Abstract

The centralization of decision-making is a common consequence of crisis. The academic literature has already highlighted that Italian regions were marginalized by the central government during the pandemic crisis, despite their competences in the health sector. The article aims to further explore the role of regions during the crisis to better understand vertical and horizontal intergovernmental relations. The research focuses on the analysis of normative sources adopted at the central level; agendas, minutes, and documents of the Conferenza Stato-Regioni and Conferenza Unificata; agenda and press release of the Conferenza delle Regioni. We argue that three factors were needed for regions to play a role in decision-making: a regulatory arena, the openness of the central government to dialogue, a certain degree of regional coalitional capability.