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ABSTRACT
This article analyzes the results of public management reform in Italy, focusing on its managerial significance in the field of cultural heritage. The primary aim is to overcome the general lack of studies analyzing the impact of managerial reforms in governments with a Rechtsstaat tradition and to understand if, besides the political and institutional context characterized by a highly legalistic system, there are other important factors that might affect results of reforms. Through an in-depth analysis of the reform of the Italian ministry and a comparison with the French museum sector, the paper demonstrates that the way in which the process of change is managed significantly affects the results of reform. Specifically, the author affirms that, in order to obtain good reform results, a greater active involvement of senior bureaucrats in the process of designing reforms is necessary.
Notes
At the Polo Museale Veneziano, these included the administrative director, the director of one of the Polo's museums, the head of personnel, and the head of the accounting office, while at the soprintendenza of Bologna, the head of the planning and control office, the head of the secretariat, and the head of the accounting office were interviewed. Data collection took place between December 2003 and April 2004, contemporaneously with the phenomena being studied, with a series of further interviews conducted in 2007.
These included the director general of the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, the head of international relations of the Direction des Musées de France, the director of the Musée National du Moyen Âge, and the administrative director of the Musée d'Orsay.
Indeed, the state continues almost exclusively to provide not only cultural heritage protection but also management, since no delegation to or cooperation with local authorities has actually been implemented. Moreover, the ministry still manages the heritage directly, rather than indirectly as envisioned in the law, since the partner entities specified in the code have still not been established (with the sole exception of the Foundation for the Egyptian Museum in Turin).
Each region has one or more soprintendenza for each area (archeology, architecture and landscape, historical artistic and anthropological heritage, etc.), depending on the size of the territory and the number and importance of the assets within it.
Instead, art. 110 specified that all the earned income of state institutions and assets should revert to the state budget for re-assignation to various agencies by decree of the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
The word “juridification” was first used by Christopher Hood in his seminal work of 1995. While in the U.S. the term refers specifically to the involvement of courts, the author uses it to refer to the pervasiveness of juridical culture within a country (through invasive laws and procedures), as opposed to “managerialization,” which is based on a substantive approach oriented to results (Hood Citation1995a).
In Italy, as in other civil law countries, laws are very detailed and refer also to specific and technical issues. If during implementation administrators found that a detail of the law is not appropriate or incorrect, the law must be changed by the Parliament. This is very different from what happens in common law countries, where laws are much more general and solutions can be found in practice.
The Musée du Louvre in 1992, the Musée National des Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon in 1995, the Musée d'Orsay (including the Musée Hebert) and the Musée des Arts Asiatique-Guimet in 2004 (Interview with secretaire general, Reunion des Musées Nationaux, June 1, 2004), while other museums were converted in years following (including the newly established Musée Quay Branly).
Similarly, the Musée d'Orsay's state funding for the first year of autonomous management (2004) remained essentially unchanged from the €12 million received in 2003, making up almost 50% of its total budget.
