RISULTATI RICERCA

The Kosovo experience has been a positive one, especially form the standpoint of the protection of the Albanian minority from the onslaught of the Serbian para-military forces. Unfortunately, the period following the armed intervention of the international community is not such as to allow a similar favorable judgment. In fact, the situation is now the reverse of the past one, in the sense that the most suffering minority now seems to be the Serbian. Abeille gives us a complete picture of the situation, including a detailed description of the forces and institutions designed to restore the normality within this harassed area of Europe.

D’Auria analyzes an important and relatively recent phenomenon in the field of international conflicts: the rise and development of the Contractors. Such Security (and Logistical) personnel is hired, generally on a Corporate Provider basis, by public bodies (both Military and Civilian), as well as by private concerns. The objective is to protect their people, facilities, transportation, communication systems, etc., by the attack of non-conventional military forces and/or by terrorists and/or malefactors, on a single or group basis. The problems connected with this growing field of activity are many, and difficult to solve. D’Auria highlights the most relevant among them.

La Bella has made a comparative study of Ombudsmen in Italy (Difensore civico) and in France (Médiateur de la Republique and Délegués). He analyzes in deep the situation in the two countries from a historic, institutional and attitudal perspective. From a series of interviews conducted by the Author in Italy with a group of Difensori Civici, and in France with a comparable group of Délegués du Médiateur de la Republique, the Author has drawn some interesting considerations. The most important differences between the Italians and the French Ombudsmen seem to be found in the diversity of the institutional frameworks and of their backgrounds (more legalistic oriented, in the case of Italians), and in their self-perception of the role, seen as less political by the French, compared to the Italians.

The Authors describe the results of their empirical inquiry in a specific case of information utilization for decision-making within five Italian Universities. Four macro areas have been analyzed: Resources, Teaching, Research and Financial Management. Wide differences have been ascertained by the Authors, not only among the five Universities, but also within each one of them for the above mentioned macro-areas. In some cases informations needed for decision-making were not available; in other cases, they were not even requested by the decision-makers. Generally speaking, the information base seems to be more narrow in those Universities whose decision-making structure is more centralized and open to negotiation. Besides, the decision-makers in those institutions tend to decide on the basis of their own strategies, and to avoid an external confrontation with other Universities, as well as with the National Government.

Bruno Leuzzi analyzes in this article the changes achieved in the most recent period by EU in the complex and very important field of the European Funds (both Structural Funds and Objective 1), which are especially relevant for all Southern Regions of Italy. Those changes are having important consequences on the activity, as well as on the configuration of the administrative institutions (both at the central and local level) and for the very constitutional future of the Member States. Said changes began with the European Act of 1986, which established the policy of cohesion, and of a process of restructuration of both contents and methods of the whole specter of the European policies, as well as of the institutions, at the European and Member States level.