Simone Tosi

Explaining How Political Culture Changes: Catholic Activism and the Secular Left in Italian Peace Movements

Political cultures have usually been studied as static and perhaps monolithic. If any attention has been dedicated to how political cultures change it has been devoted to exogenous factors. In recent years, however, some authors have advocated exploring the role of endogenous factors. In this article, we reflect on the advantages of a comprehensive approach to explaining how political cultures change, embracing endogenous and exogenous factors. We look at peace mobilizations in Italy as a case study, which allows examination of the interactions of the two political cultures of Marxism and Catholicism. Our work suggests some provisional theories about the dynamics that lead to hybridization between different political families. These dynamics can be understood through the genealogy of a ‘grammar of responsibility’. We argue that the factors that condition change in political culture relate to both the national and the international political context. We also show how these processes of change occur as a result of collective action, although individuals also perform important functions of co-ordination, brokerage, leadership, and subversion of codes. Moreover, we show that change in political cultures does not occur in a linear manner but follows a shifting course, which alternates periods of innovation and of involution or regression.

Globalisation, Stadiums and the Consumerist City: The Case of the New Juventus Stadium in Turin

Abstract Contemporary football is crossed by relevant changes that may be interpreted as outcomes of the globalisation process. The transnational dimension of football, its financialisation, and the normalisation of the supporters’ practices appear as some of the most important outcomes of this process. In this paper, based on the case study of the new Juventus Stadium in Turin, we will explore the transformation of football as a consequence of a specific aspect of globalisation, namely the growing importance of consumption processes in contemporary societies. All over Europe a strong convergence can be observed towards a single model of organisation for football. This model involves the management of clubs and sporting events, and the organisation of specific spaces, i.e. stadiums. After having briefly retraced the genesis of the new Juventus Stadium, the article highlights how the planning choices – about spaces and the activities acted in those spaces – tend to transform the stadium into a place of consumption and to select its visitors on the basis of their spending power. We will also see how the selection mechanisms observed for football fans (in Turin as in many European cities), are then put into practice outside the stadium and correspond to general trends typical of modern global cities.

Vivere nella comunità locale. Una questione politica nella storia della sociologia urbana italiana

La stagione degli Studi di comunita italiani, a cavallo fra gli anni ’50 e gli anni ’60 ha lasciato un’eredita profonda. L’articolo esplora una dimensione specifica di questo lascito intellettuale: il modo di concepire il rapporto fra studi locali e politica. Articolato su sei paragrafi, l’articolo esplora innanzitutto i principali significati del rapporto con la politica sviluppati negli Studi di comunita classici. In seguito si approfondisce in particolare il contributo di Danilo Dolci alla riflessione sul rapporto fra legami comunitari, politica e pianificazione. Si richiamano poi i principali lasciti di questo approccio nella sociologia degli anni ’80, e in un paragrafo successivo si indagano le principali ragioni ne hanno portato a una distanza fra studi urbani e politica. Le conclusioni richiamano alcuni insegnamenti della dialettica interna allo studio di comunita, fra misura e coinvolgimento, e ne mostrano l’attualita anche rispetto ai dibattiti piu recenti sulle funzioni della sociologia.

Consumatori critici (e integrati)

In Italy, as in most western countries, a growing number of people have started consuming not only according with their personal taste or following economical criteria. Critical consumption stresses the importance of ethical and public criteria as a core value for consumer’s choices. This article focuses on integrative function of consumption. We will show that there are various categories of critical consumers which usually buy fair, sustainable and ethical products. Someone is more sensible to style and fashion of ethical shopping; others consumers look for a better coherence between their values and their everyday life; others ascribe to critical consumption a transformative and political meaning. Grounding our analysis on some classical theories on consumption and elites, we will discuss the main features of the last group of consumers, showing how it can be considered a sort of elite able to bridges emerging values and political roles in the institutional sphere.

Partecipazione politica e denaro: una introduzione

In questo saggio introduttivo si propone una sintesi delle principali questioni emerse attorno alla relazione tra denaro, consumo e partecipazione politica e si presentano i diversi saggi contenuti nel volume.