Abstract

In a society increasingly exposed to insecurities and risks, such as the current global health crisis, there is a growing agreement on the need for public sector intervention. This acknowledgment has drawn once again the attention of scholars and institutions to government efficiency and public sector performance, in all their breadth of issues which involve public decision making process at both the political and administrative levels. All the reforms that have occurred in Italy since the beginning of 1990 to strenghten institutional capacity and the efficiency of public administration have not fully achieved their goals. The Covid crisis, with its regionally differentiated impact, offers new reasons to especially reflect on the weaknesses of public decision making in the Italian polycentric system as well as on the neglected strenghts of decision making in administrative organizations. The present paper aims to stimulate a debate on these topics in order to trace the possible paths of the change necessary to make public sector able to react to the many challenges and to the new complexities of contemporary society