1.The reforms of the 1990s: the results
Administrative reform was among the crucial commitments of the Amato, Ciampi, Prodi and D’Alema governments in the 1990s. A period of inaction on this front ensued, coinciding with the second and third governments headed by Silvio Berlusconi and the second headed by Romano Prodi. Under the fourth Berlusconi government, formed in 2008, work has resumed on the modernization of the Italian administrative system. Comparing the second reform effort with the first, the factors of continuity outweigh the few innovations, although these are not unimportant.1 This is unusual in a country accustomed, in reform processes, to going back to square one with each change of political majority. This continuity is not only positive as a method but also commendable on its merits, because the reforms of the 1990s, though not carried to completion and notwithstanding their indubitable contradictions, shortcomings and compromises, were the most significant attempt to modernize the public administration since national unification, as a summary balance of what they produced demonstrates.