The Dipartimento di Istituzioni Politiche e Scienze
Sociali was founded on November 29, 1996,and achieved its full
administrative and financial authonomy in June 1997, which makes
it the "youngest" Department at the University of Roma Tre. The
scientific project of the Department aims at promoting and coordinating
a number of research initiatives on the political and social dimensions
of contemporary Western societies. Its medium/long term objective
is to become an "observatory" of the transformation of Italian,
European and international societies and political bodies caused
by the dual process of globalization and fragmentation, whose
impact is one of the crucial challenges of our times. This approach
has gradually brought the Department to concentrate on such topics
as the process of European integration (with particular emphasis
on the issue of European citizenship), the protection of human
rights at a transnational level, the issues of international security
and of the operations of peace support in the post-Cold war era,
the reforms of the Italian administrative and political structure,
equal opportunities, the making of political �lites and the transformation
of politics in the age of the mass-media.
The Department's Teaching Staff is currently involved
in a large number of individual and collective research projects:
among the collective ones are the projects on "Issues of European
Integration", which coordinates several research initiatives on
such topics as European citizenship, the reform of the EU's budget,
unemployment in Europe, environmental protection in a European
framework, and the like. Individual research projects include
the changes in the international system (US-Italian relations,
colonial and post-colonial Africa, the Dayton Agreements), the
transformation of the civil service, budget and debt analysis,
political change in contemporary societies (utopianism, sects,
the role of the �lites in a changing world).
The Department is currently running two Ph.D Programs
on 1) Political theories and women's rights and 2) Theory and
History of the formation of political �lites, and two post-graduate
courses in 1) Peacekeeping and security studies and 2) European
Citizenship.