Don’t Panic! How Italian municipalists tackled COVID-19
The deadly outbreak of COVID-19 in Italy marked a turning point in the global conversation about the pandemic. When the disease first emerged and spread throughout China, people in powerful western countries found it easy to dismiss the threat. But by late February, news of…
Neomunicipalism in Naples
Napoli’s neomunicipal experience began in 2011. Mayor Luigi de Magistris was re-elected for a second five-year term in 2016. He and the coalition (of which I, as a city councillor, am a member) are still governing Italy’s third biggest city (after Rome and Milan) and…
Italian municipalism: patterns, missed opportunities and the way forward
Over the previous few years, a number of Italian cities have experienced the rise of ‘new municipalist’ platforms. The achievements of these platforms are many and significant, but also substantially similar to those made by other municipalist-based local governments around Europe. Municipalist movements made it…