Administrative reform under mutating populism in office. Insights from Italy (2018-2022)

This paper tracks the dynamics of administrative reform across two areas (civil service, simplification) in Italy, focusing on the XVIII parliamentary term, which has been characterized by the presence of populist parties in three different coalition governments (Conte I, Conte II, Draghi). The alternation in power between different governments has occurred in a context marked by the shift of the EU economic governance from a logic of conditionality to a logic of solidarity in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. After a decade of EU-led austerity, the shift of the EU economic governance was expected to support and enable administrative reform at the national level. Our findings reveal that the structural lack of time induced the Draghi government to focus administrative reforms on a limited number of domains to produce quick and relevant results. This selective approach focused on capacity building represented an improvement into patterns of administrative reform if compared with what happened under the Conte I and II government, which have displayed a marked chasm between the level of talk and the level of action. This has been due partly to populist parties having not pursued a distinctive agenda in matters of administrative reform beyond the loud tones, and partly to EU fiscal constraints.