Alberto Asquer

Performance Review and Assessment of Public Managers: Some Evidence from Local Governments in Italy

Performance review and assessment (PRA) of public managers has been adopted in several countries, but we still lack detailed knowledge of what affects the effectiveness of PRA systems. Based on interview data and on a survey of Italian public managers, this article aims to investigate this issue by developing and testing a preliminary model of perceived effectiveness of PRA. The results suggest that PRA perceived effectiveness seems related to the clarity of the organizational design, the quality of the PRA process, the involvement of public managers in the PRA process, and the use of PRA results for tightening control.

Regulatory Constructivism: Application of Q Methodology in Italy and China

Conventional view holds that beliefs play an important role in the development of regulations but there is little evidence to support this claim. We use Comparative Q Methodology to systematically map out and compare the beliefs of public officers in China and Italy, two countries with contrasting sets of institutions but have both adopted similar ideas about integrated water resource management. We find some similarities and differences in the beliefs of public officers in both countries. In particular, we find that in both countries beliefs on the regulation of water utilities are diverse and fragmented on issues such as ownership structure of water utilities, how water infrastructure development should be funded, and how tariffs should be regulated. Our findings have two implications for theory, methods and practice. First, the Q methodology is a useful tool for systematically mapping out the beliefs of regulators and managers. Second, systematically mapping out beliefs will help facilitate the development of an alternative regime of regulation such as negotiated rule making. This alternative regime can provide substantial benefits such as more efficient rule making, more cost effective enforcement and compliance, and more equitable in terms of balancing the interests of stakeholders.

Managing Challenging Organizational Change: Introducing active labour market policies in Italian public employment agencies

Abstract Managing organizational change in the public sector is extremely challenging when adverse conditions hamper the introduction of novel organizational practices. This study builds on the case of the implementation of active labour market policies in in Italy, in an attempt to help explain the process of managing organizational change in the public sector. The case study shows how, despite contrary conditions that originate from the political context, the interplay between designed policy interventions, initial conditions, and features of the policy process can result in effective change of employment service practices.

Using Analytic Narratives in Policy Analysis: An Explanation of the Implementation of the Water Reform in Italy (1994-2002)

Abstract Various critiques have been made of the analytic narrative, which is a methodological approach that combines historically oriented research with rational choice models. This paper discusses strengths and limitations of the approach and provides some suggestions for its inclusion in the repertoire of methodological tools at disposal for comparative policy studies. The argument is supported by evidence provided by the case study of the implementation of water reform in Italy in the period 1994–2002. The case study shows how the interplay of game theoretic modeling and historical analysis results in the formulation of tentative hypotheses for explaining variation in the observed trajectory of policy reform implementation across time and space.

Regulatory Reform and Industrial Restructuring: The Cases of Water, Gas, and Electricity in Italy

Regulatory reforms are often made and implemented with the aim to introduce some competitive mechanisms in infrastructure industries which were previously regulated through public ownership. The impact of these reforms on the structure and performance of infrastructure industries, however, may not deliver the expected improvements. This paper aims to address this issue by analysing and discussing the regulatory reforms and the industrial restructuring which took place in the water, the gas, and the electricity sectors in Italy in the last about 15 years. This paper contrasts and compares these reforms in terms of economic regulatory institutions, tariff setting mechanisms, territorial organisation of the services, degree of involvement of the private sector, and degree of industrial restructuring. The impact of these reforms is assessed along the dimensions of degree of openness to new entrants, concentration of the industry, tariffs, and investments. On the whole these reforms resulted in relatively modest achievements in terms of competitive pressures and their effects on industry performance are still to be fully realised. Conclusions are drawn with respect to the need for further steps in the liberalisation and re-regulation of infrastructure industries at both the national and the EU levels.

Conclusion: The Design of Regulatory Systems

Various prescriptions for the design of regulatory systems have been formulated so far. They include recommendations such as the privatization of state-owned enterprises, unbundling, access price regulation, ownership separation among vertical activities, market entry, incentive regulation and access to wholesale markets. The design of regulatory systems is also assisted by techniques such as RIA and by guidelines that have been issued by international organizations such as the OECD and the EU. A re-design of regulatory systems over time is also needed due to the tendency (“regulatory obsolescence”) of regulations to become less adequate over time. This chapter terminates with a discussion of the design of regulation of telecommunications in South Africa in the 1990s.

Infrastructure and Utilities: The Need for Regulation

This chapter provides an overview of the book. It starts by discussing what is the regulation of infrastructure and utilities, who are the actors that take part to regulatory activity, and what is the meaning of regulatory policy. The chapter also introduces the use of cases for illustrating policy and management issues that are encountered in the regulation of infrastructure and utilities. Finally, the chapter outlines the structure of the book, which consists of three parts—namely, “devising regulation”, “installing regulation” and “making regulation work”.

The Performance of Regulated Industries

This chapter argues that the performance of regulated industries can be appraised along different dimensions and according to various methods. Performance appraisal can serve various purposes, especially—in the form of benchmark and yardstick competition—the evaluation of the services of each infrastructure and utilities firm with respect to those of the others. Infrastructure and utilities performance is related to regulatory governance, because the quality of governance institutions have important consequences on the working of regulatory mechanisms. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the regulation of railways in Portugal in the 2000s.

Policy-Making and Public Management

The conventional division of labor between policy-making and public management has been challenged, more or less explicitly, by scholars working on parallel research trajectories. This chapter attempts a stock-taking exercise by, first, identifying the boundaries between policy-making and public management, and then arguing why these boundaries are and should be blurred both for pragmatic and for theoretical reasons. After problematizing the so-called stagist approach, the chapter reviews the mainstream theories of policy-making by looking at the role they have attributed to public management. It then presents the intellectual foundations of institutional processualism, an event-centric method to explain policy choice, discussing how this approach helps situating the role of public management in the policy process—namely, one that especially relates the function of public management to social mechanisms.

Theories of Regulation

Since the 1980s, regulation gained a central place among the repertoire of approaches used by the government to influence, orient, steer and—in some sense—control sectors of the economy and portions of the society. After discussing the rise of regulatory capitalism, this chapter reviews the main theories of regulation, namely the public interest theory, the private interest and capture theory and interest-group politics theory. A more complete understanding of regulation also requires attention to the role of complexity, ideas, institutions and conflicting interests around the conduct of infrastructure and utilities monopolies. The chapter concludes with the discussion of the regulation of the water sector in Cochabamba, Bolivia, in 1999–2000.