On the Relationship Between the Political and Managerial Levels in the Italian Public Administration Reform

Abstract

This paper deals with the Italian public administration reform, carried out on the basis of the “new public management” principles. This innovation is geared towards the introduction into the public sector of private management instruments, with a view to improving ef fi ciency, effectiveness and fi nancial stability. In particular, the paper will focus on relations between political authorities and public managers. As it regards this, the measures introduced by the reform are mainly designed to ensure that managers have greater autonomy in dealing with political bodies. However, there has been growing criticism over the last few decades of the results of the system introduced by this reform. In fact, it has been observed how the new regulation provides juridical instruments which might in fl uence the manager’s activities and his or her managerial autonomy. This paper aims to explore whether such instruments can really affect managers, by preventing them from exercising their functions autonomously; it also aims to verify whether the regulation system introduced by the reform has really brought about a clear distinction between managerial and political functions or whether, on the contrary, it has only brought about a formal separation, which does not ful fi ll the goals of the Italian public administration reform.