As Jessop and many other authors point out, during the 1980s, a new regional paradigm became increasingly influential and widespread in Europe, in close-knit countries. due to the collapse of nation-states in the old capitalist world. This trend has been interpreted as the result of globalization of production, credit, information and technological research, pressure from global economic institutions on states to adopt global rules of exchange, or as the effect of “transnational diplomacy” that facilitates the globalization of state power (Amin & Tomaney, 1995). The declining capacity of states to control their territory and communities at the end of the last century was countered by the resurgence of local and regional systems as participants in increased economic competition, often accompanied by pro-regional institutional reforms and regional political mobilization.
Some scholars have even argued that the way capitalist power is organized has a continuous subversive effect within “national-territorial frameworks” through global commodity chains. However, recent evidence on the behavior of states after the 2008 crisis may indicate a reaction to global economic forces. Indeed, statements in favor of new protectionist barriers to international trade, harsh measures against migrants in many European countries as well as in the United States, and national economic policies that are resistant to budgetary constraints imposed by international technocratic and financial institutions – the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, etc. – seem to describe national governments as resurgent actors in these last years of the “Great Recession.”
However, in fact, regionalism is still a relevant issue in the political economy of late capitalism, even if its power is much less destructive than in its “golden age” in the pre-crisis period. Its practical characteristics are diverse in quantity and quality and can be viewed from several perspectives: institutional, economic, functional, or political. From an institutional point of view, it is characterized by the rise of supranational powers, such as the European Union, which sees regions as partners to whom the implementation of development and cohesion policies can be delegated, thus helping to promote new forms of governance.
Furthermore, although it seems paradoxical, the impetus for this regional renaissance was driven by nation states with different paths, decisions and timetables according to institutional traditions that reinforced EU-backed Euroregionalism and the “Europeanization” of regional policy.
To summarize, according to Keating (2003), we can argue that the first phase of regional institutionalization took place between the 1960s and 1970s to respond to the need to rationalize state action and to make social welfare systems more efficient. This is the regionalization that Keating defines as “technocratic” and not driven, at least formally, by political and ideological reasons.
A second and more powerful regional wave developed in the 1980s and 1990s with the emergence of Euroregionalism. Two autonomous but convergent processes coexist here: on the one hand, a change in the composition of governmental bodies and public or quasi-governmental actors operating in the regions, which is supposed to contribute to the efficiency of the regional economy (a well-documented example is the former UK regional development agencies: Murdoch & Norton, 2001); on the other hand, the restructuring of the political regulation of the nation-state, which transfers important powers to subnational bodies. This is the experience of Europe in recent decades, with the Estado autonómico in Spain, the endless reform of constitutional law in Italy, and the relative empowerment of the French regions.
Moreover, there is a third factor that contributes to this Euro-regional wave, mainly in nation-states: the “political mobilization” that brings a profound restructuring of the administrative and political structure of the state based on the strengthening of regional governments, political movements and societies, with also different identity implications in different countries, as the cases of Spain and, more ambiguously, Italy seem to indicate.
With regard to the controversial Italian experience, there is no doubt that a wide and complex range of phenomena have profoundly changed the role and structure of regional spaces and the behavior of regional actors): among them the constitutional reform introduced in 2001, the Europeanization of public policy, and the highly differentiated responses of the regions to the cultural, social and economic challenges posed by globalization.
Regionalist forces have characterized the Italian political scene since the Risorgimento, and they also intensified the political debate on a democratic constitution at the end of the Second World War, being represented in the most relevant political parties of the First Republic. Even an officially internationalist organization such as the former Communist Party supported the role of the regions when they were given the opportunity to govern through regional elections: the governments of some regions, such as Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany and Umbria, have long been a testing ground for proving the administrative capacity of a party that remained permanently excluded from national government until the end of the Cold War.
The most striking phenomenon, however, has been the Lega Lombarda-Lega Nord (Lombard League-Northern League), which has partially inherited the electoral legacy of the Christian Democrats and has taken over many local governments in Lombardy and Veneto. This right-wing and populist actor has revived the historical and moderate regionalism of Christian Democratic thought and placed it at the center of its political agenda, interpreting the deep demand of northern society for a self-governing role. In response to these contributions, national governments have undergone institutional reform at various stages.
While, in general, the institutional context is increasingly moving towards decentralization of powers to local governments (intra-regional levels of territorial administration), a federal structure has also been developed.
In fact, since the mid-1990s, Italy has been undergoing a series of ongoing institutional reforms that have been unfolding in different stages. Roughly speaking, two distinct strands can be identified in this decades-long process: the first covers the period from 1990 to 2001, and the second covers the period from 2001 to the present. These two strands have different features, which will be illustrated in the following lines.
On the one hand, between 1990 and 2001, the institutional context was oriented towards a fairly strong decentralization of public power from the center to local governments: through Law 142/1990, the province was significantly strengthened, along with a further expansion of the powers of the regions in the republican institutional formation. In addition, according to a subsequent legislative decree, No. 122, adopted in March 1998, the state still retains some fundamental strategic functions in spatial and infrastructure planning: “[…] guidelines for the spatial development of Italy, with reference to natural and environmental assets, geological protection, infrastructure networks and public works, urban and metropolitan systems, aimed at the development of Mezzogiorno and less developed areas of the country”. It could be ironic to emphasize the fact that the functions that the central state is responsible for are only weaker, or even rather ignored by the public actions, with the exception of public works of national importance, such as infrastructure networks.
This already confusing structure has been complicated by a variety of national laws relating to so-called “fiscal federalism,” which seems to be the basic tool for any new administrative structure design: in fact, it is an art. Article 119 of the reformed Constitution states that “municipalities, provinces, capital cities and regions shall have financial autonomy with respect to revenues and expenditures.” Due to the growing needs of the state budget, this aspect has been a slippery slope on which many changes have taken place over the years: in particular, the property tax regime and local service taxes have often changed more due to public account emergencies and election cycles than to the consistent implementation of the 2001 constitutional reform.