The Department of Political Sciences is heir to the Faculty of Political Sciences, founded in 1925 as a result of the transformation of the pre-existing "School of Political Sciences". The degree courses introduced at Political Sciences have their roots in Italy, in the proposals of Angelo Messedaglia to introduce an organic plan of studies in politics and administration within the ambit of the law faculties. This was a need perceived by the centralized national states of the nineteenth-century, in which structured bureaucracies were being developed for the performance of roles within and without the individual legal systems. Discussion on this theme, which was also ongoing in the French and Austro-Hungarian spheres, led to the founding of the "Cesare Alfieri" Institute in Florence in the 1870s and the "School of Economics and Administration" in Rome, headed by Messedaglia himself. But the project for an independent Faculty of Political Sciences only came into being in the 1920s. The first state faculty was set up in Rome - followed by others in Pavia, Padua and Perugia - along the same lines as the previous liberal-era project, but the latter was expanded to meet the new requirements of mass régimes and in particular those of the then-emerging experience of Fascism. So the faculty had to train not only functionaries for the public and private administrations within and outside the national state, but also executives both for party and trade-union organizations and for the mass media (newspapers and the nascent radio).

After the Second World War Poltical Sciences pursued its natural vocations in a pluralistic, democratic environment, absorbing the changes which had taken place in universities and nation states. In an era of globalization and internationalization, Political Sciences sets out to train experts to operate, with a multi-disciplinary preparation, both in the national context (at various levels) and in Europe and in international organizations. The faculty's more illustrious academics include the historians Giocchino Volpe, Rodolfo de Mattei, Mario Toscano, Armando Saitta and Renzo De Felice; the public law scholars Luigi Rossi, Sergio Panunzio, Egidio Tosato, Costantino Mortati and Carlo Lavagna; international relations scholars Riccardo Monaco and Giuseppe Sperduti; philosophers of law and politics Giuseppe Capograssi and Augusto Del Noce; statisticians Corrado Gini and Raffaele D'Addario; and the economists Alberto de Stefani, Luigi Amoroso and Giuseppe Di Nardi. Our teaching staff has also acted as Heads of Government in two cases (Aldo Moro and Giuliano Amato), as well as supplying several ministers and members of parliament. In 2010 Political Sciences merged with Sociology and Communications Sciences to form the new entity of "Political Sciences, Sociology and Communications".

Directress: Prof. Maria Cristina Marchetti

RAD: Dott.ssa Alessandra Pelorosso

Opening hours:

• Monday to Thursday 8.00 am to 6.00 pm
• Friday 8.00 am to 4.00 pm
• Saturday and Sunday closed