Italy represents, in most respects, an ideal-type for the presidentialization of the political system: the role of individual leaders has been greatly enhanced vis-à-vis their parties, while they have simultaneously gained a stronger hold over the executive branch of the state through the growing autonomy of the Prime Minister’s office and the exercise of an increasingly monocratic form of rule. Presidentialization has also deeply affected the electoral process: campaign style, media focus, and voting behaviour have all come to reflect an increasingly personalized form of leadership. Among the major causes of presidentialization, two—the internationalization of politics and the growth of the state—refer to general trends common to most industrial democracies. Thus, the presidentialization of the Italian political system must be seen, at least in part, as a response to the growing demands laid upon the political executive by the changing role of the state, both domestically and internationally. However, in order to account for the momentous and rapid nature of change in Italy, one needs to focus primarily upon the critical role played by the other two factors: the erosion of traditional social cleavage politics and the mediatization of politics.

IntroduzioneAfter sharing, through its various steps of evolution, the form and status of a corporate body, the party organization is falling prey to the virus of personalization, which is invading so many realms of contemporary life. Italy provides the clearest example of this cross-national trend with Silvio Berlusconi’s personal party. As a media tycoon and one of the wealthiest men in the world, Berlusconi could rely on a skilled professional apparatus as well as on huge financial means to set up, in a few months, a vote-generating machine and become a Prime Minister. His party model has been widely imitated, by both center-right and center-left organizations, with variations and deviations. This article presents an overview of the development of personal parties in Italy and an analytical framework based on Max Weber’s types of personal power.

Abstract\ud In this article, we present an overview of the major changes occurring in electronic publishing, with a focus on open access. We shall argue that the notion itself of publication is undergoing a deep transformation, as it is no longer the monopoly of a limited number of specialised companies and institutions, but, through the web, it has become an option available to an infinite number of collective and individual actors

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