Fear without Prejudice in the Shadow of Jihadist Threat

Because the prejudice of the ingroup builds into fear of the outgroup, jihadist terrorism is expected to strengthen the politicized link between security and immigration. I use a causal inference in a clustered cross-country analysis to test the simultaneous short-run causal impact of the jihadist threat on security fear and ethnic prejudice of the public in Israel, the Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, France, and Germany. In line with common wisdom, jihadist attacks significantly increase security fear. Against it, jihadist attacks non-significantly decrease ethnic prejudice. This empirical pattern holds in across different types of immigration attitudes, ethnic groups, intervals of time and terrorist events, and is robust to placebo treatments, placebo policy preferences, fake and failed terror attacks. These findings challenge extant consensus, and suggest that jihadist attacks, particularly at the local level, induce risk-aversion rather than desire for retaliation.</p

Inclusion without Solidarity: Education, economic security, and attitudes towards redistribution

Highly educated individuals tend to be less supportive of redistribution, by mostaccounts because they have more to lose and less to gain from it. In this paper we use ESS data to develop the argument that university education reduces support for redistribution in large part independently of the improved material circumstances with which it is associated. While university encourages a range of progressive ideas related to cultural inclusivity, it simultaneously encourages conservative redistribution preferences that are reinforced - but only partly explained - by the economic security it tends to provide. In short, European universities foster norms of cultural inclusion, while simultaneously eroding norms of economic solidarity

Electoral competition through issue selection

Politics must tackle multiple issues at once. In a first-best world, political competition constrains parties to prioritize issues according to the voters' true concerns. In the real world, the opposite also happens: parties manipulate voter priorities by emphasizing issues selectively during the political campaign. This phenomenon, known as priming, should allow parties to pay less attention to the issues that they intend to mute. We develop a model of endogenous issue ownership in which two vote-seeking parties (i) invest to attract voters with "better" policy proposals and (ii) choose a communication campaign to focus voter attention on specific issues. We identify novel feedbacks between communication and investment. In particular, we find that stronger priming effects can backfire by constraining parties to invest more resources in all issues, including the ones they would otherwise intend to mute. We also identify under which conditions parties prefer to focus on their "historical issues" or to engage in issue stealing. Typically, the latter happens when priming effects are strong, and historical reputations differentiates parties less

L’olio del Granduca, le galline per il Patriarca e l’ingenuo Polacco:nuove lettere per l’epistolario di e su Paolo Paruta (1595-1602)

The analysis of several unpublished letters by or to Paolo Paruta (1540-1598) could be very useful to revalue this underrated Venetian political writer, author of the dialogue Perfettione della Vita Politica ('About Perfection of Political Life’) and Ambassador for the Republic of Venice at the Papal Court (1592-1595). In fact, these letters shed some light on the daily life of Paruta’s political praxis: his travels, his duties as ambassador, his relationships with foreign sovereigns and with Venetian fellow citizens, his growing reputation; thanks to them, we could understand why Ugo Foscolo wanted Paruta to be studied in university courses as politico pratico. Some other letters (such as the one about the dedication of Discorsi Politici’s first edition, 1599), written by Paruta’s brother and sons, proof the hard economical situation of the ambassador’s heirs after Paolo’s death. In the last part of the essay there’s an analysis of a passage of a letter by Polish political writer Krzysztof Warszewicki about the project of a Latin translation of Paruta’s political work: then comes a comparison between Warszewicki’s and Paruta’s political thought

Le nere "sottanine" e la "congiura del silenzio": lingua e immagini nelle polemiche giornalistiche sul "Gruppo Femminile Calcistico" milanese (1933)

L’articolo indaga le modalità verbali e iconografiche usate dai giornali sportivi dell’epoca per raccontare la vicenda del Gruppo Femminile Calcistico (GFC), un gruppo di coraggiose ragazze che nella Milano fascista del 1933 tentò di organizzare la prima società calcistica femminile in Italia.Dopo una prima parte dedicata al mondo delle “tifose” (supporters ancora passive del calcio maschile dell’epoca) [2], l’articolo presenta l’analisi di una serie di lettere ai giornali sportive dell’epoca, grazie alle quali la portavoce del GFC ebbe modo di difendere le ragioni del il neonato gruppo [3], grazie anche al supporto di un apposito testo programmatico (il “programma”) [4]. Vengono poi analizzati due diversi approcci da parte degli inviati (maschili) di due giornali sportivi dell’epoca (La Gazzetta dello Sport e Il Calcio Illustrato) [5], soffermandosi poi sulle interessantissime interviste alle calciatrici proposte dal secondo [6]. Si passa quindi all’analisi intertestuale dell’articolo autobiografico di una cestista milanese (sfruttata probabilmente dal regime in chiave anti-GFC) [7], per poi concludere con un piccolo studio sulla rappresentazione visiva (fotografie, vignette e relative didascalie) della donna sportiva in Italia in quell’epoca [8].  The essay analyses the verbal and iconographical tools used by sport magazines to tell their audience about GFC (Gruppo Femminile Calcistico, ‘Women Football Club’), a group of brave girls who tried to organize, in 1933 Fascist-Milan, the first female football club in Italy.After a first part about the social phenomenon of tifose (‘female supporters’ of contemporary male football, not yet active players) [2], the essay analyses some letters written to sport magazines by the mouthpiece of GFC: she wrote them in order to stand up for the new-born group [3], quoting  GFC’s manifesto, called programma [4]. Then the analysis of the different ways sport journalists of La Gazzetta dello Sport and of Il Calcio Illustrato used to write about GFC’s matches [5] comes; the second journalist conducted some interesting Il Calcio Illustrato interviews with the female players [6]. Intertextuality would be very useful to understand a contemporary autobiographical article by a female basketball player: she was most likely exploited by the Fascist regime against GFC [7]. The last part of the essays is about the iconographical representation (photos and captions, cartoon and captions) of the sport woman in 1930s’ Italy [8].

Quella "campione" di un' "atletessa"! Parole sportive, nell'Italia del Ventennio

In Contemporary Italian language campionessa and atleta (f.) are the only correct forms to indicate 'female champion' and 'female athlete, sportswoman'; during the Fascist era, there were instead four forms, such as campionessa and campione (f.), atleta (f.) and atletessa. They were all used by speakers, and sports journalists too; above all, atletessa was not an ironic form, such as someone may think now. The essay, based upon the examination of a textual corpus composed of a lot of newspaper articles (the most part written during the 1930s'), offers a little history of the four forms, and of some more, such as campiona, olimpionica (adj.), recordwoman. In the last part, there's a little history of the gradual decline of atletessa in the usage of Italian sports journalists.Se nell’italiano attuale campionessa e atleta risultano essere le due uniche forme corrette, durante il Ventennio fascista c’erano al contrario quattro forme, ossia le coppie campionessa e campione (femm.), atleta (femm.) e atletessa. Erano tutte quante usate sia dai parlanti, sia dai giornalisti sportivi; soprattutto, atletessa non era una forma ironica, come potrebbe farci pensare la nostra sensibilità linguistica attuale. Il saggio, basato sull’analisi di un corpus testuale composto da molti articoli sportivi (per la maggior parte scritti durante gli anni Trenta), offre una piccola storia delle quattro forme linguistiche, e di altre ancora, come campiona, olimpionica (agg.), recordwoman. Nell’ultima parte dell’articolo viene presentata la storia del graduale declino di atletessa nella lingua del giornalismo sportivo italiano

#Ragazzemondiali: Spinte globalizzanti e specificità nazionali nel calcio femminile italiano

Thanks to the stunning performance of the Italian national team (who reached the quarter-finals of the FIFA Women’s World Cup in France), the summer of 2019 was the apex in the development of women’s football in Italy: it was greatly helped by its integration into the huge FIFA system (including sponsors and media). This essay tries to investigate the quality and quantity of this external, global influence. Gender, geographic, and historical filters will be used to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon. The analysis will be based mainly on sports blogs, online newspapers, interviews with footballers and supporters’ tweets, in order to capture the most realistic view of the sociological reality of the Italian women’s football movement. The globalizing tendencies, models (a new image of women in sport) and values (such as female empowerment and diversity) shaped the representation of Italy’s national team as broadcasted by media to the Italian audience, unaccustomed to viewing young women playing soccer. On the other hand, the Italian female footballers, who took advantage of the global influence in order to improve their condition, were successful in shaping it (for example, by showing an image of the hard-headed footballer, rather than the arrogant one coming from the USA). What happened in Italy during the summer of 2019 seems like an interesting (and successful) case of glocalization in women’s sports, played out in such a gendered context as the Italian one

L’ESTATE DELLA "PORTIERA": POLEMICHE SUL LINGUAGGIO DI GENERE PER IL CALCIO FEMMINILE

La straordinaria impresa dell’Italia al Mondiale Femminile di Francia 2019 non solo è stata un successo mediatico, ma pure generato una polemica linguistica fra i parlanti italofoni circa l’uso di alcune forme femminili innovative per i ruoli calcistici, quali ad es. portiera (al posto di portiere), e difensora/difenditrice (al posto di difensore). Durante l’estate del 2019, media basati su Internet quali giornali on-line, blog e Twitter sono stati il terreno di scontro di un nuovo capitolo della polemica sul linguaggio di genere: coloro che sostenevano le forme innovative (blogger femministe, giornalisti, linguisti) hanno incontrato la resistenza di un’ampia fetta dei parlanti italiani, che hanno espresso attraverso tweets e commenti i loro dubbi. The exploit of Italy National Team at 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup was not only a media success but it also gave birth to a linguistic controversy among Italian speakers about the use of some innovative female terms for football positions, such as portiera (instead of portiere) 'goalkeeper', and difensora/difenditrice (instead of difensore) 'defender'. During the summer of 2019, Internet-based media such as online newspapers, blogs, and Twitter were the battlefield of a new chapter of the gender language controversy: innovators such as feminist bloggers, journalists, and linguists met the resistance of a wide part of Italian speakers, who expressed their doubts throughout tweets and online comments

Polemiche a distanza fra Firenze e Venezia. Sulla perduta «Risposta» di Paolo Paruta alla «Lettera XXX» dello pseudo-Dante a Guido da Polenta (secondo XVI sec.)

Il saggio presenta tutti i dati disponibili utili al ritrovamento di un testo per ora fantasma, quale la Risposta di Paolo Paruta (Venezia, 1540 - 1598) alla Lettera XXX dello pseudo-Dante, falso d'autore editando il quale nel 1547 il fiorentino Anton Francesco Doni scatenò una violenta polemica politica anti-veneziana. Nuove ricerche dimostrano come nella celebre biblioteca padovana di Gian Vincenzo Pinelli fosse conservata una copia della Risposta. Paruta e Pinelli, infatti, condividevano molti interessi e conoscenze negli ambienti della Padova e della Venezia del Secondo Cinquecento