Stefano Passigli

Interview

•  "Gouvernement: a fresh impetous of new technology for italian growth" (Rome, 11/01/99)

Biography

Stefano Passigli (www.senato.it) is currently under-secretary to the Prime Minister. A graduate in political science, after studying for a Ph.D. in political science at Harvard University he qualified as a university lecturer in sociology. He has taught administration science and political science at the Universities of Padua, Bologna and Florence. In 1971 he was made professor of the University of Florence, first in administration science and then in political science. He has taught as a teaching fellow at Harvard and as a visiting professor at the University of Michigan. He represented Italy on the executive committee of the International Association of Political Science for eight years. Author of numerous scientific books and other publications in several languages, his principal interests in recent years have been in the field of institutional reform. Elected to parliament in 1992 for the Italian Republican Party for the Firenze-Pistoia constituency, he was a member of the parliamentary commissions on "Culture, science and education" and "Constitutional Affairs", and of the bicameral commission for regional issues and the regulations council. In the 1994 election he was elected senator for Florence for the "Progressives". In the 1994-1996 legislature he was secretary of the President of the Senate's advisory committee and was a member of the Commission on Education, Cultural Heritage and Scientific Research, and of the Bicameral Supervisory Committee for RAI, the Italian public service broadcaster. In 1996 he was re-elected to the Senate for the Pistoia constituency and was again part of the President of the Senate's advisory committee. He is a member of the Constitutional Affairs Commission, the Bicameral Supervisory Committee for RAI and was on the Bicameral Committee for Institutional Reform. With a background in the Republican left, he joined the PDS (Democrats of the Left), where he is the national spokesman for cultural heritage and institutions. He is president of the Longanesi publishing house and founded and is president of Passigli Editori. He has been an advisor to Credito Lombardo and the bank Euromobiliare (Gruppo Credito Emiliano). Apart form publishing, he is active in other cultural fields: a long-time member of the special projects committee of the Venice Biennale, for many years he has been president of the Friends of Music of Florence, one of Italy's oldest musical societies.