Public Administration Reform in Italy: A Shopping-basket Approach to the New Public Management or the New Weberianism?

The literature on public sector reforms in Italy analyzes the success of the NPM model, highlighting a relevant implementation gap and areas of reform which cannot be ascribed to the NPM. The combination of these two features may be read as the adoption of a modernization framework different from the NPM called the New Weberian State. The article reviews the debate on the NPM, analyzes reforms in Italy, contrasted with the United States and other countries. Several characteristics resemble the New Weberianism in Italy, which, however, appears to be more an ex-post rationalization than a new trend and embodies NPM-learned lessons.