Filippo Sabetti

People the world over aspire to self-rule, especially when living under domination, conquest, and empire. Inspired by the work of Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom, Filippo Sabetti explores how people attempt, over time, to make the longing for self-government a reality.Struggles for Self-Rule explores key moments in Italian history through a comparative perspective – from the city republics to the challenge of self-rule in France, Spain, and Catalonia – to study the circumstances in which people are able to take control of decisions that affect their lives and to what extent. Sabetti shows the wealth of the human experience of self-rule when we shift the focus of research from the government to the governance of public affairs.Traversing history, philosophy, comparative politics, and sociology, Struggles for Self-Rule takes the reader on a renaissance tour of the history of ideas and self-government that resonates in today’s world, when many communities struggle to shape the decisions that affect their lives.

Civilization and Self-Government is the first systematic attempt to explicitly articulate the key elements of Carlo Cattaneo's pioneering attempt to advance freedom and self-government in nineteenth-century Europe. His public science combined two elements that constitute the two parts of this book: the study of incivilimento, and the art and science of self-governance. Cattaneo argued that people have to learn the arts of incivilimento before they can practice self-governance. Though a distinguishing feature of Italian political thought has been to stress the multiform nature of political rule, it was Cattaneo who first showed that it was possible, through a federal commercial republic, to harmonize and foster liberty, equality, and heterogeneity. Characteristically, he envisioned a federal commercial republic for Europe as well. Cattaneo's ideas recast, enrich, and broaden knowledge of the history of European thought beyond that generally available in English and French.This book reveals a strong affinity between Cattaneo's and Tocqueville's spirit and vision.

Civilization and Self-Government is the first systematic attempt to explicitly articulate the key elements of Carlo Cattaneo's pioneering attempt to advance freedom and self-government in nineteenth-century Europe. His public science combined two elements that constitute the two parts of this book: the study of incivilimento, and the art and science of self-governance. Cattaneo argued that people have to learn the arts of incivilimento before they can practice self-governance. Though a distinguishing feature of Italian political thought has been to stress the multiform nature of political rule, it was Cattaneo who first showed that it was possible, through a federal commercial republic, to harmonize and foster liberty, equality, and heterogeneity. Characteristically, he envisioned a federal commercial republic for Europe as well. Cattaneo's ideas recast, enrich, and broaden knowledge of the history of European thought beyond that generally available in English and French.This book reveals a strong affinity between Cattaneo's and Tocqueville's spirit and vision.

He suggests that the mafia emerged only in some parts of Sicily and was never a single overarching criminal organization. It arose, in fact, from a self-help tradition that eventually became corrupted and ultimately a burden on most villagers - land workers and proprietors alike. The local antimafia forces also became a drain on village life and by the middle of the 1950s both the mafia and the antimafia, far from destroying one another, had vanquished themselves. The first study to extend rational choice institutionalism to Italian history and politics, Village Politics and the Mafia in Sicily offers an in-depth analysis of the impact of the abolition of feudalism in 1812, the unification of Italy in 1860, and subsequent regime changes on village politics in Sicily. Sabetti details the emergence, evolution, and collapse of a local mafia and antimafia in a historical, "before-after," perspective. Refocusing the study of village politics and the mafia, he also suggests what can happen when those acting for the state regard ordinary people as passive voices in the game of life.

In this work, Filippo Sabetti examines Italian politics to reassess habitual presumptions in comparative politics, opening territory in the art and science of institutional analysis.

Reprinted with a new introduction, from the winter 1984 issue of PUBLIUS, these 17 articles represent an attempt to assess the state of the Canadian federal system, especially in the wake of the patriation of the Constitution in 1982. While assessments of Canadian political life are certainly not novel, the contributors to this volume examine Canadian Federalism in a broad context while addressing theoretical issues. Co-published with the Center for the Study of Federalism.