Abstract

The objective of this article is to analyse the Italian reforms regarding the public administration in diachronic perspective, starting from the years 1992-1993 up to 2019, and reflecting upon the designs of the proposals. In so doing, we identify two different phases: the first, characterized by reform packages based on clear strategic ideas, as well as on consistent objectives and instruments; and the second, influenced by an incremental orientation, that gradually loses strategic ideas and innovation perspectives, with a scarce capacity to maintain coherence and consistence among objectives and/or instruments. In a nutshell, we found that the recent interventions show a tendency to design reforms on the past, with scarce coherence and innovation. This hypothesis is illustrated by the specific case of performance management initiatives.