Public Management Reform in Italy

Abstract

This chapter investigates the evolution of the public manager role in a given historical and local context: the Italian Public Administration, as it has undergone a wave of reforms since the early 1990s. Historically, the Italian Public Administration has shown its inability to adapt its organization and activities to the new tasks and functions progressively assumed over time, in a dynamic relationship between the role of the state, economic conditions, and needs of society. Against this backdrop, the new reformist season that began in the 1990s will be described as a moment of rupture with the continuity of the past. These radical reforms have outlined the directives for a progressive transition from a state seen as a “managing institution” to a “regulatory” state. This evolution has also affected hierarchical stratification in Public Administration, leading to a divergence in the development of roles and related competencies and professional skills between top- and mid-level management.