Agenda 2030, approved by the United Nations in 2015, was designed as a system of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to provide tools to guide countries toward implementing coordinated and effective sustainability policies. To fully unfold its potential to inform the practices of these diverse actors, however, the SDGs are translated into a set of monitoring indicators, which provide measurable targets to be achieved by 2030 and benchmarks to assess the progress of implemented actions. As observed by many authors, this system of indicators can be regarded as a boundary object, allowing for coordination and collaboration between different actors at different scales without previous negotiation of consensus. From an implementation perspective, however, this entails adapting indicators to local contexts to retain applicability. This effort brings back the need for consensus amongst national, regional, provincial and local institutions to establish common reference indicators and organic data collection policies. Our aim is to understand the problematic nature of the translation processes driving the territorialization of A2030 goals and metrics in the Metropolitan City of Milan, focusing in particular on SDG 11. We trace key difficulties in this process to the heterogeneous nature of indicators as boundary objects, requiring involved actors to reach a consensus on their sociological significance (indicators should reflect the specificities of local contexts), on their political implications (with SDG indicators driving actors to shape their policies accordingly, while competing with different systems of measurement connected to alternative sustainability plans), on their organizational requirements (being different sets of data more easily and economically gathered by some institutions than by others), and on their technical features (requiring data collection and integration as a common standard for communication).
The essay argues that evaluation can be a space for critical thinking that assumes criteria for judging public policies that are alternative to those present in neoliberal politics. In the history of evaluation, there are methodological orientations and theoretical reflections that look at the ability of evaluation to promote social justice by assuming judgment criteria that consider the interests of less privileged groups as priorities and look at the ability of the evaluated programs to promote the equal access to civil liberties, human rights and opportunities. For this to be achieved, it is important to reflect more on the ethics of the evaluator, but also to promote their empowerment in the relation with stakeholders, ensuring substantial independence of the evaluation exercise and strengthening the professional and scientific status of the evaluator.
In the progressive evolution of the Internet from an open to a closed system controlled by private actors, few U.S. companies, known as Big Tech, have garnered increasing influence over users, other companies, and public institutions. The European Union is attempting to counteract this influence. Conversely, at the national level, initiatives from the legislative power appear to be lacking. To delve deeper into this issue, the contribution focuses on the Italian case. Empirically, all sessions of the Italian Senate mentioning Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, or Microsoft have been examined, resulting in 641 documents from 1996 to 2023. The thematic analysis approach is used to study how Italian legislators have discussed Big Tech. It emerges that national decision-makers do not deeply consider their impact nor engage in possible regulations. In the face of supranational actors like Big Tech, the authority and sovereignty of a nation-state seem to be fading.
This paper aims to re-examine aspects of Ferri’s criminological idea, in order to explore the existing connection between criminological social factors and individual behavioral choices. This connection, in Ferri’s view, is presented in terms of rigid determinism characterized both sociologically and anthropologically, as seen in other authors belonging to the same positivist paradigm. This investigation clarifies the limitations of Ferri’s concept, and besides that, it may also influence the evaluation of those criminological theories that have reintroduced, in more recent times and perhaps in new and updated forms, interpretations of the phenomena of deviance and criminality, in which traces of the explanatory patterns elaborated by Ferri are present.
Italy is one of the European countries in which young people face greater challenges in achieving independence and full social integration. This study explores the potential of guidance in non-formal educational contexts to support young people who are on the margins of education and labour systems The findings of an action research project are presented, in which 52 young people facing multiple vulnerabilities participated in a guidance programme designed to address their specific needs. The impact of the intervention was evaluated on five profiles of young people with different vulnerability conditions. Overall, the guidance model developed proved to be an effective tool for improving self-esteem, self-knowledge, redefinition and practical implementation of projects. These results confirm the need to organically include the third sector and the network of non-formal education services in the national guidance system.
Gaetano Mosca’s perspective on the historical-comparative method aims at elucidating the connection between the historical and the comparative aspects. When employed correctly and distinguished from the historiographical investigation, this method is relevant in acquiring knowledge on phenomena, and a valuable tool for fostering interdisciplinary dialogue. The subsequent section of the review delves into an analysis of Mosca’s seminal work The Political Class, in which he formulates the concept of political formula and social type, to shed light on the methodology, offering insights into his approach to comprehending the birth and decline of states through a comparative examination of historical facts. In the conclusions, the review adopts a critical stance on Mosca’s use of a historical-comparative method which, even with great interest in his observations, should be grounded in establishing accurate and transparent parameters.
The aim of the article is to highlight the transformations of political citizenship in Italy analysing its formal and material dimensions. The profound social change of recent decades has affected both dimensions with a progressive transformation of the formulation and the practice of the right to vote. The analysis of the initiatives of institutions and the actions of citizens, from the post-war period to the present day, shows an alignment of Italy with the political dynamics of mature democracies in the mark of individualization.
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