Abstract: In Europe the public role of the religions appears to be directly proportional to the fall in trust in the procedural mechanisms at the basis of the liberal democracies. Compared to the strong identities attributed to the United States and to the Islamic world Europe is accused of...

International comparisons of Civil Services usually overlook the difficulties due to differing definitions of the civil service in national legal systems. Comparative statistics are therefore extremely misleading, as they are at best based on formal-legal criteria instead of being based on...