Una práctica de reflexión sociológica más allá de los marcos nacionales

Abstract

The crisis that began in 2008, and still continues to produce its effects in Eu - rope, and in particular in Italy and Spain, has provided the ideal context to carry out a comparison between the dynamics of change characterizing the two countries. Within the European context, Spain and Italy share many common characteristics. They also share the cultural, social and political effects of economic crisis. The crisis in Italy and Spain, as well in Greece and Portugal, has been particularly harsh. It has strongly affected the economic system, generating a fall in production and contributing to a sharp increase of unemployment and precariousness. As a consequence of crisis, expenditures in welfare state are cut. The crisis amplifies uncertainties and risks typical of late-modernity and exacerbates the processes of individualization. The econo - mic crisis turns into a political, social and cultural crisis. Both roots and remedies to crisis turned to be endogenous to the neoliberal model. The idea of launching a wide comparative analysis project has been developed from the intuition that, despite Italy and Spain share many characteristics, the crisis, in some respects, produces different dynamics, especially in the political dimension. The comparative method, in our view, favors a reflexive exercise. Understanding the dynamics developed in a country invites to develop a criti - cal reflection on the factors that in the other country have led to different dy - namics, forcing the social scientist not to conform with pre-existing explications. Social scientists are called to develop multidimensional explanations, to establish connections, in order to find out how the dynamics of global chan - ge interact with contextual-endogenous variables. As a result of the comparison between Italy and Spain, we find out that, despite the commonalities between both countries, intensity and evolution of crisis is different, as well as its politi - cal and social responses.