Adapation or Transformation? Interpreting Participation in Times of Austerity in an Old Red Region

This article investigates how political, social and associative participation is changing in the last years in an old Italian "red" region (Emilia-Romagna) with respect the previous decades. The analysis of the new model of participation that is increasingly consolidating in the selected case shows that a process of adaptation, rather than transformation, is taking place. In fact, the actual economic crisis is only accentuating the establishment of this new model, which continues to a large extent to be conditioned by the civic-mindedness historically present in this region, and which has been subject of several studies in the past by Italian and American scholars.