Entrepreneurship, Polycentrism, and Elites Local Industrial Development in Modern Italy

Italy has become an industrial country for the economic boom of its north-west, driven in the 1950s and 60s by large companies encouraged by state investments and “reconstruction” after the Second World War. However, Italy has become the second industrialized European country thanks to the widespread industrialization of small local medium-sized enterprises in rural contexts, where a rural urban continuum was established for a phase around small and medium-sized municipalities. It is located mainly in the centre and east of the Italian peninsula (Terza Italia) and was the best local development for the country since the Renaissance, which saw its epicentre in these areas. Local development may deal with other activities such as tourism, as in the case of the “pleasure district” formed with the epicentre of Rimini (centre-north-east) or even in a protected park area as in the case of the small villages of the Abruzzo National Park. The book, however, focuses on the model of local industrial development of the Third Italy (centre-north8 east Italy). The model of success in the 1970s and 80s is discussed by highlighting its deep roots in society, in its history and in its laborious and resilient social culture. It is a social construction in Searle terms.