Shows that the politics of democratic societies is moving towards a presidentialized working mode, even in the absence of formal institutional changes. These developments can be explained by a ...combination of long-term structural changes in modern politics and societies’ contingent factors that fluctuate over time. While these contingent, short-term factors relate to the personalities of office holders, the overall political agenda, and the majority situation in parliament, there are several structural factors that are relatively uniform across modern nations. First, the internationalization of modern politics (which is particularly pronounced within the European Union) has led to an ‘executive bias’ of the political process that has strengthened the role of political top elites vis-à-vis their parliamentary groups and/or their parties. Their predominance has been amplified further by the vastly expanded steering capacities of state machineries, which have severely reduced the scope of effective parliamentary control. At the same time, the declining stability of political alignments has increased the proportion of citizens whose voting decisions are not constrained by long-standing party loyalties. In conjunction with the mediatization of politics, this has increased the capacity of political leaders to bypass their party machines and to appeal directly to voters.As a result, three interrelated processes have led to a political process increasingly moulded by the inherent logic of presidentialism: increasing leadership power and autonomy within the political executive; increasing leadership power and autonomy within political parties; and increasingly leadership-centered electoral processes.The book presents evidence for this process of presidentialization for 14 modern democracies (including the USA and Canada). While there are substantial cross-national differences, the overall thesis holds: modern democracies are increasingly following a presidential logic of governance through which leadership is becoming more central and more powerful, but also increasingly dependent on successful immediate appeal to the mass public. Implications for democratic theory are considered.
This article analyzes the possible effects that continuous head teacher turnover can have on school organizational climate. The article first presents the transformations that the Italian school ...system has experienced in the last fifteen years since the introduction of the autonomy law, and then provides a brief overview of the main theories regarding the organizational climate making a comparison among them, followed by the presentation of methodologies and tools to study the organizational climate. Finally, it presents a case study illustrating the difficulties faced by leaders and teachers of an Italian school that has experienced management turnover for years. Both quantitative and qualitative analysis has been performed comparing two schools located in the same area. Some diagrams show results obtained by the questionnaire filled in by teachers. Some extracts from head teacher interviews help us to understand the main issues they face when they take up their appointment in a school with a high turnover rate.
This article draws on the work conducted within the context of the European Policy Network on School Leadership. Its aim is to discuss and reflect upon school leadership policy development in the ...context of European education systems. The first section focuses on the concept of school leadership, identifying connections between school leadership practices and the promotion of equity and learning in schools. The second section discusses critical factors in policy implementation that shape the capacity of school leaders to combat inequalities and promote learning performance in schools. The article ends with an outlining of key policy actions for the promotion of distributed leadership practices in schools. In effect, this section stresses the need for a conceptual shift in understanding school leadership, from the position, roles, responsibilities, traits and capacities of the individuals holding formally assigned leadership roles in schools, to leadership as a function inside schools. As it is argued, such a conceptual shift calls for a policy shift in school leadership capacity-building that strengthens, but also goes beyond, the traditional repertoire of policies that focus on the preparation and professional training of school heads or other members of formal teams responsible for school management.
The article deals with entrepreneurship in local development. It maintain the utility of focused analysis of specific situations and suggest that the individualistic paradigm of analysis allows ...combined interpretations of different social sciences perspectives. The middle-range theory of social capital seems an useful instrument for the particular perspective of sociology in this interdisciplinary game. The social capital is intended as a localized resource for entrepreneurial action. In reference to that particular resource, the paper concludes that specific national policies can improve the mobilization and formation of appropriated social capital for entrepreneurship in local economic systems, encouraging the cooperation of different local private and public actors for long-term and coordinated strategies of growth.
This article aims at pointing out the figure of Luigi Alfonso Casella (1865-1945) within the ruling class of Calabria. He devoted most of his work (from 1911 to 1934) to the management of the ...Sericultural Institute in Cosenza and was engaged in the development of silk production in Calabria and the other Southern areas. He attempted to promote the interaction between the national economic policy and the local interests. During the early XX century, Italian sericulture began to show some weakening signs due to the Asian production. The government planned a project in order to support one of the most important field of Italian economy involving technicians in order to encourage production and productivity in the local areas, mainly in the silkworm breeding sector. Using unpublished sources, together with a careful analysis of some little known aspects of Italian sericulture, the author critically restores the outcome of this promotional project in Calabria, by pointing out the considerable results achieved, mostly thanks to Casella's specific intervention. Such results were forgotten due to the decay of sericulture after the 1930s.
This article reports on an exploratory qualitative study undertaken with the students of the tenth edition of the «Leadership and Management in Education Master Course» (LMEMC) held in Italy by the ...Department of Education of the University Roma Tre and attended by educational professionals from Greece and Italy, in prevalence aspiring to career improvement and new leadership roles. The study is part of an in-depth self-evaluation process aimed at updating the course activities and exploring professional adult learning. Our data consists of 65 written interviews, undertaken with student-teachers and focusing on their motivations and their positive and negative expectations towards leadership roles. After referring to the international debate on leadership preparation and development, we situate the LMEMC looking at: (a) the context of Italian HE postgraduate studies; (b) the context of educational leadership preparation and development in Italy and in Greece; (c) the course design and delivery strategies. We then describe the methodologies and research tools employed and draw from our results some hints for possible new developments in the LMEMC and in leadership preparation activities. Our data also allows us to reflect on the benefits of sustainable self-evaluation processes of adult learning activities.
In this essay the author examines the biography of Umberto Zanotti-Bianco (1889-1963), inside the history of the governing classes during the 20th century. Zanotti-Bianco considers environmental and ...cultural identity as central elements of the strategy for the growth and development of Southern Italy. The paper analyzes the policy of civic education, from '10s to '50s in the Southern regions, in fighting illiteracy, in promoting popular library, in child and adult learning, and also, in protecting environment and cultural heritage. The article emphasizes the importance of cultural policy and, in this point, the author argues the relevance of «meridionalista» idea of Zanotti-Bianco.
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