The politics of institutional reform in Italy

This article reviews the recent Italian debate on possible constitutional and institutional reforms aimed at improving governmental decision‐making capacity. In the first section, the post‐war institutional developments are briefly discussed to show how the present problems have emerged. Various reform proposals affecting the electoral system, Parliament and government are then analysed, together with the political pre‐conditions and consequences linked to their possible adoption. With reference to these political considerations, the various kinds of reform are evaluated in terms of their capacity to achieve their goals and of their acceptability to the political parties.     

Sex assessment from the carpals bones: discriminant function analysis in a 20th century Spanish sample

Sex assessment is one of the first essential steps in human identification, in both medico-legal cases and bio-archaeological contexts. Fragmentary human remains compromised by different types of inhumation or physical insults may frustrate the use of the traditional sex estimation methods, such as the analysis of the skull and pelvis. Currently, the application of discriminant functions to sex unidentified skeletal remains is steadily increasing. However, several studies have demonstrated that, due to variation in size and patterns of sexual dimorphism, discriminant function equations are population-specific [1,2,5,12,61]. In this study, in order to improve sex assessment from skeletal remains and to establish population-specific discriminant functions, the diagnostic values of the carpal bones were considered. A sample of 100 individuals (50 males and 50 females) of known sex and age was analyzed. They belong to a 20th century identified collection from the Municipal Cemetery of "San José", Granada (Spain) and housed in the Laboratory of Anthropology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Granada (Spain). The age of the individuals ranged between 22 and 85 years. Between four and nine measurements of each carpal bone were performed [41,59]. Discriminant function statistics showed a sex assessment accuracy as high as 97.8%. The results suggest that carpal bones can be used for assessing sex in both forensic and bio-archaeological identification procedures.     

Advantage of affinity histochemistry combined with histology to investigate death causes: indications from sample cases

Mast cell histochemistry has been proposed in addition to classic histological methods to estimate the course of traumatic events before and after death. We have addressed the utility of this approach on nine victims of different types of trauma. Sections of wounded skin were stained with hematoxylin and eosin and with fluorescent avidin to tag mast cells. Mast cell numbers were evaluated by both direct and digitalized counts. Intact skin was used as control. The results on mast cells implemented the findings upon hematoxylin and eosin stain and helped to put the wounds and death in chronological sequence. Digitalized morphometry allowed to reduce intra- and inter-observer variation. We conclude that combined histological and histochemical analyses can be of practical use in forensic pathology, that a preliminary setting of the reference values is needed for each laboratory, and that image analysis can be of help for the quantification of the results.     

Sex assessment from carpals bones: discriminant function analysis in a contemporary Mexican sample

Sex assessment is one of the first essential steps in human identification, in both medico-legal cases and bio-archaeological contexts. Fragmentary human remains compromised by different types of burial or physical insults may frustrate the use of the traditional sex estimation methods, such as the analysis of the skull and pelvis. Currently, the application of discriminant functions to sex unidentified skeletal remains is steadily increasing. However, several studies have demonstrated that, due to variation in size and patterns of sexual dimorphism, discriminant functions are population-specific. In this study, in order to improve sex assessment from skeletal remains and to establish population-specific discriminant functions, the diagnostic values of the carpal bones were considered. A sample of 136 individuals (78 males, 58 females) of known sex and age was analyzed. They belong to a contemporary identified collection from the Laboratory of Physical Anthropology, Faculty of Medicine, UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City). The age of the individuals ranged between 25 and 85 years. Between four and nine measurements of each carpal bone were taken. Independent t-tests confirm that all carpals are sexually dimorphic. Univariate measurements produce accuracy levels that range from 61.8% to 90.8%. Classification accuracies ranged between 81.3% and 92.3% in the multivariate stepwise discriminant analysis. In addition, intra- and inter-observer error tests were performed. These indicated that replication of measurements was satisfactory for the same observer over time and between observers. These results suggest that carpal bones can be used for assessing sex in both forensic and bio-archaeological identification procedures and that bone dimensions are population specific.     

Economic crisis and elections: The European periphery

This paper introduces the articles in the symposium which address the issue of democratic accountability and economic voting in polities on the European periphery. The economic crisis that hit the world economy in 2008 has severely challenged the capacity of governments to steer the national economy and has had a strong impact on their electoral support. The papers discuss whether economic voting and democratic accountability are increasing or, on the other hand, they could be depressed by globalisation and by shifts of ruling competence from the national to the supranational European arena.     

Lovely Beasts,Bestial Lovers: Animals,Righteous Men and the Semiotics of Musical Mirrors

In Aesop’s narrative world, metaphorical representations were apparently used to point out human flaws by attributing those to beasts, while anthropomorphic animals were actually able to disclose how bestial mankind is. In mediaeval bestiaries the same animal may carry multiple meanings, depending on what particular aspect of it is being highlighted and on its relationship with the other animals appearing in the same context. Even music forces to a continuous re-structuring of sounds in configurations which change depending on context, and which determine the conditions for a process of meaning-making based on both internal and external systems of relations. Thus, there seems to be a perfect analogy between the language of the bestiaries and that of music, and a commonality in how both bestiaries and music bestow on Nature its role as locus of truth. But how does musical rhetoric intervene in the effective construction of similarities, of metaphors and allegories that condense or articulate a narrative transformation through the organised conjunction of different animal figures? Throughout an analytic journey from mediaeval Italian musical bestiaries to erotic madrigals, from the intriguing fashion of musical “portraits” to the French late baroque representation of savages, this essay investigates the semiotic device of music as an ironic reversing mirror, which points out alterity and reveals the true bestial nature of mankind.     

The rise and fall of EU labour law

EU labour law—namely that heterogeneous, unstable combination of interventions, tools, measures, sources through which the EU directly or indirectly impacts on the normative and functional frameworks of individual and collective labour law systems of the Member States in a relationship of mutual interference and interaction–is experiencing a progressive loss of relevance, with an unprecedented decline of its normative rationales, functions, regulatory techniques, and constitutional hierarchies. This article offers a critical reflection on the reasons behind such a regressive path in the context of the EU crisis.     

Economic concerns in Italian electoral behavior: Toward a rational electorate?

The current paradigm in the study of Italian electoral behavior finds in the ideological attachment and identification with political parties the basic determinants of voting. The relationship between economic conditions and electoral outcomes has not been the object of intense study, since it was assumed that the very predominance of the ideological dimension made any consideration of economic concerns among the electorate irrelevant. Recent research, employing both aggregate and survey data, shows, however, that economic conditions seem to exert an impact on electoral outcomes. Moreover, the emergence of a more rational and secular electorate might further increase the importance of economic voting.     

Majoritarian miracles and the question of party system change

European Journal of Political Research - The 1996 elections in Italy may be evaluated using a dual means of inquiry: which novelties (or the absence thereof) appear with respect to 1994? And, how...