Guido Ferilli

In this paper, we present an innovative data processing architecture, the Activation & Competition System (ACS), and show how this methodology allows us to reconstruct in detail some aspects of the fine grained structure of global relationships in the world order perspective, on the basis of a minimal dataset only consisting of the values of five publicly available indicators for 2007 for the 118 countries for which they are jointly available. ACS seems in particular to qualify as a valuable tool for the analysis of inter-country patterns of conflict and alliances, which may prove of special interest in the current situation of global strategic uncertainty in international relations.

Building on the early works of Alfred Marshall, analyses of local economies have emphasized the spatial function of clusters and industrial districts in terms of external economies of localization and agglomeration. Recent literature has emphasized the importance of culture and the complementarities between culture and local tangible and intangible assets. This paper aims to provide an analytical foundation for these processes with a view to developing tools for policy design, analysis and evaluation. By " system-wide cultural districts, " we refer to a new approach to local development where cultural production and participation present significant strategic complementarities with other production chains. In this view, culture drives the accumulation of intangible assets such as human, social, and cultural/symbolic capital, thereby fostering economic and social growth and environmental sustainability.

In this paper we carry out a meta-analytic review of the literature on culture-led local development models. We identify and discuss three typical fallacies characterising mono-causal culture-led development schemes: instrumentalism, over-engineering, and parochialism. We then discuss their analytical background, and provide examples illustrating the consequences of each. Based upon this critical discussion, we make a case for a 'new territorial thinking' approach that takes into account the tangled hierarchy of global and local viewpoints that is connatural to spatially situated cultural production, and focuses upon a non-linear, multi-causal scheme as the only possible framework for the policy design of credible, socially accountable, culture-led development strategies.

This paper focuses on the role of cultural participation as a source of individual subjective well-being in terms of the sociability orientation of different cultural activities. In previous works, we have found a strong association between subjective well-being and cultural participation. Here, we want to test to what extent such as association can be ascribed to the fact that cultural participation allows individuals to engage in non instrumental forms of social interaction, which are conducive to genuine forms of interpersonal relations. The test is conducted through two different evidence bases: on a survey covering Italian population and focused on the relation between culture and well-being; and an online survey of experts, ranking the 14 culturally related activities of the previous survey in terms of their sociability orientation. Our findings show that cultural participation tends to be oriented preferentially toward relatively sociable activities, thereby contributing to the production of relational goods and social capital.

Working on the top 100 Interbrand world corporate brands dataset over the 10-years period 2001–10, we analyze the relative positioning of country brands as derived from the structural characteristics of the corresponding portfolios of top corporate brands. We find that the structural complexity of both sector and country variables are not correlated with brand equity. Moreover, we apply an innovative ANN methodology, AutoCM, to build the Minimum Spanning Tree (MST) of the multi-dimensional similarities among the top corporate brands structures at country level, and carry out a further related analysis in terms of the so called Maximum Regular Graph (MRG). We find that while the USA dominates the ranking of top brands at a global level, it does not have a central positioning in the MST and MRG, whereas Germany and other European and Far-Eastern countries do. We show how these results may have significant implications for the strategic intelligence analysis of country and corporate brands, and of their inter-relatedness. Moreover, we illustrate how AutoCM qualifies as a new computational approach that usefully expands the toolbox of scholars and analysts in corporate and country branding in a relevant, as yet unexplored direction.

Management of cultural heritage is an issue that is attracting increasing attention worldwide, as emphasis shifts from pure conservation issues to issues of future sustainability of heritage sites. Experience seems to suggest that it is difficult to preserve heritage sites without embedding them into a cultural vital social and economic environment, whereas at the same time there is the risk that, by putting excessive focus on the economic dimension, they are turned into theme parks with gradual loss of authenticity and progressive disintegration of their cultural and historical value. This paper tackles these issues through a comparative study of two Japanese heritage cities, Otaru and Y ubari, both in the Hokkaido Island of the Japanese archipelago. The case study is of interest in that the two cities are representative of two opposite attitudes toward heritage management: in Otaru, the revaluation of local cultural assets has been conducted through the involvement of the local population and a socially inclusive approach, whereas in Y ubari a top-down, financially driven approach has been developed in order to improve the city's attractiveness for tourists. The results of such opposite strategies have gained international attention. The Municipality of Y ubari has gone bankrupt and its tourist attraction policy has been largely ineffective, whereas the bottom up approach of the City of Otaru has led to a rejuvenation of the city, that is now attracting tourists from abroad and has witnessed a considerable improvement in the local quality of life and in the sustainable use of local cultural heritage. Recent, successful new policy developments in Y ubari to rescue the town from its deep crisis by means of direct dialog with citizens provide further evidence that active involvement of the local population makes the difference. This comparative analysis suggests that socially inclusive policies seem to be an essential component of viable heritage management models, and that failure to integrate such dimension into the strategic approach may be a fatal flaw.

The main goal of this paper is to show how the scientific production of advanced western countries is distributed and connected in global networks. Together with various indicators for the evaluation of the journal, the database used is provided by Scopus, the most comprehensive for dimension and variety in representing international scientific production. An elementary statistics is not suitable for this task: different journals are linked with different countries, with many indices in a complex many to many relations. Therefore a new artificial adaptive system, named Atemporal Target Diffusion Model (ATDM, for short), will be used for this analysis. ATDM has already

Building upon the companion paper in this issue, this essay analyses five case studies that can be taken as prototypes of the system-wide cultural district culture-led developmental model. The research targets five cities in Europe and the U.S.: Valencia, Austin, Newcastle/Gateshead, Linz, and Denver. Each presents specific characteristics but also some deep, structural common traits. The case studies are compared and their future viability is evaluated in terms of the factors presented in the companion piece. T he increasing interest in culture as a catalyst and engine for local development processes finds its antecedents in experiments in urban and regional planning, such as the urban regeneration plans carried out by the Greater London Council during the 1970s, which was based on a strategic vision focused on the necessity of endowing local economies with a cultural infrastructure (Department of Culture, Media, and Sports [DCMS] 2008). The issue of culture-led renovation processes for urban areas subsequently developed both at the theoretical and policy levels (