Vita e Pensiero

Europe building process is a key factor in the future of societies that take part or will take part in it. First of all, Europe building is the attempt to cast politics beyond what Beck and Grande call «methodological nationalism» and, besides, it is a social lab unprecedented in our history. Despite of its relevance, social sciences and the media don’t give to Europe the due attention. This article gives an account of a wider research that analyzed Europe building from the perspective of the relationship between EU insitutions and organized transnational civil society. This dialogue is very worthy for EU institutions themselves because is considered the best way to create a Europe that goes beyond economical integration and that will be able to offer to its citizens identity, sense of belonging and social solidarity.

This article aims to present a short digression, without claim for completeness, about drawbacks and benefits connected to the use of CAQDAS (Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Softwares) for the analysis of facts and figures from biographic interviews. Moreover, these options could be applied as well for the analysis of different qualitative data source. According to our opinion, and unlike the claims by some authors, the analysis of this kind of material can not be considered scientifically viable just because performed with special software. Then, we explained some simple tools (word processor and indexing system) which can be found in different operating systems, to be used alongside or as alternative to CAQDAS for the analysis of qualitative data.

Festive time has many significant meanings in European traditions: the observation of the cosmos and of cycle of human life, the need for identity and the renewal of the social pact among living individuals. Festive time is therefore a traditional institution in which the community periodically celebrates its desire of unity and happiness.

The issue of social order, how and why it is that social orders exists at all, is historically central to sociology. In this paper the focus is on the comparison between Parsons’ and Garfinkel’s point of view. Parsons regards social order as the outcome of value consensus in society, which ensures that behavior conforms to generally accepted norms. Garfinkel starts out with the assumption that social order is illusory. They believe that social life merely appears to be orderly; in reality it is potentially chaotic. Social order is constructed in the minds of social actors as society confronts the individual as a series of sense impressions and experiences which she or he must somehow organize into a coherent pattern. The differences seem to be less looking at the concept of social order and trust together as a common theoretical outcome.

The term «Governance» is frequently found in speeches and texts which, under different circumstances, refer to regulatory issues of the complex contemporary society and to the increasing frequency with which it organizes itself in Network structures. Hence, there is the need to attribute this word with a conceptual and explanatory substrate, to avoid the risks of indetermination and ambiguity. Obstacles to a synthetic definition of Governance firstly stem from the varied situations in which it is applied and from the identity requests of the social actors, which are increasing in frequency. Such difficulties are intrinsic to Governance, in that it is not specific from an autonomous viewpoint. In fact, this definition is reflectively and necessarily realized with its polar equivalent, the Government. The relationship of continuously reciprocal generation between the two regulatory bodies can, thus, be defined as complementary opposition. The relation described above also depends by the intersection that it generates, applying itself to the three fundamental forms of exchange, i.e. community, market, and politics. On such bases, it is possible to propose a classification of Governance in three applicative forms: Social-Corporate- and Political-Governance. The idea of Governance and the diversified features of its three forms can be then brought back to a unifying interpretation in the more general and deep cultural realm of circularity paradigm.