Policy In Italy Research Articles

L'émergence d'un néo-méridionalisme politique en Italie : vers l'accroissement de la fracture territoriale ?

The Emergence of a Neo-Southern Policy in Italy : Growing Territorial Divides? Since the unification of Italy, the developmental gap between the South and the rest of the county has never been substantially reduced despite several decades of massive investment. Today, it is even said to be growing. Confronted with this worsening situation and the strong pressure exercised on the central government by the Northern League, the years 2008-2009 were marked by the emergence of a neo-southern mobilization which once again put the Mezzogiorno at the top of the political agenda. Indeed, the most salient fact of the past decade would appear to be the creation of numerous southern defense parties, chief amongst which is that of the President of the Sicilian region. Yet, given the fact that their interests are often diametrically opposed, the participation of these parties in government has given rise to significant tension within ruling coalitions in Italy and Sicily as well as within Silvio Berlusconi’s party itself. While there is as yet no party that brings together all neo-southern actors, the aggravation of the territorial divide already appears very worrisome for Italian political unity. ■

Can We Rely Upon Fiscal Policy Estimates in Countries with Unreported Production of 15 Per Cent (or More) of GDP?

This paper analyzes the effects of fiscal policy in Italy by employing a database containing two statistical novelties: quarterly fiscal variables on accrual basis and a time series estimate of tax evasion for the period 1981:1-2006:4. Following Revenue Agency suggestions, we use in a VECM the time series of the concealed VAT base as a proxy for the size of “unreported production”, and define a regular GDP measure constructed as GDP net of government expenditure and evaded VAT base. The results reveal that we cannot rely upon the estimates of fiscal policy multipliers in countries with a sizeable unreported production unless the dynamics of the hidden and regular components of the GDP are disentangled. Changes in public spending and the tax rate generate a reallocation from underground to the regular economy which contributes to obscure the spending and tax effect on total GDP. In this setup the spending multiplier shows large long-run effects, considerably stronger than those registered in a model with no attention paid to unreported production. The drop in regular output, after an increase in the effective tax rate, tends to be considerable after one year, producing long-lasting effects and a significant increase in unreported production and tax evasion.

Irregular Immigration Control in Italy and Greece: Strong Fencing and Weak Gate-keeping serving the Labour Market

AbstractItaly and Greece have been often blamed by their fellow EU Member States for the excessive permeability of their borders, their inability to stop irregular migration, and their inefficient asylum systems. In addition the two countries have weak internal controls, especially as regards the sectors of the labour market where immigrants are usually employed e.g. agriculture, domestic work, tourism and catering. This article seeks to make sense of these fundamentally contradictory policies that characterise Greece’s and Italy’s approach to managing migration. The article starts by outlining the common features of Italian and Greek immigration policies and proposes an analysis of immigration control regimes along two dimensions: their internal (within the country’s territory) or external (at the border or outside the border) character, and their fencing (stopping) vs. gate-keeping (preventing) nature. Section 3 discusses critically the irregular migration inflows in Greece, the policies implemented to address them and their contradictory results. Section 4 reviews the related policies in Italy and casts light to their inconsistencies. In the concluding section, we highlight the possible explanations for these two countries’ lack of direction in immigration management pointing to the opposition between excessively regulated labour markets, large informal economies and strict border controls which however become lax and ineffective once irregular migrants or asylum seekers are within the country.

Anti-Mafia Policies in Italy: The Need for Collaborative Governance and Transition of the Policy Actors from Isolation to Coalition

This paper focuses on the struggle of anti-mafia movements in Italy. This study has found that there is still lack of consistency in classification of anti-mafia policies. Moreover, there is neither unity among the policy actors nor active cooperation among multiple actors while designing anti-mafia policies. Therefore, this paper first aims to simplify an explanation of the policy actors by following an actor-based approach in order to classify the actors as direct (state) and indirect (nonstate) actors; then, it traces the direction of the policies from top to down and from bottom to top and determines the dimension of the policies as being at the macro and/or micro level. Second, this paper suggests that there should be collaboration that binds all actors legally in order to avoid multiple actors clashing and steer them from isolation to cooperation so as to take advantage of optimum point in anti-mafia policies. Finally, it is stressed that the building of cooperation should be through the “3 C” cycle - cohesion, consolidation, and commitment - in order to make effective and reflexive policies.

In the Name of God: State and Religion in Contemporary Italy

AbstractDuring the last few years the influence of the Catholic Church on law-making and government policies in Italy has dramatically increased. The Italian Episcopal Conference established a solid alliance with the Centre-Right led by the media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi. This political situation favoured the introduction of a number of hyper-conservative policies on ethical matters, from artificial insemination to abortion. In contrast, the influence of the Church was not significant in other key areas such as immigration policy. This article argues that the Church-inspired hyper-conservatism has led to the introduction of considerable restrictions to individual rights and freedoms. This situation is undermining the secular character of the Italian State and the original liberal-democratic inspiration of the Constitution.

The Target Efficiency Problem in Italy's Housing Policy. The Case of Tuscany

In Italian housing policy there has recently been a huge shift in competences from national to regional governments. The work to formulate a General Social Housing Law for Tuscany has provided the opportunity for an accurate analysis of how the current housing policy tools work. The main goal of this paper is not to demonstrate whether new tools, i.e. demand-side subsidies, are more or less efficient than traditional ones, i.e. bricks and mortar subsidies in the form of public houses for social rent. Instead, the aim is to point out that new and traditional tools use different eligibility criteria, thereby creating a problem of target efficiency and equity. By simulating some simple changes to the recipient selection criteria and recalculating the amount of public aid assigned to each family, there is an improvement in target efficiency and therefore in equity, while keeping the current total amount of public expenditure unchanged.

The diversity management approach: new implications for gender policies in Italy

PurposeThe paper, starting from research conducted on the implementations of gender policy in six Italian regions, aims to explore the limits of the actual strategies and ask some questions on the possibility to enter some principles of the diversity management (DM) approach in the Italian context.Design/methodology/approachThe qualitative research was conducted through a textual analysis of the Regional Operative Plain, and some interviews with the different stakeholders involved in the planning and implementations of the policies.FindingsStarting from the characteristics of the regional policies, the research provides some indication of levels of applicability of the DM in the Italian context in terms of both definition and execution of the interventions.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper presented has important implications for the field of equality and diversity in Mediterranean countries, but the research is based only on institutional policies and not on the organizational measures, so researchers are encouraged to deepen the organizational practices.Originality/valueThis paper aims to reduce the gap in the current literature that often does not consider the necessity of studying the detailed rules of defining and implementing policies in close relation with the characteristics of enterprises and institutions.

134 Management of Acute Pain in Paediatric Emergency Departments: A Survey of Policies in Italy

Aims: To explore the policies of Italian paediatric emergency departments (ED) towards management of acute pain in children. Methods: Eleven paediatric and two general hospitals with separate paediatric triage were recruited. Policies regarding pain management at time of triage and in the emergency clinical area were surveyed through a structured questionnaire. Information regarding the hospital and the ED were also collected. Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) was carried out to explore relationships between variables related to pain management and hospital characteristics. The study was supported by Angelini ACRAF. Results: Six hospitals routinely carried out pain assessment at triage, and 7 in the emergency clinical area. Nine hospitals (69%) used validated tools such as FLACC (7 hospitals), Wong-Baker (7) visual analogic or visual numeric scales (8). EMLA cream for anticipated venous cannulation was used “sometimes” (10 to 50% of events) by 4 hospitals, and often (51 to 90%) by 1. MCA identified two main dimensions, explaining 85.3% of variance in pain management policies: 1) routine pain assessment, joint medical nursing protocols for pain treatment, and EMLA at least sometimes; and 2) pain measurement through validated tools and recording of results. Being a paediatric hospitals, university affiliation, medico-surgical and trauma emergency functions, global triage on a 24h basis, and possibility for short-stay observation were associated with higher scores on both dimensions. Conclusions: Despite a general awareness of the relevance of acute pain in children and widespread presence of protocols, use of validated tools and prophylaxis of procedural moderate pain are still insufficiently applied.

In the shadow of Marco Polo: writing about China in fascist Italy

This paper explores the writings on contemporary China in the 1920s and 1930s of Italian scholars, journalists and travellers. The turning point in Italian interest in Chinese events was represented by Italy's participation in the Boxer Rebellion, narrated in Italy by Luigi Barzini. As of the late 1920s, attention was refocused on China, propelled by interest in Chinese nationalism and its state-building process and the new Fascist foreign policy approach to Asia. Books by fascist journalists and propagandists as well as essays written by several scholars and diplomats and published under the auspices of government scientific institutions all testify to the double effort to understand Chinese politics and culture on new terms and to imagine a more important role for Italy in China as a result of her alleged special historical relationship with the ‘Orient’. However, this effort to promote a better knowledge of China was subordinated to contingent interests and choices and reflected the inconsistency of Fascist Italy's policy towards Asia. The aim of this paper is to shed light on the complex interplay of political and cultural factors behind the writings concerned with Italian and Chinese relations during those decades.

State–Society Relationships, Social Trust and the Development of Labour Market Policies in Italy and Sweden

The first decade of the twenty-first century may be remembered for the rebirth of consensus on labour market policy. After three decades of bitter political and ideological controversy between a neo-liberal and a traditional social democratic approach, a new model, often labelled flexicurity, has emerged. This model is promoted by numerous political organisations since it promises to put an end to the old trade-off between equality and efficiency. Several countries are embracing the flexicurity model as a blueprint for labour market reform, but others, mostly belonging to the ‘Mediterranean Rim’, are clearly lagging behind. Why is it so difficult for these countries to implement the flexicurity model? This paper argues that the application of a flexicurity strategy in these countries is complicated by the lack of social trust between social partners and the state as well as political economy traditions that highlight the role of labour market regulation as a source of social protection.

Determinants of health disparities between Italian regions

BackgroundAmong European countries, Italy is one of the countries where regional health disparities contribute substantially to socioeconomic health disparities. In this paper, we report on regional differences in self-reported poor health and explore possible determinants at the individual and regional levels in Italy.MethodsWe use data from the "Indagine Multiscopo sulle Famiglie", a survey of aspects of everyday life in the Italian population, to estimate multilevel logistic regressions that model poor self-reported health as a function of individual and regional socioeconomic factors. Next we use the causal step approach to test if living conditions, healthcare characteristics, social isolation, and health behaviors at the regional level mediate the relationship between regional socioeconomic factors and self-rated health.ResultsWe find that residents living in regions with more poverty, more unemployment, and more income inequality are more likely to report poor health and that poor living conditions and private share of healthcare expenditures at the regional level mediate socioeconomic disparities in self-rated health among Italian regions.ConclusionThe implications are that regional contexts matter and that regional policies in Italy have the potential to reduce health disparities by implementing interventions aimed at improving living conditions and access to quality healthcare.

La valutazione delle politiche per l'invecchiamento attivo secondo un approccio integrato

Demographic ageing and its social and economic implications have increasingly become a key policy issue at both national and international level over the past 20 years. Despite an early emphasis on mature workers employability, there is a growing awareness about the multidimensional nature of the active ageing issue. In order to thoroughly examine the effectiveness of active ageing policies in Italy, we have identified five different dimensions corresponding to the main policy sphere of intervention (employability, lifelong learning, active citizenship, health and quality of life, and transportation/mobility) and designed an ad hoc integrated evaluation methodology. In the framework of a research project carried out by Fondazione G. Brodolini, the identified integrated methodological approach has been applied to three regional cases: Campania, Liguria and Marche. Main results point to the absence of a comprehensive strategy for ageing people and a fragmentation of policy interventions, a lack of an explicit targeting to over 45 workers and a prevailing focus on non self-sufficient elderly people.

Innovation Policy in Italy (1993–2002): Understanding the Invention and Persistence of a Public Management Reform

The literature on the politics of public management reform in Italy broadly contends that the country's legalistic administrative tradition suppresses reform. This article questions and qualifies this line of argument on the basis of a newly reported case of public management reform that endured for more than 10 years. The study tracks and explains the emergence of the policy issue of “government innovation” and its persistence on the specialized policy agenda of the Ministry for Public Administration. The initial emergence of the government innovation policy in Italy and its directional stability is explained by applying event‐centric approaches to historical analysis, together with the institutional concept of policy subsystems. The article shows the need for modifying central arguments—both substantive and theoretical—about the politics of public management reform in Italy.

Catching the Change of Tide. Italy's Post-Cold War Security Policy

At the beginning of the 1990s, Italy went through two tectonic changes. Externally, the end of the Cold War called for a redefinition of the roles of NATO and the EU, the pillars on which Italy had built its foreign and security policy for forty years. Internally, Italy's old ruling elites vanished under the huge mani pulite corruption scandal. The new political parties that rose in their place have remained committed to NATO and the EU, but have often met with obstacles in reconciling the national, European and Atlantic components of Italy's security. While this hinges mostly on structural factors – like the rising costs of participation in NATO or EU operations abroad, including in terms of public support – the tendency of the new elites to emphasize their differences and neglect their more fundamental commonalities have multiplied the “grey zones” in Italian security policy.

Assessment of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke in young adolescents following implementation of smoke-free policy in Italy

We investigated acute and chronic exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) in a cohort of young adolescents using urinary cotinine and hair nicotine testing after recent implementation of Italian smoke free legislation. Study subjects were 372 Italian young adolescents, between 10 and 16 years of age from the principal city of Sicily, Palermo. Urine and hair samples were collected between November 2005 and May 2006, when the legislation to ban smoking in all the enclosed places of employment (including bars, restaurants, pubs) was completely enforced. An exhaustive questionnaire including sociodemographic characteristics and active and passive exposure to cigarette smoking was completed. Urinary cotinine was analyzed by radioimmunoassay and hair nicotine by a validated GC/MS method. Based on urinary cotinine results, 2.1% and 89% of the study participants, respectively, showed non-exposure and low acute exposure to ETS, whereas only 1.6% presented very high exposure or a hidden active smoking habit in the recent past. Hair nicotine disclosed non-exposure and low exposure to ETS in 11.8% and 65.6% of the young adolescents, respectively, taking into consideration a larger time-window. High repeated exposure, suggesting active smoking in some cases was observed in 8.6% of the study subjects. Hair nicotine was inversely related to educational level of the adolescents’ parents. Overall, due to the implementation of smoke-free legislation and information campaign against smoking, a significant trend toward low exposure to ETS was observed in this study cohort with no association between exposure to ETS and respiratory illnesses.

Industrial Policy in Italy viewed through the journal L’Industria

The aim of this paper is to review the articles published in the journal L’Industria over the last 30 years, focusing on issues related to industrial policy. Articles published in the journal have both analysed the characteristics of Italian industry and discussed industrial policy implications. Attention has never been exclusively turned to the Italian case: industry in other countries has been considered, not only in Europe but also elsewhere in the world, in Asia and America. Foreign cases are used as examples to follow or as analyses of partners of or markets for Italian firms. Regarding industrial policy, three phases can be identified in this review. The first 10 years (in the 1980s) discussed the « dirigiste » or « interventionist » type of industrial policy, whereby governments directly intervened in markets by command-and-control and by buying also producers. The second decade, that of the 1990s, saw the adoption of a new approach to industrial policy, whereby governments no longer directly intervene in markets but rather induce behaviour by appropriate incentives and, in terms of structural policy, provide the conditions for competitiveness. These phases correspond to the phases of industrial policy implemented in Italy and the EU. The 21st century starts with a new phase of industrial policy, that this paper tries to characterise by looking at the papers published in L’Industria. The main conclusion is that the new industrial policies are still in the process of being defined in the real world, perhaps waiting for industrial economists to provide guidance. Economists and policy-makers writing in the journal stress that in the current context new models have to be built and new solutions have to be suggested. We add that a number of issues has to be examined for solutions to be proposed.

Chinese Investments in Italy

This paper focuses on the effects of the Go Global policy in Italy. The main type of Chinese investments, their strategic motivations, as well as the role of ethnic networks are analyzed. The phenomenon is still not significant in quantitative terms, but trends are impressive. Italy can provide an access to western markets and strategic logistic services, as well as to a wide array of distinctive skills/intangible assets in manufacturing industries. At the moment, there is a prevalence of greenfield initiatives, but acquisitions are rising sharply. In geographical terms, the locations chosen by Chinese investors favor areas that offer a wealth of distinctive skills (typically, but not only, district areas), but are not limited to industries in which Chinese ethnic groups are involved.

Logica di un sistema di sostegno alle imprese. La politica industriale italiana dal secondo dopoguerra a "Industria 2015"

- The paper aims at discussing the logic lying behind sixty years of industrial policy in Italy. It is argued that during this time State intervention has been characterised by the issue of an increasing number of laws (mostly persisting over time) devoted to specific objectives, but at the same time paralleled by a tendency towards the reduction of their selectivity through the widening (i.e. the loosening) of the boundaries of the universe of firms they were thought for. Such a logic seems to have made way in recent years for a relatively new approach, as stated in the program "Industria 2015", which has put at the centre of the stage the need for limiting State aid to a selected group of (horizontally identified) industrial activities. The paper also discusses some apparent shortcomings of this approach, emphasising that a risk for a new weakening of its selective logic is still at work.

Broadcasting policy in Italy’s ‘Second Republic’: national politics and European influences

Broadcasting policy in Italy’s ‘Second Republic’: national politics and European influences

Turin: Urban regeneration in a post-industrial city

This paper addresses the issue of urban regeneration with reference to Turin, the Italian prototypical one-company town, but also the post-industrial city, the city questing for a new identity and a new growth model. The objective of the paper is twofold. The first aim is to describe the change in urban regeneration policies in Italy; the second is to discuss the difficulties and opportunities of urban regeneration practices. Mainly referring to Turin's experience, the reflection on positive and critical aspects also provides some useful suggestions to practitioners across Europe and even North America.