Adapting public–private governance to the local context

Abstract

The article analyses the reform of water and sanitation services in Italy, which was introduced in 1994 and is still not fully implemented in many important respects. The introduction of a purchaser–provider split as envisaged in the national reform has had to come to terms with local power relationships and industrial and managerial status quo. In particular, network structures, leadership, and stakeholders' trade off along the top–down process from the policy design to final impacts prove to be relevant not only in reducing, but also in radically redefining objectives and outcomes of the policy. Thus, the concepts of governance and regulation at the local level are critically assessed in view of their dependence on the interplay of actors in local arenas, where power remains a prominent factor in determining processes and outcomes.

Keywords:

• Governance
• Italy
• local government
• public–private partnership
• regulation
• water services

Notes

The research is based on documentary analysis and sixty-three semi-structured expert interviews at national and regional level.

Our distinction is slightly different from the one recently proposed by Treib et al. (2007), who identify three broad dimensions of governance: the polity dimension, where governance is conceived as a system of rules that shapes the action of social actors, which is alternative to both hierarchy and market; the politics dimension, where the term governance mainly focuses on the constellation of public and private actors who share power and participate together in taking binding decisions; finally, the policy dimension, where governance is a specific mode (or instrument) of political steering.

For an overview of the principal–agent theory, see Pratt and Zeckhauser (1985).

See, for example, Majone (1996), Le Galès (2001) and Pollitt and Talbot (2003).

Court of Justice decision of 18 November 1999; it states that direct, non-competitive award of concessions is only permitted when the local authority exercises over the concessionaire ‘a control which is similar to that which it exercises over its own departments’, and the concessionaire carries out ‘the essential part of its activities with the controlling local authority or authorities’.

See, for example, the ruling by the Council of State, Sez. V, 19 febbraio 2004, n. 679

Report by AGCM (Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato) no. 311 of 6 September 2005, on ‘Modalità di affidamento della gestione di servizi pubblici locali’.

Comitato di vigilanza sull'uso delle risorse idriche (Coviri): Relazione annuale al parlamento sullo stato dei servizi idrici, anno 2002, Roma, Luglio 2003, pp. 123 e segg.

It may seem paradoxical that Tuscany and Emilia Romagna are described here as ‘dirigiste regional administrations’, since they are usually considered the Italian regions with the highest degree of involvement of socio-economic actors and civic associations in the policy making process. However, we must point out that in both cases, and especially in Tuscany, such involvement is strictly regulated by means of regional laws and formalized procedures, with a central role of the regional administration in defining the rules of the game and in determining the time and scope of stakeholders' participation (Profeti 2007). Suffice it to say, for example, that the Tuscan regional government is discussing at present a bill on citizens' participation, aimed at setting up a well defined set of rules and procedures for the regional ‘participatory model’.

Also given the greater dynamism apparent since 2001 in coincidence with the change of parliamentary majority.