All advanced industrialized societies face the problem of air pollution produced by motor vehicles. In spite of striking improvements in internal combustion engine technology, air pollution in most urban areas is still measured at levels determined to be harmful to human health. Throughout the...

In this paper, we empirically investigate a channel through which social capital may improve economic wellbeing and the functioning of institutions: political accountability. The main idea is that voters who share norms of generalized morality demand higher standards of behavior on their elected...

Why do some foreign nationalities seem to have entrepreneurial initiatives and others don’t? Why do certain foreign communities tend to build an ethnic economy, and others melt in the economy of the reception country? The analysis made so far of the modes of incorporation of the different...

This paper discusses the concept of toleration as it has been manifested in modern society through two contrasting processes—the prevalence of group identity, and the prevalence of identity defined according to citizenship and individual rights. Referring primarily to the work of political...

This report constitutes the first deliverable of the project ENGIME – Economic Growth and Innovation in Multicultural Environments, financed by the European Commission – FP5 – Key Action: Improving socio-economic knowledge base. Contract HPSE-CT2001-50007

This paper reviews the experience of Rome in dealing with the challenges posed by a multi-ethnic society. A central feature of the local political strategy is the “Pact of Integration”. The adoption of the Pact proposes governance as a model of participation including many actors, namely...

Our daily lives are governed by products and images originating from all over the world, through the process of globalization. At the same time, however, globalization creates favourable conditions for all forms of particularization, localization and even fragmentation. While individuals and...

This paper deals with a comparison of two governmental initiatives in the direction of immigrants – the Mayor’s Office of New Bostonians (Boston, 1998) and Conseil de la Citoyenneté des Parisiens Non-Communautaires (Paris, 2001). In both cities, local political leaders justify their...

This paper describes how individuals and groups who had crossed ‘physical, national boundaries’, and who live in a different social context make sense of their lives make sense of their lives by re-constructing their identities - of the sense of who they are, and who they want to be, which...

Ethnic networks constitute an important component of immigrants’ integration in their host societies. This has been a particularly important strategy in Italy, where institutional assistance for immigrants is often paltry and problematic. This paper examines three ethnic communities in Italy...