The social conditions of territorial development: a comparison between Sardinia and Sicily

Parsonsian theories of modernization (Parsons 1966; Bendix 1967; Goldthorpe 1971) had a dual ambition analytical: to propose an interpretation historical-comparative of social development and to highlight the causal link between cultural and structural factors (Chazel 1974). The successive transformations of the original theories - while focusing on the economic political and cultural factors of the development, (Dore 1987; Evans e Stephens 1988; Eisenstadt 1990) - not always have fueled the ambition analytical original.
Through which social mechanisms the individual bents cognitive and normative promote the economic and social development of the different Regions? And through which sociological methods is possible to understand these mechanisms?
Identifying the distinctive features of the sociology of public action and reflecting on the different public-private partnerships (Duran 1998) activated in implementation of the cohesion policies in two Regions of southern Italy: Sicily and Sardinia, we highlight different logical of cooperation (Cersosimo 2001; 2004) based on the transformation of individual utilities in forms of political solidarity in Sardinia and on instrumental negotiations between individual and public utilities in Sicily. It is possible - as the comparison of two case studies noted - that processes of individualization based on internalizations juridical and moral of the individuality constitute the roots collective of the different cooperative logic? And if so, which social mechanisms promote internalizations juridical moral of the individuality?