This course was taught during the academic year 2025–2026 and examined the historical evolution and contemporary dimensions of equality and inequality from a global perspective, focusing on the period from 1950 to the present. It introduced students to the main conceptual frameworks and theoretical approaches used to analyze inequality, while exploring how different forms of asymmetry have developed and interacted across time and space.
The course began with an overview of key concepts and theories. Particular attention was devoted to the distinction between formal and substantive equality, as well as to major theories of justice. Inequality was approached as a multidimensional phenomenon, encompassing disparities in income, gender, ethnicity, education, and access to healthcare.
The second part of the course examined the global transformations that followed the end of the Second World War. It analyzed the expansion of welfare states in Europe and North America, the processes of decolonization and the emergence of new postcolonial inequalities, and the impact of the Cold War on uneven development between competing geopolitical blocs.
The course then turned to the period of globalization and the rise of neoliberalism from the 1970s to the 1990s. It explored how neoliberal policies reshaped global economic structures, contributing to both overall economic growth and increasing internal inequalities. Special attention was given to the emergence of new global elites alongside new forms of poverty and marginalization.
A substantial part of the course was dedicated to contemporary social and environmental inequalities. Topics included educational, healthcare, and digital poverty; gender gaps and ethnic discrimination; and the growing relevance of climate justice and ecological inequality. The course also addressed the COVID-19 pandemic as a critical moment that exposed and intensified existing inequalities while generating new forms of vulnerability.
The course further developed a comparative perspective through regional focuses and case studies. It examined development trajectories and neocolonial dynamics in Sub-Saharan Africa; redistribution policies and populist movements in Latin America; the interplay of wealth, conflict, and forced migration in the Middle East; and the challenges of welfare crisis, urban poverty, systemic racism, and socio-political polarization in Europe and the United States.
Finally, the course reflected on the relationship between rights, citizenship, and the future of equality. It considered the implications of emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, and discussed how algorithmic systems could reproduce or even amplify existing forms of inequality, giving rise to new patterns of discrimination.
Commenti recenti