Role
Full Professor of Political Science at the University of Trento
Bio
She earned a five-year BA/MA in Economic and Social Sciences (DES) from Bocconi University (1985). After two years of management consulting for an industrial group and research at the Department of Industrial Policy at Bocconi University, she was admitted to the PhD program in Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (USA), which she completed in 1996. She became Amanuensis (Assistant Professor), then Førsteamanuensis (Associate Professor) in Comparative Politics at the Department of Political Science at the University of Tromsø (Norway) (1994–99).
She spent two years as a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute (EUI) in Fiesole (Italy) (1999-2000) and was appointed Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Trento in 2001.
From 2010 to 2011 , she was Professor of European Politics at the University of Innsbruck (Austria), but returned to Trento as a full Professor of Political Science, where she still holds that position. She maintains strong ties to Norwegian academia, having been an associate professor of Governance at the University of Agder (Kristiansand) (2014–18) and a research associate at the ARENA Centre for European Studies at the University of Oslo since 2019.
He served as chairman of the Conference Group on Italian Politics and Society (CONGRIPS), a section of the American Political Science Association (APSA) (2007-09), and as a member and Chair of the Executive Committee of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) (2009-15), the first woman to hold this role, as well as President of the Italian Society of Political Science (SISP) (2015-18). She was a member of the Executive Committee of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) (2018-21).
She coordinated BA and MA courses in International Studies at the University of Trento, was a member of the VQR (Anvur Research Quality Evaluation) (2014-18) and a member of the ASN (MIUR National Scientific Qualification for the Political Science sector, 14/A2) (2018-20).
My doctoral thesis and primary research interest was the economic development of four areas of Southern Italy, with a particular focus on the role played by local political elites in promoting or hindering development. This led to parallel and enduring interests in the study of clientelism and local government, on the one hand, and development policies and, more generally, the political economy, on the other. From development policies for Southern Italy to European Cohesion Policy was a short step, and from there, my interest in the role of the regions, and the Committee of the Regions, in European democracy was an equally logical and natural progression.
His interest in European politics has subsequently led to a particular focus on multilevel governance, a topic to which he has dedicated in-depth and innovative analyses. More recently, his comparative study of the performance of Italy and Germany during the euro crisis and the problems of European democracy have emerged as key areas of investigation.