Andrea Pritoni

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the ‘most’ reformist one of all? Policy innovation and design coherence of the Renzi government

ABSTRACT The Renzi government is currently under scrutiny by many scholars of Italian politics. Their main focus is either on the Prime Minister’s leadership and communication skills or on government legislative activity with a particular emphasis on the relationship between the government and parliament. However, these studies still lack an analysis of the Renzi government with regard to the quality of its main policy measures. Has the Renzi government produced innovative and coherent policy reforms? To answer this research question, this article focuses on three policy sectors: education, the labour market, and public administration. We compare the Renzi cabinet with two other Italian governments that are generally considered very effective in decision-making: the first Prodi government (1996–1998) and the second Berlusconi government (2001–2005). Thus, we are able to assess how much policy innovation and policy design coherence characterize 11 major reforms that have been approved by those same 3 governments over time. This in turn allows us to verify whether the rhetoric of the Renzi government as ‘the most innovative government’ of recent decades holds empirically.

Do financial groups always ‘get what they want’? The case of the Italian Bankers’ Association, 2006–2012

ABSTRACT The recent global financial crisis has contributed to a resurgence of academic interest in financial sector groups and their ability to ‘get what they want’ in policymaking. A widespread belief is that financial regulations are actively designed by, and intended to serve the interests of, the regulated actors themselves. In other words, banks (and their associations) are generally considered to be very powerful, either in shaping policy reforms, or in successfully vetoing unwelcome reform proposals. This view is far from uncommon in Italy either: indeed, Italian journalists and political analysts usually consider the Italian Bankers’ Association (ABI) to be a potere forte (‘strong power’) par excellence. However, is this common view empirically demonstrable? In order to answer this question, the present work builds upon the interest-group literature to try to explain the degree of success of the ABI with respect to three very important policy initiatives that have shaped the regulation of the Italian banking sector since the period between 2006 and 2012. Empirical findings are quite surprising: contrary to expectations, the ABI appears to be less able to attain its policy preferences than is commonly assumed.

Parties and interest groups in Italy: the case of pensions policy

The present contribution aims to shed light on the interaction between political decision-makers and interest groups (IGs) through an historical approach, embracing two decades of Italian pension reforms. The aim is thus to focus on party–group relationships, through a rigorous definition of the changing modes of interaction between the two and the study of the key endogenous and exogenous factors that have shaped it. The present contribution confirms, on the one hand, some broader trends in IG politics in Italy: the progressive disentanglement of parties and IGs, and the fragmentation of the policy arena. New actors see a role in the reform process. On the other hand, we also outline some peculiarities of the field. This is the case of the changing role of IGs between the 1990s and the more recent reform processes in the 2000s and 2010s. Party–group relationships have gone through social concertation, where social partners played a key role, in the 1990s; the articulation of a more complex policy arena with the new financial and banking sector playing a role in pension funds and the increased competition between political and social actors in the 2000s; and the increased hostility of decision-makers towards the social partners and a political and economic context that has favoured a more unilateral governmental approach to reforms in the last decade. These varying party–group relationships appear to be linked to some potential explanatory variables: among them, the most relevant one seems to be the role of the European Union.