Libertà economica e Ancien Régime. Note sulla prima soppressione delle corporazioni in Francia nel 1776

The liberalisation of the economy and labour, achieved by the French Revolution through the laws d’Allarde and Le Chapelier in 1791, was preceded by an attempt promoted by Turgot during the early years of Louis XVI’s reign. An edict issued in 1776, which aimed to abolish the guilds of arts and crafts, encountered strong opposition from the Parliament of Paris, the major guilds, and parts of the sovereign’s court. This essay examines the events leading to the failure of this attempt and Turgot’s subsequent departure from government. The primary reason for the failure appears to be the weakness of Louis XVI’s government, who was unable to overcome the opposition of Parliament. Ultimately, it was the Revolution, with its extensive powers, that implemented the reforms envisioned by Turgot

The ICVS in the developing world

The ICVS started in the industrialized world. However, its potential for providing information on crime and victimization from developing countries was immediately apparent. Since 1990 the participation of developing countries became larger and larger. As of today, 29 developing countries took part in the ICVS at least once. More have already expressed their interest in joining the project and will probably do so in 2004. The ICVS database on developing countries contains a wealth of information that has no precedents. The survey can provide an overview on crime and victimization problems rarely available in developing countries. Although comparisons with the industrialized countries may be difficult, the ICVS database represents one of the best sources to measure crime-related issues across the world.This article presents results from 23 main cities from three global regions: Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Developing countries very often show high victimization rates, especially for property-related crime. Crimes are reported to the police less frequently than in the industrialized world. Some types of crime, such as car hijacking in Southern Africa, reflect special risks run by citizens in specific parts of the world

Has the firearms protocol helped reduced armed violence?

Questo saggio si concentra sulla riduzione di certe forme di violenza armata perpetrate con le armi da fuoco, obiettivo a lungo termine del Protocollo sulle armi da fuoco, supplementare alla Convenzione delle Nazioni Unite contro la criminalità organizzata transnazionale. Quindici anni dopo la sua entrata in vigore, gli autori si interrogano su come misurare i possibili impatti del Protocollo sulla violenza armata, indicando le questioni chiave da affrontare e suggerendo alcune possibili direzioni future degli studi in quest’area, incluso lo sviluppo di uno strumento di misurazione, anche nell’ottica di informare il funzionamento del Meccanismo di riesame del Protocollo, recentemente istituito.This paper focuses on the long-term objective of the Firearms Protocol supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime to reduce certain kinds of armed violence associated with the misuse of firearms. More than 15 years after the Protocol has come into force, the authors ask how its possible impacts on armed violence might be assessed; indicate key challenges for such an enterprise, and suggest directions for future work in this area, towards the establishment of a measurement tool which could help inform the recently established Review Mechanism of the Protocol

Violence witnessing, perpetrating and victimization in medellin, Colombia: a random population survey

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The burden of injury from violence and the costs attributable to violence are extremely high in Colombia. Despite a dramatic decline in homicides over the last ten years, homicide rate in Medellin, Colombia second largest city continues to rank among the highest of cities in Latin America. This study aims to estimate the prevalence and distribution of witnesses, victims and perpetrators of different forms of interpersonal violence in a representative sample of the general population in Medellin in 2007.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A face-to-face survey was carried out on a random selected, non-institutionalized population aged 12 to 60 years, with a response rate of 91% yielding 2,095 interview responses.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We present the rates of prevalence for having been a witness, victim, or perpetrator for different forms of violence standardized using the WHO truncated population pyramid to allow for cross-national comparison. We also present data on verbal aggression, fraud and deception, yelling and heavy pranks, unarmed aggression during last year, and armed threat, other severe threats, robbery, armed physical aggression, and sexual aggression during the lifetime, by age, sex, marital and socioeconomic status, and education. Men reported the highest prevalence of being victims, perpetrators and witnesses in all forms of violence, except for robbery and sexual violence. The number of victims per perpetrator was positively correlated with the severity of the type of violence. The highest victimization proportions over the previous twelve months occurred among minors. Perpetrators are typically young unmarried males from lower socio-economic strata.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Due to very low proportion of victimization report to authorities, periodic surveys should be included in systems for epidemiological monitoring of violence, not only of victimization but also for perpetrators. Victimization information allows quantifying the magnitude of different forms of violence, while data on factors associated with aggression and perpetrators are necessary to estimate risk and protective factors that are essential to sound policies for violence prevention formulation.</p

A reciprocal legitimation: Corrado Gini and statistics in fascist Italy

This article deals with the relationship between science and politics and in particular with the reciprocal legitimation process involving research schools and political regimes. It focuses on the case of Italian statistics during the early twentieth century. Its emergence as both an independent scientific field and a national research school, in fact, went together with the rise of nationalism and the establishment of the fascist regime. The paper uses the biography of Corrado Gini to analyze the process of mutual legitimization between science and politics under fascism. Gini's academic and professional careers show in fact how actors and ideas could compete through their ability to alter the status of the discipline, the technical functions it was assigned, and to attract funds in a changing political context Gini, as an institutional entrepreneur, was able to make his research school hegemonic in Italy by leveraging the need for scientific legitimation of new state policies during World War I and under fascism. The reinterpretation he provided of his career after the end of World War II is crucial both to deconstructing this process and to shedding light on the postwar de-legitimation of Italian statistics