Volume 1 (2018): Edition 1 (November 2018)

This is a work between a very short introduction and handbook to understand what diplomacy is and to study it. The author introduces diplomacy to start form historical perspective and to provide significant examples to illustrate the art of diplomacy in action. Diplomacy has evolved greatly, coming to mean diverse things, to different persons, at several time, reaching from the sophisticated to inelegant and ordinary. this paper presents the first attempts to measure student learning quantitatively by administering a pre-test, post-test survey supplemented by a glossary of diplomatic terms.

“Ostalgie” is coming from a German word referring to nostalgia for aspects of life in East Germany, and not only. It is a new multipurpose and new expression related the German terms “Nostalgie” (nostalgia in Italian) and Ost (East). Its anglicised equivalent, ostalgia, it is rhyming with “nostalgia” and it is also sometimes used. The collapse of Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall destruction, was the concept protected concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from ‘61 to ’89, It especially divided West and East European countries, the wall cut off West Berlin from almost all of surrounding East Germany and East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989. Formally its demolition began on 13 June 1990 and finished in 1992 and coincides in some generation from the Warsaw Pact countries, legally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation with the “Mutual Assistance” URSS of the birth of “ostalgie”, that it goes against with modern principle of multicultural society and globalisation of the world. At the eighth congress of the communist party Lenin recognized the right to self-determination of the populations of the empire and promised them significant concessions, although its final intent was to reach the true dictatorship of the proletariat which would have rendered the ethnic-national distinctions useless. The Soviet Union became the incubator of new nations with the dissolving of the Russian nation in the Soviet state. Does the “ostalgie” refer to the USSR, is this compatible with multiculturalism? Is it compatible with that plurality of tending different cultures that coexists in mutual respect and which implies the preservation of their specific traits by rejecting any type of homologation or fusion in the dominant culture?

Migration flows are part of human history. The process of globalization, if on the one hand it seems to favour the movement of human beings, on the other hand it is creating the conditions for the recovery of migratory flows, especially within some areas of the world and, in part, directed towards advanced development countries. This creates problems of acceptance on the part of the host with respect to the customs and habits of the guest. Resistance to reception, used for political ends by populist parties, has deep roots that have to do with psychological and social factors: defence mechanisms, stereotypes and prejudices. The article stresses the importance of training in overcoming these obstacles to building a society that is first multicultural and then intercultural.

With the incremented mass movement the society is in a significant transformation, this fact can be a risk for social unrest. Demographic evolution and change of the society stress the challenges for the institutions. The school represent one of the institutions where future citizens are educated and formed. The classroom is a mirror of the society in change. Today the school is a place of meeting of different cultures; we have more and more multicultural classes with pupils from different countries. The proposed work will analyse how intercultural education can influence the risk of social unrest and improve social contentment. In particular, will be stressed the concept of how the education of intercultural competences can allow the future adults to participate in a constructive and effective way to social and professional life.

Method: empirical analysis of literature and research done in the field of intercultural education analysis of the current situation through the ecological model of Brofenbrenner with a specific focus on micro and mesosystem and correlation between all ecosystems.

The phenomenon of migration has always existed during the history of man since the beginning of time, just think of the history of the diaspora of the Jewish people until the great migrations of the nineteenth century which involved several European peoples, including Italians, Germans, Poles, and non-Europeans, such as the Japanese, heading to North or South America.

This article, using official sources provided by IOM, UNHCR and other accredited international statistical sources, aims to offer a critical reflection about the motivations, routes and paths of migrants outside and inside Africa, showing that only a small part of them reach Europe.

In fact, the first attractive centre for internal migration is Côte d’Ivoire, one of the countries, together with Nigeria, which is the driving force behind the sparsely populated economy of West Africa, rich in agricultural raw materials (starting with cocoa and coffee).

Finally, particular attention is given to the Italian case because is the geographical area most affected by the landings of migrants. In fact, hostility towards migrants in Italy at the end of last year was on the increase: one Italian in two said he considered immigrants a danger and was afraid of it.

Planetary interdependence makes the task of states and international organizations to guarantee security inside and outside national borders ever more urgent. The tendency is to widen the space from national to international and to conceive of security as multidimensional for the satisfaction of human needs, assumed as priority needs with respect to those of the States. The old concept of national security must today confront the new concept of human security cultivated within the United Nations, which places the fundamental rights of the individual and of people at the centre of attention and lays the foundations for overcoming the traditional politics of power.

The concept of human security emphasises the security of the individual and his protection from political violence, war and arbitrariness. It takes account of the strong correlation between peace policy, human rights policy, migration policy and humanitarian policy.

The contribution provides, through a series of social indicators such as the Global Peace Index (GPI), Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) and the World International Security and Policy Index (WISPI), a framework on risk, security, human rights violations in the African continent and examines some significant case studies related to sub-Saharan Africa.

Aim: A massive flood due to exceptional rainfalls devastated the town of Genoa on 9 October 2014. Media reports focused on the disaster, its causes and the political accountabilities. Reading facts after the event is commonly biased by the hindsight perspective and the aim of the paper is to investigate the amount and the potential effects of hindsight bias in terms of citizens risk perception and community resilience.

Method: We performed a qualitative analysis of the narratives in the national and local news reports during the aftermath to investigate occurrences of a blaming attitude and cognitive biases.

Results: The results showed a considerable amount of sentences that were focused on blaming the forecasters, the Civil Protection System, and the local administration. Many narratives were affected by hindsight bias and described the events as simple and linear chain reactions. This led to counterfactual biases, assuming that a simple intervention on a single factor could have prevented the tragic outcome.

Conclusion: We claim that the biased nature of the media narratives could affect the citizens’ risk perception and their attitude towards the institutions, increasing their exposure to future flood-related threats. We propose the appropriate language would generate correct cognitive frames and, therefore, safer behaviour.

Over the past twenty years, the principles of ‘full-cost recovery’ and ‘the user pays’ have become prominent in water utility pricing across the EU. At the same time, uniform pricing has been introduced by local authorities to boost equality between users in a given territory. Two case studies in France and Italy reveal different processes, depending upon the institutional setting, though in both cases EU regulations exert increasing influence on the water pricing structure. A literature review and study of specific documentation was used to prepare about thirty semi-directive interviews with public owners, private firms, and users’ organizations, all conducted face-to-face. The overview presented here has highlighted several trends common to the two case studies, France and Italy, in line with the EU standardization of water pricing structures. The differences arise from different national regulations and territorial models. Local congruence in pricing clearly accompanies reinforced cooperation between municipalities, promoting the legitimacy and visibility of public authorities but inducing complex economic mechanisms such as cross-subsidies and amendments to delegation agreements.