What is the Use of Neoliberalism and Neoliberalisation? Contentious Concepts between Description and Explanation

The growing interest in neoliberalism and neoliberalisation has produced a wave of academic production, but also criticisms toward these concepts. They concern the conditions under which they may actually work as both/either explanans and/or explanandum of transformations affecting contemporary societies. The main accusations made are presented and compared with the actual uses of these catego-ries, building above all on the applications made in the articles that follow in this special issue. It is argued that this pair of concepts may help to detect critical processes descriptively, but so far it has not been able to provide explanations. Working more as descriptors, or identifiers of processes and out-comes they, rather, provide indirect paths to explanation, by becoming explananda themselves. It is easier to understand the "why" of social processes and changes starting from these concepts and turning to oth-er "real" theories than by direct use of them. In order to do that we need to operationalize neoliberalism and neoliberalisation as articulated ideal types, so as to take into account the existing varieties of policies, practices and relationships. This is still to be done and looks a lot like being a collective effort based on cumulative research and theorization

Il ruolo politico delle imprese economiche: varietà di attori e modelli di mercato nell’azione pubblica

L’articolo considera le modalità emergenti con cui gli attori economici influenzano la politica e le politiche. Dopo una ricostruzione delle azioni basate su risorse finanziarie, relazionali e amministrative, esamina come le imprese usino conoscenze e discorsi per plasmare frame e credenze dei policy maker. Infine sono presentati risultati preliminari di ricerca sul ruolo politico svolto da una società di consulenza italiana.The article focuses on the emerging ways in which economic actors influence politics and policy. After an analysis of actions based on financial, relational and administrative resources, the article focuses on how the firms use knowledge and discourses in order to shape policy makers’ frames and beliefs. The final section presents provisional evidence about the political role of an Italian consulting firm

La leadership metropolitana: una mappa concettuale

Il concetto di di leadership metropolitana (Lm) ha utilità sia conoscitiva (per analizzare il potere nelle regioni urbane), sia pratica (per organizzare e guidare azioni strategiche). Se ne parla perché negli ultimi due decenni le metropoli sono state rappresentate come attori collettivi, simili a imprese che competono su mercati globali. Realizzare competitività su scala metropolitana richiede azione collettiva e coalizioni fra attori diversi, che una Lm adeguata può tenere insieme, impegnandoli attraverso visioni e fini condivisi. Il testo offre una mappa concettuale delle sue caratteristiche ed è da usare come una collezione di idealtipi, per decifrare (le proprie) situazioni concrete. Sono presentati: (i) gli elementi che la Lm ha in comune con la guida dell’azione in altri contesti e i suoi aspetti specifici; (ii) le sue funzioni (promuovere innovazione nelle politiche, lanciare azioni e coalizioni cooperative, consolidare relazioni e costruire istituzioni, condurre azioni trans-scalari); (iii) lo stile che ad esse appare appropriato, una combinazione di risorse e abilità soft (cognitive, relazionali, transazionali, trasformative) e hard (potere amministrativo, finanziario e capacità di metagovernance). Non è facile esercitare leadership metropolitana. La possibilità che qualcuno ci riesca dipende dalla disponibilità di risorse o dalla capacità di crearle, dalle relazioni politiche, inter- istituzionali e fra pubblico e privato preesistenti e dalle configurazioni spaziali e socio- economiche dell’area metropolitana.The concept of metropolitan leadership (Ml) is useful both in terms of knowledge (analysing power within urban regions) and for practical purposes (organising and leading strategic actions). It is talked about in this way because in the last two decades metropolises have been represented as collective actors, similar to firms competing in the global marketplace. Accordingly, in order to achieve competitiveness at a metropolitan scale, collective action and coalitions of different actors are needed, which can be held together by an adequate Ml, capable of involving them through shared visions and goals. The paper offers the readers a conceptual map of the characteristics of Ml to be used as a collection of ideal types, in deciphering (their own) real situations. The main points are: • the elements that Ml shares with leadership exercised in other contexts as well as its specific aspects; • the functions of Ml (to foster innovation in public policy, to launch cooperative actions and coalitions, to strengthen relationships and build institutions, and to carry out trans-scalar agency); • the style that is appropriate to these functions, which is a combination of “soft” (cognitive, relational, transactional, and transformative) and “hard” (administrative and financial power, and the capability of meta-governance) resources and abilities. To exercise Ml is not an easy task. It depends on the availability of resources or on an ability to create them, on the pre-existing political and inter-institutional relationships including those between public and private actors, as well as on the spatial and socio- economic features of the metropolitan are

What is the use of neoliberalism and neoliberalisation? Contentious concepts between description and explanation

ABSTRACT: The growing interest in neoliberalism and neoliberalisation has produced a wave of academic production, but also criticisms toward these concepts. They concern the conditions under which they may actually work as both/either explanans and/or explanandum of transformations affecting contemporary societies. The main accusations made are presented and compared with the actual uses of these catego-ries, building above all on the applications made in the articles that follow in this special issue. It is argued that this pair of concepts may help to detect critical processes descriptively, but so far it has not been able to provide explanations. Working more as descriptors, or identifiers of processes and out-comes they, rather, provide indirect paths to explanation, by becoming explananda themselves. It is easier to understand the “why” of social processes and changes starting from these concepts and turning to oth-er “real” theories than by direct use of them. In order to do that we need to operationalize neoliberalism and neoliberalisation as articulated ideal types, so as to take into account the existing varieties of policies, practices and relationships. This is still to be done and looks a lot like being a collective effort based on cumulative research and theorizatio

Roma: le agende deboli di una capitale subalterna

Il saggio analizza i processi urbani, economici o sociali che sono stati, da un lato, oggetto di attenzione e azione delle istituzioni di vari livelli (locali, regionali, nazionali) producendo politiche urbane (agenda istituzionale), e, dall’altro, oggetto del dibattito e dell’iniziativa di abitanti, portatori di interessi economici e di altri pubblici non istituzionali (agenda pubblica) entro un quadro sintetico dell’evoluzione delle due agende e dei rapporti fra queste, concentrandoci sugli ultimi dieci anni, evidenziando continuità e discontinuità di un recente passato nel quale si sono sedimentate molte premesse di quanto sta accadendo oggi.The essay is a portrait of the recent urban policies in Rom

Perché è difficile costruire la Città metropolitana a Roma: un’interpretazione sociologica

Dai primi passi compiuti la Città metropolitana di Roma capitale (Cmrc) appare un’istituzione il cui ruolo politico e amministrativo è ancora debole e ambiguo. Questa circostanza conferma la nota e diffusa difficoltà di costruire government e governance di scala metropolitana, che a Roma trova però anche motivazioni specifiche. Il paper presenta sinteticamente la configurazione sinora assunta dalla Cmrc in termini di organizzazione istituzionale e di agenda di politiche pubbliche e propone un’interpretazione in chiave di sociologia politica della sostanziale continuità di alcuni fattori strutturali (economici e spaziali) e delle rappresentazioni prodotte in processi di costruzione sociale dello spazio e della scala che nel passato avevano impedito la costituzione di un’autorità metropolitana: (i) il dualismo fra la città di Roma e il rimanente territorio dell’area metropolitana, con la corrispondente rappresentazione para-provinciale del ruolo di una nuova autorità con estensione più ampia del comune centrale; (ii) l’assenza di una leadership dell’innovazione e la debolezza di coalizioni politiche e sociali a sostegno di un cambiamento di scala di strutture e processi di governo a Roma, a sua volta riconducibile alle caratteristiche della strategia di accumulazione prevalente. accumulazione prevalenThe political and administrative role of the Città metropolitana di Roma capitale (Cmrc), which was recently established, appears to be still that of a weak and ambiguous institution. This confirms the widespread and well-known difficulty of building government and governance on a metropolitan scale, which is also due in Rome to specific reasons. This paper presents the current arrangement of the Cmrc as concerns its institutional organisation and policy agenda, in a synthetic format. Furthermore, it proposes an interpretation in politico - sociological terms of the substantial continuity of those factors that prevented the establishment of a metropolitan authority in the past. They regard both structural (economic and spatial) dimensions and the representations produced within the processes of the social construction of space and scale. In particular: (i) the rivalry between the city of Rome and the remainder of the surrounding metropolitan area, along with the corresponding province-like representation of the role that an authority covering the larger area than the central municipality should play; (ii) the lack of leadership in a process of change affecting the scale of government and governance in Rome, and the weakness of social and political coalitions supporting such a process, which in turn can be attributed to the main characteristics of the prevailing accumulation strategy

Istituzioni e crisi COVID-19 in Italia: agende e (de)politicizzazione nella governance dell’Intelligenza Artificiale

Obiettivo dell’articolo è capire come la crisi COVID-19 in corso sta influenzando i processi politici e di regolazione in Italia. A questo fine sono messe a fuoco alcune caratteristiche e conseguenze politiche dell’iniziativa governativa finalizzata a supportare, attraverso la tecnologia di intelligenza artificiale (AI) “Immuni” per il contact tracing della popolazione, la transizione a una fase di maggiore mobilità dopo quella di lockdown. Le azioni di policy e la discussione nella sfera pubblica durante la crisi sono messe a confronto con il modo in cui opportunità e rischi dell’AI erano stati trattati in Italia fino a pochi giorni prima, per iniziativa del Governo e di attori economici, sullo sfondo del confronto e delle azioni sviluppati dall’Unione europea e nel mondo all’interno di un’embrionale policy community dell’AI, costituita da attori politici, economici e delle conoscenze. A fini interpretativi sono utilizzati i concetti di regolazione, governance e metagovernance, la coppia concettuale politicizzazione/depoliticizzazione e il Multiple Stream Approach per l’analisi dei processi di formazione dell’agenda. Osservate da questa prospettiva, le modalità di ingresso di “Immuni” nell’agenda istituzionale in un contesto di emergenza e le poste in gioco politiche ad essa collegate, introdotte dall'ampliamento della policy community, spiegano la (ri)politicizzazione della governance e della metagovernance dell’AI in Italia che è stato sinora possibile osservare.The aim of the article is to understand how the ongoing COVID-19 crisis is influencing the political and regulatory processes in Italy. To this end, we focus on some features and political consequences of the government initiative “Immuni”, an artificial intelligence (AI) technology for contact tracing of the population purposed to support the transition to a phase of greater mobility after lockdown. Policy actions and discussion in the public sphere during the crisis are compared with the way in which AI opportunities and risks had been debated in Italy by governmental, economic and knowledge actors until a few days before. This happened in the meanwhile an embryonic stage AI policy community was developing discussions and actions within the European Union and on a global scale. The concepts of regulation, governance and metagovernance, as well as the conceptual pair politicization/depoliticization and the Multiple Stream Approach are used to understand this agenda setting process. Observed from this perspective, the emergency context and the related political stakes brought by the enlargement of the policy community explain the (re)politicization of AI governance and metagovernance in Italy that has been observed so far

What is the Use of Neoliberalism and Neoliberalisation? Contentious Concepts between Description and Explanation

The growing interest in neoliberalism and neoliberalisation has produced a wave of academic production, but also criticisms toward these concepts. They concern the conditions under which they may actually work as both/either explanans and/or explanandum of transformations affecting contemporary societies. The main accusations made are presented and compared with the actual uses of these catego-ries, building above all on the applications made in the articles that follow in this special issue. It is argued that this pair of concepts may help to detect critical processes descriptively, but so far it has not been able to provide explanations. Working more as descriptors, or identifiers of processes and out-comes they, rather, provide indirect paths to explanation, by becoming explananda themselves. It is easier to understand the "why" of social processes and changes starting from these concepts and turning to oth-er "real" theories than by direct use of them. In order to do that we need to operationalize neoliberalism and neoliberalisation as articulated ideal types, so as to take into account the existing varieties of policies, practices and relationships. This is still to be done and looks a lot like being a collective effort based on cumulative research and theorization