Local Self - Government in Italy - Towards a New Model ?

The subject of this paper is the existing structure of local self-government in Italy and the possibility for reform in the context of contemporary globalisation processes. Italy is our neighbouring country, a member of the European Union and one of the richest countries in the world. It is also a country crammed with contrasts in the sense of the division between the rich north and the underdeveloped south and the complex inter-relations between province and local government authorities on the one hand and the region on the other, which is marked by the resistance of municipalities and provinces to the further strengthening of regional institutional capacity. To this one can add the fear of a part of the Italian political elite of secession of the northern Italian regions and their resistance to further decentralisation through regionalisation. This can be read from the situation where, even though this is provided for in the Italian Constitution, only a few regions have been constituted. This paper attempts to answer the question of which direction the processes of reform are taking in Italy and, whether they, in light of the global context of the Italian government, could lead to the strengthening of the administrative capacity of the Italian local and regional self-government