Scienza e Pace
Science and Peace
This article aims to provide a personal memory of Alberto L’Abate, illustrating the role he played in the Italian non-violent experience. In order to do so, we have to reconstruct the history of non-violent people and movements since 1989, a difficult undertaking which requires going beyond traditional academic settings. In fact, the historiography of non-violent movements requires the passage from a descriptive approach to an interpretative one. After exposing the four development models (MDS) proposed by Lanza del Vasto in the 1950s and then by Galtung in the 1970s, the article frames the political history of the 20th century in the above-mentioned models. Finally, the author offers a brief presentation of the Italian non-violent story, underlining the peculiarities with respect to the European and global panoramas. It is within this framework that L’Abate's activity is located, as illustrated through a table that allows you to graphically grasp its contribution to Italian non-violence.
The present paper describes how a product design Course can approach the issue of migration, starting from the analysis of the main stages of the journey that refugees have to do, from the departure to the arrival, to the period they spend in the hosting country. The article focuses, in particular, on the examination of two design methodologies: lateral thinking and design thinking, both used throughout the project. In support of the explanation of methodological theories, two of the seven projects born within the Course will be illustrated: Grab.m and and Kala. The firs one focused on the theme of the see crossing, the second one on the topic of cultural integration.
This paper aims to illustrate the activity of Clinica di Malattie Nervose e Mentali di Pisa during the First World War. Mostly, it will refer to the role of the psychiatrist in society and to the issue of war psychiatry, which had already been debated during colonial conflicts. The paper will take into consideration the scientific problem of the traumatic aetiology of psychiatric disorders. In particular, it will study the case of Clinica di Pisa and the several reports that the clinic itself produced. The examined cases show the apparent contradiction of an “impossible disease”, diagnosed in the military and not in civilians. In fact, during this period of time, the Italian psychiatric science seems not to contemplate the possibility that war could cause a psychiatric condition. The paper aims to solve this dilemma, showing how in such cases the clinical practice differs and considering further developments.
The Iranian political system, based on Islamic law (Shari'a law) since 1979, as well as its current government, are facing various challenges typical of a society marked by the contradictions of societies in transition. One of the main such contradictions concerns the respect of Islamic legal-moral principles, which were the fundamental aim behind the rise of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This article intends to question, at least in part, the deep roots of the current problems through an analysis of the Iranian political power and its evolution, returning to the country's first modern popular movement and the failure of the first Persian constitution of 1907, the effects of which continue to today. In this framework, a reflection on the role of the Iranian secular intellectuals and religious scholars and their influence on the public debate will be considered. Finally, the current constitutional charter and on how it was established will be examined, in particular the principle of velāyat-e faqih (guardianship of the jurist) and its theoretical-practical consequences, after the Iranian people had been governed by a secular government like Pahalvi (1925 -1979) for almost half a century.
Call for papers
Migrations, populism and the crisis of globalization
Over the last few years, migrations have become a central theme in the political and economic debate. The most critical aspects, also because of the many border deaths that they implied, refer to migrations from African and Asian countries towards Europe and from Latin and Central American countries towards the United States, but also to intra-European migrations, from Eastern to Western Europe.
Some countries have been successful so far in preventing them through the application of restrictive and selective policies that, however (as in the case of Japan or Australia, for example) have been effective mainly because of the natural barriers provided by their geographic location.
In the current debate, the negative effects attributed to migrations are often included among the main causes of Brexit, Trumpism, populism, nationalism and of the more general crisis of globalization. As a matter of fact, they are a multi-faceted phenomenon, involving many different issues.
First of all, legal and ethical issues, that can be synthesized in the paradox that while capital is allowed to flow freely across the world, labor – the other most relevant factor of production – is not. Such questions emerge also in the distinction often made between economic migrants and refugees, as if people who live in a situation of absolute poverty and deprivation should not be given the possibility to look for a decent existence for their families and for themselves. Those aspects are accompanied by harsh dilemmas relative to the ‘right’ immigration policies to be adopted by destination countries, to the sacredness of life to be defended at all costs in the case of an emergency, but also to the – even involuntary - possible wrong signals and incentives imputed to humanitarian intervention.
Second, social issues, including those relative to the effects that immigration and the resulting ethnic diversity (together with the cultural and religious one) may have on the social capital of destination countries; on the maintenance of their traditions and specific identity, in their multiple meanings; on the feeling of uneasiness, insecurity and fear that is often resented by the resident population with the arrival of new immigrants.
Third, cultural and religious issues, due to the fact that different habits, traditions and religions have to live side by side. As a matter of fact, new labor forces entering a country imply the entrance of new people. This can be summarized by the well-known phrase of the Swiss-German playwriter Max Frisch, originally referred to the Turkish immigration in Germany in the years following World War II: “We asked for workers, but human beings came”.
Fourth, political issues, resulting once more from the consequences of immigration on the perceptions and feelings of the people living in destination countries, and represented by the spreading of new forms of populism and nationalism. Such phenomena may well have to do with the fear that immigration may increase crime (and in some cases even terrorism), although the positive empirical correlation between immigration and crime is highly controversial. In any case, they should be addressed in an informed, scientific and non-emotional way, an approach which is not always followed in these days.
Finally, economic issues, because of the positive and negative effects that migrations may have. As a matter of fact, potentially negative effects may result on the countries of origin (arm brain and brain drain could undermine their future development opportunities) but also on destination countries (competition with local unskilled workers and threat to the economic and social standards resulting from decades of negotiations between unions and employers, conflict in the access to shrinking social rights).
At the same time, however, there are undeniable positive aspects for both of them: origin countries receive from migrants significant amounts of remittances, that can be fruitfully channeled to support economic activities, development and growth, while destination countries are allowed to satisfy the manpower needs of many agricultural and manufacturing sectors together with the many other needs resulting from their falling demographic trends. Considering the points made above, the CISP (Centro Interdisciplinare "Scienze per la Pace") at the University of Pisa, the academic journal Scienza e Pace/Science and Peace, the AISSEC (Associazione Italiana per lo Studio dei Sistemi Economici Comparati) and the GLO (Global Labor Organization) invite scholars and experts (economists, historians lawyers, philosophers, political scientists, sociologists and social science scholars in general) to present their works and findings in the workshop “Migrations, populism and the crisis of globalization”.
Instructions for authors
The workshop (that will be held in English, unless all presenters will be Italian) will take place on 30 and 31 March 2020 in the Department of Economics of the University of Pisa. Please send an abstract of approx. 300 words to the editorial board of the academic journal Scienza e Pace/Science and Peace (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and to the AISSEC secretariat (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) by 31 January 2020. Acceptance will be notified around mid-February. A first draft of the paper would be expected by mid-March.
An issue of Scienza e Pace/Science and Peace will be devoted to the themes addressed in the workshop and will include the articles that will be submitted by April 30, 2020. Conference participants are particularly encouraged to submit their papers. The articles submitted for publication should follow the Editorial guidelines of the journal and will be subject to peer review refereeing.
When, after the death of Pius XII, on October 28, 1958, Pope Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was elected, who assumed the name of John XXIII, a short term was expected for him and indeed his pontificate would have ended only five years later. Faced with the economic and social transformations that characterized Italy in the Fifties, Roncalli considered it necessary for the Church to update and confront the new demands placed on the consciences of Christians; this intuition was translated into the convocation of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), which immediately revealed a clash within the meetings between a majority faithful to the traditional Catholic doctrine and a minority available to openness; a clash that will be echoed in the magazines and which will result in different interpretations of the conciliar documents. A different political reception of the basic transformation Council which involved the mass organizations of Catholics, Catholic Action, Acli, Christian Democracy and which, thanks to the meeting with youth movements, has become an open dispute within the Church , and whose goal was not that of a destruction of the institution, but a faithful and rigorous recovery of the Church of Christ, increasingly hidden and replaced by an organization of power that plotted economic and political relations and that made itself an accomplice of capitalism in perpetrating injustices in near and far lands. An other Church that did not want to become another Church. The first two chapters will be devoted to the development of Vatican II and to the work of peace promoted by Pope Roncalli, especially to the encyclical Pacem in Terris, promulgated in April 1963.
In this paper, I discuss critically the concept of populism trying to operationalise it for empirical analysis. I will present a case study, which is an analysis of the political rhetoric of Matteo Renzi based on the content analysis. Through two main categories and four subcategories, I will show that populism can be found also in leader which are not expression of the far-right movements or parties and that for the Italian case we can see a specific form of populism, institutionalized and “from above” using the definition of the Italian political scientists, Marco Revelli. The case study aims to provide some additional empirical finding for the study of populism in Italy.
The recent election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil creates a set of doubts about the future of the constitutional state in the country. These concerns stem from their statements in the past or during the election campaign. On several issues, he expressed positions that are incompatible with the foundations of the constitutional state, especially with fundamental rights. The text gives special emphasis to themes that are likely to be most affected, such as the environment, public security, foreign policy and social rights. This paper aims to discuss the risks that the Brazilian constitutional state currently lives. As such, it seeks to draw attention to the challenges that the lawyers face in this new era. The paper takes as reference the normative framework of the 1988 Constitution. It is based on information available in the media about his ideas and those of his followers, on his government program and on the first act he edited as president.
This essay aims to develop a reflection on the education to interculturality in our country, to be understood as a matured awareness, and strategies implemented by institutions on the theme of cultural diversity, in a "positive" perspective of recognition and appreciation of differences, supportive and pacifist. The proposed overview focuses on three strategic sectors to understand the role and the evolution of intercultural communication in the public sphere: the university, which has the mandate to train the professional figures of the future; the organizations, public, private and non-profit, obliged, in order to survive, to intercept and deal promptly with the evolution of the company; the media, protagonists of cultural and political life and producers of the narratives that nourish the popular imagination. Specifically, the reflection is based on the results of three research actions carried out by the authors in the context of the activities of a European project (Codes - Communication, Diversité, Solidarité) and this paper is the first public presentation of the same at national level.