THE GHOST OF CRISES PAST: ANALYZING REFORM SEQUENCES TO UNDERSTAND ITALY'S RESPONSE TO THE GLOBAL CRISIS
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.2011.01970.x |
| Published date | 01 March 2013 |
| Author | ALESSANDRO NATALINI,FABRIZIO DI MASCIO,FRANCESCO STOLFI |
| Date | 01 March 2013 |
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9299.2011.01970.x
THE GHOST OF CRISES PAST: ANALYZING REFORM
SEQUENCES TO UNDERSTAND ITALY’S RESPONSE
TO THE GLOBAL CRISIS
FABRIZIO DI MASCIO, ALESSANDRO NATALINI AND FRANCESCO STOLFI
Using a process sequencing approach, this article shows how Italy’s response to an earlier fiscal
crisis has shaped the response to the current one in two public sector areas that are especially
susceptible to fiscal constraints: the budget process and personnel policies. Substantively, it shows
the extent to which Italian policymakers have used the repertoire of solutions of the past and the
pressures of the current crisis to freeze the expenditure of the public sector. Previous New Public
Management-inspired reforms have been sidelined but not completely extinguished.
INTRODUCTION
This article interprets through theoretical lenses the impact on Italy’s budget process and
public personnel policies of the global financial and economic crisis that began in 2008.
The impact of the 2008 crisis is not considered in isolation, but in the context of the legacies
of the responses to a previous crisis (1992), when Italy’s currency was expelled from the
European Monetary System (EMS) and its post-war party system began to collapse under
the weight of corruption investigations.
The 1992 crisis was mostly seen as an opportunity to innovate based on the principles
of New Public Management (NPM), although it also produced a repertoire of cutback
measures. Conversely, even though some of the managerial elements have been kept alive,
the responses to the 2008 crisis have emphasized the cutback repertoire. This variation
does not reflect the different extent of the fiscal retrenchment imposed by each of the two
crises, which was significant in both cases. Rather, the responses to the 2008 crisis can be
explained as a result of the increased power of the Finance Minister, due to the fiscal crisis
as well as to domestic factors and European pressure, and of how the post-1992 choices
have shaped the menu of responses in 2008, enabling some choices and constraining
others (Br¨
andstr¨
om et al. 2004), producing both negative and positive feedback.
In particular, disillusion can be a major source of negative feedback (Alink et al. 2001;
Daugbjerg 2009) and indeed the failures and unintended consequences of the managerial
reforms introduced after 1992 weakened their advocates in 2008. Conversely, from 1992
onwards, the cutback repertoire has been effective in containing government spending.
This has positively fed back on the response to the 2008 crisis as it has enabled strategically
placed actors, and in particular the Finance Minister, to frame the response to it in terms
of the successful cutback experience of the previous years.
The article is organized as follows: in the next two sections we first discuss the theoretical
approach that this article takes for the study of how history connects the responses to
successive crises and then discuss the relationship between fiscal crises and administrative
change, distinguishing between cutbacks and administrative reforms. In the empirical
section we present a narrative of how the repertoire of solutions given to the 1992 crisis
Fabrizio Di Mascio is in the Department of Political Science, University of Viterbo, Italy. Alessandro Natalini is in the
Department of Political Studies, Parthenope University, Naples, Italy. Francesco Stolfi is in the Department of Politics
at the University of Exeter, UK.
Public Administration Vol. 91, No. 1, 2013 (17–31)
©2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden,
MA 02148, USA.
To continue reading
Request your trial