tags_rps_multi_english
politiche per la non autosufficienza
protezione sociale
occupazione
governance
Italia
cittadinanza
immigrazione
famiglia
mercato del lavoro
povertà
Unione europea
economia
servizi sociali
Europa
sistema socio-sanitario
politiche sociali
politiche socio-assistenziali
welfare
anziani
lavoro
welfare state
welfare locale
politiche familiari
corso di vita
sindacato
The italian journal of social policies
last issue
The Public Ruling Class
Government roles and administrative capacity
2012
Supplemento n.4
Description
The book is based on the work of the 2012 edition of the annual Forum organized by the Rivista delle politiche sociali in collaboration with ESPAnet-Italia. In a period of daunting economic crisis requiring both a containing of public expenditure and greater efficiency of action, the Forum was intended to represent an opportunity to analyze and discuss the role of the public ruling class and the relation between the administrative class and political decision-making. The analysis of the situation in Italy has been the focus of reflection, but a specific attention has been given to the comparison between other Country traditions and experiences. Starting from the assumption on the value of the competence emphasis was placed on public ruling classes in their ability to confront the challenge posed by global change. In this context, it was also examined the relation between public ruling classes and legality. In order to emphasize the influence of context variables on the work of ruling classes, several essays are dedicated to the joints of the central government, regional and local levels.
To buy this issue go to the italian version
Public management in Italy: changes challenges and questions
The International System and Italian Politics: from Support to Constraint
The essay argues that the international and European systems have
had different effects on post-war Italian politics. The way Italian democracy
is structured and the logic of its functioning were, first, supported
and, later, challenged by the outside context. The international
constraints of the Cold War supported, or even justified, the multipolar
structure and the consensus logic of Italy’s «First Republic». At
the same time, the European constraints deriving from the single currency
have seriously weakened the bipolar structure and competitive
logic of Italy’s «Second Republic». This is due to the fact that the inevitable
logic of competition has not been supported by a reorganization
of political representation, institutional reforms, or a change in
the cognitive schemas suitable for governing a country in the Eurozone.
Is There a Recipe for Improving the Morality of the Ruling Class?
The ruling class is a longstanding question in Italian politics. What
should be done to obtain a more competent and moral political ruling
class? The question of competence is extremely difficult. Who decides
who is competent and who is not? It is simpler to establish a criterion
of morality: politics is the sphere of the general interest and politicians
should not pursue their own interests. Checks and balances can help
achieve this objective, but the problem of problems is a society that
not only punishes immorality, but that functions and develops without
needing to resort to illegal conduct.
Crisis of bureaucracy: the new «business» vision of the state and its relations with politics
Regulating Public Management and the Relations between Politics and Administration
There is a review of the various aspects of the relations between bodies
wielding political power and administrative managers, as they
emerge from Italian regulations, compared with the situation in other
European countries, bringing out their salient characteristics and the
main problematic features. Although there are clearly limits to the legal-
legislative solutions we can propose for the critical elements of the
state of management in its relations with political authority – deriving
basically from general institutional data, cultural factors and the modus
operandi of those directly involved in the situation – the essay
indicates the general lines of a possible revision of the present discipline
in the matter.
Public Management in Italy: Competences, Mobility, Criteria and Evaluation Systems
Public-sector management is not a single monolithic thing, and this is
still truer for the regional administration systems. The essay analyses
relations between politicians and public-sector managers in three regional
governments in Italy (Veneto, Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna),
focusing on the systems of recruitment, mobility and evaluation. The
changes in the national and regional laws have called attention to
the need to examine how different systems for the evaluation of
performance and careers structure the relation between the political
and administrative classes. In particular, we still know very little
about the policies adopted, tools used and the impact on managerial
profile at regional level for the evaluation of management performance.
This essay demonstrates the existence of different styles of
relationships between politicians and management involving the role
of performance and human resources evaluation, recruitment and
career policies.
Keywords: public-sector management :: regional administration systems :: evaluation systems :: spoils system ::
Ruling Classes and Legality: Neo-patrimonialism and Crisis of Bureaucracy
The paper focuses on representations of the legality of the local governing
classes. Through a sample enquiry that involved 5 Italian universities
and the same number of regions, it has been possible to study some aspects
of the crisis of legality in the representations of politicians, administrative
managers, doctors and businessmen. There emerges a personalization
of power with elements of Weberian patrimonialism, although
that is found in societies based on the centrality of rules with a separation
between private goods and the goods being administered. Although
this form of neo-patrimonialism is more evident in southern Italy, it also
concerns the whole of the country, and is closely linked to the way in
which the process of bureaucratization has developed and the relations
that have become established in the course of time between politics and
economics, and politics and society, often determining what is a social
de-construction of legality.
Public Managers and Administrations on the Wave of Reforms, Waiting for Change
Like other countries, Italy too in the last twenty years has witnessed a
series of laws that have tried to bring to the Italian institutional context
changes in the public administration in line with the precepts of
the New Public Management, in general inspiration and in some particular
solutions. The essay tries to clarify if and how much these trends have
deliberately modified how Italian administrations behave. In particular,
it brings out that, at least as regards public-sector managers, the
most traditional characteristics of their socio-professional profile
continue to dominate how it can be represented today, although some
new features are starting to emerge (in the composition of publicsector
managers by gender, age and qualifications). But they are weak
signals coming from institutionally distinct areas with unresolved internal
inconsistency and stratifications. In addition, the most obvious
changes do not necessarily depend on the reforms introduced, but on
external and largely unforeseen environmental factors.
Influence on the performances of public administrations: sectorial and territorial organization
Why some Local Policies Function and others don’t
The essay concentrates on factors in metropolitan contexts that may
influence the capacity of local policies to achieve their objectives.
Considering four main explanatory dimensions in detail. The first
concerns the importance of the characteristics of the context in which
the policies are carried out; the second the specific features of the
type of collective good that is being aimed at; the third the characteristics
of the policy sector of the intervention; while the fourth is
linked to the choices and strategies followed at local level. The analysis
shows that, if we want to study the efficiency of local policies, we
need interpretative tools that can combine the importance of «context» factors with those more linked to individual action, bringing out
how these two dimensions influence each other.
Regional Administrative Management: Characteristics, Conditionings and Contextual Dynamics
This contribution starts from the premise that administrative management
is one of the most important factors in bringing about good administration – in the sense of effective response to the social demands
that local regions are required to satisfy. After a brief reference
to the reference framework of the premise, the essay considers the
factors or variables that may best explain the characteristics that distinguish
and differentiate regional management, asking if these vary as
a result of contingent factors that, as such, may be different from one
case to another, and if they are they connected to systematic variables
in the context. The hypothesis advanced considers some variables of
the socio-economic, cultural and political context in a particular region
as a starting-point for comparing and discussing the data in recent
studies of the management of Campania, Emilia-Romagna and
the Veneto.
«A Generative Dance». The Study of the Health Service in Italy: Management, Professions and Politics
This essay tackles the question of how a series of key figures in the
system of the Italian health service are adapting and responding to the
process of managerialization. In particolar, it focuses on the changes
in the forms and relations of power that concern the new technicalmanagerial
figures of the health service (the Director Generals), the
doctors and the politicians, with the aim of evaluating how much the
hitherto prevailing professional-bureaucratic model in the health
service is actually changing.
Building up Administrative Capacity in Southern Italy
Administrative capacity is an essential dimension of the rule of law.
That is why, if democracy is to improve in quality, whether at national
or local level, it depends on capacity building. Initiatives of
this kind are based on the use of various tools (rules, incentives and
socialization), which determine different levels of impact (introduction
of rules, implementation and internalization). The essay analyses
these processes of capacity building, starting from the study of
three cases.
Mafias and Grey Areas in the Health Service
The Mafia is interested in the health service for many reasons –
money-laundering, treatment for criminals on the run, and social and
political influence. But the health service is tempting to other types of
criminal cartels too – consisting of businessmen, members of the professions,
doctors, managers of the public services and politicians –
with whom the Mafia can cooperate, though not always successfully.
The empirical evidence the article draws on concerns the cases of two
health authorities that have been disbanded as a result of mafia infiltration:
Locri (2005) and Reggio Calabria (2008). Challenging the common
view that the Mafia is able to control all the social relations it
enters into, the conclusion is that the outcome in the health service is
not necessarily predictable, but depends to a great extent on the opportunities
and constraints of each of the categories of participants.
Traduzione dall’italiano
incoming happenings
19-21 settembre 2013, Università della Calabria, Arcavacata di Rende (CS)
