THE DYNAMICS OF DEVOLUTION PROCESSES IN LEGALISTIC COUNTRIES: ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE IN THE ITALIAN PUBLIC SECTOR
| Date | 01 August 2006 |
| Author | EDOARDO ONGARO |
| Published date | 01 August 2006 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.2006.00610.x |
Public Administration Vol. 84, No. 3, 2006 (737–770)
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA.
THE DYNAMICS OF DEVOLUTION
PROCESSES IN LEGALISTIC COUNTRIES:
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE IN THE
ITALIAN PUBLIC SECTOR
EDOARDO ONGARO
The devolution of authority from central to regional and local governments is a
widespread trend in many countries. Differences in the outcomes of devolution re-
forms are often signifi cant, between countries as well as within a country. The work
reported in this paper assumes that the dynamics of the implementation process and
the way it is affected by the national tradition of governance and by the features of
the politico-administrative system is important in explaining such differentiation.
The paper investigates devolution in Italy and proposes explanations for the sub-
stantial differentiation of outcomes that can be observed. The case of devolution in
agriculture in Lombardy, investigated in depth in the article, is striking for the mag-
nitude and rapidity of change as well as for the way the reallocation of the workforce
to the lower levels of government has occurred. This case study provides the basis
for some theorizations about the dynamics of devolution processes in countries that
have a legalistic administrative tradition, especially those nations which have a
‘ Napoleonic ’ administrative tradition.
INTRODUCTION
The devolution of authority to lower levels of government is a widespread
trend both in Europe and other countries ( OECD 1997 ). Reforms aiming at
replacing, in different policy fi elds, centralized modes of policy delivery with
decentralized ones fi gure high on the governmental agenda of many nations.
Such reforms are complex and unfold over long periods of time; they entail
a redistribution in decision powers and the responsibility for tasks execution,
the reallocation of personnel and other resources, and have signifi cant and
long-lasting impacts on constituencies.
The question of what impacts such devolution reforms produce, and why,
is disputed ( Pollitt 2005 ). In countries where devolution is high on the gov-
ernment agenda, a number of ‘ big issues ’ arise as part of the public debate.
Such questions include whether devolution actually makes politicians more
accountable; whether citizens are encouraged to play a more active part in
the democratic process; whether public policies are actually differentiated
according to locally determined priorities, and public services more effective.
Edoardo Ongaro is Professor of Public Management at the SDA Bocconi School of Management and
lecturer of Management of International and Supranational Organizations, Bocconi University.
738 EDOARDO ONGARO
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006 Public Administration Vol. 84, No. 3, 2006 (737–770)
In terms of the ‘ side ’ effects of devolution, questions include whether incon-
sistencies between central and local governments may intensify; whether
inequality of treatment of the citizens across the country may occur, espe-
cially concerning their fundamental rights; and whether a devolved public
sector costs more (as usually held) or less than a centralized one. A promi-
nent production of works can be found in the national academic debates
in countries affected by devolution reforms: in France, see Guyomarch 1999 ,
Montricher 1996; in Italy, see, for example, Ongaro and Valotti 2005 ; for a
review of the public debate in the United Kingdom as regards devolution
to Scotland, see Laffi n 2001; Midwinter and McGarvey 2001 ; in Eastern
European countries, Horvatt 2000 . The questions raised in this stream of
literature, however, are in general ‘ too broad ’ for there to be straightforward
answers. The impacts of devolution depend on a range of concurrent factors
that operate in conjunction with the quality of both the design and imple-
mentation of the devolution reform itself. Such factors include, inter alia , the
functioning of the national and local political systems; the status of previous
and contemporaneous administrative reforms; and the specifi c policy contents
and process of the sector affected by devolution.
In order to improve our understanding of the cause-and-effect connec-
tions, the focus can be moved from ‘ fi nal ’ outcomes (the impacts) to ‘ inter-
mediate ’ , more direct outcomes of a devolution reform (on the distinction
between intermediate and fi nal outcomes of reform, see Boyne et al. 2003;
Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004 , Ch. 5). The analysis can consider outcomes such
as the following:
1. The changes in the programmatic activities executed by both central
and local governments (have the ‘ core tasks ’ of public entities actually
changed as a result of devolution?)
2. The changes in the organizational arrangements set to work in order to
perform the new scheduled activities (have structure and routines been
adapted to the new tasks?)
3. The reallocation of resources (have workforce and the other resources
required for executing the new tasks been reallocated to the local levels
of government?)
Differentiation remains signifi cant, within a country as well as between coun-
tries also when such direct outcomes of a devolution reform are examined.
Variation in the outcomes of devolution has attracted scholarly attention
( Pollitt et al. 1998; Brusis 2002; Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004 ).
Italy provides a case of wide differentiation in the outcomes of devolution
in different regions and policy sectors. The country has gone through a deep
and problematic transformation of a strongly centralized state into a ‘ regional ’
one, something that has taken place in subsequent waves of devolution since
1970, when regional governments were established ( Tarrow 1974; Gourevitch
1978 ). Putnam et al. (1993) have addressed the question of why some regions
have been so much more successful than others at governing and have traced
THE DYNAMICS OF DEVOLUTION IN LEGALISTIC COUNTRIES 739
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006 Public Administration Vol. 84, No. 3, 2006 (737–770)
differences in performance back to historical differences in civic engagement.
(It should be added here that the study carried out in the present work –
though broadly consistent with Putnam ’ s analysis – is at a fi ner-grained level,
examining specifi c and alternative chains of events leading to different out-
comes.) Italy ’ s most recent devolution exercise started in 1997 and, though
its fi nal effects are still unclear, some intermediate effects can be detected and
there is evidence of the devolution reform being implemented in ways that
are substantially differentiated in different regions and policy sectors.
Alternative courses of events seem to have characterized the implemen-
tation of devolution in different localities and policy fi elds. But what has
triggered one course of events rather than another? What explains such
differentiation? A useful starting point is the consideration that there seem
to be plausible explanations for failures of implementation of devolution in
countries with a legalistic administrative tradition such as Italy. If we con-
sider the reallocation of personnel fi rst, there are good reasons why rational
actors should resist downsizing and reallocation under circumstances quite
common in countries characterized by administrative systems that are in the
French, ‘ Napoleonic ’ tradition. As is argued below, there is a loss of status
and prestige associated with working for lower levels of government; com-
bined with other conditions, it makes reallocation of staff a diffi cult process
to carry out. If we now move upwards in the hierarchical layers and focus
on top executives, those who have to ‘ lead ’ the implementation process, a
culturalist perspective about the persistence of the administrative law para-
digm that dominates in Italy ( Capano 2003 ) provides the underpinnings for
explaining behaviours of public managers that are consistent with the wide-
spread evidence of the ‘ formalistic ’ implementation of the devolution reform
and its substantive hollowing out. However, it does not explain some in-
stances of radical change of the core tasks and the organizational arrange-
ments – such as occurred during the experience of devolution in agriculture
in the Lombardy region that is discussed below.
These considerations lead to the formulation of the research question
addressed: what kind of organizational transformations do occur in public
entities in the implementation phase of a devolution policy in a legalistic
country such as Italy?
Devolution is a specifi c type of the broader phenomenon of decentralization
(in the defi nitions used here we follow Pollitt et al. 1998; Pollitt 2005 ).
Decentralization can be defi ned as the process of spreading out of formal au-
thority from a smaller to a larger number of actors. Formal authority may be
decentralized in a number of different ways: within an organization or to ex-
ternal bodies, which in turn may be run by elected representatives or ap-
pointed. A devolution policy is a reform aimed at the decentralization of formal
authority to external, legally established organizations run by elected repre-
sentatives; it typically occurs from ‘ upper ’ to ‘ lower ’ levels of government.
There is a growing literature on devolution. Important research agendas
analyse the effects of establishing a decentralized setting on the performance
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