Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-2lccl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T19:03:40.937Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

When Patronage Meets Meritocracy: Or, The Italian Academic Concorso As Cockfight

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2012

David Moss
David Moss*
Affiliation:
School of Cultural Inquiry, The Australian National University, Canberra [dmoss26@gmail.com].
Get access

Abstract

For more than a century the processes of making academic appointments to Italian universities have regularly made news – bad news. The charges are serious: abuses of professorial power, collusion to fix outcomes in advance, favouritism to loyal followers, tolerance of mediocrity, indifference to scholarly merit. None of the many modifications to the selection rules between 1865 and 2010 has been reckoned effective in extirpating corruption and entrenching meritocracy. Drawing on participant observation of appointment processes in anthropology, I shall question the extent to which they do indeed represent a straightforward example of corruption. In particular, by considering both the formal rules and the academic community which has to use them to reproduce itself, I shall explore the possibility that the practices branded “corrupt” might more often be interpreted as efforts to reward merit rather than as conspiracies to flout it.

Keywords

PatronageMeritocracyCorruptionItalyPatronageMéritocracieCorruptionItaliePatronageLeistungsgesellschaftKorruptionItalien
Type
Research Articles
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , August 2012 , pp. 205 - 231
Copyright
Copyright © A.E.S. 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allesina, Stefano, 2011. “Measuring Nepotism through Shared Last Names: The Case of Italian Academia”, PLoS ONE 6 (8): e21160. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0021160.Google Scholar
Alliegro, Enzo V., 2011. Antropologia italiana. Storia e storiografia 1869-1975 (Firenze, seid Editori).Google Scholar
Canfora, Luciano, 2005. Il papiro di Dongo (Milano, Adelphi).Google Scholar
Checchi, Daniele, 1999. “Un posto a vita. Analisi di un concorso nazionale per un posto di seconda fascia”, Working Paper no.22, Dipartimento di Economia Politica, Università di Milano-Bicocca.Google Scholar
Cobalti, Antonio and Schizzerotto, Antonio, 1994. La mobilità sociale in Italia (Bologna, Il Mulino).Google Scholar
Durante, Ruben, Labartino, Giovanna and Perotti, Roberto, 2011. “Academic dynasties: decentralization and familism in the Italian academia”, nber Working Paper 17572, November.Google Scholar
Gardini, Nicola, 2009. I baroni. Come e perché sono fuggito dall’università italiana (Milan, Feltrinelli).Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford, 1982. “The Way We Think Now: Toward an Ethnography of Modern Thought”, Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 35 (5), pp. 14-34.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford, 1995. After the Fact: Two Countries, Four Decades, One Anthropologist (Cambridge, Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford, 2005 [1972]. “Deep play: notes on the Balinese cockfight”, Daedalus 134 (4), pp. 56-86.Google Scholar
Halsey, Albert H., 1992. Decline of Donnish Dominion (Oxford, Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
Halsey, Albert H. and Trow, Martin, 1971. The British Academics (London, Faber and Faber).Google Scholar
Jappelli, Tullio, 2002. “L’immobilità dei docenti universitari”, LaVoce. 10 September (available at:http://www.lavoce.info/articoli/pagina97-351.html).Google Scholar
Moretti, Mauro and Porciani, Ilaria, 1997. “Il reclutamento accademico in Italia. Uno sguardo retrospettivo”, Annali di Storia delle Università italiane, vol. 1, available online at: http://www.cisui.unibo.it/frame_annali.htmGoogle Scholar
Moscati, Roberto, Regini, Marino and Rostan, Michele, eds., 2010. Torri d’avorio in frantumi? Dove vanno le università europee (Bologna, Il Mulino).Google Scholar
Nelken, David, 2009. “Corruption as Governance? Law, Transparency and Appointment Procedures in Italian Universities” in Von Benda-Beckmann Franz, , Von Benda-Beckmann, Keebet and Eckert, Julia, eds., Rules of Law and Laws of Ruling (Farnham, Ashgate, pp. 257-277).Google Scholar
Palermo, Giulio, 2010. “Storia della cooptazione universitaria”, Quaderni storici, XLV (1), pp. 171-214.Google Scholar
Perotti, Roberto, 2002. “The Italian University System: Rules and Incentives”, Paper presented at the Conference Monitoring Italy, isae, Rome, revised version.Google Scholar
Perotti, Roberto, 2002-6. ‘Il bollettino dei concorsi’, igier – Università Bocconi, nos1-4.Google Scholar
Regini, Marino, ed., 2009. Malata e denigrata. L’università italiana a confronto con l’Europa (Roma, Donzelli).Google Scholar
Romanelli, Raffaele, 1990. “Giudizi e pregiudizi. I concorsi per ricercatore universitario di storia moderna e contemporanea” Quaderni Storici, n.s. 74, XXV (2), pp. 637-666.Google Scholar
Romanelli, Raffaele, 1991. “Giudizi e pregiudizi. Alcuni commenti in tema di concorsi per Ricercatori” Quaderni Storici, n.s. 76, XXVI, pp. 305-313.Google Scholar
Romanelli, Raffaele, 2000. “Il nuovo sistema di reclutamento nella nostra disciplina: un terremoto?”, Annali sissco, 1, pp. 1-9.Google Scholar
Schneider, David M., 1995. Schneider on Schneider. The Conversion of the Jews and Other Anthropological Stories (Durham, Duke University Press).Google Scholar
Simone, Raffaele, 2000. L’università dei tre tradimenti (Bari, Laterza).Google Scholar
Viazzo, Pier Paolo, 2008. “Anthropology and Ethnology in Italy: A Preliminary Report”, paper presented at the international conference Anthropology in Spain and Europe. Facing the Challenges of European Convergence in Higher Education and in Research: A Review of the Fields of Socio-Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Madrid-September.Google Scholar