Abstract

The pandemic has highlighted the disarray of Italy’s public structures. Is it a transitory situation caused by the crisis, or does it have distant roots? This contribution offers a key to interpreting the last thirty years of debate on the reform of the various levels of administration, both state and local, and describes the transition from post-war regionalism to the federalism of the Second Republic in the light of the economic transformations of those years. It also points out the urgency of rethinking the relations between the Italian State and its Regions, which emerged first from the Bassanini law, and then from the subsequent reform of Title V, which is the final product of that reform