Politics and Administration for Southern Italy

Abstract

For a hundred and fifty years—dating back to Francesco De Sanctis’s 1876 “electoral journey” to his constituency in Lacedonia, Upper Irpinia—the “mission” of Southernists from various yet converging backgrounds (economists, sociologists, legal experts, senior civil servants, and politicians—though the latter have all but vanished in recent legislatures) has been to analyze the transformation of Southern territories and tenaciously formulate hypotheses, projects, and actions to foster their economic and civic development. In recent decades—with rare exceptions where politicians and state officials happened, by a quirk of history, to be respected scholars as well—communication between the proposals of technical experts and the perceptions and assessments of politicians has become sporadic, if not entirely broken.