Risk Factors and Drivers of Financial Sustainability in Local Government: An Empirical Study

The current international crisis in public finances has made financial sustainability a key issue for governments. Although the European Union (EU) and other international organisations have recommended governments to monitor demographic and economic variables, few studies have considered the influence of these variables on financial sustainability. This paper seeks to identify and analyse the drivers and risk factors that influence the financial sustainability of local government. The findings identify both risk factors (unemployment and population aged under 16 years) and drivers (budgetary outcome) of financial sustainability, which may constitute a useful basis for decision-taking by managers and policy-makers.     

Right-wing populism against diploma democracy. The evolution of parliamentary elites in Austria,Italy, and Switzerland

Are the sociological profiles of radical right-wing populist parties' (RRPPs) representatives really unlike those of their counterparts in mainstream parties? Once RRPPs occupy positions of legislative power for an extended period, do their MPs' profiles increasingly converge with those of more mainstream parties? This paper examines three right-wing parties in Austria, Italy, and Switzerland (FPÖ, LEGA, and SVP), and shows how RRPPs' MPs persistently contrast the “diploma democracy”, that is the increasingly dominant high-educated trend in political representation. Inspired by the current scholarship's diachronic and comparative perspectives of political elites and MPs, the analysis focuses trends since the 1980s.