Il commosso ricordo che si rinnova di anno in anno della distruzione atomica di Hiroshima e della strage dei suoi abitanti segna in realtà il fallimento della comunità internazionale a risolvere il problema delle armi nucleari; in 70 anni non si è riusciti non solo a eliminarle, ma neppure a definire una convenzione internazionale che ne proibisca l’uso e tanto meno a bloccarne lo sviluppo e la proliferazione. Dal 1945 in poi hanno via via creato arsenali nucleari Stati Uniti, Unione Sovietica, Regno Unito, Francia, Cina, Israele, India, Pakistan, Sud Africa e Corea del Nord e solo il Sud Africa è ritornato sui suoi passi. E la diversificazione delle armi nucleari e il loro numero sono cresciuti fino a raggiungere quasi 70 000 armi nei primi anni 80, un numero mostruoso e assolutamente privo alcun senso politico e militare. [...]

Stando all’autorevole Enciclopedia Treccani, i diritti sociali sarebbero quell’insieme di facoltà riconosciute dalla legge ai lavoratori nei confronti del datore di lavoro, anche con riferimento alla correttezza delle relazioni industriali; oppure, in senso più ampio, il complesso delle tutele e dei servizi erogati dallo Stato e dagli enti locali al fine di garantire una rete di protezione sociale, e dunque il welfare in tutte le sue articolazioni principali. È proprio da questo controverso perimetro che parte l’analisi concettuale di Thomas Casadei. Essa rappresenta – come del resto indica molto bene il sottotitolo – un percorso filosofico-giuridico in un ambito più complesso di quel che si possa pensare in prima istanza. 

"Economic Inequality: crises, conflicts and threats for peace" is an interdisciplinary international conference, jointly organized by the online journal "Scienza e Pace - Science and Peace", the Sciences for Peace Interdisciplinary Centre - University of Pisa, and the Department of Economics and Management - University of Pisa. The conference will be held in Pisa, on 1^st December 2017, by the "Aula Magna" of the Department of Economics and Management. See here the map for accessing the venue.

There are no registration fees. Nevertheless, in order to facilitate the organisation of the conference, please send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. signalising your intention to participate.

Draft Conference Programme

9:00 – 9.15 Welcome addresses

Silvio Bianchi Martini, Dean of the Department of Economics and Management
Enza Pellecchia, Director of the Sciences for Peace Interdisciplinary Centre
Pompeo Della Posta, Editor of Scienza e Pace – Science and Peace

I Part – The general context

9:15 - 9:45 Pompeo Della Posta (Università di Pisa)
An introduction: economic inequality, economic theory and social capital

9:45 – 10:15 Pascal Petit (Université Paris 13)
Is the systemic rise in income inequality likely to reverse and for which reasons?

10:15 – 10:45 Roberto Burlando (Università di Torino)
Economic inequality and the economic and cultural divides of our time

10:45 – 11:00 Coffee Break

II Part - Some aspects of economic inequality

11:00 – 11:30 Indra de Soysa (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway)
Social Exclusion and Civil Violence

11:30 – 12:00 Maurizio Franzini (Università La Sapienza, Roma)
Economic inequality and social immobility: a vicious circle?

12:00 – 12:30 Stefano Bartolini (Università di Siena)
Envying alone. Social poverty as an engine of social comparisons and unhappiness

12:30 – 13.00 Discussion and roundtable

13:00 – 14:30 Lunch Break

III Part – Some specific country cases

14:30 – 15:00 Habibul Khondker (via Skype) (Zayed University, United Arab Emirates)
Existential Inequality and Women’s Empowerment in Selected Muslim Majority Countries: A Comparative Study

15:00 -15:30 Michele Raitano (Università La Sapienza, Roma),
Intergenerational transmission mechanisms of inequalities in Italy and some international comparisons

15:30 – 16:00 Francesco Sarracino (via Skype) (STATEC, National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg), Luxembourg
Explaining Russian exception: containing income inequality promotes life satisfaction

16:00 – 17:00 Discussion and roundtable. End of the conference

The new Editor of Scienza e Pace / Science and Peace presents the state of the art and the future perspectives of the journal.

Review of Elisabetta Grande, Guai ai poveri. La faccia triste dell'America [“Woe to the poor: The sad face of America”], Edizioni Gruppo Abele, Turin, 2017.

The primary aim of this research paper is to analyse and discuss how the implementation of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) can maximize the impact of capacity building in scientific research and in turn, contribute to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is discussed that there has been a movement towards an evolution of PPPs systems, particularly in regard to new financial methods for education and scientific research. This paper demonstrates that international organisations such as the United Nations (UN) are increasingly encouraging the adoption of PPPs. Also discussed are the challenges faced during the cooperation between the private sector and multilateral organisations during the adoption of PPPs. Practical casework from the African continent is also explored. This article showcases joint-initiatives (such as the UNESCO-Merck Africa Research Summit) that aim to create fertile ground for spillover effects, such as North-South and South-South scientific cooperation, as well as gender empowerment in research. Following the controversial literature, PPPs can catalyse stronger relationships among heterogeneous actors which include international organisations, industry, research centres and universities.

Contemporary war tends to destruct everything and everyone. Among civilian causalities women, including young girls and children, are often the most exposed and vulnerable. This paper explores how, during some wars, the body of women become the field of strong for a group or a nation, and how the enemies are targeting exactly this identity in order to affirm their superiority. Women are identified with their bodies and become the symbolic territory of a border crossing and the exercise of power. So the dehumanisation of peoples, such as in the former Yugoslavia or in Ruanda, starts on women's body. What is at stake here is not sexual violence per se, but rather its use as war strategy, resting on specific social meanings. On the one hand, atrocities perpetrated on women, also in public, are the metaphor of the permanent destruction of the rival society, and express therefore ethnic hatred rather than misogyny. On the other hand, the identification of women with the “property of the male enemy” to be destructed, is grounded in a contestable patriarchal conception of society.

What is left today of the Obama's Cairo speech entitled "A New Beginning", as a large region of the Middle East became a field of battle, and entire new generations seeking social change were traumatised by misleading ideologies and years of combats? I will answer to this question by contesting the dominant views on the ongoing conflicts, in particular the Syrian civil war, as being grounded in unsuitable categories and unilateral perspectives. Having this in mind, my personal contribution consists in exposing the misunderstandings of the well-known Gramscian dilemma between being partisan or indifferent. I will discuss the “neutrality” claimed by the population of Yarmouk, the Palestinian Damascus district now gone to the ground, as a valid alternative to this dilemma. In the Middle East, and particularly in Syria, where global forces clash for their opposed geopolitical and economic interests, taking side often means becoming pawns in the game of others. If this is true, neutrality may offer a starting point for changing paradigm.

Many relevant episodes of the past show the role played by malaria over the centuries. Among those episodes we find the battle of Walcheren, where Napoleon might have used malaria as a biological weapon, the American Civil War and the two World Wars. As for the Second World War, much emphasis has been given to the so called “other battle of Cassino”, namely the battle fought against the mosquitoes, the vectors of the malaria infection, at the end of the war. The article also focuses on the part taken by malaria in the Korea and Vietnam Wars. As far as the latter is concerned, a positive side effect was represented by the tremendous efforts given by the government of the People’s Republic of China to the studies on new anti-malaria drugs, like the artemisinin derivatives. At present, artesunate is, among them, the best available drug against Plasmodium, although the emergence of drug resistance is now threatening the real effectiveness of malaria control measures. The relationship between malaria and contemporary wars, such as the one in Afghanistan, and the impact of the disease on the length of civil wars are also discussed.

Cancer is a traumatic life event that breaks into individual existence, threatening and destabilising all identity dimensions of sick people. Therefore, it is necessary to propose an elaboration of this negative experience, shifting the focus from a vision centred exclusively on the disease towards processes that promote resilience and create chances for a positive development and personal growth. Using Narrative Medicine in oncology allows a building process with the patient, based on shared meanings of health and disease, which can itself be therapeutic and contribute to the improvement or the acceptance of the disease and the treatments. The narrative, developed with the technique of the diary, is not simply a “container of events” but assists the patient in the process of adaptation to the disease, creating a space in which (s)he can express, develop, integrate, build and finally mentalise meanings and experiences related to the oncological disease, recognised as a critical event within his/her autobiographical memory.