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.
Authors
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references and index
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 320.945
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 21
- General Note
- Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- Geographic Area Code
- e-it---
- ISBN
- 9780773568273 0773520244
- LCCN
- JN5452
- LCCN Item number
- S22 2000eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaBNVSL
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (xii, 313 p.)
- Published in
- Canada
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)jme00326550 (OCoLC)181843428 (CaOOCEL)400563
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- CaBNVSL
Table of Contents
- Contents 8
- Acknowledgments 10
- INTRODUCTION 14
- 1 Italian Politics: School for Good Government 14
- PART ONE: Constitutional Knowledge and Alternative Constitutional Designs in the Making of Italy 36
- 2. The Creation of the Italian State 38
- 3 The Constitutional Design That Did Not Happen 67
- PART TWO: How the System Worked in Republican Italy: Institutional Learning and Constraints 92
- 4 Expectations and Results in Public Service Delivery 94
- 5 Problem Solving by Central Planning 130
- PART THREE: The War on Crime as a Fight for Good Government 140
- 6 The Mafia and the Antimafia 142
- 7 The Political Economy of Crime and Punishment 174
- PART FOUR: Why People Are Not Culturally or Path Dependently Doomed to Bad Government 202
- 8 The Search for the Real Montegrano 204
- 9 Path Dependence, Civic Culture, and Differential Government Performance 225
- CONCLUSION 252
- 10 Good Government: The Elusive Dependent Variable 252
- Notes 278
- References 282
- Index 314
- A 314
- B 315
- C 315
- D 317
- E 318
- F 318
- G 319
- H 319
- I 319
- J 320
- K 320
- L 320
- M 321
- N 322
- O 322
- P 322
- R 324
- S 324
- T 325
- U 325
- V 326
- W 326
- Z 326
