In the short interview published today on The Local my comments on the high salaries of the Italian MPs and the cost of the Italian political class in a comparative perspective. http://www.thelocal.it/20131031/italian-mps-twice-as-pricey-as-German-MPs
The Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica – or RISP as Italian political scientists are now in the habit of calling it – is the official journal of the Italian Political Science Association. Founded by Giovanni Sartori in 1971, the journal has been the main locus for the consolidation of empirical political science in Italy. Indeed, thanks to Sartori the RISP has contributed greatly to the development of the discipline and connected the small community of Italian scholars to the key figures of political science all over the word. Given its nature as an instrument of consolidation and dissemination of political science in a country where the development of social sciences has never been easy, the RISP has never pursued a narrow “editorial policy”. On the contrary, it has been always an open journal, covering a large number of topics and reaching a large number of scholars, students and pratictioners of political science. Even so, Sartori’s mark was evident from the very beginning: a strong emphasis, in particular, was given to methodological and epistemological questions, starting with the seminal article La politica comparata: premesse e problemi, which opened a discussion involving the most eminent international scholars. In the end, this has always been the fundamental policy of the RISP: selecting path-breaking and inspiring pieces of research, with a special attention to a rigorous and pluralistic methodology, in order to make our community stronger and stronger, and to discuss the most promising ideas developed by international political science. During my term as Editor in chief, the RISP celebrated forty years of articles. One can go back over this impressive political science journey, evaluating the quality of the work produced by different generations of scholars and discovering the plurality of topics, findings, approaches, methods and styles. No doubt, during these four decades, Italian political science has grown in quantitative and, above all, in qualitative terms[1]: the seeds sown by Sartori and his small group of followers are robust trees now. I have played a very small role in this long enterprise, but I am old enough and lucky enough to say I have been personally connected with all the key persons in this story. Certainly I cannot pretend to define myself a sartoriano, but I had the chance to know the founder of the RISP between 1992 and 1993, at Columbia University. Before then, I had the chance to start my training as a young scholar with two historical sartoriani – Maurizio Cotta, whom I met in Siena during my undergraduate studies in the mid-eighties, and Leonardo Morlino, who was the coordinator of the PhD program in Florence I entered in 1991. Thanks to them, I was involved in the RISP “kitchen” quite young and I had the chance to collaborate, in different ways, with all of Sartori’s co-editors, Morlino, Cotta, Ferrera and Pasquino. In 2004, after the official passage of the RISP to the Italian Political Science Association, the newly- appointed editor in chief, Sergio Fabbrini, called me again to the editorial team of the journal. At the end of his mandate, in 2010, I was appointed as the editor in chief. What emotion! I can simply say that I am a lucky man, since I have learned a lot from this long experience and I am delighted to have had a small part in the story. During the past four years, I have basically followed the steps of my predecessors, trying to preserve the quality of articles and to consolidate a selective process of peer review. However, the issue of internationalization, and particularly the problem of the visibility of the journal in a context of increasing competitiveness, emerged, imposing new reflections about the future. With the support of the governing body of the SISP, we have explored the possibilities of a truly international Italian Political Science Review, deciding, in 2009, to publish some articles in English. At the same time, we have extended the number of our international referees and strengthened the presence of the RISP in many prestigious international repositories, like Scopus, Political Science Abstracts, International Political Science Abstracts, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences and others. The definitive adoption of the English language will be a decisive step in this process, and I am sure that the review of the Italian political scientists will soon appear in the most relevant rankings of political science journals with very good figures. In the end, I think we did a good job: the RISP is still firmly grounded on the whole community of Italian scholars and, at the same time, it is ready to become an international-based journal with a wider audience and a growing impact on the scientific debate. We keep looking for better political science, we want to face the challenges of our times – I am particularly concerned with three of them: internationalization, quality control and methodological innovations – but we do not intend to burn the bridges with our tradition. Indeed, I am very happy to publish now an article recalling an important contribution of Giovanni Sartori – that about applicability of political science. Before leaving, I would, of course, like to thank all the people who have supported me during these years. The help of the RISP advisory board has always been crucial, both in stimulating submissions as well as in controlling the process of review of the articles. I am also very grateful to all the other colleagues who have spent their precious time to review the submissions: the list of reviewers involved in these years is published in this issue. Above all, I could not have accomplished my goal without the efforts of the redazione: Marco Almagisti, Tiziana Caponio, Marco Clementi, Annarita Criscitiello, Luigi Curini, Stefano Sacchi and Filippo Tronconi. Two words describe their work: professionalism and generosity. Filippo, who also served as editorial coordinator, devoted most of his working time to the journal, dealing with deadlines, authors, referees and with the usual troubles. Only a big-hearted friend, and a excellent political scientist, would be able to do that. I admit I will miss the RISP a lot. But I am happy to see that it is ready to grow and to become much stronger. Fabio Franchino and Amie Kreppel are perfect candidates to do this job. The new editorial team is qualified and enthusiastic. Our association, with its newly-elected President Pietro Grilli di Cortona, will provide the usual support. Of course, there are still many challenges ahead, but this is exactly what makes a journey like this extremely exiting. Therefore, in bocca al lupo to Fabio, Amie and to the RISP – the Italian political science review! LV [1] I do not aim at providing a comprehensive description of this phenomenon here. Some updated figures, and a large qualitative survey of the products of the Italian political science, can be found in G. Pasquino, M. Regalia and M. Valbruzzi (eds.), Quaranta anni di Scienza Politica in Italia, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2013. Ripartiamo dalle Back Pages. In realtà sono stato benissimo in questi 20 mesi senza una pagina web mia. I social network sono già più che sufficienti per mandare ogni tanto due parole agli amici, e di fesserie sul web ce ne sono già troppe.
Tuttavia la ripresa dei corsi, in questo anno accademico 13-14 , mi ha ricordato che non avevo più un posto dove mettere in ordine il mio materiale per interagire con gli studenti e i colleghi. In più, ci sono vari progetti che potrebbero aver bisogno di un veicolo web. E allora mi sono lanciato di nuovo. Non credo che sarò mai un assiduo blogger, ma qualcosa da dire o da annunciare c'è sempre. A cominciare, e sarà il primo post di discussione di questo nuovo sito, col commiato, dopo 4 anni, dalla direzione della Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica Grazie a Rino Cammino che mi sta insegnando, con tanta pazienza, l'utilizzo corretto di questa piattaforma LV |
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