Italian Administration in Transition

Italy is in a period of transition: deep changes are underway in the political and institutional system. Yet many of the processes are far from having reached a stable conclusion: parties are unable to agree on a reform of the electoral system and the attempt to modify the constitution has come to an abrupt halt due to conflicts among political parties. One field where very substantial transformations are instead underway is administrative reform; notwithstanding its relevance, this aspect has attracted much less attention from scholars and public opinion alike. Italian national administration has hardly undergone any change in its essential traits over almost half a century, even though levels of performance have been far from satisfactory; administrative reform has mainly concerned civil service management, largely reflecting the interests of personnel themselves. Only since the early 1990s has a reform of the administration, within a more general process of reshaping of the role of the state, become possible, thanks to a unique window of opportunity generated by a combination of factors, both internal and external to the national polity. This article examines recent policy efforts aimed at modernizing public administration (with a focus mainly on the central state). The conclusion is that, despite arguments that reform in this area had made little progress until recently (compared, for example, with the improvement in the situation of public finances), administrative reform has, in fact, covered considerable ground since the early 1990s.