The Politics of Public Administration Reform in Italy

Sabrina Cavatorto, Antonio La Spina

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9783030322878
• eBook ISBN: 9783030322885
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: European Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book provides a stimulating presentation of the Italian administrative system through an empirical and critical perspective on the processes of administrative reform at the national level. It focuses on some of the most recent changes developed during the years of austerity and fiscal crisis and offers an updated perspective on the attempts made by Italian governments to modernize national public administration through the 'new public management' and 'governance' paradigms. These frameworks have been suggested as models to enhance efficiency, transparency, accountability and public participation. The book studies international and supranational influence, policy diffusion, domestic politics and institutional dynamics, administrative traditions, and functional explanations—all determinants of policy outputs and outcomes, and possibly of policy learning as well. This book is the first to set out such a comprehensive and up-to-date analysis for non-Italian readers.

© The Author(s) 2020

S. Cavatorto, A. La SpinaThe Politics of Public Administration Reform in Italyhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32288-5_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: The Puzzle of Administrative Change

Sabrina Cavatorto¹ and Antonio La Spina²

(1)

University of Siena, Siena, Italy

(2)

Luiss Guido Carli, Free International University of Social Studies, Rome, Italy

Sabrina Cavatorto (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Antonio La Spina

Email: [email protected]

Abstract

This introductory chapter develops the theoretical framework of the book, placing the country case study of Italy on main trajectories of administrative change in Europe. The variety of administrative traditions and models of innovation are at the core of our reflection about possible new policy trends: in the way reform options have been incrementally shaped, we examine how New Public Management (NPM)-oriented approaches have been taken into consideration, together with the development of post-NPM narratives. The peculiarity of an empirical science of public administration is put forward.

Keywords

Policy changeNew Public ManagementNeo-Weberian statePublic governanceImplementationItaly

End Abstract

1.1 Administrative Reforms, Types of Public Policy and the Empirical Science of Public Administration

The adoption and implementation of administrative reforms could be thought of as being relatively smooth. Neither they imply the huge financial costs of social policies, nor do they focus on identitarian and ideologically divisive issues. Rather, they are based on the commonsensical idea that red tape is excessive and public bureaucracies are rigid, tardy and inefficient. In principle, therefore, they could easily attract some consensus among both citizens and members of the political elite. At the same time, for the above reasons the decision making processes leading to their approval could be expected not to be ridden with controversies and conflicts. According to the seminal taxonomy of public policies proposed by Lowi (1970, 1972), administrative reforms seem to belong to “constituent policies”, which are in fact characterized by remoteness of coercion and low levels of conflict.¹

Gustavsson (1980) combined Wilson’s (1980) and Lowi’s taxonomies: administrative reforms can be seen as measures with diffused costs and diffused benefits, being to some extent able to “determine” (in Lowi’s vein), like any type of public policy, the way political interactions (i.e. politics) develop. This would be consistent with their supposed relative “easiness”. One might guess that all that is actually needed is the availability of certain technical policy instruments (which could be creatively devised or, more frequently, imitated), whose application can be credibly expected to reduce or solve certain problems plaguing existing public bureaucracies. Imitation and learning would therefore be the main factors in order to explain why certain historical phases apparently exhibit “waves” of administrative reforms, which expand themselves across many countries. This is what is supposed to have happened at first with the diffusion of the neo-liberal version of new public management (NPM ), which stressed the need to cut costs and import efficient tools from the private sector, and then with other more progressive approaches, which rather emphasized service quality, involvement of citizens/users, openness of governance and participation (the so-called “post-NPM” models). Such a picture, however, would be overly simplistic, and anyway is contradicted by several hard facts. When they are really impactful, administrative reforms often modify, reduce or eliminate existing advantages and opportunities for rent-seeking. Therefore, in such cases they would rather imply concentrated costs and diffused benefits, hence a much more adversarial and difficult decision path. Apart from the more or less overt opposition of bureaucrats or other actors whose material interests would be directly damaged by a reform, also the general culture, the institutions or the policy style of each country are relevant in favouring or obstructing the adoption and implementation of administrative reforms (Lenschow et al. 2005; Stillman 2016; Gustafsson and Richardson 1980; Richardson 1982). It must also be remarked that the diffusion of the various waves of public management reforms was not in fact so widespread, homogeneous and uncontroversial (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2017; Goldfinch and Wallis 2010; Massey 2018). A public intervention in this field could be merely or mostly symbolic, when it is devoid not only of the necessary minimum of financial resources, but also of sanctions or other tools that can alter bureaucratic structures and performances deeply enough. It can also happen that, even if the innovation is explicitly inspired by some foreign experience or managerial approach, it resorts to choosing inappropriate instruments (e.g. performance evaluators that are supposed to be independent, but actually are not).

Public administrations and the policies affecting them can be studied from three different cognitive points of view: that of the jurists, who interpret valid texts in order to derive from them legal obligations and consequences; the managerial one, which is focused on the practical need of performance improvement; that of empirical social scientists (who belong to the science of administration, political science, sectoral sociology and other relevant fields), who produce explanatory/predictive accounts based on factual evidence, concerning the actual operation of real public bureaucracies, as well as the genesis, formulation, drafting, legitimacy and impact (including unintended consequences) of reforms.² The present study is to be attributed to the third point of view. We examined Italian administrative reforms against the background of the interface between external pressures, isomorphic change, path dependency and domestic politics. The framework is dynamic and reflects the balance of power relations among the relevant actors and institutions involved in the administrative policy as a subsystem. That is the way we see politics and the policy processes interact, confirming that in order to understand administrative reforms trajectories the “pure” dichotomy between politics (politicians) and administration (bureaucrats) within the policy cycle (decision making vs. implementation) is not enough.

1.2 Continuity and Changes Within Public Administrations

There is wide convergence among scholars of public administration (PA) that “administrative reform is a slow process of incremental small changes, with radical changes occurring only occasionally” (Kickert 2011: 802), often as a result of external shocks (the so-called critical junctures³). Anyway, beyond the pessimistic view that administrative reforms “are mostly piecemeal, gradual and incremental” and that “almost nothing happened at all”, particularly in Southern European states, Kickert concludes that “many small changes could add up to a substantial change” (ibidem). In fact, modes of gradual, nevertheless transformative change, were also taken into consideration by historical institutionalists, traditionally more used to adopt an “all-or-nothing” dichotomous way of thinking (the well-known “punctuated equilibrium” theory).

The heritage from the Napoleonic state model, dominated by formalism and legalism, explains why in Southern European administrations new public management reforms (such as privatization, contracting-out, public–private partnerships, view of the citizen as a client, performance measurement, results-based budgeting and decentralization) were mainly reframed in legal terms (Capano 2003)⁴ and often produced limited, or even perverse, effects (Pollitt et al. 2007).

Studying the dynamics of public management reform in Italy, Ongaro (2009) asked whether there was change of “a radical kind through disruption of the old equilibrium and transition to a new equilibrium” or whether reforms of the public sector were “purely superficial”, that means that “path dependency has prevailed and there has been no or limited change, or else whether there has been change through accumulation of small changes” (ivi: 10). He suggested a mixed interpretation, generally agreed in the scholarly debate: by reason of an unfavourable environment for paradigmatic reforms since the beginning of the 1990s—described by the notion of “context in motion”, i.e. a scenario characterized by continuous transformations of the political and institutional system (Ongaro 2011), hence a context of political instability (Mele and Ongaro 2014)—there was but only limited, “patchy” change. On the one hand, it was “partly in the form of punctuated change occurring through disruption driven mainly by political turmoil” in the 1990s (after the Tangentopoli corruption scandals); on the other hand, it was “partly through accumulation” in the way of specific mechanisms, like layering and conversion (ivi: 30). A process of “negotiated change” (Bull and Rhodes 1997; 2007) is strongly characterized by path-dependent evolution.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction: The Puzzle of Administrative Change
• 2. Pressures to Reform and the Impact of the Fiscal Crisis
• 3. Restyling Public Management–Inspired Reforms
• 4. Fighting Corruption
• 5. Obstacles to Performance Evaluation and Improvement
• 6. Conclusions: Still Risking Implementation Gaps
• Back Matter