Dangerous Liaisons? The reform of local service delivery in Italy and Germany as an institutional policy

The article reviews and analyses the state of the art of the literature on local public service delivery modes in Italy and Germany, generally and with specific reference to different forms of privatisation, corporatisation and institutional public-private partnerships. Since the 1990s there have been diverse practice and lively debate in both countries on the role of municipal corporations ("municipalizzate" in Italy, "Stadtwerke" in Germany). The historical reconstruction of norms and prevalent modes of service delivery, the description of recent reforms and an overview of available data on the present state of service delivery, as well as analysis of the exercise of control over service delivery, allow some comparative conclusions to be drawn on the (re)structuring of centre-periphery and public-private relationships in the two countries.