Search results for "Economy"

Lobbying, the public interest, and democracy: Communication perspectives

2020

Innovation in E-government: Analysis of municipal web pages in the Nordic countries

2008

The article seeks to test propositions about innovation in e-government inspired by innovation theory. The tests are carried out on data from a survey of municipal web pages in the four Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The research question is concerned with explaining variations among Nordic municipalities as to the features of their respective web pages. A model of innovation is developed, aiming at capturing typical features of local government as a setting for innovations in e-governance. Web pages were analyzed according to their information and communication features. Sources of innovation investigated include motivating, enabling and predisposing factors. All …

Balancing seclusion and inclusion: EU trilogues and democratic accountability

2020

This article assesses how trilogues affect the possibilities to hold the European Parliament to account from the perspectives of democracy as political equality and democracy as epistemic quality. ...

The Impact of Regional and National Leaders in Subnational Elections in Spain: Evidence from Andalusian Regional Elections

2021

Abstract Democracies have experienced two trends in the last decades: the growing personalization of politics and the increasing relevance of regions in the political process. This article addresses these trends by posing two questions: Do political leaders influence the vote in regional elections? Do regional party leaders have a larger impact on voter preferences than their national counterparts in regional elections? To answer these questions, we analyzed five regional elections held in Andalusia between 2004 and 2018. The results show that both national and regional leaders matter in regional elections. However, the effect of national and regional leaders is “conditioned” by the charact…

Mafia and immigration: analysis of the “illegal street workers” in southern Italy

2014

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate on the new forms of the “illegal street workers” involving immigrants in southern Italy. This new concept may include, at least, two kinds of illegal employment of immigrants which is, probably, managed by local criminal organizations; in particular, it may refer to the so-called “posteggiatore abusivo” and “lavavetri”. Design/methodology/approach – This is a new area of research. The methodology used has been based on a collection of interviews with these migrants. Probably, this methodology should be refined, but in this first phase of research, it was helpful in order to understand the existence of a criminal network that controls an…

Citizenship: participation and exclusion in early modern Europe

2011

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to discuss the most recent results of the historiographical works on the subject “how to become a citizen” within the European continent in the early modern period (sixteenth‐nineteenth centuries).Design/methodology/approachThe idea that citizenship status could not mark the difference between natives and immigrants on a geographical basis, as natives were entitled to it at various stages as well, stands out from the presentation of some case studies (the Republic of Venice, the Papal State, the Reign of Naples, France, Spain and Britain).FindingsIn many contexts, citizenship was rather the political recognition of social and economic integration of som…

The dark side of European immigration policy

2011

More than ten years after the Treaty of Amsterdam came into force and after the programmes of Tampere and Aia, the Stockholm Programme , adopted last December 2009 for the period 2010-2014, has settled for the third time the area of "justice, freedom and security" with which EU presents itself. In relation to the Immigration policy the Stockholm Programme seals the term of security. Now Europe considers its area as a territory that withdraws into itself, through a security logic that caused the disappearance of the traces of the "freedom area". In fact, as it was affirmed in Tampere, this area can't be considered as a mere prerogative of the European citizens. In the name of security, prote…

Measuring Seasonality: Performance of Accommodation Establishments in Sicily through the analysis of Occupancy Rates

2011

Tourism, more than other fields, needs to be managed. As such, the provision of reliable information and adequate tools is one of the major challenges to monitor and to manage tourism destinations. Sicily (Italy) seems to have a great potential coming from its tourism resources, and most of the recent development programs have been focused on tourism. In line with the world’s trend, tourism in Sicily faced a growth in terms of overnight stays, from about 9 millions in 1994, to more than 14 millions in 2007. The regional expenditure in tourism from 1996 to 2006 was of euro 785 millions (Federalberghi, 2007), which ranks Sicily as the second region in Italy for tourism expenditure, in the yea…

Support policy for the tourism business: a comparative case study in Spain

2009

It is now well known that service industries, and especially the tourism sector, significantly contribute to economic and social development in the European Union. Intrinsic to the growth of the tourism industry has been the public interventions that, directly or indirectly, have facilitated the development of this sector. In this context, this paper aims to contribute to the knowledge on the design and implementation process of support policies for tourism businesses in Spain, using institutional economics as the theoretical framework. Based on a comparative case study, the article shows that despite the relevance of the legal system, the most important factors for the promotion of the tou…

Continuities and Discontinuities in the Economic Growth of Spain. 1850-1936

1998

The Spanish pattern of economic growth during the last two centuries is quite unique. In the nineteenth century, Spain remained outside the process of industrialization, but during the twentieth century it has joined the small group of developed economies. This article checks the possible existence of discontinuities between 1850-1936 in the series of PNB, industrial production and private and public investment by utilizing recent developments in the econometric analysis associated with the work of Perron and Ziwot and Andrews. The results confirm the continuity of the Spanish growth during the long period considered. However, they also show two breakpoint years: 1870 in the series of indus…