Evaluating the ‘Quasi Federalist’ Programme of Decentralisation in Italy since the 1990s: A Side-effect Approach

Abstract

This article concerns institutional policy in Italy since the 1990s, when Parliament and Central Government enacted a long-term programme of decentralisation, here labelled ‘quasi federalist’. The programme envisaged major changes to the intergovernmental setting, and it has pursued three main general goals: increasing performance, promoting effectiveness and improving democratic accountability. In the almost 20 years since its introduction, the programme has induced a radical change in multi-level governance and vertical subsidiarity through a wide range of laws. This article aims at evaluating the effects of this ‘quasi federalist’ setting in Italy, assuming a ‘side-effect’ approach to depict the wide range of observed outcomes. The evaluation strategy collects evidence through a secondary analysis using different sources. The ex-post evaluation looks over a well articulated range of indicators concerning many kinds of expected changes: legal aspects, financial performance, institutional arrangements, organisational innovation, etc. Two different main effects are examined: institutional effects and performance effects. At the same time, side effects and unanticipated consequences are also considered. The final assessment points out that the main effects have been only partially achieved, while relevant side effects can be observed. For this reason, the programme remains a ‘work in progress’ toward federalism, while some strategic problems still have to be solved before any further conscious programme can be developed in this direction, whether it relates to the procedural or to the performance aspect. The ambiguity of the former arrangement seems to have been partially solved, but it will be a hard task to improve democratic accountability.

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