Last year was particularly dismal for the Società Italiana di Scienza Politica (SISP): its President Pietro Grilli di Cortona died in July 2015. His contribution as SISP President and Scholar will be remembered for a long time. For this reason, the Steering Committee of the Association decided to entitle to Pietro Grilli di Cortona the prize for the best book written by a Scholar less than 40 years old. The University of Roma 3, where Pietro Grilli di Cortona was based, dedicated to our past president the Library of Political Studies in December 2015.
Pierangelo Isernia took the responsibility to lead the Association in a particularly difficult moment. During his function as pro-tempore President, Pierangelo Isernia contributed to organize the process of election of the new SISP president. The SISP General Assembly, convened on 11 September at the University of Calabria, identified the new President in Simona Piattoni, from the University of Trento. Simona Piattoni will fill the president post until September 2018.
As every year, the annual conference was the main activity organized by SISP. In 2015, this important event was hosted by the University of Calabria at Cosenza. Section and panel chairs organized about 43 panels related to numerous different fields of political science. About 220 paper-givers had the opportunity to discuss their papers with younger and senior colleagues from Italy and abroad. Particularly, conspicuous (albeit related to very interesting topics) was the number of scientific events and seminars organized by the local conveners. In two different plenary sessions, Maurizio Ferrera and Leonardo Morlino discussed about the economic crisis and its political consequences, while Daniela Piana and Francesco Raniolo stimulated Carlo Trigilia about his experience as national Ministry. In two other events, Alessandro Campi and Stefano De Luca discussed their book titled ‘Il realismo politico. Temi, figure e prospettive di ricerca’, while Gianfranco Pasquino presented his last volume ‘Partiti, istituzioni, democrazie’. Two roundtables were finally proposed. The first one was dedicated to the relations between mafia, politics, and corruption with Luciano Brancaccio, Vittorio Martone, Alberto Vannucci, and Marisa Manzini. Roberto Cartocci, Emanuele Felice, Fortunata Piselli, and Gianfranco Viesti animated the second roundtable entitled ‘Southern Italy between crisis and opportunities’.
The next annual conference will be organized in Milano, at the Università Statale, from 15 to 17 September 2016.
