The politics of the Italian budgetary process

Thesis

The thesis presents a descriptive analysis of Italian budgetary politics during the 1980s and 1990s. This work explores the institutional and political contexts of budgeting, and updates the literature on the Italian budgetary process. The dissertation identifies three periods of budgeting. The first period, from 1979 to 1992, was characterized by immobilism in budgetary politics. In this era, successive Italian governments failed to realize deficit containment policies. The 1992-94 period was marked by a transition in budgetary politics. In the sphere of budgeting, there were important changes to budget behaviour and budget outcomes. At the political level, a crisis in Italy’s political system gradually gave rise to a more adversarial party system. The post-1994 period witnessed more stable executive governance in budgetary politics.

During these years, Italian governments more successfully realized public finance objectives than did governments during the era of immobilism. This descriptive analysis of Italian budgeting highlights a number of key developments that took place over the course of the transition from immobilism to executive governance. These include growing treasury primacy in budget policy coordination, and the changing institutional and procedural circumstances governing parliamentary budgeting. Furthermore, the work presents two case studies to highlight these trends in Italian budgeting. The first is an examination of the politics of pension reform, and the second is a study of the politics of taxation.

Authors: Felsen, D

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-1aqox1ror
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Italy; Italian; budgetary; budget; politics
• Subjects: Budget -- Italy; Italy -- Politics and government