The first vertebrate genus described from the Baccinello-Cinigiano Basin, Paludotona, is here revised almost 6 decades after its original description, with the inclusion of new material. Paludotona is an endemic insular lagomorph that inhabited the Tusco-Sardinian Palaeobioprovince during the late Miocene (Turolian), in the time span between 8.3–6.7 Ma. The continental ancestor of Paludotona remains unknown. We are skeptical about the widely accepted hypothesis of its descent from Lagopsis. The retention of archaic dental features...

La qualità estetica e conoscitiva delle opere di Vincenzo Consolo imponeva ormai da tempo un’edizione complessiva, capace di dargli una presenza stabile nel canone dei grandi autori del Novecento. D’altro canto, le caratteristiche dei testi di Consolo, con la loro ben nota complessità dal punto di vista linguistico ma anche più generalmente culturale, chiedevano al curatore di modulare l’apparato in modo da offrire al lettore gli strumenti per una più agevole comprensione. Il lavoro sistematico...

SocietàMutamentoPolitica, Vol 8, N° 15 (2017): Towards a Political Sociology of Our Time

SocietàMutamentoPolitica, Vol 8, N° 15 (2017): Towards a Political Sociology of Our Time

The thousands of letters written by Max Weber between 1895 and 1920, now published in the Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe, throw new light on many sides of his private life and his public activities. One of the less well studied aspects of his life are his numerous long trips to European countries before the outbreak of the First World War. Many of Weber’s letters from Scotland, England, Ireland, France, Spain, Holland, Belgium (but less those from Italy)...

InIt is theoretically analyzed a type of citizenship that results from the deficit of integration: the sub citizenships. To this end, a conceptual scheme (“locks theory”) is proposed, focusing on the guaranteed commitments between civil society and the State. Finally, a typology of types of sub citizenships is proposed, thought from Latin America.

SocietàMutamentoPolitica, Vol 8, N° 15 (2017): Towards a Political Sociology of Our Time

Considering the current crisis of politics and the lack of the political studies the essay tries to define what is the politics and how to study the political processes through an effective method. This analysis is carried out on the shoulders of leading authors such as Max Weber,Talcott Parsons,Harold D. Lasswell, Hannah Arendt, Julien Freund and Giovanni Sartori. The final section deals with the issue of interdisciplinary construction of a new general theory of politics.

The article deals with the new political forms of organisation and the party change, in a sociological and political science perspective. Wondering about the electoral success of new political actors and the crisis of the traditional one, it is introduced by the party-movement category. The article is divided into three parts. The first part discusses the salience of the classical political categories, while the second part provides an analysis of a single case study: the...

This article aims to depict an overview about web-sites participative structure of the main political and civil collective actors in Italy. Which kind of tools appear in the Italian parties web-sites? And, above all, which kind of participative possibilities they allow to users?

Populism has often been used to analyze political parties, leaders and post-communist movements. Most of the literature on this topic is concentrated on the ideological features of post-communist populism. Based on a comparison between the Slovak National Party, the Bulgarian Ataka and the Hungarian Jobbik, the analysis aims to provide new insights on the organizational dimensions of post-communist populist parties. More specifically, the analysis focuses on the features of the three parties’ leaders from their...

This paper inquiries into the concept of populism from a sociological perspective. This is done by highlighting the unstable co-presence of demagogy and participation through an intercultural analysis of the European and the Indian discursive approach and its construction of popular politics. The underlying understanding is that the concept is misrepresented by the equation of populisms with demagogy. The paper therefore builds on “participatory populism” to promote the expansion, rather than contraction, of the term’s...

This article explores the socio-economic and attitudinal profile of voters of radical right populist in ten European countries. It provides confirmation of the so-called syndrome of the ‘losers of globalization’ which the literature indicates as a predictor of the radical right vote and which consists in perceptions of declining standard of living, blaming of migrants and generalized concerns with personal security. In addition, it examines the propensity to vote for radical right parties when they...

In the face of change in the social bases of advanced European democracies, politics has delayed the articulation of new cleavages characterising a society that can no longer be attributed to the perimeter of belonging and the social classes of the 20th century. The crisis is therefore not an expression of criticism against democracy as a political regime per sé, but rather corresponds to a crisis in the legitimacy of traditional political players. The democratic...

The organization patterns of the parties depend on new needs and on segmentation of interests. Political participation is very instable and develops often outside the traditional political organizations and in individualized manner on the web. In many parties, the reaction is the de-differentiation and the de-burocratization, linked to total or partial outsourcing of some functions: funding, interests aggregation, political mobilization, study of new policies or management of communication. For these goals, we observe the activities...

The following article aims to study the 2013 primaries organized by the PD (Partito Democratico) for the election of the National Secretary of the Party. The outcome of said primaries (leader selection), that sees Matteo Renzi as the winner only a few weeks before his appointment to the presidency of the Council of Ministers, is compared to that obtained by the same party in 2007 and in 2009, respectively with Veltroni and Bersani as Secretaries....

Through the contribution of classical and contemporary authors, Political Sociology offers an important opportunity to reflect on the crisis affecting democracy today. Crucial is the relationship between elites and democracy and particularly the theory of democratic elitism, a paradigm that has been considered the main source of democratic legitimacy in the Western world for decades. Cornerstones of this paradigm are the competence and representativeness of the elites. Through the analysis of some of its exponents,...

The article aims at analysing different conception of presidential mandate when the process of personalisation is impacting on the contemporary democracies. It considers the prominence assumed by the American presidents during the Nineteenth century, after the advent of the so called Second Republic. And it shows how relevant analogies may be provided with European countries, particularly with Italy. Indeed, in both Old and new Continent, the rise of personal leaders is producing a different interpretation...

Over time, the European Union has undergone a number of highly significant integration processes on an economic, social and political level. With the structure of States, it has implemented a number of actions aimed at empowering citizens by harmonising different rights and producing relevant processes in first-generation political rights. Through the EU members’ public opinion, this article analyses the effects of European foreign migrants’ electoral rights in both local and European elections. With the analysis...

The article focuses on the emerging ways in which economic actors influence politics and policy. After an analysis of actions based on financial, relational and administrative resources, the article focuses on how the firms use knowledge and discourses in order to shape policy makers’ frames and beliefs. The final section presents provisional evidence about the political role of an Italian consulting firm.

The article argues that political elites – using participation as tools for depoliticisation strategies – seek to obtain the trust of the economic elite and, at the same time, to shield policy making from the unpopular consequences of neoliberal policies. In order to test this hypothesis a specific case of participatory processes, developed in Rome between 2014-2015 is considered.

The global economic crisis of 2008 has fostered a new wave of de-politicization intended as the shifting of national policy making from the public political arena to the field of extra-political supranational and international actors. The public policy making has become tightly linked to criteria that are much more economic than political. This change has provoked a consequent mutation in the nature and behavior of social movements which has result in different kinds of crossbreeding....

The debate over the concept of ‘postsecular’ has grown in the last decades gathering both supporters and critics. Originated from the formulation made by Jürgen Habermas, the ‘postsecular turn’ became one of the most successful concepts in the long history of the theory of secularization. Many contemporary analysis of the role of religion in society and politics can be read in the postsecular frame. The aim of this paper is to sum up different aspects...

The process of globalization has followed logics that have not take account of borders and national economic interests. The states appear in difficulty while under and above them are being defined relations and economic flows that transcend them, when they do not ignore them. In addition the massive migration due to wars, famines and hunger are transforming the nations in multi-ethnic and multi-cultural states. The advance of identity fragmentation and the loss of national power...