Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate a fundamental question relating to institutional design in the public sector. After two centuries of Leviathan-like public institutions or Welfare State, do we still need full delegation of every public responsibility and/or exclusive monopoly of the power to manage public affairs? In particular, is there space for a shared or collaborative governance of commons? In the global age, an age in which "bottom-up", "peer-to-peer" and "sharing" are the keywords there might be space for a new design of public institutions and their relationship with citizens. To investigate this question I chose the city as a particular case-study and Italy as observation point.