Abstract
The consultative municipal bodies, the round tables for social programming, the round tables for metropolitan strategic plans, and different forms of development agencies are analyzed as typical examples of local state-society relations for Italy. The chapter dedicates a particular attention to the description of the evolution of these networks in the last decades, which allows to delineate the changes occurred in the country’s governance model. Apart from the consultative municipal bodies, these networks correspond to a flexible institutional map, beyond the municipal administrative boundaries. Considering them on the basis of the three dimensions of autonomy, coherence, and relevance, they can be described as communicative, influencer, and independent networks.
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Notes
- 1.
Even less practiced is the other possible representative route, the direct election of an adjunct municipal councilor among the foreign residents (registered in 2015 in twenty-nine municipalities) (http://www.integrazionemigranti.gov.it).
- 2.
Report Agenzia Nazionale per i Giovani, 2016.
- 3.
- 4.
It is difficult to make a precise estimate of the number of these structures. The last known census dates to the year 2002 and was oriented to create a database about the Italian development agencies (Cersosimo 2002). The data set has counted 185 agencies around the country considering as development agency all the formalized structures with the exclusive or prevalent mission to favor the local and subregional socioeconomic development, but was made through a survey on voluntary base and three regions were missing (Veneto, Valle d’Aosta and Trentino-Alto Adige). This review has led to three main categories: territorial agencies, structures outsourced by public authority with competences on local development; formal agencies, for instance, the operative structures delegated to manage territorial pacts (Patti Territoriali), contracts of area (Contratti d’area) and local action groups (LAGs); and informal agencies, created at the initiative of associations, consortium, and others social actors (Verro 2002). This work is the last attempt to number the presence of development agencies in Italy. Some of the considered networks do not exist today. This is the case in particular of the territorial pacts, but, for the relevance of this experiment, it can still be considered as a reference point.
- 5.
This is the case, for instance, of the National Strategy for Inner Areas (SNAI), a multi-level public policy co-financed by national and European funds. This policy aims to reverse the negative demographic trend in some inner peripheries, promoting actions for local development and the adaptation of welfare services to the specific needs of local citizens, according to the degree of remoteness of the municipalities (Carrosio 2016).
- 6.
We do not dedicate a specific section to these networks, mainly due to the changes (particularly regarding their membership) that LAGs show in Italy (Belliggiano and Salento 2017: 13) which makes it very difficult to typify them. Furthermore, LAGs vary a lot from case to case depending, to a significant extent, on the regional political and administrative traditions (Profeti 2006), which prevail also on administrative, political, and even cultural traditions of the local context: ‘in the virtuous conflict between the morphogenic forces of the LAGs and the homeostatic forces of the Region, it is the latter that have prevailed, leaving LAGs with little other to do than oversee the implementation of measures and procedures’ (Talò 2017: 57).
- 7.
‘Osservatorio Agenzie locali di sviluppo: analisi, promozione, rafforzamento reti e valorizzazione delle competenze’ (http://focus.formez.it/content/osservatorio-agenzie-locali-sviluppo-analisi-promozionerafforzamento-reti-e-valorizzazione).
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Magnier, A., Cabria, M. (2021). Local State-Society Relations in Italy. In: Teles, F., Gendźwiłł, A., Stănuș, C., Heinelt, H. (eds) Close Ties in European Local Governance. Palgrave Studies in Sub-National Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44794-6_15
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