The politicization of public–private partnerships following a mega-project disaster: the case of the Morandi Bridge Collapse

ABSTRACT

Drawing on the collapse of Morandi bridge (Genoa, Italy) exemplar and unique case and by applying a content analysis to the declarations made by politicians in the subsequent months after the tragedy, the paper highlights how longstanding debates about the relative merits of concessions vis a vis direct public operations can become the terrain of intense political contestation in the wake of a public tragedy. In particular, it shows how PPPs predicated on transferring risks to the partner best able to manage them create opportunities for blame shifting by politicians, bureaucracies and firms when failures occur.

KEYWORDS:

• PPP
• Morandi Bridge
• politicization
• major disaster
• blame game

Supplementary material

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Notes

1. Mont Blanc Tunnel is jointly run by two companies French ATMB and Italian SITMB. The latter is part of Società Autostrade (ASPI) and was privatized together with its parent company.

2. At the time of writing, two private groups, Atlantia (which controls Autostrade SpA, in the meantime transformed in Autostrade per l’Italia – ASPI) and SIAS, manage 70% of the Italian road network (Vecchi and Cusumano 2019).

3. The new contract became fully operational only in 2008, thanks to a special law, so-called “salva Benetton” (help Benetton). The law was meant to overcome issues raised by two technical bodies in charge of providing recommendations on concession contracts. The revised contract actually introduced a derogatory tariff-adjusting mechanism for ASPI concession compared to the standard formula. Whereas the standard mechanism is based on a price cap model, in ASPI concession the productivity dimension is dropped and basically, the tariff is indexed at 70% of actual inflation rate, plus a residual component to reward specific investments.

4. Calculations based on ASECAT (2018) data.

5. Concession contracts were downloaded from http://www.mit.gov.it/documentazione/convenzioni-regolanti-i-rapporti-tra-il-ministero-e-le-societa-concessionarie.