The political culture of the Alleanza nazionale: an analysis of the party's programmatic documents (1995-2002)

The birth of the Alleanza nazionale and its rise to power in Berlusconi's 1994 and 2001 cabinets have attracted great interest. The evolution of the AN's political culture from 1995 to the present has received far less attention. The interest of scholars is dominated by concern over the number of fascist chromosomes inherited by the AN, and the way these influence its policy choices. The weight of history overlays the problems faced by the party in its attempt to establish an original identity. This article investigates the formation of the AN's political culture through an analysis of the official programmatic documents produced thus far by the party, putting each in the Italian political context at the time of its issue. The documents show that the AN is no longer a neofascist, extreme right or populist radical-right party, but its values and beliefs have not found a stable form.     

North and south in the current crisis

The Italian Minister for Territorial Cohesion, Carlo Trigilia, reviews the current condition of the Italian south (the Mezzogiorno) and sets out the policies that the present government is seeking to implement. Underlining the need for long-term strategies and for close cooperation with European Union funding agencies, the Minister emphasizes the need to remove the political and institutional obstacles to development and promote human capital through measures designed to improve training, education and welfare programmes. He concludes the lack of economic growth in the southern regions poses serious dangers to the growth prospects of the national economy.     

Boundaries, Borders, and Reference Points: The Caribbean Defined as Geographic Region and Social Reality

Terms used to describe a region often reflect and directly influence the way space, identity, and history are conceived or constructed. The Caribbean is one such place where external definitions frequently transcend simple geography and socio-political boundaries. The region can be understood by both temporal and cultural categories. The case is made in this paper that archaeological interpretations of social history are impacted by how one conceives of the region.     

The colour of the facades in Siena’s historical centre: I. Glazings (calcium oxalate films s.s.) and other finishes on the stone materials of the Cathedral’s main facade

This paper focuses on the long-debated topic of the so-called calcium oxalate films: their origin and meaning but also their age and original appearance. The restoration of the main facade of the Siena Cathedral provided a unique opportunity to this end, thanks to the possibility of an extensive and detailed sampling and (as rarely happens) a sufficiently accurate historical knowledge of the construction vicissitudes. This work, mainly based on a polarising microscopy study (coupled with X-ray diffraction and SEM-EDS analyses) of over a thousand thin and ultra-thin sections of 400 microsamples, demonstrates that the current relicts of films are the result of alteration and decay of ancient treatments. In most cases, these were linseed oil-based glazings (the use of this substance is confirmed by historical documents) and pigments. Their role was essentially aesthetic; their use dates the beginning of the fourteenth century and continued at least until the eighteenth century.

Sustainable new economic centres in European metropolitan regions: A stakeholders' perspective

In many European metropolitan regions, new economic centres have emerged at the edge of large cities or in their (post-)suburban areas. This paper explores the possible contribution of these new centres to a more sustainable regional development of European metropolitan regions. The realization of sustainable business parks is even more complicated at 'greenfield' sites than at 'brownfield' sites. With the absence of space scarcity or congestion problems, the temptation to choose easier, less sustainable solutions is hard to resist. Nevertheless, in the Dutch Randstad region, some edge-city and suburban business locations try to meet high sustainability standards. Two case studies in Hoofddorp and Almere illustrate the tough road towards truly sustainable business parks, focusing on the role of the various stakeholders that either encourage or discourage the realization of sustainability potentials.     

土库曼尼萨城的色彩：雕塑的彩饰和古代土库曼斯坦的建筑

帕提亚帝国（公元前二世纪）最有意义的遗址之一当属现今位于土库曼斯坦南部的旧尼萨城。从二十世纪到今天,土库曼斯坦,俄罗斯和意大利的探险队已经带回来了一些纪念性的东西和一些我们所熟知的这段重要历史和文化时期里的工艺品。尤其是意大利都灵的考古探险队从上世纪90年代就已经活跃在这个地区,与当地的博物馆合作挖掘了许多有纪念价值的藏品并对这个藏品进行了一些研究。对挖掘出的藏品的彩饰的初步研究已经进行了很久。因为很明显在很多情况下这些藏品是无法移动的,采样也很困难,所以我们决定直接在现场（Ashgabat国家博物馆）测量鉴定。我们用了许多实验性的技术,无破坏性、无伤害性的测量以及传统的方法（包括分层部分碎片的研究和衍射分析）。这个研究是关于从所谓的RoundHall和RedBuilding（1990—2006）出土的粘土塑像、陶瓦建筑元素、壁画以及石膏等。尽管意大利专家所收集到的数据还没有完全处理,但已经可以帮助我们更好的了解这些出土品的生产过程,让我们对古尼萨的工艺品制造者的“调色板”有了一个更清楚的认识。这篇文章的目的是展示这些初步的研究成果,并同时提出对古尼萨主要内部建筑重建的假设。     

El co´dice ilustrado (1615/1616) de Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala: hacia una nueva era de lectura

Guaman Poma: Writing and Resistance in Colonial Peru. Por ROLENA ADORNO. Second edition, with a new introduction. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000. Pp. lix, 194.     

The struggle of dutch transport regions: Life and death of a regional planning concept

In the Netherlands it was commonly believed that a comprehensive regional transport policy was the only way of achieving the objectives of national transport policy. A new institution was created: the transport region. Expectations ran high, but many transport regions never reached the implementation stage. Analysis of the national policy and the actual development of the transport regions shows a continuous struggle between the transport region as a policy concept on the one hand and the transport region as an administrative institution on the other. The anticlimax that resulted from this struggle seems to have been inevitable: the transport regions have officially been abolished. Their role has been taken over by the provinces. On the one hand, this provides opportunities for avoiding the mistakes made in the past. On the other hand, this shift holds threats, which may obstruct the making and implementation of effective regional transport policy.