Recent political events – from Trump’s election to the outcome of the Brexit referendum – have somehow caught the world by surprise, and are contributing to a growing sense of concern or even alarm about the future of the Western world and, particularly, Western democracies as we know them. When looking at the political landscape in Europe, populism looks like an unprecedented gamechanger. Populists parties are inpower in Poland and Hungary, they are in the coalition governments in Switzer...

In Europe and beyond, today populism is alive and kicking. Over the past few years, anti-establishment parties have made substantial strides. Some of them have reached the levers of governments, while others are consolidating their gains. Being a "thin" ideology, populism is being contaminated by nationalism. This book offers a number of case studies on those countries whose governments have been labelled "national-populist". Ranging from Italy to the United States, from the Visegrad count...

Parlare di crisi dei sistemi politici significa inevitabilmente partire dalla crisi delle fondamentali istituzioni della democrazia rappresentativa moderna: i partiti. Attraverso una ricognizione sintetica ma puntuale del dibattito sulla formazione, sulle caratteristiche e sulla strutturazione dei sistemi di partito moderni, e passando per l’analisi dell’evoluzione dei principali tipi di partito, l’autore arriva a discutere i fattori responsabili dell’attuale crisi delle formazioni partiti...

Modernization has effected a profound change in human civilizations and is a global trend since the 18th century. It includes not only the great change and transformation from traditional to modern politics, economies, societies and cultures, but also all human development and protection of the natural environment. Almost all nations in the world are undergoing some kind of modernization consciously or unconsciously, and the modernization drive can also be set as a national goal if they wi...