Questo lavoro analizza la relazione tra crescita economica e rischio-socio politico in un campione di 159 paesi per 30 anni. Il principale risultato è che l'instabilità socio-politica diminuisce la crescita mentre l'effetto della crescita sull'instabilità non è statisticamente significativo. Inoltre si evidenzia una relazione negativa tra inflazione e crescita, ma questo collegamento è mediato dal canale dell'instabilità socio-politica. / This paper tests the relationship between economic growth and socio-political instability on a large sample of 159 countries over 30 years, from 1970 through 2000. After a meticulous analysis performed with system estimates, modern econometric techniques that detect endogeneity and a detailed battery of robustness tests I find that socio-political risk decreases economic growth. as regard the other causality link from economic growth to instability, this effect is instead not statistically significant. In addiction a negative relationship between inflation and growth emerges but this link is mediated by the channel of socio-political instability.

La tesi analizza il contemporaneo declino elettorale del Partito Laburista israeliano in relazione agli eventi storici, ai cambiamenti sociali e demografici che hanno portato ad un effettivo cambiamento del sistema politico. In particolar modo la ricerca si sofferma sulla lettura dei risultati elettorali, cercando di sottolineare come le dinamiche sopra indicate abbiano influenzato i trend elettorali e l'offerta politica del partito stesso. Fino a giungere agli anni Novanta, passaggio fondamentale in cui cogliere le ragioni per le quali il Partito Laburista sembra tutt'ora non riuscire invertire il trend negativo degli ultimi quindici anni. / This thesis analyzes the contemporary electoral decline of the Israeli Labor Party in relation to historical events, social and demographic changes that have led to an effective change in the Israeli political system. In particular, the research focuses on the electoral results, trying to underline how the dynamics indicated above have influenced the electoral trends and the political offer of the party itself. The Nineties represent a fundamental passage in which it is possibleto understand the reasons why the Labor Party seems unable, still today, to reverse the negative trend of the last fifteen years.

La tesi analizza le presidenze di Mahmūd Ahmadīnezhād (2005-2013) all’interno del fazionalismo iraniano postrivoluzionario, mettendo in luce gli aspetti caratteristici e peculiari dei cosiddetti ultraradicali. La prospettiva storica che introduce all’Iran contemporaneo attraverso l’analisi dei principali avvenimenti del Novecento, dalla Rivoluzione Costituzionale (1906) alla nascita della Repubblica islamica (1979), affianca un’analisi politica sull’ascesa al potere degli ultraradicali. La tesi esamina le reazioni e le relazioni politiche interne, la rinnovata postura internazionale, le politiche socioeconomiche e l’eredità lasciata dalle presidenze Ahmadīnezhād. È tracciata una panoramica storico-politica sull’esperienza degli ultraradicali per comprendere le cause socioeconomiche e politiche che hanno determinato la loro ascesa, i cambiamenti introdotti all’interno dell’élite postrivoluzionaria e, in ultimo, gli effetti interni e internazionali della loro parabola politica. L’approccio storico si è altresì servito di uno studio dei vocaboli in uso nella letteratura occidentale e dei termini persiani utilizzati per riferirsi al gruppo, al fine di individuare le etichette politiche impiegate e il loro rispettivo valore. Vi è quindi, in definitiva, un’analisi della categoria politica del radicalismo per decretare se, per quali aspetti e secondo quali schemi interpretativi, Ahmadinejad e il suo gruppo di alleati possano essere considerati e interpretati come radicali. / The thesis analyses the presidencies of Mahmūd Ahmadīnezhād (2005-2013) within the post-revolutionary Iranian factionalism, highlighting the characteristics and the peculiar features of the so-called hardliners. The historical perspective introduces the main turning points in contemporary Iran, from the Constitutional Revolution (1906) to the foundation of the Islamic Republic (1979). The political analysis looks therefore at the political ascendancy of the hardliners, the following internal reactions, the renewed international posture, the socio-economic policies and, ultimately, the legacy left by the Ahmadīnezhād presidencies. The aim is to provide a comprehensive overview of the hardlines’ political experience to disclose their domestic and foreign postures and their effect within the post-revolutionary political debate. The thesis also examines the category of radicalism by looking at labels used by both the Western literature and Persian language to refer to the hardliners. This thesis aims to address whether, for which aspects and according to which perspective, Ahmadinejad and his close circle of allies could be considered and interpreted as radicals.

Cosmologies of destinations investigates some commonly neglected dimensions of forced migration. It examines the key symbolic structures and social mechanisms which encourage and sustain the mobility trajectories of Eritreans from their home country to Ethiopia, Sudan, Italy and beyond. The central argument is that, in refugee-producing countries which suffer from protracted crisis and livelihood disruption, refugee movements become much more than a form of reactive mobility. Within these communities, becoming a refugee is not only a way to escape oppressive conditions but also the outcome of socially and symbolically embedded strategies aimed at personal realization and family well-being. Building on a multi-sited ethnography of the everyday life of Eritrean refugees in a number of settings (including homes, refugee camps, urban squats, and other settings of sociability) in their home country as well as in Ethiopia, Sudan and Italy, the thesis explores the range of social and economic resources needed to circumvent legal and geographic borders, and the moral and cultural norms that underpin these practices. It contributes to the theorization of refugee mobility, which is currently somewhat underdeveloped, by providing a framework to analyse high-risk forced migration, based on an emic understanding and systematic description of the living conditions, life aspirations and risk perceptions of Eritreans in their home country and in transit to Europe. The study feeds into the broader debate on the blurring boundaries between labour and forced migration by emphasising the social and cultural, along with the structural, determinants of mobility and immobility. The thesis is divided into five chapters. The first analyses the conditions that make exit a widespread and legitimate, albeit controversial, option for young people in Eritrea. The second chapter provides accounts of refugees' everyday lives in the first safe countries (Ethiopia and Sudan), chronicling the dynamics that trigger secondary movements towards Europe. The third analyses the lives of Eritrean refugees in Italy, documenting the conditions that activate further mobility within Europe. The fourth chapter describes the migratory infrastructures that allow for these refugee movements, including the role played by transnational marriages, smugglers and family networks. The final chapter provides a micro-analysis of decision-making, aimed at explaining the willingness of refugees to take great risks at different stages of the migration process. A methodological note narrates how the research was carried out in the various sites and analyses the implications of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork with refugees.

New and non-territorial minorities in Europe do not find adequate protection within the territorial autonomy model. After a compared analysis of contemporary millet systems (Lebanon, Israel, and Iraq), the dissertation focuses on Eruopean instruments for protecting non-territorial minorities in terms of personal autonomy, cultural autonomy, and political representation. Europe is progressively adopting non-territorial means of minority protection, which leads to the reconsideration of the nation-State model. First, personal autnomy implies legal pluralism; secondly cultural autnomy and political representation require the progressive inclusion of diverse groups in teh decision-making processes.

The subject of this research is the study of the archival fond produced by the Prince-Bishopric of Trento, an ecclesiastical principality fully included among the 'Fürstentümer' of the Holy Roman Empire: a temporal territorial dominion placed between the cultural area of German and Italian influence, subject to the sovereignty of a bishop, whose episcopal dignity and jurisdiction was associated with the role of immediate prince of the Empire. The period examined stretches mostly from the 14th century - since the identification of the first forms of structured serial-type documentary production and an embryonic chancellery’s system - to the year 1796, terminus ad quem that effectively marks the epilogue of the centuries-old experience of bishops’ temporal government over the Principality and the advent of provisional regimes, prior the definitive secularization of the Hochstift in 1803. A look, moreover, aimed at the exploration and philological reconstruction of the archival fond in the period following secularization, throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century, completes the investigation. A brief description of the historical-institutional profile of the Prince-Bishopric of Trento – examined in the context of the 'Geistliche Territorialherrschaften' of the Holy Roman Empire – introduces the subsequent treatment, that develops along three main strands of investigation strongly related to each other, to each of which has a chapter of the dissertation is dedicated: origin and evolution of the central bureaucratic structures of the ecclesiastical principality; analysis of the methods of production and documentary conservation between the 14th and 18th centuries; exploration of the princely-bishopric documentation’s 'itinera' between Innsbruck, Vienna and Munich during the 19th century and the rearrangements of the records that took place, in particular, in the post-secularization phase of the institution. The investigation relating to the reconstruction of the archival fond, combined with the analysis of the surviving documentation – which has been the object of a preliminary reconnaissance and census – have been conducted following a multi-disciplinary and comparative methodological approach, which allowed a more punctual awareness of the dynamics of fragmentation, dismemberment and subsequent disaggregated relocation of the dispersed documentation. These phenomena, in addition to having compromised the integrity of the documentary complex, have at times contributed to hinder a correct understanding and interpretation of the nature of many documentary typologies, thus limiting the fruition and valorization of the documentary heritage. The study of the archival fond’s structure - investigated in its entirety as a product of the institution’s activity on both sides of the exercise of temporal and spiritual power - constitutes the fulcrum of the dissertation. Therefore, the analytical examination of the documentation is aimed at reconstructing from a logical point of view the hypothetical structure of the documentary complex, as the end point of the historical evolution of the ordering practices implemented by the central bureaucratic apparatus of government of the principality and diocese between the 14th and 18th centuries. Ultimately, this effort is intended to delineate the final parable of this process and to provide a snapshot, albeit partial and somewhat faded of a fonds that, in its organicity, no longer exists. However, this experiment of virtual reconstruction of the archival fond into its hypothetical articulations in sub-fonds, series and sub-series takes on its most convincing meaning when one considers how the ways in which the episcopal principality organized, selected and prepared for use and conservation its own documentation are themselves a source of information for the history of the institution.

Organizzata in tre saggi, questa tesi si pone l’obiettivo di consentire una migliore comprensione del legame tra crescita e istituzioni, e dei meccanismi attraverso cui gli assetti istituzionali possono condizionare i sentieri economici. Riconoscendo, sulla base di considerazioni storiche, il potere esemplificativo delle ex Repubbliche Socialiste Sovietiche e della loro comune esperienza passata, questo lavoro fornisce, da un lato, una struttura empirica di riferimento per esaminare l’impatto sulla performance economica di un insieme di istituzioni, concretamente legate al funzionamento dell’attività economica; dall’altro, approfondisce lo studio degli effetti e delle determinanti delle azioni di policy. Il primo saggio offre una disamina della letteratura riguardante il legame crescita e istituzioni, fornendo un quadro esaustivo degli sviluppi teorici ed empirici, e illustra diversi aspetti che possono essere concepiti come obiettivi per la ricerca futura; il secondo, attraverso la costruzione di un modello statico e di un modello dinamico, quantifica l’impatto delle istituzioni economiche sui sentieri di crescita di questi paesi, impiegando e analizzando numerose tecniche di stima; il terzo saggio formula diverse specificazioni e affronta il tema rilevante del ruolo degli interventi di policy sullo sviluppo economico e dell’effetto delle istituzioni politiche su comportamenti e decisioni del governo. / Organized in three essays, this thesis aims at achieving a better understanding of the link between growth and institutions, and of the mechanisms through which the institutional arrangements affect the economic paths. Exploiting the past common experience of the Former Soviet Union economies, this work provides an empirical framework to examine the impact on the economic performance of a set of institutions concretely related to the “functioning” of the economic activity and offers a first attempt to include in this research program the study of the consequences of the government actions. The first essay offers a thorough review of the literature researching on the link between economic growth and institutions, and elucidates several issues that deserve further attention; the second develops a static and a dynamic approach to assess, using multiple estimation techniques, the impact of a set of economic institutions on the growth paths of these countries; the third essay, through several formal specifications, deals with the relevant issue of the role of policy measures and of the effect of the political institutions on the governments behaviour.

La tesi intende analizzare l’idea coloniale in Francia durante la Terza Repubblica, le modalità attraverso cui essa veniva veicolata e gli argomenti con cui l’espansione veniva giustificata. Dopo un’introduzione storica, la ricerca si concentra sulle diverse “voci” che concorsero alla promozione e propaganda coloniale. Vengono analizzati il contributo dei diversi attori – primo fra tutti il “parti colonial” - che parteciparono a sostenere le motivazioni dell’espansione, oltre alle modalità e ai canali utilizzati, in un contesto in cui l’opinione pubblica era restia ad affezionarsi e a comprendere la necessità di un impero. La parte successiva si concentra sui contenuti del discorso di giustificazione e motivazione dell’imperialismo francese, tramite il richiamo di alcuni teorici e politici del periodo e dei principali temi -economici, politici e umanitari (la cd. “mission civilisatrice”) - evocati in tale contesto. L’ultimo capitolo è dedicato in modo particolare alla diffusione della cosiddette “scienze coloniali” e alla creazione, influenzata dall’esigenza di formare i futuri amministratori coloniali, di cattedre o sezioni coloniali negli istituti di studi superiori. E’ possibile in tal modo individuare un collegamento tra diversi gruppi ed entità operanti nel campo politico, economico e scientifico e, attraverso l’analisi degli appunti dei corsi, esaminare in che modo l’idea coloniale fosse trasmessa in tale ambito. / The research aims at analyzing the colonial idea in France during the Third Republic, the different ways it was conveyed and the main themes adopted to justify the colonial expansion. After a first historical overview, the second chapter focuses on the different actors that contributed in promoting the colonies and the colonial propaganda (above all the “parti colonial”), in a context in which the majority of the French citizens seemed not really interested in supporting the colonial empire nor in understanding its needs and methods. Subsequently, the research analyzes the different themes the supporters of the French colonial movement adopted to justify the need of a colonial empire at the economic, political and “humanitarian” levels. The last chapter is focused on the diffusion of the “colonial sciences” and the creation of ad hoc colonial sections or schools aimed at training the future colonial administrators. The analysis highlights the links between the different actors of the political, economic and scientific circles. Also, thanks to the exam of the student’s notes it is possible to see how the colonial idea was conveyed in this field.

Il progetto si è proposto di dimostrare l’evoluzione della valenza strategica nella relazione bilaterale tra Stati Uniti ed Egitto durante le presidenze di Anwar al-Sadat e Hosni Mubarak. Sebbene si sia a lungo contraddistinta per un marcato rapporto di reciprocità e di stabilità locale e trans-regionale, da alcuni decenni a questa parte la relazione vive un particolare momento di riconsiderazione a causa della compresenza di più fattori che ne hanno limitato il valore complessivo, necessitando quindi di nuovi fondamenti e obiettivi per essere rivitalizzata. Riprova di ciò sono proprio gli accordi di Camp David, cuore pulsante delle strategie comuni di Stati Uniti ed Egitto, nonché centro nevralgico delle dinamiche di cooperazione, per lo più di sicurezza, tra statunitensi, egiziani e israeliani. Analizzando gli elementi caratterizzanti la politica estera egiziana in relazione, anche e non soltanto, alle interazioni con Stati Uniti e Israele, prendendo come riferimento una prospettiva storico-diacronica che tenesse conto delle evoluzioni politiche dentro e fuori il Paese arabo, all’interno di un più ampio panorama geopolitico e strategico regionale e internazionale, il presente lavoro ha pertanto puntato a far emergere il carattere tattico del rapporto stesso, il quale è stato fortemente influenzato dal perseguimento di un interesse nazionale da entrambe le parti. / The thesis analyses the evolution and impact of U.S.-Egypt relations under the Sadat and Mubarak’s tenure in terms of geopolitical and strategic attitudes through a historical-diachronic perspective. Although it has been characterized for decades by a marked reciprocity in terms of local and (trans-)regional dynamics, for about twenty years this link has been experiencing a particular moment of reconsideration due to the presence of several factors that have limited its overall significance. The bilateral relationship needs new foundations and objectives. In fact, the thesis argues that the Camp David agreements, the beating heart of the common strategies of the United States and Egypt, as well as the political core of several dynamics (mostly in security dimension) between the Americans, Egyptians and Israelis, it is the key element to understand the interconnection between Egyptian domestic state and its regional state autonomy. In this respect, the thesis highlights these factors characterizing the Egyptian foreign policy in connection, even and not only, with United States and Israel, as enabling factors both in the national political developments and the evolution in the Arab stage, within a wider geo-political and strategic regional and international panorama. In conclusion, this work aim to bring out the tactical nature of the bilateral relationship between Egypt and the United States, which was heavily influenced by the pursuit of a different perception of national interest. Therefore, the biggest challenge between Washington and Cairo consists in managing a much less special and complex relationship than in the recent past, which essentially sees the overcoming of Camp David, while maintaining the stability of the region as a cornerstone on both sides.

La tesi è stata intitolata “Change the System From Within”. La participatory democracy e le riforme istituzionali negli Stati Uniti degli anni Sessanta e si compone di cinque capitoli. Nel primo capitolo si riprende l’idea di participatory democracy emersa in seno alla New Left e ai movimenti sociali dei lunghi anni Sessanta. In questo contesto il concetto di participatory democracy assunse due principali accezioni: da una parte rappresentava la rivendicazione politica di un maggior coinvolgimento attivo della cittadinanza nelle politiche - locali, statali e federali - frutto della crisi di legittimità che la democrazia americana stava attraversando in quegli anni; dall’altra, il concetto venne adottato come principio organizzativo all’interno dei gruppi stessi di attivisti, con la funzione di prefigurare quelle riforme politico-istituzionali cui gli stessi militanti aspiravano. Dalla stessa temperie di contestazione sorse del resto anche la critica che alcuni studiosi mossero alla teoria liberale pluralista e alla sua esemplificazione nella coeva democrazia americana. Nel primo capitolo si mostra proprio come da quelle rielaborazioni critiche degli anni Sessanta emerse anche il primo modello di participatory democracy in seno alla teoria politica, sviluppato pienamente negli anni Settanta e Ottanta da Carole Pateman, Crawford B. Macpherson e Benjamin Barber. Questa parte del lavoro di tesi si propone quindi di accostare alle pratiche partecipative introdotte dai movimenti anche la ricostruzione dello sviluppo graduale di una teoria politica della participatory democracy. Tale riflessione è completata da un’analisi storica di ampio raggio, necessaria a meglio contestualizzare il fenomeno e ad includere le nuove richieste democratiche nell’ambito di una tradizione democratico-rappresentativa già dotata di istituti partecipativi di democrazia diretta. Chiarito il quadro storico-politico degli anni Sessanta, il secondo capitolo analizza la ricezione dell’idea di participatory democracy nelle politiche federali. A questo proposito si illustra come il principio di citizen participation fosse stato recepito già con la War on Poverty promossa da Lindon B. Johnson alla metà degli anni Sessanta e fu mantenuto, con esiti istituzionali differenti, almeno fino alla fine della presidenza Carter. Si dimostra inoltre che, malgrado il dettato legislativo federale fosse spesso approssimativo sulle modalità operative, quel principio ebbe in realtà un notevole impatto sulle relazioni intergovernative. Tale principio favorì ad esempio l’intraprendenza di molti amministratori locali nel promuovere il decentramento amministrativo e politico su base di quartiere. Nel terzo capitolo l’analisi affronta le principali trasformazioni in senso partecipativo avvenute nei sistemi di governo statali e locali negli anni Settanta, mettendole in relazione anche alle dinamiche intergovernative di più lungo periodo. Il capitolo è strutturato in modo tale da evidenziare il tendenziale recupero e rafforzamento di istituti già esistenti, come l’initiative, i public hearing e gli school district come strumenti di rivendicazione del community control in alcune città di grandi dimensioni. Mentre il secondo e terzo capitolo tendono a osservare le riforme istituzionali degli anni Settanta in senso partecipativo in seno al governo federale, statale e locale, i due successivi capitoli mirano ad osservare l’impatto della participatory democracy nel confronto tra attivismo militante e pratiche amministrative tradizionali degli anni Settanta. Il quarto capitolo è infatti dedicato all’ingresso della nuova generazione di politici progressisti nelle amministrazioni locali e statali fra la fine degli anni Sessanta e la prima metà degli anni Settanta. Per analizzarlo si è deciso di analizzare come principale caso di studio la Conference on Alternative State and Local Policy (CASLP), una organizzazione e forum nazionale che mirava proprio ad unire alle istanze dei progressisti una expertise di governo. Nell’ambito della CASLP, la cosiddetta Coalizione progressista di Berkeley, CA, fornì un caso esemplare di strategia di confronto con le istituzioni locali e per questo il capitolo le dedica una attenta disanima. La pluriennale esperienza di azione collettiva dei progressisti di Berkeley nell’arena istituzionale è infatti rilevante sia per l’innovazione nella strategia istituzionale, sia per attestare una evoluzione dell’idea di participatory democracy nel tempo. Il quinto capitolo ricostruisce ed analizza la carriera politica di Tom Hayden negli anni in cui passò dall’attivismo alla politica istituzionale, con la campagna elettorale per diventare Senatore della California in Congresso (1975-1976) e la successiva Campaign for Economic Democracy (1976-1982), confermando la spiccata propensione del leader all’innovazione istituzionale in senso partecipativo. In particolare, nella campagna elettorale per il Senato del Congresso del 1976 Hayden riuscì a implementare forme di decision-making partecipato in seno allo staff. Nella gestione del personale cercò inoltre di favorire l’empowerment di volontari e cittadini senza perdere di vista i requisiti essenziali per la sopravvivenza della campagna: fundraising e propaganda. In linea con la sua battaglia contro le distorsioni economiche del big business, scelse di non accettare fondi da corporation e banche e riuscì nell’intento di essere sostenuto per gran parte da small donors. Hayden dunque introdusse pratiche di participatory democracy in seno alla campagna elettorale e continuò a rivendicare la sua fiducia nella forza dei movimenti grass-roots. L’analisi storica, ad ogni modo, evidenzia anche le criticità che derivavano dall’uso di pratiche partecipative nella governance della campagna elettorale. Atttraverso l’analisi teorica e politico-istituzionale della democrazia partecipativa americana fra gli anni Sessanta e Settanta su vari livelli istituzionali (federale, statale e locale), questo progetto di ricerca tenta quindi di colmare un vuoto storiografico e, al tempo stesso intende contribuire alla definizione storico-istituzionale della participatory democracy in seno alla democrazia rappresentativa degli Stati Uniti. Infine, la presente ricerca mira a inserirsi nel dibattito pubblico contemporaneo sulla participatory democracy, offrendo una visione storico-istituzionale importante per meglio comprendere il fenomeno e che, finora, non ha ricevuto l’attenzione che meriterebbe. / Chapter 1 retrieves the idea of participatory democracy stemmed from the Long 1960s New Left and the following social movements. Indeed, the concept of participatory democracy mainly acquired two slightly different shapes in that historical framework. From one hand, it meant the broad political call for common citizens’ greater involvement in the policy-making - at the local, state and federal level. That request was in fact a reply to the ongoing crisis of the American democracy, in terms of political legitimacy and social representation of minorities and poor people. In the other hand, participatory democracy represented the organizing principle adopted by most of the grass-roots groups of that period, with a clear prefigurative function. Indeed, making the activist groups’ inner decision-making participatory was a way for the collectives to anticipate the institutional changes they aspired to. In the meantime, because of the same disaffection against the raising social and political inequalities, some political science scholars elaborated a critique to the pluralist version of the liberal democracy - then the most praised one, as well as credited as it was embodied in the American democracy. Those 1960s critiques were eventually used to conceive the first political theory of participatory democracy in the 1970s and 1980s, as Chapter 1 shows. The participatory democracy’s canon was in fact mostly developed by Carole Pateman, Crawford B. Macpherson and Benjamin Barber. Beside the intellectual history of participatory democracy from 1960s to 1980s, Chapter 1 allows to contextualize ideas and practices of common citizens’ participation into the wider history of the American Political Development. According to that, chapter 1 also provides a detailed analysis of the participatory political institutions that were traditionally part of the United States representative democracy. Chapter 2 verifies whether the 1960s idea of participatory democracy actually affected the federal public policies of the late 1960s and 1970s. Indeed the principle of “citizen participation” was introduced in some of the War on Poverty legislations, promoted by Lyndon B. Johnson since the mid-1960s. Although the heterogeneous institutional effects, that principle was maintained in some grant-in-aid projects until the end of the Carter administration, through the Nixon and Ford administrations. Therefore, the political meanings assumed by the idea of “citizen participation” and its institutional consequences from 1964 to 1980 are carefully analyzed in chapter 2. Moreover, chapter 2 shows that the principle of citizen participation had such a strong impact on the intergovernmental relations. It thus brought forward, for instance, the local public officers’ entrepreneurship towards the local devolution, shifting the administrative and political power base from the center to the neighborhood. Chapter 3 deals with the 1970s main institutional reforms aimed at introducing the common citizens’ participation in the government decision-making at the state and local levels. Those reforms are deeply related to some long-lasting intergovernmental dynamics and this relationship is also argued. The same chapter’s lay-out is vowed to underline the 1970s general trend of retrieval and enhancing of traditional institutions, such as the initiative (direct democracy), the public hearings and the school districts. The school board was indeed reevaluated and reshaped as a means of community control in the biggest cities. As chapters 2 and 3 aim at exploring the implementation of participatory reforms in the federal, state and local level of government, chapters 4 and 5 aim at inquiring the participatory democracy’s impact on the 1970s boundary of polity - the space where activism meets political institutions. Chapter 4 inquires the new generations of progressive politicians entering the local and state administrations from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s. To frame that national phenomenon, the historical analysis use the Conference of Alternative States and Local Policies (CASLP) as a case study. CASLP was indeed a national organization born in 1975 to give voice to the progressive public officers around the country and allowed them sharing their government experiences for a more effective institutional impact. Inside CASLP, the progressive coalition of Berkeley, CA (called Berkeley Citizens’ Action, BCA) was especially spotted for its exemplary strategy to confront local political institutions. The 1970s BCA’s political actions are thus specifically analyzed. In fact, the institutional approach of the Berkeley progressive coalition resulted to be innovative in terms of strategy as well as successful in introducing new forms of participatory democracy into the local government, assessing the 1970s evolution of the participatory democracy political theory and practices. Chapter 5 retraces the political career of the former New Left leader Tom Hayden during the years of turning from activism to institutional politics. Especially, the analysis focuses on the 1975-1976 U.S. Senate Campaign and the following Campaign for Economic Democracy (CED), a coalition project and organization led by Hayden with the goal of mobilizing activists and public officers around the issues of economic justice, environmental and economic public policies (1976-1982). That period - just before Hayden was elected representative at the California Legislature in 1982 - is thus analyzed as a testing ground to verify his long-lasting commitment towards participatory democracy. The historical and political analysis, based on original archival findings, confirms Hayden’s inclination for institutional innovation in the participatory realm. In particular, during the 1975-1976 electoral campaign for the U.S. Senate in California Hayden introduced participatory forms of decision-making involving staff people, volunteers and supporting grass-roots groups. Moreover, that campaign’s staff and people management was conceived in order to directly empower citizens and volunteers, without losing track of the campaigning basic requirements (e. g. fundraising and propaganda). As he stood against big business and economic inequalities, he chose to reject fundings from corporations and banks. Therefore his electoral campaign was mostly sustained by small donors. Hayden successfully made the campaigning more open, accountable and participatory and kept on sponsoring his trust in community organizing and grass-roots social movements even in his following political endeavour, CED. Eventually, the investigation casts lights on the strengths, as well as the critical issues, produced by the Hayden’s participatory governance of campaigning. By the means of analysing the intellectual history and the institutional implementation of participatory democracy during late 1960s-1970s United States, this research project firstly aims at making up the lack of historiography about the topic. In the second stance, grounding the institutional and political history of participatory democracy in the United States representative democracy - where the concept was born - this research project intends to provide a first genealogy of the participatory democracy’s institutional implementation. In this sense, the research projects wants also to contribute to the contemporary debate on the participatory democracy. It is indeed a compelling and popular issue in many worldwide political arenas, but it is still rarely defined by its historical and institutional terms.