This article discusses changes to political clientelism and forms of urban government in Naples and in Marseilles in the period from the 1960s to the 2000s. From a socio-historical, comparative perspective I show that, even in two Southern European cities, the expansion of political clientelism does not depend principally on cultural factors, but rather on politico-institutional processes. The generalization of clientelistic relationships and the increase in policies for redistributing resources on the basis of clientelistic criteria go hand in hand with two historical trends that were evident in the 1960s and 1970s. Those decades were a period both of demographic development and of welfare state expansion at both central and local levels, the latter leading to the distribution of public resources to growing masses of individuals and social groups. In this phase, clientelistic redistribution policies promoted the integration and the upward social mobility of sections of the middle classes and some strata of the working classes in the local and national political system. From the late 1970s and early 1980s onwards, however, these policies were less and less able to promote this upward mobility and social integration. The article ends with a favourable account of some of the new urban management policies conducted by new political leaderships. Copyright (c) 2007 The Author. Journal Compilation (c) 2007 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd..

Mutations des ressources clientélaires et construction des notabilités politiques à Marseille Cesare Mattina A Marseille, la distribution des ressources publiques, en particulier des emplois municipaux et des logements sociaux entre les années 1960 et 1980, à travers des canaux familiaux et clientélaires, a représenté un véritable facteur de régulation politique et sociale de la ville. Cependant le rétrécissement de ces ressources dans les deux dernières décennies a fortement remis en question les mécanismes de régulation sociale à travers la redistribution clientélaire des ressources. Les processus et les parcours de notabilisation des hommes politiques en ont été par conséquent affectés. L'incapacité (ou la moindre efficacité) à répondre aux demandes incessantes des électeurs en termes de services et de faveurs personnels a fini par amoindrir le prestige notabiliaire. Le rôle et la fonction de médiation symbolique du notable ont donc pris une plus grande importance.

This paper investigates the impact of the new Italian local electoral law (81/93) on local politics and gouvernement. Naples and left-wing mayor Antonio Bassolino have been chosen as our case-study because he has been the most popular mayor of this new local experiment and his terms in office have been analysed as "exemplary experience" which can have general conclusions for the whole of the local government debate. We study, in particular, the impact of his election by direct suffrage in 1993 and 1997 on two areas of political life: the relationship between the Mayor and the traditional political parties and the public policy-making process. We come to the conclusion that even if this reform has not introduced any real change in terms of quality and efficiency in decision-making, it has produced in Naples a new form of personnalisation of politics, of political behaviour and of public policy-making "symbolic politics".

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