Valence,Policy Ideas,and the Rise of Sustainability

This article introduces to policy studies the concept of valence, which we define as the emotional quality of an idea that makes it more or less attractive. We argue that valence explains why some ideas are more successful than others, sometimes gaining paradigmatic status. A policy idea is attractive when its valence matches the mood of a target population. Skilled policy entrepreneurs use ideas with high valence to frame policy issues and generate support for their policy proposals. The usefulness of the concept of valence is illustrated with the case of sustainability, an idea that has expanded from the realm of environmental policy to dominate discussions in such diverse policy areas as pension reform, public finance, labor markets, and energy security. As the valence of sustainability has increased, policy entrepreneurs have used the idea to reframe problems in these various policy areas and promote reforms.     

Le Président Nicolas Jannon,les deux éditions du Développement et une vision contre‐révolutionnaire et ‘parlementaire’ de la Constitution traditionnelle de la France

SUMMARY

In this article, Maria Sofia Corciulo analyses the political significance of the period of the Italian Restoration. The author suggests that the revolutions which took place in both Naples and Piedmont in 1820–21 affected the apparently static institutional tranquillity of the ‘restored’ Italy to such an extent that they represent a break from the preceding period—the Five-year Period, during which the Napoleonic institutions had been, anyway, partly retained. The revolutionary action which, as in Spain, was sparked by the military, was characterized by forms of participation and aims that constituted, at least where they could be fully expressed, the beginning of a new historical period, surely overshadowing that of Restoration: the Risorgimento. The Neapolitan Revolution was carried out under the banner of the most democratic principles of those years, as they had been sanctioned by the Constitution of Cadiz of 1812. Although the Italian revolutionaries of 1820–21 were defeated, the principles of the Cadiz Constitution remained vivid in the minds of the patriots, especially Neapolitans, in an intricate sectarian world, where even the participation of the most humble classes was welcome and accepted in the name of the egalitarian principles of the Carboneria. The article suggests that this Revolution spelled the de facto end of the Restoration, even it was to continue to exist de jure, in its limited dynastic sense. This is true not only for the Kingdom of the two Sicilies but also for the other Italian states, because so-called ‘public opinion’ became a reality in this period: the existence of political plots and conspiracies from a rising number of secret societies is clear evidence that Italy's Risorgimento was under way.