Giulia Vicentini

• Scuola Normale Superiore

The emergence of the COVID-19 outbreak can be considered a potential driver of changes not only in academic disciplines but also, as most observers underline, in the teaching mission of higher education. This raises the main question of this article, that is, exactly whether and how an external shock such as COVID-19 can impact the comprehensive pr...

Over the past few months, (very) much of the Italian public debate dealt with two closely related issues: the COVID-19 pandemic and the policy instruments at disposal to national and supranational political actors to mitigate its consequences, especially from a socioeconomic point of view. On this, the main political tool was the so-called 'Next Ge...

The purpose of this article is twofold: to explore the dynamics of party leadership change in Italy, and to try to assess which (if any) characteristics of the leadership race (LR) to appoint (or re-appoint) the party leader, in combination with other conditions, could favour leadership re-selection in office at the end of the term, rather than a m...

Academics are often accused of being secluded in their "ivory towers", focused on research and teaching but uninterested in, or unable to engage with, the public debate. If this is actually the case, under what conditions and at what particular moment is this likely to change? Following on three relevant dimensions-the visibility of political scien...

The main purpose of this paper is to detect the reasons for party leaders' persistence or departure from the office, starting from the moment they are selected or re-selected. More specifically, we try to assess which (if any) characteristics of the leadership race (LR) called to appoint (or re-appoint) the party leader, in combination with other c...

In a book published in 1998, Baumgartner and Leech argued that interest group research was characterized by “elegant irrelevance.” Ten years later, Beyers and colleagues linked this to a number of conceptual, methodological and disciplinary barriers which render(ed) the accumulation of knowledge in this bulk of literature difficult. Are those same...

YOU CAN READ FOR FREE HERE: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-public-policy/article/do-policy-instruments-matter-governments-choice-of-policy-mix-and-higher-education-performance-in-western-europe /DE469262F0D9114864DE5CA593525505/share/ef3f43c85386e879ebee1f4d30cbc6ac95739f76 ABSTRACT Governments pursue their goals by adopting v...

The article aims at assessing the functioning and characteristics of the most recent systems employed by the British Labour Party for selecting its leader. To this end I compared five leadership races: the huge success of Tony Blair in 1994 in the newly reformed electoral college system; the undisputed election of Gordon Brown in 2007; the narrow a...

The purpose of the article is try to assess whether inclusive procedures of selection are more likely to appoint a candidate who can be competitive in the general elections compared with less inclusive ones. Accordingly, I took into account nomination processes (NPs) to select/appoint the prime ministerial/presidential candidate for general electio...

Over the last thirty years, many national higher education systems (HESs) in Europe have undergone structural changes following domestic pressure or international prescriptions. These changes have mainly been intended to enhance the overall university performance – conceived as students' access, quality of teaching and excellence in research. Almos...

During the last years, mainly because of the dramatic economic crisis that affected the Eurozone, the process of European integration has been seriously questioned from a significant part of the public opinion and different political forces, which are becoming more and more relevant within their own countries. Also for what concern our country, sev...

This article examines the path to power of the current Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, by assessing the evolution of his voters’ characteristics between the 2012 and 2013 national primaries. The analysis is based on two extensive data sets the author herself has created together with the other members of the standing group, ‘Candidate and Lea...

This article assesses whether the recent development of more inclusive mechanisms to select both party chairmen/women and chief executive candidates makes leadership races (LRs) more divisive, that is, characterized by negative campaigns, close final results, and intraparty conflicts in the contest's aftermath. The findings are based on a comparati...

The preliminary aim of the article is illustrating the procedures of leadership selection in Italy and Spain, which have faced quite different paths of evolution from this point of view. The main object is nonetheless trying to assess whether open primary elections are more likely to give rise to divisive leadership races compared to less inclusive...