The multi-level dynamics of state decentralisation in Italy

Abstract

The institutional design of Italy today presents structural elements of a federal state, while its political system and culture remain centralized. However, the collapse of the party system and rise of the Northern League in the 1990s generated a series of decentralizing reforms, contradictory in nature and approved primarily for electoral advantage or coalitional maintenance. Formal inter-governmental relations between the centre and regions are weak, making party politics the crucial mechanism for relaying territorial demands between levels of government. Party organizations are themselves weak, unable to control their elected elites at sub-national levels. This asymmetrical and rather dysfunctional system of territorial organization requires extensive mediation by the Constitutional Court, whose case law in this area has grown enormously since the extensive Constitutional reform of 2001.