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Despite their different institutional setting, economic might and international role, Italy and Germany have shared a common fate since the end of World War II in that they inspired and led the process of European integration. To some extent, particularly if we think of their transition from dictatorship to democracy after the war, they also contributed to the consolidation of democratic rule in Europe. Political support from Germany and Italy, therefore, is critical for European democracy and for maintaining the momentum of European integration. All the more so during periods of economic crisis and political turbulence, when the risks of inward-looking and isolationist attitudes are high and threaten to reawaken a number of stereotypes and biases that could drive these countries apart (Piattoni et al. 2018).These events prompted us to assemble a group of scholars who would look at the variegated effects of this sequence of crises on the institutional, political and economic settings of both countries with a view to evaluate the nature and evolution of relations between Germany and Italy at a very volatile historical juncture after a decade and a half of crises. We met in October 2021 in Loveno di Menaggio, on Lake Como, Italy, thanks to generous DFG funding and to the hospitality of the Villa Vigoni foundation. Our main concern in organizing the colloquium was to select promising and inspiring pieces of empirical research on Italy and Germany, following the traditional Villa Vigoni policy of fostering a truly inter-disciplinary and inter-generational discussion. A number of pre-doc and post-doc researchers, focusing their research on Italy and Germany, were thus selected for participation.The participants of this workshop were free to develop different lines of inquiry and to apply different methodologies. However, all contributors were asked to provide an assessment of how two large European democracies like Germany and Italy - among the founders of the European

Rossella Borri is research assistant at the Laps (Laboratory for Political and Social Analyses) at the University of Siena. She has extensively published on far-right parties and sovereignism in Europe and in a comparative perspective. Lukas Brenner is a political scientist and lecturer at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. His research focuses on the study of populist phenomena, with a particular interest in explaining the rise of populism in the current century and the development of populist radical right parties in Europe. Alice Cavalieri is a research fellow at the University of Trieste. Her main research interests concern public budgeting and policy changes in European countries. Her first book, Italian Budgeting Policy (Palgrave Macmillan) is forthcoming in 2023. Riccardo Emilio Chesta is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Scuola Normale Superiore and the Carlo Azeglio Ciampi Institute for Advanced Studies in Florence. His research interests are in social theory, sociology of expertise, social movements and political sociology. He has published The Contentious Politics of Expertise (Routledge, 2020) and together with Donatella Della Porta and Lorenzo Cini Labour Conflicts in the Digital Age (BUP, 2022). Nikolaus Freimuth is Student of History at Goethe-University Frankfurt and also studied at Paris Sorbonne IV and Alma Mater Studiorum Bologna. He currently writes his master's thesis on the history of free radio in the 1970s and 1980s in a transnational and intermedial perspective. Johannes Karremans is Research Fellow at the European University Institute (EUI). His research interests are in the fields of budgetary politics and welfare re-calibration. His research has appeared in several international journals. Linda Krzikalla is graduate student in Conflict Management and Humanitarian Action at the University of Siena, student assistant Intern at CIRCaP Lab on Sovereignist Parties. Alexander Mathewes is a MA student of political science at the