POLCrises@Europe
Studying crises during the crisis
I was the Head of the Research Unit of the University of Naples Federico II (where I was affiliated at that time)
for the 2015 PRIN project financed by the Italian Minister for Higher Education (PRIN 2015P7RCL5) (€ 464.922)
Politics and Policy in Europe in times of crisis: causes and consequences
University partners: Milano (Principal Investigator), Siena, S. Anna Pisa, SNS, UniTelma Roma, Napoli, and Catania.
This project aimed to analyze the Great Recession's impact on the political and policy dynamics in the European context.
The three work packages, which involve research groups across 7 Italian universities, focus respectively
on the input side of the political system (analyzing the process of political representation, parties and movements, and electoral behavior),
on the institutional black box (mainly legislatures and executives, and on their relationship in diverse settings),
and on the output side (investigating the capacity to adopt structural reforms, and analyzing taxation, labor, pension, and health policies).
Municipal Unions and mergers of municipalities (amalgamations) are tools of territorial reorganization used in many countries, including Italy. Especially in years of crisis and austerity, the increase in size of local authorities (and the decrease in their number) seems to have highlighted an irreconcilability: that between the ability of these entities to effectively provide basic services to citizens, and the principles of local democracy and proximity. This volume attempts to explain how, in order to overcome this dilemma, it is appropriate to consider a number of variables and factors that account for the complexity and multidimensionality of territorial reorganization. National and local policy-makers and administrators can draw knowledge and practical insights from the analysis proposed in the volume and from the identification of a set of analytical dimensions and indicators that can be used both as descriptive and evaluative tools and as guiding criteria when dealing with policy decisions involving municipal unions and mergers.
