. The study is interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic and, as a result, is mainly centered around two themes: (1) the processes involved in the territorialization of public policy, particularly family policies, that entail local collective action levers and bottom-up resilience for the application of national policies; (2) the potential of these policies in terms of social innovation, understood as the joint design of a social infrastructure within a value allocation process between the actors involved, given certain time and space aspects. The paper explores the dimensionality of social innovation through the emergence and the scaling up of innovative processes as a result of devolved governance from national and EU levels to the local level, which gives precisely the framework of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Special economic zones (ZES) are an industrial policy instrument aimed at creating, in specific territories, particularly advantageous establishment conditions for companies in terms of tax and financial benefits, infrastructures, agglomeration economies. The goal is to generate institutional and contextual factors capable of attracting investments and facilitating business activity. The SEZs, although present for a long time in many countries, were formally established in Italy only in 2017 in the southern regions and, after a long process of regulatory changes and reduced operations, were included in the reform plan and in the investments program of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP): they are therefore about to enter their full implementation. This paper analyzes the criticality and potentials of this policy tool. The most evident critical points are the lack of a theoretical-conceptual framework within which to place this intervention policy and the choice of an overly simplified and centralizing governance, as well as the absence of a critical evaluation of the experiences and models of territorial development that have characterized the economic history of our country over the last fifty years. A critical evaluation of the lessons deriving from the experiences of policies and instruments implemented in the past, and in other areas of the world, but above all a careful diagnosis of the current scenario characterized by strong geo-political, institutional and market changes, and the definition of a clear conceptual framework, however, could be extremely useful elements to look at the future of the ZES from a less uncertain perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at exploring the current Italian ecologist archipelago by focusing on three main dimensions: organization, «frame» and action repertoire. By investigating these dimensions, we would like to address some fundamental questions: a) how does the environmental movement in Italy look like today? Who are the protagonists? What are their patterns of action and their claims? b) How the relationships between protest and ecologist groups are? c) Where environmental claims can be placed between materialist and post-materialist perspectives? By drawing on a mixed qualitative/quantitative methodology, we aim to provide an updated overview about Italian environmentalism. We first use the Protest Event Analysis (PEA) to trace the main trends in terms of institutionalization/radicalization, territorialisation, alliance structure and other aspects of the environmental protest, and eventually further explore the issue through the frame analysis approach based mainly on in-depth interviews and the analysis of documents drafted by social movement actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to study the current transformations in trade union action by focusing on the meat processing industry in Italy, a sector characterized by a high share of atypical and subcontracted labour. Based on qualitative data collected inside two plants, the paper addresses the processes of labour force segmentation, according to axes such as employment contracts, workers’ nationality, skin colour and gender. Secondly, the paper analyses trade unions’ strategies to cope with these labour force fragmentations. By looking at the nexus between labour process and forms of organization, the paper singles out three approaches. These approaches, underpinned by unions’ understanding of labour market restructuring, epitomize different strategies to organize and mobilize labour. In conclusion, we argue that these conflicting approaches, although oriented towards enlarging unions’ membership and representativeness, actually embed, and thus contribute to strengthen, labour force segmentations in workplaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last twenty years the Locally Unwanted Land Use (LULU) protests have grown across Italy by putting scholars in front of new questions about the dynamics of local mobilization which have often led them to focus on the political-institutional context as pivotal variable to explain the conflict. By starting from this assumption, this paper aims at observing, on the one hand, the transformations of political context (the arise and decline of Movimento 5 Stelle, the centralization of power related to territories management, the tightening of repression, etc.) that have produced a Political Opportunity Structure unfavourable for LULU mobilization and, on the other hand, the feedback of local actors and their reorganization in terms of frame and strategies. While paying attention to structural dynamics, this paper investigates the role that the cultural-discursive context and the local actors' framing processes play in mobilization. With this aim, the contribute takes in consideration the spreading of new environmental movements - as Fridays for Future - and the discursive and political opportunities that these can produce also for the local campaigns here analysed. The research is been conducted by comparing three LULU campaigns (No Grandi Navi, No Cave, No TAP) and by using a qualitative approach mainly based on in-depth interviews with actors of the conflict and on the analysis of documents that they have produced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last fifteen years, and especially following the economic crisis, the Southern European states have introduced a large number of reforms, on the one hand, to increase their competitiveness and encourage economic development and, on the other, to rationalize the «state's side» of the welfare state, so as to reduce their public spending, as required by the austerity policies. Justice is certainly one of the state sectors which has been deeply impacted by the reforms adopted in response to the influences exercised by European Council, Commission's Directorate-general for competition, Troika, European Court of Human Rights, and European judicial networks. The paper, which focuses on labour justice in Portugal, Spain, and Italy, analyses, from a quantitative point of view, the effects of this long «season of reforms» both at the macro (national) and meso level (judicial districts). This choice is driven by the desire to compare three states characterized by a high internal and external independence of the judiciary -- the so-called Southern European Model -- and, at the same time, to highlight the impact of different levels of organizational autonomy enjoyed by the local territories. The fundamental hypothesis of this paper is that the reforms introduced in recent years -- both on the supply and demand side of justice -- have, on the whole, increased the efficiency of the judicial systems, but have not been able to reduce the inequalities, in terms of citizens' opportunities to access to justice. The article, which fills a gap in the literature on these topics, discusses the variables that may explain the persistence of the territorial differences and proposes to re-define the very way of conceiving and practicing the governance not only of the justice systems, but of all the public structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young people in European countries are facing increased insecurity on the labour market, given the widespreadness of flexibilisation process, having lost the safety net provided by welfare state that has characterized the generation of their parents. The way this process is enacted varies across countries: in literature is well know how institutional filters such as labour market regulation and welfare system mediate the impact of flexibilisation, shaping the opportunities context for individual decisions. This leads to consequences non only in the present, but also in the mediumterm, shaping the opportunities and the representations of young people. In our paper we intend to consider in the institutional setting also the financial system. We take into account the level of inclusion of the banking system, with particular attention to the access to credit. We have focused the credit risk assessment models used by banks in a given system, and the way by which the type of contract is assessed in the different systems: while some country are more inclusive, other are characterized by denying the credit access to atypical workers. The possibilities to fall into debts, and specifically the devices proposed by banks to do it, are a factor that shape not only the opportunities, the strategies and the risk of vulnerability of young people facing job and income insecurity, but also their representations of opportunities and risks about their future. In this paper, the individual strategies, as well as individual meanings, feelings and representations are analysed with semi-structured interviews to 50 young people facing job insecurity in Italy, a country characterized by a low credit access. The analysis comes from Except project -- Horizon 2020 program, lasting three years (2015-2018), aimed to highlight the point of view of young people who are experiencing precariousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents some research hypotheses on the Italian coercive prevention apparatus through the sociological qualitative analysis of a sample of special surveillance orders, providing the theoretical keys to analyse that apparatus and the specific measures taken in consideration. This is a discretely theoretically deepened field of research, but one that proves, at least in Italy, to be little accessible to empirical socio-legal research. The aim is to hypothesize the functions and potential effects of this institutional intervention. The reflection leads to bring back to the center concepts and categories that only seemingly belong to the past and indeed innervate control practices, especially preventive ones. I refer to the policies of social defense and social alarm, aimed at the continuous identification between deviance and threat, disorder and social danger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper summarises the basic features of the longstanding debate between authors maintaining the persistence of social classes in contemporary advanced societies and the authors stating, on the contrary, that social inequalities are deeply fragmented or even individualised. Then, it outlines the reasons why this debate should be taken again by Italian social scientists. Subsequently, the article shortly sets out the basic theoretical foundations of the concept of classes and the main features of the multidimensional typology of the Italian social stratification recently drawn out by ISTAT. In light of analytical considerations and empirical evidences, it is argued that this typology and, more generally, all those of the same kind display a very weak, if any, criterion validity. A comparison between ESEC class scheme and ISTAT typology regarding the capacity of accounting for inequalities in family disposable incomes, in probabilities of being in severe material deprivation (sensu Eurostat), and in unemployment incidence rates, is then carried out. By resorting to different (OLS, logit and Poisson) regression models, the paper shows that the class scheme has a greater and sounder construct validity than ISTAT typology and that the former allows to measure the individual effects of possible factor of inequalities different from social classes, while the latter structurally impedes to do that. The article closes suggesting that the thesis of the crystallization of important inequalities around social classes still represents a rather sound research hypothesis, at least in the case of Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a rising concern for technological unemployment due to the current digital revolution. In this paper, we estimate the probability of automation of the 800 Italian occupations, evaluate the distribution of Italian workers according to their risk of substitution, and suggest some strategies that could be adopted to reduce that risk. On the one hand, Italy ranks second in Europe for robot stock. On the other hand, the adoption of new technologies by firms is uneven and Italian firms lag behind in the adoption of new production technologies. To estimate the probability of automation of Italian occupations we applied two approaches: the occupation-based one (Frey and Osborne 2017) and the task-based one (Nedelkoska and Quintini 2018). In line with previous literature, the probability of automation obtained applying the task-based approach are in general lower than those estimated using the other approach. For most occupations the probability of automation under the two approaches differs by about 10-20%, although for some the difference is more significant. Italian occupations with a high probability of automation require many routine activities, whereas those with a low probability of automation require abilities like perception, manipulation, creative intelligence and social intelligence. Based on the occupation-based approach, 33.2% of Italian workers face a high risk of replacement; this percentage decreases at 18.1% if we apply the task-based approach. Male workers appear to face a higher risk of replacement than female ones regardless of the approach adopted. Based on our results and considering the characteristics of the Italian context, we discussed the factors that impact on real automation and suggested some policies that could be adopted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from a methodological introduction on the role of archaeology in the multidisciplinary context of off-site research, the paper aims to reflect on the possible dialogue between history and archaeology and their contribution to the study of historical ways of management and appropriation of collective resources. The discussion is focused on some results of a Marie Curie IEF research project devoted to the archaeology of common-lands in the mountains of Southern Europe, and aims at analyzing the changes, in the long duration, of what has been defined as the more impressive -- ritual and concrete -- possession act: temporary cultivation. Through the comparison of the archaeological and documentary evidences of temporary cultivation from a well defined area of the Basque Country (the eastern Álava plateau), this paper tries to bring out the issues generated by the combination of such different documentary series and to outline some of the results (or research paths) derived from this comparison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the salient points of the rise and subsequent limits of the policy of cohesion, in an attempt to reassemble the threads of the debate on Southern Italy in a comparative perspective. The aim is to place the problem of building the development of this area in a European key. The multilevel governance has redefined the traditional logic of public action, giving rise to complex exchanges throughout the institutional networks and the previously nonexistent or poorly practices of negotiations. During the last thirty years, politics, economy, and society of southern Italy have been redirected and involved in the participation of the European project, with the incorporation of the South of Italy in a supranational body which has contributed to mobilizing the latent resources of the economy and society and to experiment with a different possibility of development, even if the resolution of the internal Italian divide has not been obtained. The change was held back by exogenous factors and by the national and southern ruling classes who learned how to integrate into European society, redefining behaviors and acquiring a role in its elites of power, without however being able to bring the process of modernization to completion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do States define and protect their «strategic» industries? After more than three decades since the waves of privatization begun in Europe, States did not entirely give up their willingness and capacity to define some economic sectors as strategic. Instead, they have devised strategies to protect industries operating in such sectors, either limiting the possibility of foreign acquisitions or regulating how companies acquired by foreigner entities should operate. Yet, analyses of how European states define such interests and vigilate over them are scarce. This article identifies a specific policy domain consisting in the regulation of property rights and more specifically in the powers enabling governments to define strategic industries and interfere in the transactions regarding them. Empirically, the paper provides evidence on the varieties of institutional arrangements and policy strategies emerged in the four largest economies of the region such as France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. Two macro-patterns seem to emerge: on the one hand, the scope of state regulation of France and Italy has been broad and the policy tools more intrusive than in Germany and the UK. On the other hand, we found that agency matters in determining specific policy outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Italian daily paper "Il Giorno," and the relationship between the paper and the surveillance of Italian politician Enrico Mattei. Reference is made to archival materials and editions of the paper. Topics discussed include the history of the "Il Giorno" periodical, including its establishment by editor Gaetano Baldacci, the history of government interference in Italian media, including the role of Enrico Mattei; and changes in the political direction of the journal in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Music festivals are major sites in which the performative and public dimensions of music come to be articulated. At the same time music festivals are key places for the strengthening of the ongoing process of music commodification. On this basis, this paper aims to investigate the artistic management, the institutional logics and the role in jazz culture of one of the most important music festivals, Umbria Jazz. Since 1973, every year leading national and international jazz artists are brought together in the relatively small city of Perugia, in Umbria. From the organizational viewpoint, the most crucial role has since been played by the artistic director. As a cultural entrepreneur, over the years he has been able to gain an internationally acknowledged artistic and managerial credibility despite the clear touristic aims. In 1991 the Umbria Jazz Foundation was formally founded in order to manage the economic aspects and to develop the professional image of the festival. Since 2000, Umbria Jazz has become an internationally known cultural and commercial brand. Despite the process of institutionalization and its growing economic and public relevance, the artistic management and practical organization of Umbria Jazz still depends exclusively on the work of the director and his very restricted, highly creative and mainly informal network of collaborators. How is it possible that the organization of such a huge event depends on such a very small number of individuals? What are the cultural and institutional logics behind their artistic choices? How does the musical offer-jazz but also some rock and pop music - have to do with the organization and management? And what kind of political coimotation and civic effects can such a festival turn out to have in the realm of public culture? This paper aims to unveil these kinds of socio-cultural dynamics from a neo-institutionalistic perspective. The analysis is based on fieldwork, on historical sources and qualitative interviews carried out with both members of the managerial and organizational staff of the festival and with Italian jazz artists, and on quantitative and qualitative analysis of the audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conference paper delivered by Michele Salvati during the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification conference which took place in Modena in 2012 is presented. Topics discussed include theories of the economic history of Italy, with reference to the work of economist John Hicks and conference participant Pierluigi Ciocca.

A conference paper delivered by Giuseppe Berta at the 2012 conference on the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification in Modena is presented, with a focus on the Italian economics of labor, including the representation of labor, regulation of labor, and the evolution of economics, with reference to concepts of labor.

A conference paper delivered by Tito Boeri at the 2012 conference on the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification in Modena is presented, with a focus on industrial relations and the role of labor unions in the economic history of Italy, during the period between unification and 2012, with reference to the work of economist Giuseppe Berta.

A conference paper delivered by Fabrizio Trau at the 2012 conference on the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification in Modena is presented, with reference to the concept of the model of industrialization in Italy, as of 2012, in connection with the work of economists Franco Amatori and Andrea Colli.

A conference paper delivered by Franco Amatori and Andrea Colli at the 2012 conference on the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification in Modena is presented, with a focus on enterprises and entrepreneurs, within the development of capitalist politics in Italy in the period between Unification and 2012.

A conference paper delivered by Alessandro Roncaglia at the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification conference which took place in Modena in 2012 is presented, with a focus on the role of statistical measurements in historical analysis, the concept of welfare, and recent economic trends in Italy, as of 2012.

A conference paper delivered by Giovanni Vecchi at the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification conference which took place in Modena in 2012 is presented, with a focus on economic development, welfare, and inequality in Italy during the period between 1861 and 2011, as well as the development of modern economics.

A conference paper delivered by Margherita Russo at the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification conference which took place in Modena in 2012 is presented, with a focus on the variables of technological progress from an economic perspective in the Italian economy, with reference to the theories of economist Renato Giannetti.

A conference paper delivered by Marco Onado at the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification conference which took place in Modena in 2012 is presented, with a focus on the history of the Italian banking and financial systems, as well as financial and economic regulation during the period between 1848 and 2012.

A conference paper delivered by Renato Giannetti at the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification conference which took place in Modena in 2012 is presented, with a focus on the concept of General Purpose Technologies, technological inventions, and their effect on the Italian economic and industrial sectors.

A conference paper delivered by Giuseppe Conti at the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification conference which took place in Modena in 2012 is presented, focusing on the national dimensions of finance and economics in the period from 1848 to 2012, as well as economic constraints and opportunities in Italy during this time.

A conference paper delivered by Vera Zamagni at the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification conference which took place in Modena in 2012 is presented, with a focus on the role of the state and state intervention on an economic level, as well as the history and legacy of state economic intervention policies in Italy.

A conference paper delivered by Filippo Cavazzuti at the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification conference which took place in Modena in 2012 is presented, with a focus on the essential role of the state in economics and the economic history of Italy, and the history and theory of state economic regulation in Italy.

A conference paper delivered by Francesco Karrer at the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification conference which took place in Modena in 2012 is presented, with a focus on the concept of infrastructure, including material infrastructure, financial infrastructure, and a-spatial infrastructure, and with reference to the work of economist Andrea Giuntini.

A conference paper delivered by Andrea Giuntini at the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification conference which took place in Modena in 2012 is presented, with a focus on the Italian system of infrastructure, with reference to elements of acquisition and constraints, as well as opportunity and lack.

A conference paper delivered by Francesco Vella at the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification conference which took place in Modena in 2012 is presented, with a focus on the framework, rules, and means involved in the Italian economy from Unification to 2012, with reference to the work of economist Pierluigi Ciocca.

A conference paper delivered by Sergio Paba at the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification conference which took place in Modena in 2012 is presented, with a focus on the history of economics in Italy and the elements of district governance, social mobility, and industrialization, as well as the work of economist Pierluigi Ciocca.

The article presents a conference paper delivered by Pierluigi Ciocca at the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification conference which took place in Modena in 2012. Topics discussed include the economic history of Italy, theories of the historiography of Italy, with a focus on economic elements, and on the industrialization of the country.

The paper analyses the evolution of inequality in Italy from 1989 to 2014, focusing on three business-cycle phases: the 1992 currency crisis, the moderate growth from 1993 to 2007, and the double-dip recession from 2008 to 2013. Data from the national accounts and the Bank of Italy's Survey on Household Income and Wealth are used. Income inequality rose sharply during the recession of the early 1990s but much less during the recent double-dip recession, though the share of people at risk of poverty rose similarly during the two crises. This follows from the fact that the reduction in income hit the whole population during the double-dip recession. This apparent stability hides the widening gap between socio-demographic groups, in particular between the young and the elderly, and between native and foreign-born households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with changes in the work histories' patterns of two cohorts of young people living in the province of Trento (Italy) and aged 15-29 years, who got their first job in 1974/95 and 1999/2011, respectively. We build and use a database resulting from the deterministic matching and integration of two datasets: a multi-purpose panel survey carried out on a representative sample of households, and register data from the provincial section of the administrative archive of INPS - the Italian social security agency. From a methodological point of view, the integrated database gives clear evidence that register data provide much more detailed and reliable information on work histories than survey data. From a substantive perspective, we find sizeable changes across the two cohorts in (i) first job spells, (ii) number and length of work episodes in a time-window of eight years from entry in the first job, and (iii) the overall pattern of job participation and job mobility during the initial eight years of work histories. On the contrary, no variation across cohorts in career mobility patterns is observed. The evidence consistently points to a significant worsening of the working experience of the youth over less than two decades. With appropriate caveats, this evidence appears to be extensible to northern-central Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the practices of belonging in the Italian community within Tunisia during the last years of the nineteenth century. Following the French invasion of the Regency in 1881, some Italians had a conflicting relation with the new colonial rule. In 1896, while international conventions reconciled the relations between France and Italy, the local upper-class was bitterly disappointed by a treaty that recognized the French rule in the Regency. This disappointment revealed a strong national sentiment in some members of the Italian upper-class in Tunisia. What were the reasons for such a feeling? In 1898, a law for the registration of the foreigners in Tunisia brought out the social differences within the Italian community. Some notables, supported by consular institution, sought to present the Italians in Tunisia as a united and homogeneous national group. On the one hand, social differences revealed the asymmetry within the Italian citizenship between the upper and the lower class. On the other hand, the condition of extraterritoriality limited by international conventions created a space of agency for Italian nationals. This condition could be used by those who presented themselves as harassed by the French authorities for their Italian national belonging, making the Italian citizenship in colonial Tunisia a strategic tool for personal agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the analysis of some case-studies this paper aims to unveil an unknown genre of defamatory painting, which involved milites and condottieri. Contrary to common belief, city-states and urban lords were not the only ones to make use of images to pillory people, since the military also resorted to pittura infamante to settle their accounts. This essay investigates the analogies and discrepancies between public (or official) rituals and military customs. In addition, it traces some regional differences, linking them to the diverse political context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In current theoretical and policy debate concerning urban regeneration in Europe, the neighbourhood has re-emerged as an important setting. This paper addresses the theme of urban regeneration drawing on a research study about a specific «area and people-based» program, realized in two neighbourhoods in Turin. In these selected areas some estates, originally built to host athletes and journalists during the Olympic Winter Games (2006), were converted into social housing units meant to promote social mix among less and more well off inhabitants of the area. The aim of the study is to gain a better insight into the development and the outcome of the program. Evidence is offered from a survey on orientations and behaviours concerning social relationships in one of the two neighbourhoods, after two years from the intervention. The core question of the paper is whether the effect of cohesion and cooperation among people living in the same area, but belonging to different social classes, has taken place as expected. The paper explores factors and mechanisms explaining the partial failure of this social and urban experiment, focusing on the experience of daily inclusion/exclusion from a specific shared place. Concepts from institutional economy are introduced to enlighten the complexity of this experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the relationship between social origin and educational attainment over time in Italy. A previous work by the same authors showed that the association between class of origin and educational attainment has declined for the cohorts born from 1920 to 1969, while most of the previous research showed persistent class inequality. The paper compares models and results obtained by previous research with those obtained with the cumulative logit model and shows that differences in findings are mostly a matter of interpretation. When family's education is used as an alternative measure of social origin, its effect on educational attainment is also found to be decreasing over time. Some conjectures are then developed concerning the various mechanisms underlying the effects of social class of origin and family's education on educational attainment, and a four-variable model is estimated, allowing comparison of both effects over time. Results show that, consistently with theoretical conjectures, the effect of class of origin diminishes over time, while that of family's education, controlling for class of origin, remains stable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the predictive accuracy of published pre-election polls pertaining to the May 2001 and April 2006 elections for the Italian Chamber of Deputies. After reviewing the varied array of problems that afflict all pre-election polls' attempts at forecasting and examining the most widespread measures of predictive accuracy, the paper illustrates a new measure, A, recently introduced in the U.S. context, This new measure is applied to 69 polls published during the 2001 election campaign and 73 polls published during the 2006 campaign. In both instances, published polls overestimated voters' support for the wining coalition (the centre-right in 2001 and the centre-left in 2006). Polls' poor predictive accuracy is attributed mainly to the following factors: the embargo that prevents publishing poll findings in the two-week period prior to election day, telephone interviewing coverage error due to the high incidence of households having only mobile phones or no phone, lack of screening for probable voters. The new measure of poll accuracy was easy to adapt and apply to the Italian context, where the two major coalitions were used as if they were the main actors of a two-party system. Information given by pollsters remains, however, too inadequate to engage in comprehensive evaluations of the quality of their polls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the connection between changes in the structure of labour demand and the processes of immigrants' occupational integration in Italy. Adopting a within-country comparative approach which focuses on the territorial differences characterizing the country is useful in order to explain important dynamics that would remain in the shadow in a national or cross-national perspective. The Centre-North and the South represent, in fact, two deeply heterogeneous institutional contexts if we consider the labour market performance, the productive structure, the informal mechanisms of regulation between demand and supply, the migratory dynamics, and the effects of the Great Recession. The paper highlights how, and to what extent, the changes in terms of productive structure, professional stratification, and working conditions are intertwined with the «globalization» of the Italian labour market and the transformation of the native supply in the Centre-North and in the South. Based on the LFS dataset provided by ISTAT (2005-2015), the empirical evidence shows the existence of common trends and important internal differentiation, confirming that the specificities of the Italian labour market in the international scenario are evident above all in the Mezzogiorno. During the Great Recession, in the southern regions the dynamics of the immigrant labour supply have strengthened the criticalities of the structure of labour demand, favoring the torsion towards the so-called low way to the degrowth of the Italian labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper approaches the Agrarian Reform scheme launched in Italy in 1951 and ended in 1965. Main attention is paid to the different forms of environmental resources management involved in the Reform. The work has been possible thank to the availability of new archival sources in the Ente Maremma historical archive. The use of a local scale case study, the Cecina Valley in Southern Tuscany, allows to reveal negotiations and conflicts which raised during the Reform application, as well as the different role of social actors. To conclude, the work demonstrates that the environmental resources access and property forms, as well as the local context, played a key role in the Reform application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

«The Whole Party Is a School». Formative Experiences in the Pci Party Schools in the Seventies. Between 1975 and 1981 the Italian Communist Party considerably expanded its network of party schools with the intention to reinforce the training of officials, cadres and public administrators. In that period, the party schools represented not only places of political professionalization and cultural integration, but also environments of identity construction and personal growth. This paper analyses some aspects of communist education during the Seventies, with a particular focus on the party schools students' subjective experiences. Didactic sources and students' or teachers' compositions, able to examine the skills transmitted and acquired and the identities developed by cadres and officials, have been taken into account. In the relationship between politics and emotions, between collective training and individual maturation and between public and private, indeed, it is possible to understand the development of the communist educational policy, and the cultural narrative of the party's pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A secular acropolis bisects the city: one is the child of the steel industry and the other is the CIAM grid. Modern and juxtaposed cities. An «Unité d'Habitation», the only child of three parents: a square, a sports filed, a swimming pool, a cultural centre, the unlikely jewel of André Malraux's enlightened policy, and lastly the base of a church. The patrimony is both improbable and authorial, although its author died before it took shape as a whole. A patrimony which had been the middle ground between two opposed notions of modernity, each one with its actors, before becoming what it is: the ones declining and the others still with no future. The scene became the materialisation (the material object) of conflicts, disagreements, and appropriations. An object whose patrimonialization follows a bottom up process develops as the city council changes becoming the slippery ground for new social and cultural identities. It is an acropolis which turns around the documents proving the legitimacy of the memory being reaffirmed. It also opens to material policies and leads to the restoration of works, much more than the mere paper archive which is what makes Firminy the le Corbusier site par excellence. This approach also turns the authorship principle upside down as its architecture, especially the «Unité d'habitation», cannibalises its name while the name itself, which was so awkward, virtually becomes the toponym of the site. A further complication: Firminy witnesses an a priori patrimonialization opening a debate on authenticity, copes, the recognition of material and later immaterial heritage. The debate draws from history, restoration and their many combinations. The essay maintains both the point of views of historian and the restorer while attempting to describe the complex narrative plot without hiding conflicts, the problematic contradictory crossroads made possible by the use of two knowledge sets used in the essay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from 1950 the extraordinary intervention for the South was the tool with which the Italian government attempted to redress the dual nature of the national economy, the same dichotomy that earlier administrative and economic measures had failed to resolve adequately. The various studies aimed at evaluating the outcome of this policy, which ended at the beginning of the 1990s, usually investigated to which extent the differences between quantitatively measurable indicators of regional imbalance diminished during the period under consideration, mainly leading to the conclusion that the South-North gap was reduced only in terms of GDP per capita, and even there the reduction was insignificant. This paper tries to contribute to an assessment of the extraordinary intervention by adopting a different perspective, examining the role that the economic evaluation of public expenditure played within the political decision-making process of this measure of regional policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, several studies have been conducted on the determinants of happiness thanks to the work of a large group of social scientists. In this paper we study the link between some indicators of social capital and satisfaction with life using two strategies of analysis: the first one, which we could define as standard, consists in applying a linear regression model to a sample of observations coming from the 2011 Multiscopo survey, run by Istat. The second strategy of analysis is based on a matching procedure in order to limit the dependence on the model and the undue generalizations that are not supported by empirical evidence. The analyses reveal that trust towards others, meetings with friends and attending places of worship are all positively associated with satisfaction with life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]