Dear CONGRIPS member,
It is quite an honor for me to be, since January 1, 2018, President of CONGRIPS. It is also a pleasure to facilitate as much as possible the interaction among scholars interested in Italian politics from different perspectives – political science, sociology, history, and more.
Before I go any further, let me warmly thank Laura Polverari who, as past President, reinvigorated CONGRIPS and made so many improvements – too many to even start enumerating them: it would take too much space and time. Following the steps of previous great leaderships, and together with the previous Executive, Laura managed to enhance the visibility of CONGRIPS throughout the world – and the web. Together with Antonella Seddone and Stefano Rombi, Laura managed to revamp the website, increase interactions with national political science associations and mobilize growing interest towards our group.
More modestly, the work plan for 2018-2019 is aimed at building on such good work, i.e. further increasing the visibility of CONGRIPS, strengthening relationships with national associations and developing new venues for collaboration among scholars interested in Italian politics in a comparative perspective. I do hope that CONGRIPS will establish itself as one of the preferred intellectual homes of many scholars and that the website will become an increasingly important tool for communicating events and initiatives which could be of interest to all.
Hope to see you at the forthcoming APSA Annual Conference in Boston!
Paolo Graziano