Italy in Chiaroscuro: The dark shadows of modern Italian society

Abstract

Italy's incapacity of dealing with an increasing decline should be attributed to a number of chronic problems, not only economic ones, which have never been seriously faced by Italian society and politics. Despite the frequent presence of these issues in public discourse, a lack of analytical commitment has favoured a superficial and rhetorical engagement. A common theme of incompleteness in the attempts at applying a solution unifies different problems presented in this special issue: from federal reform of the state to the lack of political reconciliation, from the troubled Italian southern regions to the policies towards families. This special issue aims to analyse some of the most critical and unsolved Italian problems, and tries to cast some light on the many 'shadows' that still persist in the country of la dolce vita. © 2008 Taylor & Francis.