I’ve written another paper (hence the no blogging). No prizes for guessing which area this one’s in.
Albertazzi, D. and McDonnell, D. (2009), “The parties of the centre right: many oppositions, one leader”, in Newell (2009a)
Allum, F. and Allum, P. (2008), “Revisiting Naples: clientelism and organized crime”, Journal of Modern Italian Studies,13(3)
Bardi, L. (2007), “Electoral change [...]
Following another thread in another place, here are a couple of reviews of books about Silvio Berlusconi, currently Prime Minister of Italy for the third time. As you can see, these reviews predate the 2006 elections, won by a united Left under Prodi (perhaps not quite the gran tessitore Aldo Moro was, but certainly a [...]
More news on my book. I handed over the corrected proofs this morning, together with an index. Compiling the index was easier than I’d thought it would be, but still not exactly fun; it was one of those tasks that leaves you looking round for the next chunk of mental hard labour for several days [...]
My book: an announcement and a question.
I’m quite excited about my book. Or should I say, my book – for lo, that’s an actual link to a page where you can, apparently, pre-order it, with free UK delivery and everything. And here’s the publisher’s page about the book, and here’s what it says there:
‘More work! [...]
Something from the Italian press, following on from Liam. This is taken from a column by Curzio Maltese in today’s Repubblica. ‘Il Caimano’ – ‘the caiman‘ – is a popular and well-deserved nickname for Berlusconi.
It’s a bit naive – no, extremely naive – to profess to be astonished that Berlusconi the statesman has turned back [...]
An Italian postscript. Here’s a post which originally appeared eighteen months ago (23/11/06) at the recently-revived Sharpener. I think it stands up pretty well: I got the importance of fragmenting the old Christian Democrat bloc, Prodi’s skill in knitting together ex-Christian Democrats and ex-Communists, and the lamentable importance of Clemente Mastella. (Who didn’t even stand [...]
For the Left, the Italian elections were an avoidable disaster. Unfortunately, they weren’t avoidable by the Left.
Brief history lesson. Western Communist Parties always were contradictory formations, and the Italian Communist Party (PCI) more than most. The official ideology of the party was gradualist: the irreversible socialist transformation of society was to be achieved through [...]
I’ve written a book. The MS has just gone off to the publisher; it’s still got to be checked, copy-edited, re-checked, typeset, proof-read and probably several other stages I’ve forgotten about, and it probably won’t be out much before Christmas. But it’s a book, and it’s been written. By me.
It’s called ‘More work! Less pay!’ [...]
Here’s why I like Italian politics. My recent Sharpener post on the state of the two major Italian alliances concluded that a key concern of both Berlusconi and Prodi is securing the loyalty of the former Christian Democrats who are in their coalition and, if possible, luring across some of those on the other side. [...]
I’m posting from work, because this is (unusually) a work-related question. And I do mean ‘question’: I will be expecting comments. Look sharp.
I’m formulating a research proposal, building on the work I’ve done on what went on in Italy between 1966 and 1980. Basically, you have two successive waves of protest: one which starts in [...]
Will:
Yesterday I was giving a talk on the egocentricity of the digital revolution … and afterwards stood around chatting to some media lecturers, all seemingly left wing intellectuals. They were dolefully discussing how their students showed no interest in criticising brainless, celebrity-obsessed and pornographic magazines, deeming it to be purely a matter of choice what [...]
Nick:
Larry Sanger, the controversial online encyclopedia’s cofounder and leading apostate, announced yesterday, at a conference in Berlin, that he is spearheading the launch of a competitor to Wikipedia called The Citizendium. Sanger describes it as “an experimental new wiki project that combines public participation with gentle expert guidance.”The Citizendium will begin as a “fork” of [...]
I hate it when my doctoral thesis gets topical. Here are some figures:
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
333
282
277
190
103
33
81
92
169
460
1110
802
258
141
3
8
5
28
21
25
15
Take a moment to read across the rows and get a feel for the shape of the series. Row one starts pretty high – almost one of these things per day – then declines year on year, plummets to almost nothing in 1980 [...]
And you won’t often hear me say that.
There will be time to wonder about the mysteries of this World Cup – why were the announcements in English? why did the band keep playing “Go West”? why did the crowd keep singing “Vindaloo”? and what did England think was going to happen if they went on [...]
I hate to admit it, but some of these Tories talk sense. I heard a Conservative IT guy (Richard Bacon) dissecting the proposed NHS computer system on the radio today, and there wasn’t a word I could dissent from. If you’re designing and building a huge IT system, you just don’t do it like that.
I [...]
Nick Carr’s hyperbolically-titled The Death of Wikipedia has received a couple of endorsements and some fairly vigorous disagreement, unsurprisingly. I think it’s as much a question of tone as anything else. When Nick reads the line
certain pages with a history of vandalism and other problems may be semi-protected on a pre-emptive, continuous basis.
it clearly sets [...]
The latest from Italy is that Prodi’s government has survived a vote of confidence in the Senate. Which is good, as Prodi would have had to resign if he’d lost. The result was never in much doubt – the Unione majority in the Senate is small, but it’s still a majority – but the seven [...]
All you’ve ever wanted to know about the Italian elections, if not more: my inaugural return post at the Sharpener. Ite, legete.
He’s gone – a mere 21 days after losing the vote. Phew – it was looking close for a while back there.
We’re back – looking rather good, I have to say. Check it out.
[Updated and bumped up, 14/4 and 19/4. It's quite a story.]
Like Clive, I’ve seen better comment on the Italian elections in blogs than on newsprint. I think particular credit is due to Alex, the only person I’ve seen suggest that Berlusconi won’t go if he loses. I thought he was being far too melodramatic at [...]
