Local autonomies and their evolution in the history of Italy: A case study

This paper illustrates the first results of a research study inspired by the issue of local autonomies-regionalism- federalism within the current political and institutional debate. Contradictions that can be easily found in the relation among all the constitutive elements of the Republic of Italy, from municipalities to state as well as in the increase in state-region conflict due to a normative- constitutional framework which has evolved on the basis of often ‘colliding’ principles, has attracted jurists, constitutionalists, etc. Historical research can play a pivotal role in such a debate, especially in order to shed light on the processes which the institution of regions with ordinary statute in the 1970s brought about. Our perspective of analysis draws on the bottom-up logic of ‘case studies’: a slightly partial approach which privileges the territorial dimension of phenomena, also including those on a wider scale which were mentioned above. Some of the issues related to the development/local autonomies relation will be tackled, by taking into consideration the administration of the Brindisi province, in Apulia, in the second half of the 20th century. These are contentious issues, interpretative hypotheses which are based upon the empirical assessment of the role played bythe Brindisi province administration within the progress of the socio-economical scenario in such a crucial period as 1970-1990. Crucial, because during this period Brindisi, like the rest of Italy, faced the combination of numerous factors: the institution of regions bringing some novelties in the institutional function as well as in the original prerogatives of the provinces; the organic reform of the tax system having some repercussions on the fiscal system of both provinces and municipalities and considerably re- dimensioning the area of application of taxes typical of local entities; last but not least, he profound re- consideration of the state's policy of intervention in the South of Italy, until the 1986 reform which, among other things, introduced the principle of ‘pluralism of initiative’ (gradually substituting the obsolete principle of ‘additionality of state intervention’) and re-conferred some relevant financial room for intervention (thanks to the three-year development plans and to the annual ones) to territorial entities, at the expense of regions. The terminus ad quem is the Local Autonomy Law (June 1990), since it represents a turning point in history and marks a new beginning in a radically-changed national and international context following the advent of the long legislative process which, characterized by profound federalist modifications to the state order, reaches the ultimate proposal for a reform of local entities and the laws relating to autonomous entities.