Between Institutional Learning and Re-Legitimization: Italian Mayors in the Unending Reform

The mayors' direct election, introduced in Italy in 1993 under the sign of anti-party attitudes and ‘modernizing' rhetorics, is one aspect of a thorough re-definition of local government structures, recently culminated in an ambiguous revision of the constitutional text enforcing the principle of vertical subsidiarity. The impact of the subsequent re-definition of the mayor's role is under debate. Beyond the radical changes in party labels and systems, a stronger territorial differentiation in the pattern of recruitment, new differentiated incumbency effects favouring the re-election of representatives from some marginal categories — possible signals of a deeper transformation —, the social profile of current mayors (gender, age, education, work experiences, party training) is not really different from that of their colleagues of 30 years ago. The emerging new interpretation of the role suggests, nevertheless, significant progresses towards greater accountability, activism and ambition among mayors, which may be put in relation with a growing distance from partisan logics in the day to day management and a further decline in influence of the remaining local authority officials. But the excessive individualization of power, the high visibility of the Mayors threaten to reduce the possible positive impact of the reform under the profiles of policy-making effectiveness and local authorities' legitimization.