We did it well enough. Systemic reforms, changes in recruitment procedures, and the evolution of Italian political science

Abstract

Italian political science has been evolving over time dealing with various reforms and changes in the structure of academic career and procedures for recruitment that have characterized the last decades of the Italian university system. This paper reflects on how these  changes have challenged the foundational identity of Italian political science and how they have influenced its development as a community of scholars. It emerges that at least three relevant dynamics emerge:    the shift from a national and centralized community to  a set of  “glocal” networks of scholars; the capacity to perform relatively well, from a qualitative point of view; the risk that the capacity to reproduce the discipline identity, or at least its foundational core, could be significantly weakened.