Neoliberal Transformations of the Italian State

Neoliberal Transformations of the Italian State PDF Author: Adriano Cozzolino
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1786614758
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
The book is an exploration, on both theoretical and empirical grounds, into the nature and the transformation of the state in the neoliberal era. Nowadays, a widespread crisis of legitimation affects the institutions and authority of the state; similarly, and especially after the Great Crisis of 2008 to present, the European project is increasingly questioned by populist and neo-nationalist forces, which politically advance in the state and society, and promote further coercive-oriented reconfiguration of state powers and apparatus. The ‘nationalist international’, the ‘new populists’ and/or the ‘rise of new international fascism’ are questions on the verge of international scholarship and political debate. However, many of these studies often miss the specificity and critical importance of the study of the state and of state (institutional and ideological) powers; even more importantly, the phenomenon of populism/neo-authoritarianism is interpreted by the mainstream as a clear break with traditional centrist parties, with the result of neglecting the past authoritarian tendencies that accompany the entire history of neoliberalism. This book aspires to be a guide for political activist and policy-makers: specifically, by showing how the state is of critical importance to the making of neoliberalism in institutional and cultural terms, it also aims to rethink the state as the arena of politics and, accordingly, as the key site to promote alternatives to neoliberalism.

Neoliberal Transformations of the Italian State

Neoliberal Transformations of the Italian State PDF Author: Adriano Cozzolino
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1786614758
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 217

Get Book

Book Description
The book is an exploration, on both theoretical and empirical grounds, into the nature and the transformation of the state in the neoliberal era. Nowadays, a widespread crisis of legitimation affects the institutions and authority of the state; similarly, and especially after the Great Crisis of 2008 to present, the European project is increasingly questioned by populist and neo-nationalist forces, which politically advance in the state and society, and promote further coercive-oriented reconfiguration of state powers and apparatus. The ‘nationalist international’, the ‘new populists’ and/or the ‘rise of new international fascism’ are questions on the verge of international scholarship and political debate. However, many of these studies often miss the specificity and critical importance of the study of the state and of state (institutional and ideological) powers; even more importantly, the phenomenon of populism/neo-authoritarianism is interpreted by the mainstream as a clear break with traditional centrist parties, with the result of neglecting the past authoritarian tendencies that accompany the entire history of neoliberalism. This book aspires to be a guide for political activist and policy-makers: specifically, by showing how the state is of critical importance to the making of neoliberalism in institutional and cultural terms, it also aims to rethink the state as the arena of politics and, accordingly, as the key site to promote alternatives to neoliberalism.

Trajectories of Neoliberal Transformation

Trajectories of Neoliberal Transformation PDF Author: Lucio Baccaro
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110854617X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
This book has both empirical and theoretical goals. The primary empirical goal is to examine the evolution of industrial relations in Western Europe from the end of the 1970s up to the present. Its purpose is to evaluate the extent to which liberalization has taken hold of European industrial relations and institutions through five detailed, chapter-length studies, each focusing on a different country and including quantitative analysis. The book offers a comprehensive description and analysis of what has happened to the institutions that regulate the labor market, as well as the relations between employers, unions, and states in Western Europe since the collapse of the long postwar boom. The primary theoretical goal of this book is to provide a critical examination of some of the central claims of comparative political economy, particularly those involving the role and resilience of national institutions in regulating and managing capitalist political economies.

The Moral Neoliberal

The Moral Neoliberal PDF Author: Andrea Muehlebach
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226545415
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Morality is often imagined to be at odds with capitalism and its focus on the bottom line, but in The Moral Neoliberal morality is shown as the opposite: an indispensible tool for capitalist transformation. Set within the shifting landscape of neoliberal welfare reform in the Lombardy region of Italy, Andrea Muehlebach tracks the phenomenal rise of voluntarism in the wake of the state’s withdrawal of social service programs. Using anthropological tools, she shows how socialist volunteers are interpreting their unwaged labor as an expression of social solidarity, with Catholic volunteers thinking of theirs as an expression of charity and love. Such interpretations pave the way for a mass mobilization of an ethical citizenry that is put to work by the state. Visiting several sites across the region, from Milanese high schools to the offices of state social workers to the homes of the needy, Muehlebach mounts a powerful argument that the neoliberal state nurtures selflessness in order to cement some of its most controversial reforms. At the same time, she also shows how the insertion of such an anticapitalist narrative into the heart of neoliberalization can have unintended consequences.

Trajectories of Neoliberal Transformation

Trajectories of Neoliberal Transformation PDF Author: Lucio Baccaro
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107018722
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
This book argues that liberalization of industrial relations has been a universal tendency among European countries over the last thirty-five years.

Still Waiting for the Transformation

Still Waiting for the Transformation PDF Author: Carlo Fusaro
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781782388111
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Italy in 2013 seemed to be continually on the cusp of substantive reform and forward motion, but never quite achieved it. The previous two years had seen the fall of the Berlusconi government and the beginning of the end of the Second Republic, followed by the predominance of technocrats in office. In contrast, 2013 proved to be a year of incomplete transitions, marked by a period during which the Italian political and institutional system reached a near complete stalemate. Grand coalitions were incapable of substantive decision-making, bold initiatives languished in the legislature, foreign policy actions faltered and failed, and the government showed a continued inability to effectively tackle the real economic and social issues that faced the country. Thus, in many ways, Italy has been muddling through as it did following the fall of the First Republic. Although some of the political developments that took place in the waning months of the year may prove to be the foundation for future momentous changes, it is very likely that 2014 will prove to be a further continuation of the seemingly endless transitional period in Italy.

The Resistible Corrosion of Europe’s Center-Left After 2008

The Resistible Corrosion of Europe’s Center-Left After 2008 PDF Author: Georg Menz
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000634531
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
This book examines and explains the Center-Left’s political decline since 2008, whilst analyzing the factors that account for its sagging electoral and popular support, losing voters both to the Far-Left, the Far-Right, and abstentions. Focusing on the era since the 2008 financial crisis in particular, while also charting the historical genealogy that led to the current impasse, the book examines how, when and why the collapse of Europe’s Center-Left occurred. Moving beyond existing and slightly dated accounts, the contributors explore why Social Democrats lack compelling answers to pressing current policy challenges. Faced with a decline in its core clientele, namely blue-collar workers, the Center-Left is being outflanked and risks permanently jeopardizing its erstwhile status as representing a catch-all party. Exploring one of the more pressing and timely political puzzles of the contemporary political scene in Europe, the book identifies six factors that have driven the decline of the Left and examines them systematically across eight countries: France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, and Denmark. This book will be of particular interest to both scholars and students of social democracy, political parties, and the politics of the Left and more broadly to those interested in European and comparative politics, governance, and contemporary history.

Headlines of Nation, Subtexts of Class

Headlines of Nation, Subtexts of Class PDF Author: Don Kalb
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 0857452045
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Since 1989 neo-nationalism has grown as a volatile political force in almost all European societies in tandem with the formation of a neoliberal European Union and wider capitalist globalizations. Focusing on working classes situated in long-run localized processes of social change, including processes of dispossession and disenfranchisement, this volume investigates how the experiences, histories, and relationships of social class are a necessary ingredient for explaining the re-emergence and dynamics of populist nationalism in both Eastern and Western Europe. Featuring in-depth urban and regional case studies from Romania, Hungary, Serbia, Italy and Scotland this volume reclaims class for anthropological research and lays out a new interdisciplinary agenda for studying identity politics in the intensifying neoliberal conjuncture.

Limited Statehood and Informal Governance in the Middle East and Africa

Limited Statehood and Informal Governance in the Middle East and Africa PDF Author: Ruth Hanau Santini
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429997302
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Hybrid forms of governance – where the central state authority does not possess a monopoly of violence and fails to exercise control – are not only an epiphenomena, but a reality likely to persist. This book explores this phenomenon drawing on examples from the Middle East and Africa. It considers the different sorts of actors – state and non-state, public and private, national and transnational – which possess power, examines the dynamics of the relationships between central authorities and other actors, and reviews the varying outcomes. The book provides an alternative view of the way in which governance has been constructed and lived, puts forward a conceptualisation of various forms of governance which have hitherto been regarded as exceptions, and argues for such forms of governance to be regarded as part of the norm.

Post-Growth Planning

Post-Growth Planning PDF Author: Federico Savini
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000584046
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
This book draws on a wide range of conceptual and empirical materials to identify and examine planning and policy approaches that move beyond the imperative of perpetual economic growth. It sketches out a path towards planning theories and practices that can break the cyclical process of urban expansion, crises, and recovery that negatively affect ecosystems and human lives. To reduce the dramatic social and environmental impact of urbanization, this book offers both a critique of growth-led urban development and a prefiguration of ecologically regenerative and socially just ways of organizing cities and regions. It uncovers emerging possibilities for post-growth planning in the fields of collective housing, mobility, urban commoning, ecological land-use, urban–rural symbiosis, and alternative planning worldviews. It provides a toolkit of concepts and real-life examples for urban scholars, urbanists, activists, architects, and designers seeking to make cities prosper within planetary boundaries. This book speaks to both experts and beginners in post-growth thinking. It concludes with a manifesto and glossary of key terms for urban scholars, students, and practitioners.

The Political Ecology of Austerity

The Political Ecology of Austerity PDF Author: Rita Calvário
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000473023
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
The Political Ecology of Austerity explores the environmental dimension of austerity that has thus far escaped academic, policy, and media attention. Offering a better comprehension of the full socio-environmental impact of austerity measures, the book highlights the importance of considering environmental issues when designing responses to economic crisis in the future. Mobilising detailed case studies from across the world, the volume documents the ways in which austerity impacts global and local ecologies, shapes environmental conflicts and gives rise to new forms and practices of social moblisation and resistance. Bringing together theoretical debates and rigorous case studies, the book proposes ‘the political ecology of austerity’ as an appropriate method of analysis that can inform our understanding of the shift in environmental protection policies and the intensification of growth practices (green or otherwise) that followed the 2008 global economic crisis. The Political Ecology of Austerity discloses austerity to be a globalised set of tools not only for budgetary discipline, but also for socio-environmental discipline that justifies the continuation of capital accumulation at the expense of further global environmental degradation. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of social and political sciences, environmental studies, urban studies, and political ecology.