Microsoft Word - PDF_Issue_14_1_Intro_Galanti.docx Italian Political Science, VOLUME 14 ISSUE 1, MARCH 2019 © 2019 Italian Political Science. ISSN 2420-8434. Volume 14, Issue 1, i-iv. Contact Author: Maria Tullia Galanti, University of Milan. E-mail address: maria.galanti@unimi.it Introduction to the Special Issue The Last Mile: When Policies Go Local Maria Tullia Galanti UNIVERSITY OF MILAN he study of local politics and policies in such a diverse country as Italy can be both remarkable and hopeless. On the one hand, going local to study politics allows us to discover how political preferences vary in proximate contexts and how elected representatives distribute power across levels of government, placing emphasis on cen- tre-periphery relations (Page and Goldsmith 1987). On the other, going local to study policies allows us to consider what public agencies do when they apply seemingly self-ex- ecutory policy measures at the decentralized level, showing the importance of implementation (Pressman and Wildavsky 1973). Ultimately, going local is a good way to discover how politics and policies are intertwined, by investigating the relationship be- tween performance and perceived legitimacy (Dente 1985; 1997; Capano and Lippi 2018), especially when the political system is geared towards a majoritarian logic that allows clear alternation in power after the polls – such as after the so-called direct election of a mayor in Italy (Bobbio 2005a). All in all, going local has proved to be innovative in both theory and empirics. In this sense, the ‘local’ is the natural scene for democratic and institutional experimentation. On the politics side, while Putnam’s Making Democracy Work came out as a study of dem- ocratic performance of the newborn Italian Regions, scholars such as Caciagli, Riccamboni, Cartocci and Trigilia described the political subcultures focusing on parti- san organizations at the local level (Baccetti and Messina 2009). On the policy side, the implementation of national policies offered a unique opportunity for the application of problem-solving as the proper analytical perspective for policy studies in the country (Dente et al. 1990). Later on, the ‘local’ paved the way for studies about administrative reforms and democratic experimentation (Bobbio 2002; 2005b). Nowadays, it still offers a privileged perspective on policy innovation and learning (Di Giulio and Vecchi 2018), on the effects of reforms on local public services (Citroni et al. 2015; Galanti 2016), and on the complex multi-level implications of austerity policies (Lippi and Tsekos 2019; Bol- gherini and Dallara 2016), while disclosing emerging phenomena (Bassoli and Polizzi 2019). However interesting the ‘local’ might be, perils for unfortunate researchers abound. First, there is the accessibility problem. Usable data can hardly be relied on for most di- mensions related to the input, output or, most importantly, the outcome of the policy process. With the exception of the electoral ones, data on local politics and policies are incomplete or inaccurate or, more often than not, simply not there. Second, there is the T Introduction to the Special Issue, The Last Mile: When Policies Go Local ii comparability problem. Official data sources are often aggregated at higher territorial lev- els, so fine-grained and comparable measures about salient political and policy issues are scarce. Third, there is the exceptionalism problem. Comparison often seems at odds with the specificity of the local context, so that scientific explanations tend to apply only to one case, without making sense of different case studies. Moreover, replicability is unlikely, also because accurate in-depth case study research relying on interviews and process trac- ing is extremely time consuming. Last but not least, there is the theoretical problem, as the proximity between local actors and their sensitivity to contextual conditions makes it ra- ther difficult to find a theory that fits, or to be able to generate hypotheses to generalize the empirical findings. Still, going local still means dipping into the reality of politics and policies, and this often makes empirical research on local governments and policies highly innovative and insightful and, thus, necessary. The articles in this focus on IPS offer examples of how to turn research problems into opportunities. First, the accessibility of data can be tackled by seeking other sources of data, building a new dataset, and ultimately focusing on unconventional research questions. Most poli- cies remain on paper until they arrive at the local level, where purposeful actors implement them following strategic considerations. Searching for (as yet unused) data, collected by a number of institutions and organizations at the local level, allows us to shed light on side effects and unexpected consequences that anticipate future developments. This is what emerges in the analysis of Elisa Rebessi of the implementation of the Italian Code of Public Contracts (Rebessi 2019, this issue). Building a brand-new dataset on judicial decisions on the awarding of contracts by the Regional Administrative Courts in Milan, Rome and Tu- rin, and using measures to assess competitivity in these contexts, Rebessi shows that municipal officers act strategically in shaping the content of the contracts in order to avoid contestation. At the same time, the analysis unveils a side effect: by making the content of the contracts more detailed and rigid, local administrations may paradoxically experience accrued litigation from competing enterprises on the local market. Second, the comparability problem can be faced by downsizing the analysis to more homogeneous units, amassing qualitative evidence from interviews with different stake- holders in the same cities, while collecting other structural information (e.g. on networks). The comparison between similar cases proves, then, to be empowered by a re- search question that is original, because it adds a new perspective to the existing literature. This is what emerges from the work of Andrea Pettrachin (2019) in this issue of IPS. He analyses how sensemaking processes affect the implementation of social utility work as an instrument of migration policy in several cities in the Veneto Region. By con- sidering not only the rational motivations of mayors but also their emotional component, the analysis unveils that mayoral decisions depend both on how the issue is perceived in the communities, but also on how they interpret their identity as mayors, including par- tisanship. In particular, the analysis of how these mayors make sense of their decisions on migration policies shows that partisan mayors tend to behave differently from inde- pendent ones. Third, the exceptionalism problem is confronted by crafting better research designs. Even when a case seems specific to one time and one place, the research should be de- signed, as the case is one instance among many others. In other words, the researcher has MARIA TULLIA GALANTI iii to be skilled at justifying the case selection, while acknowledging that also in a single case study there might be an explicit or implicit comparison with similar cases (Gerring 2007). In this way, even a single case allows us to discover aspects that might configure as recur- ring trends for a phenomenon. By selecting a pilot study for the analysis of the implementation of rationalization of municipal corporations, Stefania Profeti reinforces existing knowledge about both policies and political parties. On the one hand, the analysis of rationalization policies in Leghorn under the Five Star Movement confirms that cen- tre-periphery relations still matter for national parties, while the institutionalization of the Movement translates into a centralization of decision-making, especially with regard to apparently ‘local’ problems laden with symbolic meanings. On the other hand, the analysis shows that mayors adapt national policies using a strategic reframing of the is- sues, and strategically choose from among an array of options, but with constant attention to perceived legitimacy and citizens’ expectations, as their political careers (also) depend on this. Finally, there is the theoretical problem, which is not exclusive to local government studies. Indeed, this is the most challenging one, but also the most rewarding. To find the- ories that fit the cases, the researcher has to think at a higher level of abstraction, to discard the aspects that are not relevant to the research question, and finally to take from the findings only those dimensions and relations that explain something – and that are more likely to be present in similar cases. This can be done either when the researcher already has a theory in mind and needs a local case to test it – such as positive political theory in the article by Rebessi – or when he/she is struggling to make sense of a new phe- nomenon, such as the implementation of a top-down rationalization programme by a new political force in the article by Profeti. All this requires a solid base of theoretical awareness, a steady orientation towards empir- ical knowledge, plus a good deal of stubbornness in seeking until you find (Profeti 2010). The future of local politics and policies relies on the capacity of our community to develop proper research agendas to design a collection of case studies under a shared framework and research question, or to invest in a sort of ‘inventive individualism’, with in-depth case studies on understudied phenomena which are telling of trends in both politics and policies, from the distribution of power to the use of policy instruments. References Baccetti C., and Messina P., (eds.), (2009), L'eredità. Le subculture politiche della Toscana e del Veneto, Liviana, Padova. Bobbio L., (2002), Produzione di politiche a mezzo di contratti nella pubblica amministra- zione italiana, Stato e mercato, 1, 111-141. Bobbio, L. (2005a), “Italy: After the Storm, in Denters B, and Rose L. E. (eds.) Comparing Local Governance. Trends and Developments, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 29–46. Bobbio, L. (2005b), La democrazia deliberativa nella pratica, Stato e mercato, 1/2005, p67-88. Bolgherini, S., and Dallara, C. (eds.) (2016) La retorica della razionalizzazione: il settore pub- blico italiano negli anni dell'austerity. Bologna: Istituto Carlo Cattaneo. Capano G., Lippi A., (2018), How Decision-Makers Make the «Right Choice»? Instrument Se- lection between Legitimacy and Instrumentality: Evidence from Education Policy in Italy (1996-2016), Rivista Italiana di Politiche Pubbliche, 2, 219-254. Introduction to the Special Issue, The Last Mile: When Policies Go Local iv Citroni G., Lippi A. and Profeti S. (2015), Representation through Corporatisation. Municipal corporations in Italy as Arenas for Local Democracy, European Political Science Review, 7(1), 63-92. Dente B., (1985), Governare la frammentazione. Stato, Regioni ed Enti locali in Italia, Bologna, Il Mulino. Dente B., Bobbio L., Fareri P., and Morisi M., (1990), Metropoli per progetti: attori e processi di trasformazione urbana a Firenze, Torino, Milano, Bologna, Il Mulino. Dente, B. 1997. Sub-national governments in the long Italian transition, West European Poli- tics, 20 (1), 176–193. Di Giulio M., and Vecchi G. (2019), Multilevel policy implementation and the where of learn- ing: the case of the information system for school buildings in Italy, Policy Sciences, 52, 119. Lippi A., and Tsekos T. (eds.) (2019), Local Public Service in Times of Austerity across Mediter- ranean Europe, London, Palgrave. Galanti M.T. (2016), Sindaci e manager nel capitalismo municipale, Bologna, Il Mulino. Gerring J., (2007). Case study research - principles and practices. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- versity Press. Page E., Goldsmith M., (1987), Central and local government relation, Beverly Hills, SAGE. Pettrachin A., (2019), When Asylum Policies Go Local: the Case of Socially Useful Works for Asylum-Seekers, Italian Political Science, 14 (1). Polizzi E. and Bassoli M., (2019). All smoke, no fire? Sharing practices and political invest- ment in two Italian cities. Italian Political Science Review/Rivista Italiana Di Scienza Politica: 1-16. doi:10.1017/ipo.2019.12 Profeti S., (2010), Il potere locale tra politica e politiche, Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino. Profeti S., (2019), Reshaping policy solutions through local implementation: The rationaliza- tion of municipal corporations in Leghorn and the case of AAMPS, Italian Political Science, 14 (1). Pressman, J.L., Wildavsky, A. (1973), Implementation, Berkeley, University of California Press. Rebessi E., (2019), Unintended consequences of fighting corruption: judicial decisions for the award of public contracts in three Italian cities, Italian Political Science, 14 (1).