The year of covid-19. Italy at a crossroads

ABSTACT

Drawing on the concept of critical juncture, in this article we argue that the scale and impact of an ‘extraordinary’ event such as the Covid-19 pandemic cannot be understood in full without acknowledging the pre-existing conditions of a country and its path-dependent trajectory. Against this background, we first assess the institutional legacy of the Covid-19 crisis in Italy, analysing the evolution of political dynamics within the coalition government that led the country in 2020, as well as the governance capacity and legitimacy of the main political actors involved in the management of the pandemic. Second, to shed further light on how Covid-19 has impacted on the institutional dimension, we look at multilevel governance and the relationship between central and regional governments during the pandemic. We argue that the sudden and long-lasting ‘shock’ prompted by Covid-19 has disrupted the already fragile equilibria of the Italian system, impacting in a most profound way on its politics, institutions and society. And yet, while in the short term, the critical juncture of Covid-19 opened the way to new, unexpected changes, towards the end of the year pre-existing, systemic conditions prevailed.

KEYWORDS:

• Covid-19
• critical juncture
• conte government
• multilevel governance
• italy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. The authors wish to thank the members of the editorial board of Politica in Italia and especially Andrea Pritoni for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. Our heartfelt thanks also go to the discussants of the papers on which the articles in this special issue are based: Silvia Bolgherini, Giorgia Bulli, Rosanna de Rosa, Erik Jones, Emmanuele Pavolini, Stefania Profeti, Claudio Radaelli, Antonella Seddone and Salvatore Vassallo.

Notes

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7. This was a body consisting of 204 national- and regional-level ‘facilitators’ whose purpose was to ‘provide support at ground level and to draft a coherent and effective programme to be pursued at all levels, national and sub-national, of government’ (https://rousseau.movimento5stelle.it/organization).

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22. ‘Renzi: «Governo cade se Conte non arretra». La replica di Orlando: «No al Papeete natalizio. Altrimenti votiamo con l’attuale legge»’, www.repubblica.it, 11 December 2020, accessed 25 February 2021.

23. Although multi-level governance also involves local and provincial councils as well as quangos of various kinds, in this section our attention is confined to government-regional relations, as these were the most crucial ones from the perspective of the pandemic and its management on the ground. Space limitations mean that we can only consider the main features of government-regional relations in 2020. For more detailed accounts see Baldi and Profeti (2020), Cammelli (2020), Capano (2020), Casula, Terlizzi, and Toth (2020), Toth and Vampa in this special issue.

24. G. Trovati, ‘Autonomia di nuovo al Cdm con due correttivi’, il Sole 24Ore, 12 February 2020, accessed 17 February 2021.

25. ‘Coronavirus, nelle Marche riaprono scuole e musei: Tar sospende l’ordinanza della Regione. Boccia: «Stato c’è e si fa rispettare»’, www.ilfattoquotidiano.it, 27 February 2020, accessed 17 February 2021.

26. Emblematic, in this respect, were regions like Friuli-Venezia Giulia (which declared a state of emergency without clearing it with the government), Marche (whose decision to close schools was subject to a legal challenge by the government) and Veneto (which instituted its own testing regime, disregarding national guidelines): il Sole 24 Ore, 28 February 2020; also see the article by Toth in this special issue.

27. N. Barone and M. Bartoloni, ‘Coronavirus, dal panico allo scontro con le Regioni’, il Sole 24 Ore, 28 February 2020, accessed 17 February 2021.

28. htpp://regioni.it, n. 3912, 22/09/2020.

29. htpp://regioni.it, n. 3914, 24/09/2020 e n. 3918, 30/09/2020.

30. htpp://regioni.it, n. 3914, 24/09/2020 e n. 3918, 30/09/2020.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Arianna Giovannini

Arianna Giovannini is Associate Professor/Reader in Local Politics & Public Policy, and the Deputy Director of the Local Governance Research Centre (LGRC) at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK.

Lorenzo Mosca

Lorenzo Mosca is Professor of Sociology of Media and Communication at the Università Statale, Milan, Italy.