In the Shadow of Austerity: Italian Local Public Services and the Politics of Budget Cuts

Austerity entered the Italian political agenda with the economic downturn of 2010. Supranational pressures, coupled with domestic changes in the government coalition, paved the way to an intense programme of rationalization through “across-the-board” measures in several domains which fell under the responsibility of local governments (water service, waste, public transport and social welfare). This triggered a shift from a “doing more with less” to a “doing less with less” strategy, implicitly impacting on the autonomy of local governments.