Italy: Continuous Change and Continuity in Change

2021 ◽  
pp. 396-447
Author(s):  
Francesco Zucchini ◽  
Andrea Pedrazzani

Few democracies in the world have experienced so many transformations in the electoral and party systems as has Italy since the early 1990s. Therefore the study of the Italian case is an excellent opportunity to investigate if and how these changes impact on the government’s role in the decision-making process, on government formation and termination, and on the governance stage. Although the formal rules concerning executive–legislative relations have remained almost unaltered, since the 1990s Italian governments have increased de facto their agenda-setting power. Since 1994, the party competition dynamics and the electoral rules induced the political parties to build electoral alliances and pre-electoral coalitions. However, the persisting high level of internal fragmentation made Italian governments also very unstable compared to the governments in many other European democracies. The instruments of intra-coalitional conflict resolution used in Italy have been for long time quite informal and mostly based upon decision-making bodies partially external to the executive. The above cited changes at the beginning of the 1990s, by increasing the overlapping between government leadership and party leadership, made these mechanisms more internal to the government arena. Recent political and institutional developments—especially after the 2013 and 2018 general elections and the new electoral rules—leave very open and uncertain the prospects of consolidation of all these changes.

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Obinna Onwujekwe ◽  
Enyi Etiaba ◽  
Chinyere Mbachu ◽  
Uchenna Ezenwaka ◽  
Ifeanyi Chikezie ◽  
...  

Abstract Background There is a current need to build the capacity of Health Policy and Systems Research + Analysis (HPSR+A) in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) as this enhances the processes of decision-making at all levels of the health system. This paper provides information on the HPSR+A knowledge and practice among producers and users of evidence in priority setting for HPSR+A regarding control of endemic diseases in two states in Nigeria. It also highlights the HPSR+A capacity building needs and interventions that will lead to increased HPSR+A and use for actual policy and decision making by the government and other policy actors. Methods Data was collected from 96 purposively selected respondents who are either researchers/ academia (producers of evidence) and policy/decision-makers, programme/project managers (users of evidence) in Enugu and Anambra states, southeast Nigeria. A pre-tested questionnaire was the data collection tool. Analysis was by univariate and bivariate analyses. Results The knowledge on HPSR+A was moderate and many respondents understood the importance of evidence-based decision making. Majority of researcher stated their preferred channel of dissemination of research finding to be journal publication. The mean percentage of using HPSR evidence for programme design & implementation of endemic disease among users of evidence was poor (18.8%) in both states. There is a high level of awareness of the use of evidence to inform policy across the two states and some of the respondents have used some evidence in their work. Conclusion The high level of awareness of the use of HPSR+A evidence for decision making did not translate to the significant actual use of evidence for policy making. The major reasons bordered on lack of autonomy in decision making. Hence, the existing yawning gap in use of evidence has to be bridged for a strengthening of the health system with evidence.


Author(s):  
Jenny J. Casiño ◽  
Angelo Mark P. Walag

Vaccines are considered to be the center of the prevention and management of viral diseases. Even with the wide acceptance that vaccines are safe, vaccine hesitancy is still rampant in various parts of the world. Several historical, social, religious, and moral factors were identified and observed to have influence parent’s vaccine acceptance or hesitance. Parent’s vaccine hesitance or acceptance is crucial since adolescents constitute the ideal group for immunization. This study aims to uncover the issues and challenges of parents on vaccination, the factors that affect their decision to vaccinate their children, and parents' primary influences to vaccinate their children. A descriptive-survey research design utilizing a questionnaire floated to parents of adolescents in a local high school. It was found out that the level of education and type of occupation was significantly associated with parent's decision to vaccinate their children. The major issue and challenge of parents toward vaccination is that they don't find vaccines important and have a high level of distrust towards the government's health agency and medical professionals. The primary factor affecting their decision-making is the negative news on vaccination and vaccine safety. Respondents also reported that even they distrust the government's health agency, they still consider it influential towards their vaccine decision-making. With this, it is recommended that efforts be strengthened in restoring the public's trust towards the government health agency to address vaccine hesitancy.


2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel S. Levine ◽  
Leonid I. Perlovsky

Theories of cognitive processes, such as decision making and creative problem solving, for a long time neglected the contributions of emotion or affect in favor of analysis based on use of deliberative rules to optimize performance. Since the 1990s, emotion has increasingly been incorporated into theories of these cognitive processes. Some theorists have in fact posited a “dual-systems approach” to understanding decision making and high-level cognition. One system is fast, emotional, and intuitive, while the other is slow, rational, and deliberative. However, one’s understanding of the relevant brain regions indicate that emotional and rational processes are deeply intertwined, with each exerting major influences on the functioning of the other. Also presented in this paper are neural network modeling principles that may capture the interrelationships of emotion and cognition. The authors also review evidence that humans, and possibly other mammals, possess a “knowledge instinct,” which acts as a drive to make sense of the environment. This drive typically incorporates a strong affective component in the form of aesthetic fulfillment or dissatisfaction.


Author(s):  
Arla Juntunen

The high level objectives of public authorities are to create value at minimal cost, and achieve ongoing support and commitment from its funding authority. Similar to the private sector, today’s government agencies face a rapidly changing operating environment and many challenges. Where public organizations differ is that they need to manage this environment while answering to demands for increased service, reduced costs, fewer resources and at the same time increased efficiency and accountability. Public organization must cope with changing expectations of multiple contact groups, emerging regulation, changes in politics, decentralization of organization, and centralization of certain functions providing similar services, and growing demand for better accountability. The aim of public management is to create public value. Public sector managers create value through their organization’s performance and demonstrated accomplishments. The public value is difficult to define: it is something that exists within each community. It is created and affected by the citizens, businesses and organizations of that community (cf. also Moore, 1995). This increased interest to questions of value is partly due to the adoption of values and value-related concepts taken from business, like value creation and added value. It is argued that the public sector adopts business-like techniques to increase efficiency (Khademian, 1995; cf. Turban et al. 2007; Chen et al. 2005). In addition, there is a growing concern to the non-tangible, political, and ethical aspects of the public sector governance and actions (See Berg, 2001) Decision making that turns the resources in to public value is a daily challenge in the government (Khademian, 1999; Flynn, 2007) and not only because of the social or political factors. Most of decision problems are no longer well-structured problems that are easy to be solved by experience. Even problems that used to be fairly simple to define and solve are now much more complex because of the globalization of the economy, and rapid pace of changes in the technology and political and social environment. Therefore, modern decision makers often need to integrate quickly and reliably knowledge from different areas of data sources to use it in their decision making process. Moreover, the tools and applications developed for knowledge representations in key application areas are extremely diversified, therefore knowledge and data modeling and integration is important (See also the decision support systems (DSS) modeling methods and paradigms: Ruan et al., 2001; Carlsson & Fuller, 2002; Fink, 2002; Makowski & Wierzbicki, 2003). The application s of real-world problems and the abundance of different software tools allow to integrate several methods, specifications and analysis and to apply them to new, arising, complex problems.


2019 ◽  
Vol 892 ◽  
pp. 88-93
Author(s):  
Muhamad Muslihudin ◽  
Rita Irviani ◽  
Prayugo Khoir ◽  
Andino Maseleno ◽  
K. Shankar ◽  
...  

Economics is the first supply for the survival of a country, especially in the development, development and progress. The more developed a country is the better economic growth. Indonesia including the user databases on the economy, especially in the banking sector and the government. Government as the manager of the country's economy in order to make extra efforts of the people and citizens can get considerable economic assistance through various operations conducted by the government such as the division of poor rice and BPJS card. BPJS stands for Badan Penyelenggara Jaminan Sosial (Social Insurance Administration Organization). By doing classifying economic levels using Fuzzy Multiple Attribute Decision Making (FMADM) methods (Simple Additive Weighting) meant that applications created can be used as a tool to suppress errors and improve accuracy by minimizing the possibility of such a wrong target or targets. The application uses the input in the form of data that has a high level of security to be forged such as: proof of payment of electricity bills, vehicle tax, and property tax. Data from the family card to input the number of people staying. The results are sorted according emerged from the lowest to the highest. The calculations were already system and by calculation that has been designed is expected to work as expected.


Author(s):  
Daniel S. Levine ◽  
Leonid I. Perlovsky

Theories of cognitive processes, such as decision making and creative problem solving, for a long time neglected the contributions of emotion or affect in favor of analysis based on use of deliberative rules to optimize performance. Since the 1990s, emotion has increasingly been incorporated into theories of these cognitive processes. Some theorists have in fact posited a “dual-systems approach” to understanding decision making and high-level cognition. One system is fast, emotional, and intuitive, while the other is slow, rational, and deliberative. However, one’s understanding of the relevant brain regions indicate that emotional and rational processes are deeply intertwined, with each exerting major influences on the functioning of the other. Also presented in this paper are neural network modeling principles that may capture the interrelationships of emotion and cognition. The authors also review evidence that humans, and possibly other mammals, possess a “knowledge instinct,” which acts as a drive to make sense of the environment. This drive typically incorporates a strong affective component in the form of aesthetic fulfillment or dissatisfaction.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 202
Author(s):  
Eun Sun Kim ◽  
Yunjeong Choi ◽  
Jeongeun Byun

To expand the field of governmental applications of Big Data analytics, this study presents a case of data-driven decision-making using information on research and development (R&D) projects in Korea. The Korean government has continuously expanded the proportion of its R&D investment in small and medium-size enterprises to improve the commercialization performance of national R&D projects. However, the government has struggled with the so-called “Korea R&D Paradox”, which refers to how performance has lagged despite the high level of investment in R&D. Using data from 48,309 national R&D projects carried out by enterprises from 2013 to 2017, we perform a cluster analysis and decision tree analysis to derive the determinants of their commercialization performance. This study provides government entities with insights into how they might adjust their approach to Big Data analytics to improve the efficiency of R&D investment in small- and medium-sized enterprises.


Author(s):  
Nicholas A. Lambert

The conclusion reviews the previous chapters as a case study in high-level policymaking under pressure. Globalization, the internationalization of the grain trade, and the outbreak of war confronted the British government with conjoined political–economic and military–diplomatic problems, which it had no good options to solve. The complexity of the challenges confronting the government render simplified narratives of its decision-making inaccurate and of doubtful utility as a model. This argument has important methodological implications for students of grand strategy and military history: the former requires as much attention to military as to civilian perspectives and the latter demands better economic literacy. Both require rigorous archival research in civilian and military, public and private records, as well as a willingness to engage the past with a high level of precision.


2011 ◽  
pp. 956-966
Author(s):  
Arla Juntunen

The high level objectives of public authorities are to create value at minimal cost, and achieve ongoing support and commitment from its funding authority. Similar to the private sector, today’s government agencies face a rapidly changing operating environment and many challenges. Where public organizations differ is that they need to manage this environment while answering to demands for increased service, reduced costs, fewer resources and at the same time increased efficiency and accountability. Public organization must cope with changing expectations of multiple contact groups, emerging regulation, changes in politics, decentralization of organization, and centralization of certain functions providing similar services, and growing demand for better accountability. The aim of public management is to create public value. Public sector managers create value through their organization’s performance and demonstrated accomplishments. The public value is difficult to define: it is something that exists within each community. It is created and affected by the citizens, businesses and organizations of that community (cf. also Moore, 1995). This increased interest to questions of value is partly due to the adoption of values and value-related concepts taken from business, like value creation and added value. It is argued that the public sector adopts business-like techniques to increase efficiency (Khademian, 1995; cf. Turban et al. 2007; Chen et al. 2005). In addition, there is a growing concern to the non-tangible, political, and ethical aspects of the public sector governance and actions (See Berg, 2001) Decision making that turns the resources in to public value is a daily challenge in the government (Khademian, 1999; Flynn, 2007) and not only because of the social or political factors. Most of decision problems are no longer well-structured problems that are easy to be solved by experience. Even problems that used to be fairly simple to define and solve are now much more complex because of the globalization of the economy, and rapid pace of changes in the technology and political and social environment. Therefore, modern decision makers often need to integrate quickly and reliably knowledge from different areas of data sources to use it in their decision making process. Moreover, the tools and applications developed for knowledge representations in key application areas are extremely diversified, therefore knowledge and data modeling and integration is important (See also the decision support systems (DSS) modeling methods and paradigms: Ruan et al., 2001; Carlsson & Fuller, 2002; Fink, 2002; Makowski & Wierzbicki, 2003). The application s of real-world problems and the abundance of different software tools allow to integrate several methods, specifications and analysis and to apply them to new, arising, complex problems.


Atmosphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosanna Bonasia ◽  
Simone Lucatello

In many countries of the world, floods continue to cause extensive damage to people and properties. This is also the case of Mexico, where meteorological phenomena cause flooding every year. In order to mitigate continuous losses and damages, crucial tools like hazard maps are essential for prevention. This review article analyzes the main reasons for the shortcomings on disasters caused by floods in Mexico. We argue that strong linking between the realm of technical hazard mappings and local governance as an integrated approach to manage disasters can be a basis for a new prevention policy in Mexico. This consideration is achieved through the description of the available information on the meteorological events that have caused major damage in recent years and the analysis of the interventions carried out at decision-making level by the government and the national civil protection system. The application that hazard maps have in the world and their usefulness is also discussed. From the analysis carried out it emerges that the inefficiency of the system in preventing damage caused by floods in Mexico is due to both the lack of high-level expertise in hazard maps design and the lack of their use in decision-making policies at the local level.


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