World Social Summit

The World Social Summit (WSS) is a yearly international initiative of Fondazione Roma, a private institution that works to support social and economic progress, realized with the collaboration of Censis. The Summit's aim is to promote a debate on the numerous issues, such as the environment, demography, immigration, poverty and security, that affect the global social evolution. The WSS is focused on the social aspects of the global progress. The summit put together major global experts, such as Nobel Prize laureates, academics, politicians, people from the business community, and representatives of national and international institutions and create a setting where ideas, and possible solutions to global issues, can be exchanged.

The WSS Organizational structure:

  • WSS President - Emmanuele F. M. Emanuele (Fondazione Roma, Italy)
  • WSS Secretary-General - Giuseppe De Rita (Censis, Italy)
  • WSS Director - Giuseppe Roma (Censis, Italia)

WSS 2008 Edition

The first edition of World Social Summit, called: Fearless: discussion on how to combat global anguish, will focus on global fears, will take place in Rome on between the 24th and 25 September 2008. This choice was made by taking into due consideration the central position that fear occupies within contemporary societies, not only due to the increase of risks that threaten society (terrorism, crime, environment), but chiefly, the expansion of uncertainty that now distinguishes people's lives, makes fear, real or imagined, an emotion that an increasing segments of the world's population are forced to come to terms with.

The main protagonists of the WSS 2008 Edition are : the sociologists Anthony Giddens and Zygmunt Bauman, the economist Jacques Attali, the economist and Nobel laureate Gary Becker, the psychologist James Hillman, the journalist Bill Emmot, the architect Massimiliano Fuksas, the scientist Edoardo Boncinelli, the writer and journalist Roberto Saviano, the writer Suketu Mehta.

The 2008 summit is focused on:

  • The analysis of the relationship between the different aspects of globalization and social, multicultural, and economic anguish.
  • The growth of global flows and its connection with new anxieties in emerging countries. Central to this issue is the analysis on how the relationship with "others" can breed fear.
  • The analysis on the social and communication mechanisms that today preside over the construction of fear.
  • The analysis of the instruments and the models that modern societies use to face up to anxieties and create a more secure environment.

A special session of the Summit will be dedicated to metropolitan insecurity. Through a research realised by the Censis for WSS on ten big cities around the world, the summit will analyse the current conditions of urban life and study the solutions that have been implemented to reduce insecurity.

Sources
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