The geography of the vote in the 2022 elections: comparison with previous rounds and trends of the last months

Economic resilience and sustainability: Macroeconomic indicators and pre- and post-crisis political dynamics in the European Union. – This study examines the complex articulation of the global economic crisis on the member countries of the European Union (EU) in the last decade, and outlines diversified empirical results based on economic performances detected through appropriate indicators at national and community scale. Adopting a multi-disciplinary perspective, the study investigates the possible responses to the crisis of the EU institutions and individual member states by evaluating, among others, the adjustment programs supported by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the initiatives aimed at promoting solidarity tax. The study is based on the comparison of macroeconomic indicators such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), public debt, budget deficit, and unemployment rate. This allows us to provide a comparative perspective on regional disparities and national economic dynamics. The impact of external factors such as the pandemic (Covid-19), and geopolitical conflicts on continental chessboards, finally allow us to highlight the current challenges and the importance of coordinated action and inclusive governance to guarantee unity and, together, resilience of member countries. The study highlights the importance of promoting fiscal solidarity, improving economic governance and closing disparities in order to promote sustainable growth and prosperity across the EU.

“Paese guasto” and “il bel paese”. Italian places of the divine comedy and Revelli’s Dante. – The places of the Commedia are dressed of a meaning physical and symbolic at the same time, and, the echo of this description, appears strongly detailed in Dante’s verses. The evocative power of the places can be measured from an effective comparison with Eliot’s poem which, with clear evidence, is inextricably linked to Dante’s Commedia; the dead country, as Dante defines it, can definitely be compared to the adjective waste used by Eliot. This evocative connection allows Dante to still live as a fundamental reference point for modern Twentieth-century society. As it is customary in the stream of Italian intellectuals operating in the early Twentieth century, we cannot ignore the fascination of Dante’s exegesis; Paolo Revelli, geographer as well as “dantista”, brings to fulfilment the intellectual custom we have spoken of. Dante and Italy are two indissoluble names and Revelli understands and emphasizes Dante’s role in the geography of Italy.

The geopolitics of Dante. A novel reading of Monarchia. – If Dante has been studied from different angles, and in particular in his political assumptions and also in his geographical references, no studies have been conducted on the geopolitical dimension of his works. Nevertheless, from a novel interpretation mostly of Monarchia, some very interesting and innovative geopolitical readings can emerge, standing on a comparison with some relevant definitions of this branch of geography. In Monarchia, indeed, the global reflection on the world destiny, on the international asset of world politics as well as of the humankind seem to be read also from this point of view, which has to be implemented with other studies.

The complicate role of violence in the interminable dissolution of multi-national territorial states. A comparison of Yugoslavia, the Soviet Empire and contempo-rary Russia. – The collapse in different ways of some multinational states at the end of the twentieth century (empires or micro-empires and apparent federations) prompted questions about the role that violence played in their disintegration. While some states have experienced peaceful separations (Czechoslovakia), others, such as the former Yugoslavia and only to a small extent the Soviet Union, have sought to violently hinder political-territorial disintegration, escalating violence and repres-sion to the extent of democides, genocides, ethnic cleansing, mass slaughter, and population displacement. This paper, developing personal reflections of the author and at the same time using a factual and theoretical analysis, aims to compare three case studies of disintegration (Yugoslavia, the Soviet Empire and contemporary Russia), seeking to identify the main factors (ideal and material) that stimulated, or conversely restrained, the use of violence in the course of disintegration. Indeed, these very factors may provide insight into whether those processes of disintegration have come to a halt or still underlie a long ongoing disintegrative phenomenon that former imperial centers are striving to stop with violence. While the degree of the latter may be limited and “settling” in the former Yugoslavia, contemporary Russia's attempt to restrain the long post-imperial disintegration for years has been involving a shift to open violence - that could affect even the internal dimension - along the lines of what occurred in Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Covid-19, from Venice to Wuhan: a historical recognition and potential mutations of globalization. – The consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic follow an east-west direction (from Asia via Europe to the Americas) which matches the flow of Modernity. This work aims to assess how these events are resulting in a comeback of what we might envisage as modern measurable space in Geography, through a historical comparison with containment measures put in place in the 18th century by Venice, during the plague. Indeed, Venice may be considered an archetype of global powers dealing with risk management issues and struggling to harmonize public health policies with the „needs‟ of trade. After offering an overview of the most common containment measures put in place by the countries affected by Covid-19, we will see how some of the measures implemented by the Venetians are showing their effectiveness today, and we will assess the extent to which the space recovered in this process is likely to transform the idea of globalization as it was known up until very recently.

The “Global ’68” of the Students. An Introductory Historiographical Survey. – The article highlights the historiographical issue represented by the planetary character of the youth movements that operated around 1968 in the Western world, in the Socialist world and in the developing countries. The wave of student protest is therefore considered as a phenomenon of global history, and presented in its various aspects in the light of the historiographical debate developed in the context of the Global History current. Particular attention is given to the problem of periodization and to the comparison between political, social and cultural history. 1968 emerges as a great watershed of the second post-war period, which acts as a hinge between the first globalization of Bretton Woods (the so-called Golden Age) and the new scenarios of postindustrial modernity.

Regional development policies and spatial planning in Campania. Some reflections. – The article reconstructs just under half a century of studies, proposals and programs of the so-called policy of rebalancing, which is a set of policy decisions and actions, including successes and failures often, which marked the public intervention for development of the Campania‟s region in the establishment of the first regional government in 1971 until today. The first part is devoted to a comparison between the vision that the various planning documents give of regional planning regional and geographical reading of these same processes in their territorial dimension, proposing also part of the literature on the geography of urban development of the southern regions and, in particular, of Campania. The second part tries to give indications on the nature and causes of the regional gap and on which roads can be traveled to attempt, if not overcome, at least a reduction in the logic of policy of re-balancing.

In the course of the time, the concept of «uncertainty» has been investigated from different points of view. The aim of this article is to provide an interpretational key of present territorial process – first of all starting off by the example of Rome town in the real estate market, to make a comparison with other Italian cities – basing on the idea of «geography of uncertainty». Such a conceptual formulation will be associated with uneven developments and oscillatory movements of modern occidental economy.