The search for good government : understanding the paradox of Italian democracy / Filippo Sabetti.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sabetti, Filippo, 1940-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Italy--Politics and government.

Italy.

Physical Description:

xii, 313 p. : map ; 24 cm.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Montreal : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Sabetti argues that poor government performance in contemporary Italy has been an unintended consequence of attempts to craft institutions for good - or democratic - government. He shows that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, a chief problem in contemporary Italy is not the absence of the rule of law but, rather, the presence of rule by law or too many laws. A principal conclusion of his study is that postwar Italian politics can best be understood as a laboratory for revealing how and why a search for good government can generate antithetical and counter intentional results. The Italian experience has important implications for all those who aspire to be self-governing - as opposed to state-governed - for it shows what people can do to enhance human cooperation in collective-action dilemmas and suggests the probable results if "democracy" continues to be identified with parliamentary government and representative assemblies rather than with the universality of the village or the local community. The Search for Good Government changes our understanding of postwar Italian politics and provides new ways to evaluate the impact of the political changes that have occurred since 1992, arguing for a perceptual shift in the way we think about politics and the educative role of public institutions.

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Italian Politics: School for Good Government

Constitutional Knowledge and Alternative Constitutional Designs in the Making of Italy

The Creation of the Italian State

The Constitutional Design That Did Not Happen

How the System Worked in Republican Italy: Institutional Learning and Constraints

Expectations and Results in Public Service Delivery

Problem Solving by Central Planning

The War on Crime as a Fight for Good Government

The Mafia and the Antimafia

The Political Economy of Crime and Punishment

Why People Are Not Culturally or Path Dependently Doomed to Bad Government

The Search for the Real Montegrano

Path Dependence, Civic Culture, and Differential Government Performance

Good Government: The Elusive Dependent Variable

Notes

References

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-282-85847-5

9786612858475

0-7735-6827-1

OCLC:

929121248