Page 9 - Proceeding 2015

PROFIROIU Constantin Marius and SORRENTINO Daniela FAMP

BENCHMARKING IN ROMANIAN AND ITALIAN LOCAL GOVERNMENTS: A TOOL FOR SCORING CCASP
OR LEARNING?

1994; Kickert, 1997; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2000; Torres, 2004). As for the EU countries, four
administrative styles have been identified:

a) Anglo-saxon countries (UK is the only European one): they have shown to be more prone in
PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11 TH ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
adopting business-like managerial approaches in the public sector, emphasizing principles
such as efficiency, effectiveness and value for the money.

b) Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden plus the Netherlands): even if

concerned on efficiency and effectiveness issues, the very aim under their reforms is the
citizens’ satisfaction

c) Continental and Southern Europe countries: traditionally characterized by hierarchical and

bureaucratic public administration structures, in which recent reforms have been implemented
in a much more integrated manner.

d) Central and Eastern Europe: countries of this group are the ones previously belonging to the
30 th – 31 st October 2015 ”Strategic Management for Local Communities” Bucharest The countries on which we focus, Romania and Italy, respectively belong to the third and fourth groups
communist block, engaged in a comprehensive reformation of their public sector since the
dismissal of the block.

classified above. They both are two examples of unitary states, while presenting differences in the level
of centralization and.

The Italian case is an interesting one, with regard to the centralization and fiscal autonomy features,

which are currently questioned by recent reformations in the country. Indeed, even if characterized by a
considerable degree of decentralization, recent reorganizational programs aimed at reducing the tiers of
government (Legge Delrio). When turning to fiscal autonomy, it must be said that, despite fiscal

federalism programs have been designed (Law n. 42/2009), the central Government still has a
prominent role in collecting taxes, generally leaving a very limited budgetary autonomy to local

governments. Finally, as for the administrative culture, Italy is traditionally identifiable as a rule of law
country.

Framing the administrative styles of the two studied countries serves the purpose of identifying the

“starting point”, the initial conditions which are deemed to influence and shape the paths and paces of
public sector reforms (Kuhlmann and Wolmann, 2014), and consequentially, the approaches through
which managerial tools such as the benchmarking one may be welcomed by LGs.

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