3 - Resilience Without Resistance: Public Administration Under Mutating Populisms in Office in Italy

Summary

This chapter provides an account of the dynamics of administrative change and bureaucratic resilience under populist governments in Italy, focusing on the first two decades of the 2000s, which have been characterized by the intermittent presence of populist parties in government. A noticeable feature of Italy is that it has displayed both right-wing and left-wing forms of populism. Political parties in Italy have displayed radically different forms of populism, and have also changed their stance over time. Our main argument is that populist governments in Italy have displayed a marked chasm between the level of talk and the level of action when it comes to public administration and the reform of the bureaucracy, and that the level of administrative continuity has been significant.