Partecipazione politica e governo locale a Genova

The book focuses on political participation and administrative decentralization processes in Italian major cities, starting from the late ‘70s, when Law 278/76 paved the way to the institutionalization into the “Consigli di circoscrizione” of the spontaneous experience of local protest groups. Since then, the increasing crisis of mainstream politics and the development of globalization processes have opened new spaces between citizens and the political system, in which new forms of non conventional political actions, deeply different from the previous ones, have blossomed out. The four essays collected in the book deal with such issues in the specific urban context of the city of Genoa, in Northern Italy, and present the results of four researches, different with regard to the periods considered and the methodologies adopted. The first study focuses on the political output of the “Consigli di circoscrizione”, institutions of the communal decentralization system, in their very first period (1982-1986). The following one is set to thoroughly describe and comment all the results of the elections for such institutions since 1981. The third essay tries to summarize the processes of revitalization and development of the urban historical centre, one of the largest in Europe, launched in the last twenty years by both private and public actors. The final one presents the results of a research, carried out using qualitative techniques, aiming to understand the organizational and mobilization forms adopted by local protest groups active on environmental issues in the western districts of the city.