Reflections on Higher Education and the Polity in Italy

Abstract

central or peripheral, according to different perspectives. The present situation could be called semi-peripheral. In the western world Italy is often a 'case', an exception, a puzzle, or something 'not yet' or 'not quite' at the level of other countries. This situation creates problems when a comparative analysis has to include Italy among other countries and is thus slightly annoying. Nevertheless, Italy is different from other modern countries, quantitatively (a lower level of development, and qualitatively in that the way it has approached the process of transition from industrial to post-industrial society is somehow different from that of its partners (Kogan, 1966; Earle, 1975; Rusconi and Scamuzzi, 1981). Politics is the clearest proof of Italian peculiarity. The process of reaching a decision and of implementing it politically has an 'Italian style' that can rarely be grasped correctly from the outside. Education is a case in point, and can be used to demonstrate some specifically Italian approaches to the process of political decisionmaking. Italy has faced in recent years the same sort of problems as other European countries, but at a lower level of economic development, and with a higher level of social conflict. It also faces a severe crisis, both technical and cultural, of the instruments of policy. Within a widespread crisis in the process of implementing political decisions which affect several western countries, the political domain in Italy has been increasingly characterised by lack of experimentation, poor attempts at innovation in politics and inertia in producing and implementing laws. The art of politics has become, little by little, the art of talking about politics and of trying to reach agreements without changing anything. Many reasons have been brought forward to