In 2010 and 2011 migrants behaved like activist citizens throughout Italy, initiating a new cycle of struggles in the crisis of neoliberalism. Their contestation of an exclusionary, racialized and competitive model of society could become a goal shared by migrants and nationals alike.
The European project is failing. It is time to consider a new theoretical model beyond the nation-state: smaller, localized communities, "habitat-nations", are the building blocks for a revitalized and democractic pan-European project.
Italians do follow the presidential election, but they see it more as an entertaining race than as a scrutiny whose outcome might directly affect their daily lives.
Unaccompanied immigrant children in Italy have left their countries hoping to find a job and better opportunities, but their aspirations quickly fade away. Often, they risk being exploited to work in the black labour market or are recruited by criminal gangs – with nobody standing up to protect th
The demand for politics over markets, a key message in the Occupy and Indignados movements, is also key here. A considerable drop in trust is clear: trust in all national institutions and political actors (parliament, parties, and trade unions).
If a lesson may be learned from the big live laboratory of democracy that is Italy, it might be the awareness that democracy requires failsafe mechanisms of early-warning to protect the enlightenment of its members.
The Prime Minister of Italy, Mario Monti, has recently hinted that he might stay for a second term at the head of his mostly technocratic and nonpartisan government, on the condition of not having to face the voters in the upcoming election. But for how long will the consensus behind Monti hold?
From the conference, “Out of the crisis with another Europe”, held on July 9, 2012 by the Green European Federation with the support of Sbilanciamoci! , a summary of Italian perspectives on the EU debt crisis and proposals suggested by sections of Italian civil society to overcome the crisis.
Italy's weak economy is visible to all, but there is a parallel crack in the system which is at least as dangerous to the country’s wellbeing and stability, undermining its very structures. It is a clash between the powers of the state; the law on one side and the executive and legislature (usuall
The ‘state of emergency’ declared in the wake of the Arab Spring ends in four months time, but Italy is still failing in the basics of migration control and management. Despite international criticism, controversial push-back agreements have not been buried with the legacies of Berlusconi and Gadd
