9:00-10:45

PANEL III

LEGISLATIVE EXPANSION, CITIZENSHIP AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Panel Chair: RUDY AERNOUDT, University of Ghent and University of Nancy

The success of sustainable development (in terms on economic, social, and ecologic dimensions) largely depends on the evolution of a four dimensions helix: legislation, demography, technology, and development itself. This panel deals with this helix and its observation perspective is the expansion of the legislative function in a supranational dimension, and how this expansion is most viable using the shape of citizenship expansion. Resuming in a question: How is it possible in terms of World Order Policy Modeling (WOPM)? The complex systems approach in political and social sciences had some dramatic paradigm shifts since the late 1970s, from the whole/part obsolete one to the system/environment one and then to the autopoiesis one up to taking the current shape of complex, intangible constellation emerging by meaning and symbol interconnections which model the helix. In this sense, the premise of the approach of this panel lies on the complexity theory perspective once the obsolete perspective of social science is not able to provide theoretical e practical tools capable to cope the four dimensions helix in their complexity. For instance, let’s consider as a case the European Commission initiative on the Economics of Industrial Research and Innovation. The initiative is focused on three goals: 

1. competitiveness of European industries;

2. innovation as a driver of industrial competitiveness; 

3. support to the Green Deal Policy Agenda (green complexity). 

The first two goals become much easier to attain until the EU corrects some policy modeling mistakes in its own design: some functions are supranational (like the European Commission or the Supreme Court) some others are still old fashion intergovernmental (the Council of the Ministries, the European Parliament) and intergovernmental still means Europe of the nations. This balance between supranational and intergovernmental is paralyzing. Moreover, the Europe of nations is already a failed solution of the past which is exactly the institutional interaction which lead to WWII. Innovation requires complexity, requires investments, requires openings to the possible (Gegnet) otherwise innovation becomes a mere rhetorical word concealing entropic, inflated, slow incrementality. 

Evolving citizenship into Hypercitizenship, for example, could be a viable directive to facilitate the three goals above. Hypercitizenship belongs to the very roots of complex system thinking and allows to observe the global world order, its functions and operational units letting become visible what usually remains invisible to common sense politics and public opinion and, consequently, for the legislative´s initiatives in a supranational dimension. Considering that, the proposal of this panel is that the legislative function could, or even should, consider the premises of Hypercitizenship as a complex foot path to better approach the four dimensions of the helix, to promote sustainable development. Therefore, this panel welcomes researchers that addresses the legislative expansion considering both the sustainable development and complexity, this last one according the Hypercitizenship model. 

III.1) DIMITRY KOCHENOV, CEU – Budapest

Citizenship is Totalitarian

Abstract:

I intend to offer a critical introduction to Citizenship, a subject most often regarded uncritically. Citizenship’s totalitarian nature emerges from a nuanced and detailed description of what citizenship is, what it entails, how it came about, and how its role in the world has been changing. I shall in particular focus on the examination of four key elements of the concept: status, considering how and why the status of citizenship is extended, what function it serves, and who is left behind; rights, particularly the right to live and work in a state; duties, and what it means to be a “good citizen”; and politics, as enacted in the granting and enjoyment of citizenship. Citizenship promises to apply the attractive ideas of dignity, equality, and human worth — but to strictly separated groups of individuals. Those outside the separation aren’t citizens as currently understood, and they do not belong. Citizenship is too often a legal tool that justifies violence, humiliation, and exclusion.

III.2) PIERO DOMINICI, WCSA Vice-president, WAAS Fellow and University of Perugia

The Law is not Enough! Complexity Education for Systemic Change and Sustainable Development

Abstract:

As I have argued for many years (1996), the concept of citizenship has lost its former raison d’être: today it is only partially linked to the rights and duties of an individual belonging to a local, national or international community, and risks being transformed into a merely legal or judicial construct. New social and cultural inequalities and asymmetries have arisen and are by now deeply rooted within our modern democracies. Thus, when we ponder the proposal of global governance, what we need to ask ourselves is whether global citizenship can become reality or if it is simply another illusion. A further point for reflection is that the global context is one in which the political systems of the nation states have become less and less relevant, with many modern democracies on the verge of becoming “handmaidens” to the economic power system. Thus there are two critical dangers facing the future citizens of the digitally hyper-connected ‘global village’: simulation of participation and the illusion of having a less asymmetrical relationship to power. Today the rules of engagement are being written by the institutions that produce, distribute and share knowledge, rather than the legislators. However, these institutions are no longer teaching critical thinking, no longer providing the instruments for identifying or analyzing correlations and connections, no longer carrying out their functions as social elevators for our youth, no longer teaching students to understand the basic rights and responsibilities of a participatory citizenry. In any case, the dimension of citizenship, global or otherwise, is intimately correlated to the access to, and the quality of, education and training, because citizenship is education, democracy is education, and democracy is complexity (1995). A systemic change demands systemic strategies and actions, which must be based on a multi/inter/trans-disciplinary method and a radical reformulation of education and training, at the core of any kind of social transformation. True systemic change, it must be clear, like all “emergent properties” arising in complex systems, must hail from grassroots communities, and can never be applied through top-down impositions. Without rethinking education and training, in fact, without raising the qualitative standards of educational processes, this phase of such radical transition and change is destined to remain an extraordinary opportunity solely for elites and for the few. Especially considering that, as appears obvious in this hypertechnological civilization, aside from a renewed focus on rules and rights, what is needed is critical thinking (and a method), along with a systemic approach to complexity.

III.3) RUDY AERNOUDT, University of Ghent and University of Nancy

Reshoring: a Real Option for Sustainable Development? 

Abstract:

Labour costs in Asian countries have increased rapidly the last decennia. Logistics have become very costly. Environmental awareness and sustainability issues have become more and more critical for companies producing in low-cost countries; countries that do not (always) have the same environmental and social conditions as the countries where the products are consumed. With the consumer now a major stakeholder, the attractiveness of production under such conditions loses appeal. This consumer and producer awareness has increased due to Mr. Covid. Indeed, both consumers and producers are wondering why a lot of products are produced on the other side of the world although there is a local production capacity. At the same time the COVID-crisis created awareness of Europe’s overdependence for strategic goods. How was it possible for instance that former major textile producing countries were incapable to produce facial masks? This was a real eye-opener for many. Moreover, production conditions change drastically at the ‘old continent’: digitalisation and robotisation have led to a significant productivity increase (up to 60%) hence reducing the relative share and cost of labour in the total cost of production and giving a relatively higher weight to the costs of logistics. The single market strategy, the digital agenda, the capital market union, and the energy union will further impact conditions enabling and facilitating economic growth and job creation and create conditions for the development and reshoring of industry. And indeed, the tendency of offshoring seems to be on its way back, literally. In several cases, the rise in the cost of labour along with the hidden costs of offshoring starts to outweigh the competitive advantages that delocalisation used to yield. All these factors mean that in many cases the total cost of operation (TCO) of delocalisation increases and that offshoring is no longer the best choice. Therefore, reshoring could become a real option for a lot of delocalised companies and accelerating reshoring should be on top of the political sustainability agenda given its economic, environmental, and social benefits.

III.4) GUGLIELMO CHIODI, President of NOVA ACADEMIA

On the Annihilation of Critical Thought in Economics 

Abstract:

The present paper proposal is essentially concerned with the annihilation of critical thought in Economics which, in the opinion of the writer, has been uninterruptedly perpetrated over the last century, and still continues to be perpetrated up to date.The hidden, slow-growing process of annihilation referred to now has been accompanied and fully supported by the emergence of a dominant market-centred paradigm, incessantly opposed to any alternative one. That process of annihilation can retrospectively be looked at as a ̒sexy̕̕ trend, for it greatly helped gain widespread consensus to the neoliberal economic theories, notwithstanding the deep and long-persistent crises suffered by several countries worldwide, most of the time due to policies inspired by those theories and stubbornly pursued until recently. It is the writer̕ s firm belief that the annihilation of critical thought in Economics, coupled with the cultural hegemony of a market-centred paradigm, can be count among the causes ultimately responsible of the silent transformation of formal democracy into a subtle and imperceptible real subjection of the citizens to an unknowable power. The paper will try to reconstruct the most salient and characterizing tracts of that process, as well as the main steps through which it took place and developed. In so doing, the supposed reasons behind the widespread consensus which the market-centred economic theory has gathered so far will properly be stressed and brought to the fore. Some hints at an alternative to that state of affairs will also be given.

 

10:45-11:00 

Q&A PANEL 3 

 

11:00-11:15

Coffee break

 

11:15-12:00 

KEYNOTE SPEECH 4

JUNHUA ZHANG, European Institute for Asian Studies, Berlin

Misperceptions regarding China’s climate policy.

Abstract:

There are lots of misperceptions regarding China’s climate policy. 

One of them is that authoritarian regime is usually unwilling to pursue a green policy in economy and everyday life. This view represents the position as if emission reduction and green economy were inherent in democracy. The other sounds as follows: It is unfair that the Western capitalist countries has shifted dirty production thus pollution to China and then blame China of not caring about environment while getting clean products in their own countries. 

In my speech I will falsify the first argument and provide a more differentiated picture of what reality is regarding the second argument. In order to do so, a brief historical overview on the transformation in China’s climate politics is required. China has witnessed a transition from its severe hostility toward global climate debate to an opportunistic approach in dealing with climate issues, and further to a proactive, ambitious planning and undertaking. It is fair to say that China has designed its climate policy not directly out of the intention to get the temperature under 2.0 or 1.5 degree. Instead, China has turned out to be a single country which successfully and sophisticatedly has combined the climate politics with business, which is not fully incorrect. I will name two sectors as an example for the above argument: the e-vehicles, the solar and wind energy. Nevertheless, I will highlight why China has set its climate goal in terms of carbon neutrality instead of carbon net zero – like India did at COP 26. 

By providing a clear picture of what China has done and is doing in green policy I will present a trajectory on which China will develop in future. My concluding remark is: China is a source of climate problems and it is also a solution to the global climate warming.

 

12:00-12:15 

Q&A KEYNOTE SPEECH 4 

 

12:15-13:00 

KEYNOTE SPEECH 5

DIMITRY KOCHENOV, CEU, Budapest

Ending Passport Apartheid 

My contribution is an attempt to answer the question what is to come in citizenship’s place, once the concept is gone. The answer proposed is: ‘the next step from citizenship is no citizenship’. The contribution focuses on the unacceptability of the passport apartheid in the contemporary world and is a reply to the critics of my little book entitled Citizenship (MIT Press, 2019), who contributed to a mini-symposium dedicated to the book in the pages of the International Journal of Constitutional Law I•CON (2020).

 

13:00-13:15

Q&A KEYNOTE SPEECH 5  

 

13:15-14:15 

LUNCH BREAK

 

14:15-15:30

Outstanding Life Career Award Ceremony

Chair: Piero Dominici, WCSA Vice-president, WAAS Fellow and University of Perugia

 

14:15-14:30

Chair’s introduction to the Medalist EDGAR MORIN

 

14:30-15:15

Medalist’s EDGAR MORIN’s Keynote speech

 

15:15-15:30

Q&A and Medal Delivery

 

15:30-15:45

Coffee break

 

15:45-17:15

PANEL IV

OVER THE KPI’S – NOT ONLY DATA

Panel Chair: Piero Dominici, WCSA Vice-President, WAAS Fellow and University of Perugia and SILVIA BERNARDINI, Innovation Project Specialist – Sky Walker SRL

Abstract:

Does the full consideration of all that is not measurable (even if it has an impact on what’s measurable), add or remove complexity to the company system? The macro-area refers to the complexity of business management, under the point of view of the growing up of the company staff. The goal is to define a new kind of management of unmeasurability instead of controlling all those context elements that obviously answered only to simple logics (as i.e.: more efficiency = more production). Context: It is as if there were a dichotomy between those who move on the number (capitalocene) and those who move on the person (anthropocene): the number is the determining economic factor that allows man to evaluate / measure everything that happens (Business), but business is also the result of different things, which seem to have to do nothing or very little with the number.

What do you need beyond the number? We try to consider not only the measurable aspects but also the human and relational aspects (aggregation, business climate, engagement and involvement of people around goals that are not necessarily economic): are we the only ones who pose the problem? How can we consider these aspects not measurable in a context that try to control them before managing them? Does it make sense to seek a point of balance or do we need to operate a radical choice for one or the other aspect? The goal is to collect active testimonies of everything that wants to manage / “measure” / highlight the non-measurable as an additional element of the simple (economic) business logics, which impacts on the complexity of the system, but which perhaps unravels the rigidities based on schematizations and devices (devices that respond to algorithms that are too artificial and not really human oriented). The expectation is that the search for such tools and methodologies (whether they flow into devices or other types of instruments) will shift the focus from the speculative theoretical level to the application level to business needs, thus bringing university and company, theory and practice closer together. The need to make new forms of intelligent business must necessarily imply the well-being of people, regardless of the forms of economic-financial measurement, that’s typical of the business. Our aim is to find the correct balance between the potential expressed by technology and the centrality of human brains.

IV.1) SAMUEL CODEGONI, Project Manager – Sky Walker SRL

Over the KPI

Abstract:

The relationship between the human being and the context in which it belongs is increasingly addressed in all its complexity.

This does not imply that this relationship is necessarily more complex than it was previously, but it certainly appears as such.

We all agree that the real challenge is not the acquisition of information and data, increasingly abundant and increasingly refined, but the selection and interpretation of them.

Likewise, in the field of business management it is not only the number that is important, but both the understanding of it and what goes beyond the number itself are fundamental.

In this paper, introducing the general theme of the panel, we present our considerations, together with the results and the methodology adopted, referred to a research developed by Skywalker through the last year (“Over the KPI’s”), based on the analysis of the impact of training resources, both at a measurable and a non-measurable level.

We confirm the evidence that the reference organization benefits on different levels.

Resources grow in knowledge and skills, while organizational learning evolves and the whole system benefits from it, giving valuable results in terms of business performance.

The profits are also revealed in different time horizons.

There are immediate returns on people’s awareness and knowlegde, subsequent repercussions on their behaviour, and finally numerical benefits.

The growth of the individual must be considered as an active and integral part of the growth of the system, which evolves and manages to keep the level in spite of big and quick changement and turnover.

In the analysis of the issue, a compass is essential, to ensure that the huge number of shades and topics does not cloud the clarity of the objective.

IV.2) DANIELE FORZAN, Ceo Dgline

Human before Technology

Abstract:

Opera was  born to change perspectives about digital transformation every enterprise needs to evolve in an environment where Covid Pandemia boosted the new era of telework (we in Italy funny call it Smart Work) and where the way  the management leads the team is overwhelmingly changing.

Our experience about enterprises transformation underlines a constant: they need to efficiently run their business and they perceive that digital transformation could help them but the only sacrifice they are willing to make is to change software or to teach people to use other softwares.

It’s a misconception, it’ reductive; it’s like buying a faster truck to deliver mail in a e-mails era.

To efficiently run your business you need to know the process your enterprise uses to produce the business, every single process, every single step and the people who oversee that step, that process and overall the way they communicate.

It’s important to reflect also on the way the management leads the team and the way the team lives the relationship with managers and the enterprises.

We need to change perspectives about this: the leadership needs to evolve in a reciprocal trust,  avoiding control, and  working by shared objectives.

In this environment it is pretty obvious the technological tools come after people awareness: who cares about a new software release or in a new software or application at all ? We will use the new one if it is more efficient, but we will know exactly if we know how are process works. There we choose the software or application: this is the real digital transformation.

Opera helps enterprises to design and map processes, helps enterprises to understand the fundamental importance of “human” factor and how to change leadership and engagement.

IV.3) AURELIO LA LICATA, Head of Banking Operations Italy Academy

Skills, Competencies, Forecasts and Data Analytics

Abstract:

Never before has the speed of adaptation to the market and digitalisation accelerated so dramatically that we have had to rethink the skills of our existing resources and those that will be required in the future.

Financial institutions, like other similar businesses, are among those required to maximise the customer experience (looking outwards) and ensure high levels of productivity and efficiency (looking inwards). And evolution doesn’t discount and doesn’t wait for the timing of the alignment of skills that tend to get lost (if they are specialised and linked to experience) must be preserved and implemented with appropriate strategies to support the growth of people in their assigned roles.

We must then analyse the evolution of working methods in order to understand where the company is heading at a fast pace, and therefore the following become determining factors in this analysis:

• the knowledge and awareness of the structure of organisational roles and the skills associated with them

• the provision of internal training, which, more than ever, must meet criteria of absolute efficiency

• the effective use of information on employees.

The method therefore

• must change from resource management planning based mainly on costs and quantitative methods to solutions based on a detailed analysis of the skills currently available in the company, those expected in the more or less immediate future and those identified as necessary

• it must be based on advanced analytics (already an HR information asset), capitalising on this information to study, forecast and make strategic choices that are consistent and supported by numbers

• it must ensure a close correlation between the evolution of roles and the skills required by them (on the one hand) and strategic initiatives of the business (on the other).

It is therefore a question of innovating the approach in the planning of the corporate workforce since all the key decisive elements are integrated upstream, i.e. the information on the roles and skills and experience possessed by the workers and have as output a series of recommendations that can address all business practices on this issue, generating scenarios that can offer evaluation indices in the strategic choices not only of allocation of resources but also in the general framework of the impacts of transformation of the company.

For example, the model offers indices to management to assess the level of quantitative and qualitative development of the model proposed by the plan both in terms of skills (available, expected, necessary) and in terms of organisational roles; it offers the possibility of assessing the sustainability of the plan with respect to the demographic evolution of the population; it increases the ability of HR and business managers to select profiles in line with the roles to be covered, integrating the tools available to them to support the decision-making process and identifying any skills gaps so as to consequently activate training plans in specific geographical and organisational areas; it becomes the accelerator for an increased ability to plan training investments, to estimate the interventions necessary to balance existing skills, to organise the training modules necessary for the introduction of new skills required by strategic initiatives.

In summary:

In order to respond to the extreme speed with which today’s large banks approach equipping their resources with the most suitable and innovative tools for understanding their role, it is necessary to develop a modern function that combines traditional HR skills with those more related to analytics. This requires a transformation of key elements of system and an operational interconnection between these elements. Only in this way can they help organisations improve their planning capacity, gain visibility of the progress of industry initiatives and, at an operational level, support those making decisions about human capital allocation.

IV.4) GIORGIO NEPA, Ceo Icona Srl

Acty Onboarding Project: “Over the Generations”

Abstract:

This project is the result of an activity we did for our customers.

As we use the AR technology since 2008, we noticed an increasing churn in our product even if apparently there were no reasons: the product was interesting for every purchasing department, every technical manager, even for those enterpreneurs which were seeing in the product the right instrument to evolve their activities.

During the covid period, the adoption of our instruments grew a lot (probably too much), but there was no way to warrant physical and on site assistance as it was very hard moving, flying or keeping directly and physically in touch with the entire planet. But when the sanitary frontiers falled down, no one seemed to remember the practical use of this new technology.

Why? Probably as, mainly in Italy, the age of the real and practical users (workers, and not managers) is not so keen to apply practical changes to their way of working.

Are there then any “generation’s Kpi” we aren’t considering in evolving our technologies? Are there other possibilities to engage people throughout different metrics that can be tracked in different ways? And are these metrics comparable with tangible and untangible kpi’s a company would consider as valuable?

Our present business case is evolving on these questions.

IV.5) FEDERICO RAMPONI, Ceo De4ed

Skillvalue – ProfilingAPP

Abstract

Frame: This paper addresses the topic of individual skills profiling through the “SkillValue” project, a new, smart and innovative app to map the individual skills in organizational and educational contexts.

Goal: the “competency assessment” theme has a wide literature focused on the concept of competencies in the dynamics and logic of the organization. “SkillValue” wants to resume this literature and implement and test a new “fast assessment” approach based on the observation and mapping of behaviors. The proposed approach defines a smart alternative that provides an effective and time-saving methodology for the detection of skills.

Methodology: the project methodology’s focused on the human subjectivity reduction behind the evaluation process. This app monitors and structures a design test that combines three factors: a) the multiplicity of assessment sources, b) the search for highly accredited and recognized behavioral vocabularies in the scientific literature and c) a monitoring system to assess the reliability of the assessment and the evaluators. The core methodological aspects of the “SkillValue” approach are defined by the combination of continuous and constant monitoring of skills with a user experience-oriented interface, able to provide a database that guarantees a testimony of individual development over time.

Conclusion: The “SkillValue” app is a concept that profiles and maps individual skills through a digital structure. This solution facilitates accessibility and use. In its future, the model aims to penetrate the organizational environment, becoming a tool of excellence, able to:

◦ define individual training needs

◦ assess the cultural and economic impact (ROI) of a training project

◦ monitor and update the training needs of individuals

◦ facilitate and improve the processes of selection and recruitment, skills balance, and individual assessment

Keywords: app, competencies assessment, behavior, digital assessment, skills, innovation

IV.6) ERIC VAN DEN BROELE, Graydon Belgium

Measuring intangibles out of data: a road to build foresights (Feet first or fact checking?)

Abstract:

Whether it concerns COVID shocks or other crises, one finds that most socially guiding decisions are fed by assumptions instead of concrete data. All too often, we see government members relying on their personal gut feeling instead of facts. This results in poor and short term crisis-management without any sight on the broader complex picture, without any foresights into a deeper and future-proofed shock-resilience. This while data are massively present. This despite the fact that the combination of human intellect and powerful analytical tools succeeds in providing clear insights, based on which one could take strategic choices and guiding decisions. Moreover, data-treatment also offers in depth insights. Not only does it indicates directly identifiable patterns, but one can also deduce behavioral patterns from sources that seemingly have no connection with the theme one is researching. The detection of behavioral patterns provide unexpected clues. From tangible data one can therefore derive conclusions with regard to intangibles. Figures combined with other data points, ‘predict’ and measure management styles, innovative power, capacity to deal with the important transition that our companies are facing. Data-analyses can clearly indicate the opportunities to fasten the growth into circularity, owner-producing units and systemic collaboration.  Behavioral patterns out of data can provide evidence based assumptions on the ESG readiness of a company without individual assessment… they offer helicopter-view and thus strategic and actionable insights…This in no way means that data and insights derived from them should master social choices. Algorithms offer the strategists the opportunity to clearly map the prevailing issues and to indicate and even prepare the tracks towards possible solutions. They build scenarios and give in depth foresights. The choices themselves must by definition be the result of a social, tactical or strategic debate: a human one.

To take a decision based on good gut feeling one has to be well-fed first.

 

17:00-17:15

Q&A PANEL 4

 

17:15-18:15

PANEL V

TAXATION IN THE GLOBALIZED WORLD – USING THE COMPLEXITY THEORY TOOLBOX

Panel Chair: ANDRÉ FOLLONI, PUCPR, Curitiba

This panel aims to discuss the issues involving taxation in a global economy in which business models are transnational and huge technology and platform companies don’t cross physical national frontiers and are not controlled by traditional barriers. This is an evidence that the world economy and the taxation of companies are becoming more complex and should be studied with the toolbox of complexity theory. Self-organization, emergence, non-linearity, network theory, agents and adaptation, and related epistemic concepts such as uncertainty, variety, feedback, fuzzy logic, multidisciplinary and others should be especially useful to the understanding of global economy taxation. However, the national economic and legal systems are also crucial elements of this organization, and the relations between national, international and supranational are of great importance. This panel welcomes presentations about the multiple aspects of taxation, national, international and supranational, in any disciplinary (economical, legal, sociological, political etc.) and multidisciplinary levels, that deal with complex issues with innovative approaches and methods.

V.1) ANDRÉ FOLLONI, PUCPR, Curitiba

Is Tax a System?

Abstract:

The expression “tax system” is very common, often heard and easily spoken. What does that mean? How can taxation be a system? Moreover, how can some country’s taxation be a system, like in the expression “European tax system”? The meaning of these expressions depends on how we understand systems and, in this sense, then can even be meaningless. A tax system can only exist if we define system in a way that make it appropriate, but it can only make epistemological sense if from the qualification of taxation as a system follows some relevant conclusions about its nature and about how tax norms operate. This paper will explore the possible meanings of “tax system” and the epistemological consequences of this characterization.

V.2) ALINE MARTINEZ HINTERLANG BARROS DETZEL, PUCPR, Curitiba

Interactions between Tax Policies and Climate Change

Abstract:

The theme involving climate change is a frequent topic in governmental and business debates, demonstrating the importance and responsibility of these actors for the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere, considered the main responsible for climate change. This paper intends to point out how fiscal policies can contribute to reduction of climate change effects. Currently, the carbon tax is already a reality in countries like Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Norway, France, Iceland, and some local governments in the United States of America.

Despite its measurement difficulty, the carbon tax is levied on the carbon dioxide release into the atmosphere. In this sense, taxation can be fixed or proportional to the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere. Several studies advocate the positive and negative effects of carbon tax. Some studies point out that with tax increase and the consequent price increase of its related product, markets would be forced to implement other less polluting measures. On the other hand, there are studies indicating a strong tendency to distort prices of possibly polluting products or services, causing a tax system regressivity, thus directly impacting the poorest population.

The international experience related to interactions between fiscal policies and climate change is an important indication to be considered by other countries. In Brazil, for example, the need of a tax system reform is currently under debate. However, the absence of any mention of tax tools that could converge with environmental and climate goals is notorious, especially those directed to reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. Since climate change is a global challenge, which is not limited to countries geographical boundaries, it is imperative to intensify mature studies and debates capable of contributing to the confrontation of this serious matter.

V.3) EDUARDO M. L. RODRIGUES DE CASTRO, PUCPR, Curitiba

Thomas Piketty’s Egalitarian Tax Reform in The Light of the Brazilian Constitution

Abstract:

If it were a member of the OECD, Brazil would rank third among the countries that most tax goods and services; at the same time, it would appear in the last place in the criterion for taxation of income, profits and capital gain. These facts, added to the complexity of the tax system, the high tax burden – considering that Brazil is a developing country – and the poor social indicators in Brazil, make tax reform one of the most debated issues in academia. Among the best known tax reform proposals in the world, the one presented by Thomas Piketty stands out. Piketty’s reform is essentially based on the highly progressive taxation of income, inheritance and capital, as well as the institution of an exit tax, a carbon tax and a tax on international financial transactions. There is, however, a strong divergence about the constitutional limits to the reform of the National Tax System, especially in cases of proposals that involve changes in the Constitution itself. Considering the issues mentioned above, as well as the relevance of the tax system for the construction of the Social State desired by the original Constituent in 1988, this work aims to identify the (legal) limits for tax reform in Brazil, as well as to analyze the constitutionality of the Pikettyan Tax Reform.

In summary, we will try to answer the following question: Of the proposals made by Thomas Piketty – in tax matters – which ones are valid in light of the Brazilian Constitution?

The investigated hypothesis is that Piketty’s proposal, in almost its entirety, even in the points that demand modification of the Constitutional Text, is in line with the 1988 Constitution, since it adheres to the republican fundamental principles and objectives. The research is based on the work of Thomas Piketty, as well as academic production dedicated to the study of the national tax system and the constitutional limits to tax reform, including considerations on the themes of popular sovereignty, constitutionalism, judicial review and provisions not subject to constitutional amendment. The scientific method used is the hypothetical-deductive method.

V.4) GUILHERME MARTELLI MOREIRA, PUCPR, Curitiba

Universal Basic Income, Existential Minimum and Tax Law

Abstract:

The present work concerns about Van Parijs’ Universal Basic Income (UBI) as well as the existential minimum. Van Parijs understands that the creation of an UBI would increment the levels of liberties enjoyed by everyone in a given society, since this public policy could leverage the right to self-determination and to do whatever and whenever he or she wants. In this sense, it understands that material means are important to increase the range of opportunities to a given individual. Even though the main objective of a UBI is to augmentate one’s freedoms, this public policy ends up discussing issues such as the existential minimum and the principle of human dignity, inasmuch as it distributes money to every member of a society, from the poorest to the richest. Since it funds the imporverished, they would guarantee not only their survival minimum, but also the minimun to a life with quality. On this matter, it is therefore necessary that the State recognizes the role of guaranteeing and promoting fundamental rights, with the tax being a necessary mean to obtain to enable the creation of this Public Policy. After all, a State without resources cannot guarantee any rights. The hypothesis of this research is that Universal Basic Income and its guarantee of a fixed income would enable that everyone’s right to a minimum existential is assured, since the access and the fulfilment to the right to health, education, social security and housing would be observerd. Therefore, the deductive approach method and the indirect documentary research technique were chosen to conduct this study.

V.5) PAMELA VARASCHIN PRATES, PUCPR, Curitiba

Sin Taxes and the Regulation of Behavior

Abstract:

Sin taxes is the expression used to identify taxes that aims to regulate behaviors traditionally contrary to Christian morality. The consumption of certain products is considered a sin for corrupting the individual. Historically, this is the classic foundation for the taxation of cigarettes and alcoholic beverages. The State, by taxing more such products, intent to discourage consumption of these goods. However, the use of taxes to modify behavior, in addition to being able to cause effects different from those desired by the legislator, can have opposite effects, given the complexity of socio-economic interactions. In this context, it is necessary to understand human behavior in the face of the use of tax incentives to verify if sin taxes should be used at all, and if so, how it could achieve the effect intended. Especially when dealing with products with the potential for addiction, as in the case of cigarettes and alcoholic beverages, the behavioral aspects must be taken into account, at the risk of being instituted and/or increased taxes that have no potential to accomplish the desired behavioral. In this sense, the goal of this research is to assess how behavioral economics could contribute to the analysis of sin taxes. The basic hypothesis of this research is that the findings of behavioral economics can contribute to establishing limits and possibilities for sin taxation. The hypothesis derives from the fact that behavioral economics has studies on what human motivation and decision-making processes do in various contexts.

V.6) PAULA TATYANE CARDOZO STEMBERG, Federal University of Paraná, UFPR

Brazilian Regressive Taxation Against Women

Abstract:

In 2019, the average salary of women, between 25 and 49 years, was R$ 1,985, corresponding to 79.5% of the average salary of men of R$ 2,555 (IBGE,2020). In addition to income inequality, the sum of assets and rights of women and men is also quite different. The proportion of the financial inequality between men and women in Brazilian reality is still increased by tax regressivity: for the year of 2020, the estimative was that the tax incidence represented 31,64% of GPD, being 23,24% of that based on taxes. Between 5 different types of taxes, the most important was the 3 matrices of income, property, and consumption, representing, respectively, 7,06%; 1,58%, and 13,42% (TESOURO NACIONAL, 2021). The major matrix of taxation is, so, the consumption, printing the regressivity to the tax system, affecting disproportionally people with different economic situation, and specially women. Facing that problem, the 5th Sustainable Development Goal targets the gender equality in many aspects, being the financials’ one of them, that can enforce the flourishing and development of women’s Capabilities by the availability of individual income. This paper intends to explore the regressivity of the Brazilian tax system as a incentive of the maintenance of gender inequality, impeding or, at least, complicating the flourishing of capabilities, positioning itself, veraciously, against women.

 

18:15-18:30

Q&A PANEL 5

 

20:30

SOCIAL DINNER

9:00-11:00

PANEL VI 

THE NEW DIMENSIONS OF THE SMARTIFIED WORLD

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES AND FUTURE SCENARIOS

Panel Chair: ROBERTA IANNONE, Sapienza University of Rome and MASSIMILIANO RUZZEDDU, Unicusano University

One of the adjectives increasingly used to describe contemporary society is the term “smart”. We live in the era of smart cities, smart economies, smart homes, smart people, smart communities and smart work. On a global scale, smartness is emerging as the new horizon of contemporary society to which “meanings and practices” must be adapted. The development potential of new smart technologies, artificial intelligence and the use of Big Data is part of this framework. With regard to this premise, can smartness really represent a promising “paradigm”? And, with respect to what? The panel aims to investigate the performative and transformative potential of all these dimensions within society, analysing what type of society the “smart” paradigm intends to develop, through the many potential forms of smartness not exhaustively listed here: smart society- smart world and effects on the community- smart people as key players- the role of digital globalisation- new forms of capitalism- sociological theory to the test of smartness – quantitative research on smart society – the dimensions of power – the cultural processes of digital society – ICT and sociological theory – control and security – smartness and resilience -e-citizenship in a smart world – smartness and jurisdictional-legislative expansion

VI.1) SARA PETROCCIA, University of Cassino and EMILIA FERONE, WCSA Deputy President

Observing  Smart Cities Systemically 

Abstract:

This paper is based on the paradigm that a smart city is a part of the intellectual framework of second-order cybernetics and considers social communication in terms of the management and use of different data channels. Planning as a political practice is replaced by environmentally-behavioral control, in which subjectivity is articulated above-individually (permeating the city with sensitive nodes) and infra-individually (transforming citizens into sensitive nodes). This leads us to the research question: how to focus on the social relations and processes of the smart urbanization which are based on the second order cybernetic approach? The smart city is understood as a complex mechanism, where one begins to realize the often-unintended human, environmental, social and economic consequences of a technological and engineering-led approach. The latest thinking and smart urban projects are aimed at comprehending smart and/or sustainable infrastructure as a network between places and people in order to create a more sustainable, healthy and resilient future for different groups of citizens (from young people to seniors). Municipality strategies need to address global socio-economic factors, processes of innovation with new technology, constant adaptation in public and private sector organisations and the diversity of qualified resources.

VI.2) MELISSA SESSA, Sapienza University of Rome

Conceptualizing of Smart Society: Sociological Profiles

Abstract:

The work presents an annotated bibliography about the topic smartness. The literature review mainly focuses on the concept of smartness and some related ideas, such as smart people, smart community, smart living, smart governance, smart economy, smart environment. The investigation spans from 1981 – when the term “smartness” was coined – till these days.

The research intends to investigate how the above-mentioned terms and ideas can be viewed in a sociological perspective and how they can contribute to give the complete picture of what it is meant by smart society.

The hypothesis is that the bibliography on the topic of smartness is technical and sectoral. Thus, the research questions which are addressed in this work are: is the hypothesis validated? Does a technical and sectoral bibliography imply discarding a sociological perspective?

This type of bibliography may overlook the holistic approach which considers different specifications of smartness in their interdependence and their ability to “make society”.

One possible implication of a technical and sectoral bibliography could be that the smart society – with its risks and its potentialities – risks being ignored in the sociological field, notwithstanding the fact that the concept of smartness is crucial in defining social experience.

Therefore, the final goal of this analysis is to try to verify limits and opportunities of a social theory of smart society.

VI.3) ILARIA IANNUZZI, Sapienza University of Rome

Gamification and Smart City. Opportunities and Critical Issues

Abstract:

In recent years, several debates focused on the concept and on the phenomenon of the “smart city” have flourished in different sectors. Among the measures recently proposed with the aim of modifying the behavior of the social actors in order to make them virtuous and smart, the game is increasingly becoming more and more important. Through a theoretical analysis conducted in the perspective of the general sociology, this intervention aims to investigate the relationship between smart city and gamification process emerging in every social sphere and, particularly, in urban context. The aim is to draw a critical analysis on the opportunity of using game in the smart city context and, above all, of society ’s gamification dynamics, in order to highlight the critical issues arising from a specific interpretation of the smart city-gamification relationship.

VI.4) ROMINA GURASHI, Sapienza University of Rome

What to Expect from Smartness? Some Assumptions Based on Smart City Case Studies

Abstract:

In recent years, there has been a profound change in the way cities are administered and how they interface with their citizens. There has been a shift from a “smartification” of the cities centered on technological advancement, i.e. digitization, platformization, big data and sensors, to a vision of “smartness” mainly interpreted as social intelligence. The question is what form of social intelligence is possible in the context of smart cities also with respect to the three pillars sustainable development i.e. environmental, economic and social sustainability? Given the large amount of space devoted to economic and environmental issues in both literature and public debates, the purpose of this presentation is to focus on social sustainability in order to explore how this specific area of development can be further developed. Since looking at social sustainability means trying to read the way individuals, communities and societies live with each other and aim to achieve common goals, through the analysis of the case studies of Sydney and Okayama the researcher will try to understand how this dimension has been effectively implemented in city contexts. With data and literature at hand, the researcher will try to understand how smart cities can and are truly becoming socially sustainable.

VI.5) GIANLUCA SENATORE, Sapienza University of Rome

Hard and Soft Smart City: An Integrated Approach

Abstract:

The definition of urban sustainable development could be identified as “the achievement of a balance between development in urban areas and protection of the environment keeping an eye on the equity in terms of income, employment, housing, base facilities, social infrastructures and urban areas transport”. In this scope, the evaluation of the environmental impact (soil, pollution, materials) of urban areas or districts, submitted to edification, is concurrently considered with the scheduling of interventions on transport and facilities. This approach considers measures used in the indicators of quality of life and liveability of cities. Other systems of ranking have been designed meanwhile and they have been utilized by public administrations in order to orientate on sustainable development strategies of cities or districts. Those are specific tools that often help urbanists or energy experts in establishing the energetic efficiency of urban spaces, analysing or assuming the demand and the specific consumption of buildings and transport always under a sustainable view. Transports and waste for examples, have been in the middle of several interventions of monitoring and evaluation, one of the major issues from the point of view of pollution and logistic. It’s evident, by the results, that all the approaches which could be applied for sustainable cities are many and countless. This can be a problem, especially when the requested evaluation scheme should be useful to face embedded challenges. The clear observation that can be made is the one in which sustainable development ad sustainability in general are a broad concept and in continuous evolution and for this a nonspecific definition generates different interpretations. 

By this we can infer that sustainability can be considered also in urban contests. To do so, it is necessary to think of a systemic approach that complies at the same time social, economic and environmental impacts which should not be decontextualized. In fact, they need to be analysed as interconnected elements and influenced by the territorial tradition and by the cultural evolution of urban areas.

VI.6) EMANUELA SUSCA, University of Urbino

The Smart Society and its Enemies. Meanings and Limits in the Criticism of Smartness

Abstract:

The term “smart” has now become almost ubiquitous, acquiring both a strong explanatory value and an almost irresistible performative power. It is widely and insistently asserted that people, work, cities and communities are becoming, and at the same time should be, smart. However, there is also growing resistance to a model of society that many accuse of being unfair and ultimately undesirable.

Starting from the assumption that smartness implies an integration between people, environment and technologies, the communication then proposes a series of reflections that can help to distinguish between a progressive criticism, which can lead to genuine critical and proactive reflection, and a merely regressive criticism. To this end, attention will focus on three aspects that appear decisive in making this distinction:

• Trust in human subjects, conceivable as the foundation of an anthropology that is not unilaterally pessimistic;
• a truly global vision of the environmental issue;
• the centrality assigned to education.

In short, thinking about the smart society in a realistic and not prejudicially apocalyptic way means believing that efficient social ties are not necessarily top-down and, at the same time, consistently adopting a perspective that is as universalist as possible. In concrete terms, this means both setting the goal of genuinely sustainable growth that involves all the world’s populations and viewing education as a necessary tool for overcoming old and new inequalities.

VI.7) MARINA CIAMPI, Sapienza University of Rome

The Image of the Pandemic as an Urban Dystopia

Abstract:

This paper aims to present the results of a qualitative and visual research carried out during the epidemiological emergency, when the lockdown, governed by institutional decrees, imposed measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic at the national level. The investigation documents the social, economic, and urban paralysis in the urban context of Rome and it was conducted through video-photographic exploration of the places of public and social life in the city of Rome and through qualitative interviews with privileged witnesses from different fields (institutional, religious, welfare, cultural, educational, commercial, etc.). The field exploration represented a privileged moment of observation and analysis, building on the methods of visual research. The study analyses the main categories that emerged from observation in the field: de-humanized urban spaces; the altered perception of security in desertified spaces; the emphasized visibility of the devices of protection and social distancing; the hegemony of the new “actors of urban space” (outsiders, runners, carriers etc.); the de-functionalization of public spaces; the emphasized monumentality of the city.

The analysis of the visual content, combined with that of the interviews, has allowed us to draw a balance of phase 1 of the lockdown, in its managerial and organizational aspects, in the innovative and creative choices that were inspired by the emergency and in forecasts of the future.

VI.8) ROMANO BENINI, Link Campus University Rome

The Risks and Contradictions of the Smart World

Abstract:

The speech addresses the risks and possibilities of the “smart” vision of the world, indicating some perspectives. First, the risks are analyzed. There can be no single vision of the concept of “smart” as intelligence depends on goals, points of view and choices. The simple ability to adapt and resilience is a prerequisite for collective intelligence, just as personal and individual well-being represents an end. However, from a psychological and social science point of view it is also evident that individuals tend to be shaped by behaviors and choices defined, suggested and imposed very often elsewhere. Big data today are tools more for imposing purchasing behaviors than for promoting choices.

The main risk is that which derives from the desire to set up a value model that is considered objective and common. The construction of a uniform society that is expressed globally is dictated by needs related more to the expansion of consumption and profit than to the enhancement of individual diversity and territorial communities. In any case, if we associate value or even ethical elements with the term “smart”, the risks of this attitude are known and European history shows continuous examples of dreams of collective organization that have ended up in mass tragedies. If the “smart” dimension, on the other hand, concerns the facilitation of economic behavior, as we can now evaluate in smart working, it is equally evident that on a global scale contemporary sociology has produced numerous analyzes and researches that show the dark side of “smart work” and how the acceleration imposed by the pervasiveness of digital tools and hyper-connectivity determines an accentuation of individual and social discomfort and does not always lead to an increase in the autonomy of choices. The term “smart” should therefore be treated with great caution and the first part of the intervention concerns precisely the need to circumscribe what this attribution of intelligence entails.

In particular, the focus must be linked to the need to reconsider the basic paradigm prevailing in the last century, imposed by the winning Anglo-American model of the Second World War and of Protestant origin, i.e. the consideration that essentially what is efficient is smart. The great risk of the global smart world can be identified in the paradigm that brings together “collective intelligence” in the ethics of efficiency. Efficiency has no purpose, it can relate to any behavior and as such it is not an ethics. Efficiency without an end other than the accumulation of money and products has created the crisis of individual identity and determined the serious environmental problems that afflict the planet today. On the other hand, the ethics of efficiency, as such, is not a real ethics, and for this reason it is constantly looking for an end. From the purpose of accumulating money to that of techniques, contemporary man usually tends towards ends that have obvious contraindications and feed discomfort and conflicts. For the ultimate purpose of money in recent years, as many sociologists have well assessed, the supply of technological and digital prostheses is being replaced, necessary to support an increasingly fragile and lonely individual. It therefore appears evident that in order to define the smart dimension of a society and an economy, today a reflection on the basic paradigm that defines what intelligent behavior is and how to promote for people and the planet must be imposed. Giving substance to the proclamation of society and the sustainable economy means contesting the value paradigm of the ethics of efficiency at the base, reminding everyone how the most polluting companies are often the most efficient on an organizational level and as the great machine of the extermination camps Nazis represents the maximum twentieth-century expression of efficiency as an end in itself, as Hanna Arendt reminded us. To prevent the construction of a smart world from replicating Orwellian nightmares, it appears necessary to investigate contemporary discomfort, at the same time fueled and hidden by the rampant accelerated consumerism that the West proposes as a model for the East of the world and that China seems to welcome today. It then becomes possible to redefine the concept of intelligence on the basis of two priority choices: the choice of quality instead of quantity and the awareness that the quantitative dimension in choices and behaviors does not determine advantages to the person and to the planet. It is therefore a question of replacing the ethics of efficiency imposed by the twentieth century with the return of that ethics of aesthetics that was born in the Mediterranean, with the right means of Greek thought, spreads in Europe with the Renaissance culture and shapes society and cultures which still today attract millions of visitors not for the height of the skyscrapers of their cities and the possibility of financial gains but for a style made up of good food, good behavior and good life, which in the worlds of “efficient intelligence” appear as an increasingly rare commodity. Today intelligence requires a restitution of value to the ability to feel oneself and others, to feel emotions, giving space to that ideal of beauty that from Plato onwards has fueled the ideas and actions of the peoples bordering the Mediterranean. 

The paradigm on which to define the global smart word is therefore not given by the tools we use and the ability to direct choices based on big data, but by the purposes for which we use them. Otherwise the risk is that the instrument becomes an end, in the construction of a digital and heterodirected environment in which to cancel all awareness and all joy and which is far from intelligent because, as Dante said, it is only in the relationship between the capacity for reflection and of individual action that we can find the awareness of being in the world, that is, intelligence. 

 

11:00-11:15 

PANEL 6 Q&A

 

11:15-11:30 

COFFE BREAK

 

11:30-13:15 

PANEL VII

THE SYSTEMIC EVOLUTION OF LAW AND THE MATTER OF NORMALITY AND DEVIANCE IN COMPLEX SYSTEMS

Panel Chair: Bruno Bilotta, Magna Graecia University and Sara Petroccia, University of Cassino

In complex, global scenarios, the gap between legal norms (according to the shapes of criminal Law) and deviance from social norms is getting wider and wider as law is going more and more transnationally and supranationally (from EU to OECD, from WHO and WTO to WIPO) while in the common sense of local community identity, social norms still are relatively rigid on a more local scale which in some extreme cases become the stargate to ideological-religous-ethnical radicalization where cosmopolitanism is not yet taken for granted. From Goffmann’s Stigma and Becker’s Outsiders, through Tomeo’s conception of the conflictual structure of law , up to the dispute between Kelsen and Ehrlich, finally approaching Luhmann’s works in Sociology of Law based on a complex system vision based on the system /environment paradigm, this panel calls for interdisciplinary contributions (from Sociology to Law, from Philosophy to Political Science, from Economics of legal rationality to complexity studies tout court) to debate, in theory and practice, in strategy, tactics and operations, in which way the expansion of trans-supranational legislation focused on the governance of complexity is some way selecting and reshaping community-based social norms and in which ways social norms can generate irritation, resonance and noisy shiftings from the outer environment to the process of legislative expansion of the law system considering radicalization a socio-political drift of failed management of complexity, thus radicalizatio as outer environmet resonance, meaningless in se, which, nevertheless coud be positively seleced by those conceptions of law as conflictual structure.

VII.1) JIŘÍ ŠUBRT, Charles University, Prague

Institutions: How to Understand and Examine them from a Sociological Perspective 

Abstract:

The study of the issues of international relations, globalization and international organizations requires that we return to the concept of institutions, attempting to rethink it so that it applies not only at the micro- and meso-social levels, but also the macro-social level. In recent decades, interest in this topic in the social sciences has mainly been linked with a direction known as “new institutionalism”, which strongly resonates in contemporary economics and political science. Today, this is associated primarily with methodological individualism, widespread in contemporary social sciences for two main reasons. The first is certain ideological (and therefore essentially non-scientific) connotations related to economic and political liberalism, which is critical of everything that resembles “collectivism”. The second is that for research based on quantitative methodology, it provides relatively easy-to-grasp, operationalizable, and thus measurable, concepts that enable the fairly easy acquisition of quantitative research data usable not only for analysis but prediction. However, the price paid for these possibilities is in our view quite significant; it is the ignorance of macro-social factors and contexts of a holistic nature, and thus a rather problematic simplification of a whole complex of examined issues.

VII.2) MICHELA FELICETTI, Ecampus University, Novedrate

Deviance, Rape and Torture in the Europaischerverfassung Verbund

Abstract:

The original nature of the Eu legal system was non statist, supranational, burocratic. The classical constitutionalism grounded on the federal experience seemed the blue print, but for it set regulations that provided some Member States exemption from the acquis communitaire, many national constitutional court did not agree to subject national constitutional law to the supreme constitutional community law – undermining the hierarchy – the constitutional project appeared to fall apart and –in the present- we are in front of a revised constitutional narrative.

The new Constitutionalism is based on the notion of Europaischer VerfassungsVerbund which means the European constitutional space as a complex system grounded in the dialects between national constitutional courts and European Court of Justice.

Basically this kind of multilevel constitutionalism is not linked to the model of a European state nor to a federal state model: is a “constitution without state”.

The supranational order legislation which took shape in 1992 with the Maastricht Treaty, advanced with the Lisbon Treaty (2009), developed with the EU Foreign affairs Treaties (2017) is still taking shape with new agreements between the EU and the Mercosur and EU and Mexico.

In this paper we will look at dynamics of the EU new constitutionalism in the sphere of deviance, with a special focus on rape and torture .

VII.3) LUIGI MARIA SOLIVETTI, Sapienza University of Rome

Supranational Integration, Immigration Regulation, and Security in the Uk General Elections

Abstract:

UK’s 2019 elections were characterised by a vote shift that was both large and quick. This study hypothesises that this shift was caused by the attraction that the issues of national independence, control of the borders, and security – emphasised by the Conservative manifesto – exerted on the socio-cultural conservatism of certain traditional left-wing social groups: in particular, working-class and poorly educated people. To probe this hypothesis, this study investigated the opinions expressed by Labour’s supporters about the hot issues of the Conservative manifesto. Moreover, a cross-constituency statistical analysis carried out on the 2019 vote found an association between Labour’s losses and the territorial distribution of the abovementioned social groups. These findings suggest that the crucial aspect of the vote shift was the Conservatives’ appeal to the socio-cultural conservativism of part of Labour’s traditional voters. Such an appeal prevailed on Labour’s concurrent appeal to the economic reformism of its supporters.

VII.4) MARIA RITA BARTOLOMEI, Independent researcher of legal and cultural anthropology

Predictive Justice and Legal Professions

Abstract:

A glimpse on the ethical and legal challenges of artificial intelligence In recent years, a wide debate has taken place on the prospects and risks of algorithmic assessments and decisions concerning individuals, notably by improving predictive models. When talking about these issues, an exemplary case is represented by the increasingly frequent application of artificial intelligence in the judiciary, especially the so-called predictive justice.

Some scholars have observed that automated predictions and decisions could be more precise and impartial than human ones. Artificial intelligence systems can avoid the typical fallacies of human psychology, the widespread human inability to process statistical data, as well as typical human prejudice (concerning, e.g., ethnicity, gender, or social background). Others have underscored the possibility that algorithmic decisions may be mistaken or discriminatory leading to unfairness. As regards the criminal trial, which is a detailed, unpredictable process, for example, one cannot ignore the centrality of both the emotional dimension in the logic of judgment and the concept of subject in the Italian legal system. Besides, the reconstruction of the interpretative tendencies of the judge can undermine the principle of impartiality and naturalness, as well as it can violate other constitutionally imposed and protected guarantees. Furthermore, enabling automated decision-making processes in areas that require complex choices, based on multiple factors and on non-predefined criteria, increases the risk that the ethical-legal force of national and international regulatory systems will dissolve, preventing its adequate exercise of the social control functions and the regulation of human behavior.

By presenting individual experiences and different viewpoints gathered in the field, I will try and discuss how lawyers and judges working in the Marche region of Italy are addressing the legal, ethical and social implications of the use of artificial intelligence in law: semantic compliance, legal issues, challenges and difficulties in representing legal knowledge in software systems, and so on.

Despite the various legislative interventions at national, European and international level, in fact, the relationship between law, ethics and artificial intelligence is still to be defined. Without claiming definitively to settle all debates on the topic, my work is a contribution, from an anthropological perspective to a better understanding of the multiple ways in which artificial intelligence is affecting our lives, the rule of law and future conception of justice.

 

VII.5) VASJA ROBLEK, IZTOK PODBREGAR and MAJA MEŠKO, University of Maribor, Kranj

The Covid -19 disruption of the tourism and emergence of sustainable and resilient touristic solutions: Short – and medium-term stakeholders’ perspectives about the future of tourism sector

The Covid -19 disruption of the tourism and emergence of sustainable and resilient touristic solutions: Short – and medium-term stakeholders’ perspectives about the future of tourism sector The global tourism and hospitality sector continues to face a two-year global coronavirus pandemic in 2021. In addition, the tourism sector has experienced an unanticipated business disruption due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic caused by the Covid-19 coronavirus. It can be concluded that the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the sensitivity of tourism to health security factors. Based on the assumption that global environmental changes and extremely rapid urbanisation may lead to new virus outbreaks and the emergence of resistant bacteria in the future, the tourism industry currently needs to adapt to become more resilient to health and other environmental challenges and more sustainable. Initial measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus on a global scale include accelerating the digitisation of the economy, introducing effective containment measures, which include increased testing capacity, quarantine, wearing masks, disinfection, the classification of countries into colour groups according to the number of infections for what is in European Union responsible the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the emergence of the (digital) Covid-19 vaccine passports. One of the important consequences of Corona-19 will be that it will decline mass tourism and promote sustainable resilience solutions. The post-Corona-19 period will be characterised by increased demand for individual travel, while a decline on the demand side for group travel is expected. The basic content (sea and sun) of a tourism offer can in itself no longer be a guarantee of tourist demand. The study in this article focuses on investigating the short- and medium-term solutions in the Mediterranean sector that include organisational changes and adoptions necessary to achieve sustainable and resilient sector transformation that will enable competitive advantages over Mediterranean competitors. According to future sector expectations, the following research question has been prepared: RQ1: What restructuring measures will be needed in the Mediterranean tourism sector for enabling the transition to sustainable and resilient tourism?

VII.6) TILL NEUHAUS, University of Bielefeld

Developments of and within Great Britain’s ‘Nudge Unit’ as a Example of Behavioral Public Policy’s Emergence

Abstract:

Nudging serves as an umbrella term for an array of interventions which have their roots in behavior as well as cognitive psychological research. While the original research on these cognitive aspects was driven by epistemological gain, Nudging also included insights from other disciplines (sociology, social psychology, socio-linguistics etc.) to create a toolbox of interventions which can change people’s behavior in predictable ways. Nudging works by changing the decision architecture – all things relevant in a decision process – but leaving the decision as such intact. Such interventions can be (but are not limited to) changes in the default settings (i.e. opt-out instead of opt-in schemes), manipulation of cognition (i.e. framing of scenarios), strategically provided comparisons/refence groups (i.e. of pricing), and many more. Such interventions have proven to be very effective at very little costs as well as compatible with (complex) systems approaches regarding their methodology. While research on the aspects outlined above has been conducted from the mid-1960s (Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky can be considered it founding fathers) to the present, different governments saw potential in these interventions for effect, evidence-based, and cheap governance. Among the first has been the British government around the year 2002, which dedicated a sub-section of the parliament office to host a team of behavioral experts. Over time, this team has transformed itself from a sub-section of parliament office to a government consulting unit before it has been turned into a non-profit company. These changes stem from the fact that the expertise provided by these experts has been demanded by a diverse set of government actors (and beyond) which could only be satisfied by the change in organizational form. In short: Expertise in Nudging has proven to be an extremely sexy trend for governments all around the world which can be derived from the profitability of and demand from the entity which started as the British Nudge Unit. In order to understand the transmission of this already big and yet emerging trend, this paper/presentation will do three things: First, it will outline the workings of Nudging and – through examples – illustrate the advantages of governments stemming from this innovative approach. Second, it will outline the organizational developments of the British Nudge consulting group by illustrating its organizational change and contextualize it. Third, the paper will frame these empirical observations from a neo-institutional viewpoint as we consider it a fruitful approach to frame the observed developments. 

VII.7) ENRICO DAMIANI DI VERGADA FRANZETTI, State University of Milan

Fundamental rights and processes of globalization, regionalization, structuring and destructuring of national, supranational and transnational European law: for new hypotheses

This document examines in a macro-sociological-juridical perspective the issue of the definition of fundamental rights, of the judicial institutions called to apply them within the “European system” in the light of national, supranational and transnational processes at the same time marked by both globalization and regionalization. , both to the structuring and the deconstruction of the law: this in order to trace possible and eventual hypotheses about the multiplication or reduction of their number and the related forms of legal protection. The importance of social conflict in the effort to acquire scarce resources also and above all passes through the definition and protection of fundamental rights because if the law represents the structure of the conflict, then it manifests itself in an even more evident way when it is considered as rights human beings represent and in fact are the structure of the conflict that is acted out at the national European, supranational European and transnational level.

 

13:15-13:30 

Q&A PANEL 7 

 

13:30 14:30 

LUNCH BREAK

 

14:30 -16:15 

PANEL VIII

THE NEW TAX TRENDS

Panel Chair: VASCO BRANCO GUIMARÃES, Business and Management School (ISCAL) and Universidade Lusíada de Lisboa 

Following the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) 15 Action Plan developed in the joint initiative of G20 countries and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), large multinationals groups with global gross revenue exceeding EUR 750 million are now invited to self-assess, declare, and pay their corporate taxes on profits. Self-assessment obligations came up under the Global Anti-Base Erosion Model Rules (Pillar Two) with the aim of addressing taxation issues related to Multinational Groups. Pillar Two approach was approved in the G7 meeting and will probably impact domestic legislation in the years to come. The new model changes the nature of profit taxation shifting the taxing powers from sovereign States to an International self-compliance model to be applied by large multinational groups. 

As a matter of consequence, on one hand the new approach will require changes in transfer pricing rules and methods with a global impact upon the application of TP methods and the facilitation of cross-border adjustments. Self-compliance models are expected to alleviate tax compliance costs, such as those related to the filling of tax returns or tax disputes, having a positive impact in the global circulation of capital and new technology. 

On the other hand, companies with an annual turnover bellow EUR 750 million threshold will still be subject to State (domestic, national) law sources which also relies largely on taxpayer’s self-assessment of corporate taxes.

The differentiation between large multinational groups and other categories of taxpayer will probably make some common tax issues (e.g. transfer pricing and self-assessment rules) to be addressed through different law sources: one international, applicable to large multinational groups and one domestic, applicable to other taxpayers. Should this double approach prevail, the new international standard of taxation may not reach its goal of speeding up capital and technological flows, particularly in common market areas. 

For instance, movement restrictions imposed on citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic have impacted the nature of services provisions and working relations calling for the reflection on its fiscal and labor consequences, both for large and small companies.  In post-pandemic scenarios, how current rules on labor contracts and taxation of profits of companies and workers are to be coordinated with the new international rules designed under BEPS actions is somewhat to be explored and defined. 

This panel problematizes the combination of the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and the co-existence of national law sources and the new paradigm on international labor and taxation standards. Will this combination determine a diminishing of the contractual rights and the taxation of profits of workers and companies or – on the contrary – produce new body of right)s and obligations for the individuals and companies?

VIII.1) JOÃO PEDRO SANTOS, Lisbon School of Economics and Management (ISEG) and Director of the Portuguese Center for Fiscal Studies (CEF)

General comment on OECD corporate taxation 

Abstract: 

Comment on general trends of OECD international taxation standards and the proposed speeches of this panel.

VIII.2) GIOVANA CAMILA PORTOLESE, Special Secretariat of the Federeal Revenue of Brazil

The taxation of cross-border independent personal services and enterprise services in the aftermath of Covid-19 outbreak: A lesson still to be learnt?

Abstract:

This presentation explores how the taxation of cross-border provision of services has not kept the pace with the dematerialization of the economy. Concerns on the taxation of profits derived from international services trade have long been under the scrutiny of international bodies such as the OECD, WTO, European Union, and United Nations. Even though these organizations may have different perspectives and approaches to deal with the topic, there is much consensus that the misalignment between multiple domestic regulations may be hindering the transition from a local and brick-and-mortar economy to a global intangible one. While an international new standard was being designed, restrictions on the movement of persons during COVID-19 outbreak put at strain, once again, international mobile workers and corporate business operations. This contribution aims at discussing the suitability of international and domestic new regulations recently enacted to address taxation issues related to individuals and corporations providing cross-border services during and after the pandemic.

VIII.3) FRANCISCO NICOLAU DOMINGOS, Business and Management School (ISCAL) and Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE)

The tax arbitration Courts: Theory and practice 

Abstract: 

The experience of the Arbitration Courts has revealed itself adequate and efficient in the ruling of tax disputes. How does they work? Which are the fundamentals? What are the results?

VIII.4) MARIA DE JESUS GARCIA TORRES, University of Granada

The metadata criteria to evaluate immovable propriety for market and tax purposes-metadata and market formulas

Abstract: 

How can metadata help define the value of immovable propriety for market and fiscal purposes? Where are the sources of the data? How can they be treated? Which are the consequences and uses? Can we use the concept of good practices?

 

16:15-16:30

Q&A PANEL 8 

 

16:30-16:45 

Coffee break

 

16:45-17:45 

(Q&A included)

ALFREDO SPILZINGER, Lord of Brownsel, PhD, WCSA Vice-president, Launching WCSA LATAM (Latin America)

 

 17:45-18:30

KEYNOTE SPEECH 6

GARRY JACOBS, President and CEO, World Academy of Art and Science; Chairman of the Board and CEO, World University Consortium; President, The Mother’s Service Society

Transdisciplinary Approach to Global Challenges and Human Security

During the last decade the work of the World Academy of Art & Science (WAAS) has focused on understanding the root causes and remedies to global challenges of unprecedented magnitude, intensity and complexity. At the time of writing, three of these challenges pose extreme threats to the security of people and nations around the world – the Covid-19 Pandemic, climate change and the war in Ukraine. The differences between them illustrate the serious limitations of a narrow conception of security and the urgent need for both a wider and more integrated perspective that not only defines the full scope of security threats, as the Sustainable Development Goals do to a great extent, but also emphasize the complex interlinkages and interdependences between them and the need for both a comprehensive and integrated approach to addressing them. These three crisis are very different in their origin. Yet their characteristics are remarkably similar. First, all three are global in scope and reach, which means that they cannot be successfully addressed by nations individually. Each demands unprecedented levels of coordination and cooperation with other members of the global community, which are beyond the effective capacity of the present multilateral system. Second, all of them are inextricably interlinked. Meeting them effectively will require fundamental changes in public policies and the institutions of national and global governance, in our theoretical understanding of global society and of the forces driving its evolution, and in the kind of thinking required to address them. It will compel us to transcend the disciplinary boundaries that currently divide the social sciences from one another. It will require deep thinking to comprehend the means of converting the long slow trial and error process of social evolution into a more rapid process of conscious social transformation.  These crises illustrate the critical need for redefining, reframing and reinventing concepts which have for so long been taken for granted. Among them, one of the most compelling is the need to re-examine the concept of security which is a common denominator for all three of the disparate global challenges referred to in this preface – the pandemic, climate change and the war in Ukraine.  Our research has led WAAS to call for the evolution of thinking in search of a comprehensive conception of reliable knowledge less susceptible to the fragmented perspectives, glaring omissions and mechanistic Newtonian assertions so characteristics of human sciences in search of the precision and certainty achieved by the natural sciences. 

 

18:30-18:45 

Q&A  KEYNOTE SPEECH  6

10:30-11:45

PANEL IX

GLOBAL CHANGE, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND CAPITALISM MODELS International trends and perspectives

MARIA MIRABELLI and VINCENZO FORTUNATO

University of Calabria

The proposed panel deals with a subject particularly relevant in the current economic, political and sociological international debate. In particular, we draw attention on the main socioeconomic transformations related to significant changes in capitalism models towards a more sustainable development, as well as on their impact on traditional welfare systems still in search for new balances. Since the year 2008 there have been significant changes and the capitalism system as we have known it so far seems to be at a “Crossroads” (Hart, 2010). In fact, since that year a series of crisis affected the world increasing poverty and inequalities. In addition to these, a revolution in information and communication technology, known as Industry 4.0, completely changed the way of working and living. These changes induced the scholars to talk about a new “great transformation”, by adopting the famous expression of Karl Polanyi (1944), used to describe the birth of the market economy. There are no doubts that the change, even if heterogeneous at sectorial and geographical level, is relevant; however, it is important to deeply analyses the dimension of such transformations, the trends and perspectives, the impact of innovations on all the areas. With this regard, evidence suggest that rapid transformation destroys old coping mechanisms, traditional safety nets, while it creates a new set of demands and emerging needs, before new mechanisms of social protection are developed by governments.

This lesson from the nineteenth century has, unfortunately, all foreword too often been forgotten by the advocates of the Washington consensus (Williamson, 1990), as the modern version of the liberal orthodoxy. The most recent global financial crisis reminded us that the self-regulating economy does not always work as well as its proponents would like us to believe. Polanyi’s analysis clearly explains not only the deficiencies of the self-regulating market, but thepotentially alarming social consequences of an unregulated market capitalism. That is the reason why it is rather urgent to find new ways as well as complementary or even alternative practices that keep together economy and society in order to start a new age of a more sustainable, social and inclusive capitalism. The central idea is that self-regulating markets do not perfectly work, their deficiencies, not only in their internal workings, but also in their consequences for less advantaged people, are so great that government intervention becomes necessary; and that the pace of change is of central importance in determining these consequences.

Environmental protection could be better harmonized. In general, as Purvis et al. (2019) have shown the conceptual foundations of this model are not clear and there appears to be no singular source from which it derives.

The origins of the “three-pillar paradigm” have been variously attributed to the Brundtland Report, Agenda 21, and the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, yet in none of these documents is a clear framework or theoretical background made explicit.

However, despite the need for timely and effective interventions, more than 30 years later we can consider that such harmonization has proved rather elusive and not universally shared.

Meanwhile, wealth concentration and inequality have increased, particularly during the last 50 years (Piketty, 2014).

In 2008 the collapse of large financial institutions was prevented by the public bailout of private banks and, nowadays, low growth rates are likely to become the norm in the economic development of mature economies (Summers, 2014; Teulings and Baldwin, 2014). The three pillars of sustainability such as environment, society and economy are, therefore, simultaneously threatened by intertwined crisis.

A paradigm shift is, therefore, urgently needed, but this will certainly take time and require the involvement of several key political, economic and social actors (public and private) such as international organizations, national governments, economic organizations along with social movements and no-profit organizations throughout the world. The experiences and initiatives directly linked to post-growth and de-growth approaches coming from selected countries in Europe and, especially in Latin America, can certainly give added value and represent an opportunity to give new life and impetus to the traditional capitalist system, even if they seem to be complementary rather than alternative to it. In addition, it’s equally important a clear inversion of the policies trend adopted by the more advanced economies, aimed at a more equitable and responsible use of the available resources that does not go to the detriment of emerging and less developed countries. In other words, despite the global slow-down in growth and the pessimistic future scenarios, we believe that a fairer economy and trade are possible and desirable, but within a fairer and more inclusive society.

Starting from this general consideration, the panel aims to increase our knowledge and understanding of the complex development towards new international experiences in capitalism models and welfare systems, looking at theoretical or research-based contributions that deeply analyze the ongoing processes of integration and transformations at local and national level, the role of the actors, their strategies, the challenges for the future and the opportunities. Both quantitative and qualitative essays are welcome. Papers may either focus on developments in a single country or adopt a comparative perspective.

IX.1) MARIA MIRABELLI and ANTONELLA COCO, University of Calabria

Governance in emergency: critical issues and directions of change

Abstract:

This contribution reflects on the reconfiguration of relations between politics, economy and society from a particular point of view: governance in an emergency. This term has become familiar and frequent since the beginning of the Covid 19 pandemic. Emergency is something sudden and upsetting, which takes us out of “normality”, from the “regularity” of things, something that introduces elements of a-normality, disorder, extra-ordinariness, irregularity. The etymology of the word shows us that the emergency is something that comes to the surface, that comes out. What emerges, what suddenly emerges from the surface, can be as much something beautiful and lucky as something dangerous and catastrophic, even if over the years the word has polarized on the negative meaning. It is possible to identify an essential and indisputable character: in any case the emergency is sudden. This leads to a reflection: how suddenly can we see in this emergency? Surely with the onset of the pandemic, an event not expected and not assessable in its effects, the States, the PA, companies and society have had to take extraordinary and exceptional measures to contain the negative effects; complex organizations, in turn dependent on other subjects, had to contain the effects of risks, insecurity, uncertainty and subsequently readjust the processes and governance capacity to the new situation.

To what extent all this has been conditioned by the emergency, by the management of something unexpected and to what extent it has instead depended on dangerous situations that have been reproduced over the years, from the cracked functioning of society, institutions, public administration , from the functioning of health care or of the education chain, etc.? That is, from the weakness of an institutional system that was already experiencing a crisis situation? Our reflection concerns the new challenges that arise for politics in order to hold together, within a project for the renewal of society and in government practices, security questions, the offer of protection and community ties.

IX.2) ADELE BIANCO, D’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara

It Waste, Digital Pollution. The Unsustainable Side of the 4th Industrial Revolution 

Abstract:

This paper proposal is devoted to the electronic waste and the digital pollution topic. Firstly,

concerning the e-waste, we are going to see its origin, the directions of its disposal, and if there is

any possibility of recovery.

Secondly, we are going to see the digital pollution. The data exchanged in internet leave a footprint not only in terms of Big Data but also in terms of the CO2 emissions. Millions of physical servers in data centres around the world, are connected with miles of undersea cables, and with switches and routers. All of them require a lot of energy to run. Finally, we will examine what measures governments can promote to manage the digital and ecological transitions. The challenge is to implement the digitalization process in the sense of sustainability according to the EU economic and social policies.

IX.3) VINCENZO FORTUNATO, University of Calabria and ANTONIO RUSSO, Federico II University of Naples 

Socio-Economic Changes and Sustainable Development: Theories and Perspectives

Abstract:

Sustainable development, in last decades, has become a new paradigm able to replace previous development representations. The paper aims to outline the concept of sustainable development and to analyse related literature. Moving from the of theories of development (classic and contemporary), the paper discusses the concept of sustainability and concept of sustainable development. During the 1980s the concept of sustainable development appeared for the first time, becoming a new paradigm, after the publishing of Brundtland Report. During Nineties, with the globalization, new challenges emerged for the sustainable development, with the diffusion of capitalist development in the peripheral countries.

The sustainable development approach has attracted, il lasts years, the attention of policy-makers, scholars, and stakeholders involved in development policies. A wide range of governmental and non-governmental entities have adopted it as main development paradigm. The main challenges that humankind is facing currently, such as water scarcity, climate change, poverty and inequalities can be (at least partly) addressed by adopting the sustainable development approach. The aim of this paradigm is to achieve a balance among economic, social and environmental sustainability, the three pillars on which sustainable development rests. The paper provides an analytical synthesis of the most recent evolution of the concept of sustainable development.

IX.4) CARMELA GUARASCIO, University of Calabria

Taking Care of Social Issues Starting from New Business and New Governance

Abstract:

Business enterprises are increasingly interested in having social impact and, thus, they need to think beyond pure economics. This is particularly true in the framework of sustainable development goals (SGDs) in which this new conception of governance aims to build new networks among enterprises in dealing with social issues. The process of governance among enterprises and institutions indicates a greater degree of cooperation among public and private actors within mixed decision-making networks (Fortunato, Mirabelli, 2007). For this reason, the article works on a case study of a network of about 200 enterprises involved in a process of corporate social responsibility, involving also institutions. The purpose of studying these organizations is to focus on the search for new institutional forms (Polany, 1957; ib. 1983; ib. 2000) of social and economic regulation (Magatti, 2006; La Rosa, Laville 2007, Singer, 2003). This specific study requires a prior acknowledgment that the economy is plural (Aznar at el, 1997), made up of different principles, that are embedded in social structure (Granovetter, 1985; Laville, 2000). The case study presented is “Polo Lionello Bonfanti” that is a cluster of about 200 enterprises linked to corporate social responsibility. The methodology used is case study in depth, using interviews to privileged actors. This context shows that the more cooperating is the governance, the more the political framework is relevant to the implementation of an inclusive and plural economy. Describing the regulatory logic means questioning the nature of the society to be regulated or at least some of its characters or significant processes, in order to draw a new regulatory framework. In this sense there is a growing interest in explicating the influences of non-economic factors on economic performance, on the labor market and on welfare regimes (Granovetter 1985; Trigilia, Burroni 2009; Ranci, Pavolini 2014). In this research’s framework Polanyi’s model is often taken up and integrated, showing the necessity to recognize a plurality of regulator forms. The main variable is, therefore, the role played by institutions in the production of development and in the support of economic paths in order to give the market a symmetrical and inclusive value. From this perspective, no regulatory form can be conceived as autonomous, since it is interconnected with the others. The relationships that are established among organizations of solidarity economy, public institutions and the market, in fact, affect the development.

IX.5) LUCIA MONTESANTI and FRANCESCA VELTRI, University of Calabria

From Welfare Mix to Hybrid Welfare? New Frontiers of Social Work

Abstract:

As highlighted by the panel proposal, at the end of the 1980s the paradigm of sustainable development was based on the wish for a harmonious intertwining of economic growth, welfare and environmental protection. In the same period in Italy there is a greater state intervention in social protection, with the establishment of the National Health System. Some scholars evoke the advantages but also the risks, emphasizing that public welfare will extend the same rights to all without taking into account inequalities in the opportunity to use them. Volunteer work proposes itself as a mediator between the State and the “vital worlds” of the country, giving life to the complex system of collaboration between public and private actors called “welfare mix”. The risk is that volunteer work, created to fill institutional gaps, ends up replacing the public service, instead of collaborating with institutions, and it creates new inequalities.

In recent years, hybrid experiences between state and voluntary service have multiplied in Italy: roles officially recognized by public institutions and subject to precise rules have been born, but whoever takes them on does not receive any remuneration and no form of insurance or protection.

Our research will analyze some empirical cases of this type, to understand if we are facing a new frontier in the relationship between public and private in terms of social intervention, and what opportunities and what risks this entails.

In particular, we intend to analyze the role of volunteer tutors for Unaccompanied Foreign Minors in Italy, which was formalized by Law no. 47 of 7 April 2017, known as the Zampa law. The legal guardian is a border figure between voluntary and institutional activity, between formal and informal role, without a well-defined and regulated behavior model. These characteristics can lead to a useful flexibility, but also to a risky ambiguity. However, where this role works, it is indeed a frontier role for minors, paving the way for mutual enrichment and it is worthy of further study and attention.

IX.6) WALTER GRECO, University of Calabria

The Pandemic as a Rationalization Crisis

Abstract:

The aim of the present paper is to investigate, from a theoretical point of view. The relationship between the rational approach to life, as thought by Max Weber in his well-known conference “Science as a Vocation” given in 1917 and the transformation of social structures due to postmodernity processes especially in an era heavily conditioned by the contamination of covid-19 virus.

In fact, what we are experiencing, as a side effect of the pandemic, seems to be a crisis in the rational approach to the world. The frantic search for a way out of forced confinement, and the consequent amputation of all the typical forms of sociality produce new forms of marginality and social exclusion. In addition, the media overexposure of scientists and experts, until yesterday unknown to most, make the pandemic phenomenon very similar to a series of representations conformed to magical content where all the weaknesses of the scientific discourse come out replaced by a succession of monotonous predictions that begin and always arrive at the same starting point.

In the so-called postmodernity, time has been regarded as an extremely scarce resource. The parable of technological development, for all modernity, had been focused on the need to create the basis for a more comfortable life that freed humanity from need, disease and hunger for time. If these were the premises, they began to find big limits revealing themselves incapable not only of keeping promises but also of configuring themselves as a global system capable of intensifying the rhythms of life by compressing excessively the already scarce temporal resources.

On the one hand, the rhythms of life accelerate, while on the other, what we can call a real collapse of the temporal dimension occurs. Time, in the cairological sense, (καιρός) stops having a crucial social importance. The sequential programmability of daily actions no longer marks the flow of time according to an order set in the routines of everyday life. Postmodern time tends to flow without leaving any trace of itself. It accelerates but does not passes to return to propose itself identical and equal with minimal variations that do not affect the substance of social organization.

IX.7) ANNA ELIA VALENTINA FEDELE, University of Calabria

Parenting practices in forced migration: the impact on Italian reception system

Abstract:

According to Rumbaut’s (1989) definition of the “shelter structure”, in welfare programmes aimed at refugees the latter are considered defenceless, passive, as silent victims, while, objects of an “integration” accelerated by the Governments’ need to make them autonomous from the welfare system. In this context, the accompaniment approach, following a neo-liberal approach, is however considered for a lonely and isolated individual without family ties (Coppola, Rania, Pinna 2021; Fargion 2021; Sicora 2014), as the same short duration of the reception project, becomes an obstacle to the adequate construction of the family life project (Nadia Rania, Laura Pinna and Ilaria Coppola 2021)

However, Agier (2005) highlights how in the spaces of social work, refugees begin to think about a life project again, expressing above all their own capability, their freedom to be and to act (Sen, 1988). In this process, analysis underline the value of the networks of relationships (formal and informal) between institutional and social actors that allow migrants to access services (Caponio and Pavolini 2007; Ambrosini 2020), and the different reception practices that result from the interaction between beneficiaries and social workers (Elia and Fedele 2000). In the light of this line of analysis, the paper aims to detect the strengths, the critical aspects and the challenges of “parenting” and “doing family” toward Italian welfare system considering the dual perspective of refugees and social workers. The reflections are based on the first results of the research project PRIN “CoPinG – Representations of parenthood in contexts of uncertainty”, in particular those concerning specifically parenthood in contexts of forced migration. The qualitative survey carried out in Calabria, has been focused on the one hand, on the representations of parenting and migrant parenting by social workers, and on the other hand, the significance accorded to parenting practices within in the reception context by migrant parents themselves.

IX.8) NICOLA MALIZIA, Kore University, Enna

Children and Boys: Education against the Distorted Use of the Media

Abstract:

With the advent of the information society, the individual lives within a constant flow of messages conveyed by the media. Modern media, according to psychologists and criminologists, are in many cases an expression of a virtual reality that wants to superimpose itself on real reality. For many children and young people, the media are much more than just a way of looking at the world. They have become ‘their world’, their virtual reality, in which everything, in the worst case scenario, can always be done and undone, although their capacity for discernment and ability to make critical judgements are not yet well developed. There is a need for targeted education aimed at this weaker section of society, which in time will become adult citizens, access the necessary information and be able to analyse it and identify the economic, political, social and/or cultural interests underlying it. Media education is part of the school curriculum in many European countries, however, its application remains problematic, even with regard to traditional media. The key elements of media education are qualified teachers and adequate teaching materials; therefore, constant attention should be paid to the initial and ongoing training of teachers. Uncertainties also persist regarding the place of media education in the curriculum, the methodology to be applied, the objectives to be pursued and the evaluation of results. Moreover, most schools have not yet developed a pedagogical framework in which both pupils and teachers are integrated in a continuous learning process. Alongside the psychological and cultural effects of the media on minors, there are interesting studies in the field of criminology on criminogenic actingout and the consequent victimogenic effects of the often distorted use of technologies applied to communication (cyberstalking, cyberbullying, etc.), which have an impact on a reality that is not only sociological and familial, but increasingly judicial in nature. Such is the concern for the potential negative effects that international research has been committed, to a lesser extent, to studying the pro-social effects which are certainly active: for example, promoting relationality through the media, removing ethnic stereotypes, even providing therapy for phobias (on which interesting experiments exist). The problem then seems to be posed in a broader, one would say political, key. At this point, one would have to ask oneself, what is the meaning and the role that adults attribute to the media in their children’s lives? Or, if we are aware of the fact that these media can be a positive opportunity for growth and not just entertainment or problematic escapism; or if we are willing to confront the universe of children and adolescents for what they are, beyond the stereotypes of fragile and perpetually threatened creatures or perfect and radiant children that the media themselves construct; and again, does it make sense to speak of cultural policy, of intentional project when talking about media and minors?

 

11:45-12:00 

Q&A Panel 9

 

12:00-12:30

Presidential Ending Salutation and Launching our 10th Conference Publications:

Andrea Pitasi, D’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara and WCSA President

As usual (see section VIII above https://www.wcsaglobal.org/10th-conference/), WCSA Conferences are incubators and laboratories for further research & development, not just proceedings. As a matter of fact, not all the speakers turn into authors in the conference follow up publications and the selected full papers are advancements and not merely descriptions of the conference hints and abstracts thus not only conference proceedings, rather authentic research based selected publications. 

As for today, three follow up publications are planned:

I) ISSUE nr. 90 of the CEPSR Review a solid WCSA partner journal Central European Political Science Review: https://cepsr.eu/

II) A future BOOK of our WCSA-CSP book Series:

https://www.cambridgescholars.com/pages/book-series?series_id=86

III) ISSUE 3.3  of our Official WCSA JOURNAL: 

https://www.wcsaglobal.org/wcsa-journal/  

IV) SMP https://journals.fupress.net/societamutamentopolitica-sociological-imagination-beyond-the-lockdown/   Issue 2/23 

More information will follow both on these publications and potential new ones and follow-ups!

 

 16:00

ASSEMBLY

WCSA MEMBERS – ASSEMBLY ONLINE ONLY
The link was already sent to the members in the convocation e-mail