Municipal reaction to functional rescaling in Italy

• Pages: 448-465
• Published date: 14 May 2018
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-12-2016-0204
• Date: 14 May 2018
• Author: Silvia Bolgherini,Mattia Casula,Mariano Marotta
• Subject Matter: Public policy & environmental management,Politics,Public adminstration & management

Municipal reaction to functional

rescaling in Italy

Silvia Bolgherini

Department of Social Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy

Mattia Casula

Department of Political Science, LUISS University, Rome, Italy, and

Mariano Marotta

Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Calabria, Cosenza, Italy

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to discuss the municipal reaction to a recent rescaling policy in Italy

that, since 2010, require to small municipalities to jointly manage their basic tasks (compulsory joint

management –CJM) through intermunicipal forms of cooperation. The paper will investigate: how many

small municipalities did effectively join their basic tasks; which forms of cooperation did they choose to

perform these tasks; and which kind of reaction municipalities enacted toward the national provision.

Design/methodology/approach –Quantitative data rely on an original database collecting information on

all Italian municipalities up to 2015. A qualitative research has also been conducted by submitting a semi-

structured questionnaire and interviews to the civil servants in charge of the CJM in each of the 20 Italian

regions and to other privileged interlocutors.

Findings –Italian municipalities poorly complied with the CJM norm and when they did, they choose the

easiest way to do it (using the simplest available intermunicipal cooperation form). Among the explanations

for this reaction: the lack of consistency and clear political will of the national policy maker in respect to this

norm and the lack of a mind set at the local level oriented to cooperation and networking.

Originality/value –This paper highlights the main patterns of conflict in functional rescaling of small-sized

municipalities in Italy, thus providing both fresh new data on this phenomena and useful elements for

shaping future policy making on this topic.

Keywords Italy, Local government reform, Municipalities, Intermunicipal cooperation,

Patterns of conflict, Rescaling

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

Academic debate on territorial rescaling and on normative provisions concerning local

authorities, in particular municipalities, aiming at improving their efficiency and effectiveness, is

decade long (Keating, 1995). Whether such a rescaling should be imposed to small municipalities,

or instead if municipalities should autonomously decide to join, cooperate or amalgamate, is also

an old issue (Swianiewicz, 2010). European local and national governments differently resolved

this ambivalence: with voluntary, compulsory or mixed approaches. In analyzing the different

choices all around the countries, academic literature has focused its attention above all on central

governments’preferences and on how they approached the topic. But how municipalities

react to these different approaches, and for what reason, is also an interesting perspective and

will be the one employed in this paper. The debate on territorial policies and reforms aiming at

rationalizing local authorities, both in size and functions, has recently re-entered European

national policy agendas, although it never really left them (Kersting and Vetter, 2003). Territorial

reforms have in fact re-started in several countries, more or less intensely triggered by the global

crisis (Baldersheim and Rose, 2010; Kuhlmann and Bouckaert, 2016).

Italy is a case in point: the institutional reforms introduced in recent years provide an

interesting case study on this topic. Since 2010, Italian Government has tried to impose to

International Journal of Public

Sector Management

Vol. 31 No. 4, 2018

pp. 448-465

© Emerald PublishingLimited

0951-3558

DOI 10.1108/IJPSM-12-2016-0204

Received 22 December 2016

Revised 15 May 2017

6July2017

23 August 2017

Accepted 11 September 2017

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/0951-3558.htm

This research has been possible also thanks to a Short Moblity Fund of the Univ Naples Federico II.

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IJPSM

31,4

small municipalities a series of rescaling measures by national law, aimed at more stable

and long-lasting intermunicipal cooperation (IMC) forms. In particular, the so-called

compulsory joint management (CJM) established that all municipalities with less than 5,000

inhabitants should have to jointly manage all their basic functions through a Municipal

Union (MU) and/or a convention. Five years later, the national policy maker affirmed that

several “criticalities and resistance had emerged toward the measures of compulsory

intermunicipal cooperation”(Presidenza Consiglio Ministri, 2016, p. 12, emphasis added).

As clearly emerged in several official documents of the National Association of Italian

Municipalities (ANCI, 2012, 2015a, b) and as it will be argued later, local actors expressed in

fact a certain skepticism while implementing the CJM. Based on this assumption, this paper

aims at discussing the results of the recent functional rescaling measures through

compulsory IMC five years after their introduction, and the reasons for the alleged

municipal resistant reactions. To do so, this paper relies on both quantitative and qualitative

data. As for the first, through an original database created with raw data from official

sources and systematically gathered, new data on territorial policy in Italy and its measures

are provided. As for the qualitative data, the conducted interviews allow to shed light on the

attitudes of Italian municipalities toward the recent functional rescaling measures.

The study of the Italian case can also provide useful insights on the strand of literature

consideringpublic service delivery atthe local level and the tasks and functionsmunicipalities

should perform. The recent territorial reforms in Italy aimed in fact at improving service

delivery at the municipal level along with a strong expenditure containment through

functional rescaling, similarly to other countries hardly hit by the crisis. The results of our

investigation may thus provide an asset in a comparative perspective, in particular for those

studies dealing with rescaling reforms and municipal reactions to them.

The paper will proceed as follows: the first two sections presents the literature and the

analytical framework with the theoretical aspects that will be addressed when displaying

the findings; the third section illustrates the Italian case and its functional rescaling

provisions; the fourth section introduces the research questions and the methodology

employed; the fifth section presents the collected data and relevant findings. The final

section discusses them against the theoretical issues and concludes on the Italian

functional rescaling.

Striving for functional rescaling

The debate on sizeand rescaling is central when territorial reforms are concerned.As argued

by Kettunen and Teles (2016, p. 142) “ther e is considerable agr eement that territ orial and

institutionalscale is relevant”, in particular when speakingabout reforms affecting territorial

processes and the size of administrative territorial units. This is however a very ancient

concern, which largely precedes contemporary debate. Ancient thinkers, from Plato to

Aristotle, argued on the implication of size on the polis’government and on citizens’role.

Much more recently, Dahl and Tufte (1973) wondered if democracy was somehow linked to

size and which (dis-)advantages could arise in differently sized political systems in respect to

their responsiveness (system capacity) and to citizens’control (effectiveness). Lately,

Swianiewicz(2002) and Denters et al. (2014) made a furtherstep, trying to overcome the limits

of national peculiarities and to generalize international findings on how (population) size

affects municipal democratic quality in Eastern and Northern Europe, respectively.

Size may change, among others, when rescaling is introduced. Rescaling may imply a

general reshuffling of scale in the economic, social and political systems (Swyngedouw,

2004), but it can also refer to specific territorial and functional reforms, that is a revision

of the boundaries of territorial authorities and/or of the functions these authorities

have to comply with –especially under the lenses of the “new political economy of scale”

(Keil and Mahon, 2009).

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