Intergovernmental Relations and Identity Politics in Italy

The chapter discusses the manifold institutions that connect regions and the centre and which reflect the asymmetrical nature of the Italian regional design within the framework of a decentralising unitary state. As in most countries that have progressively decentralised, the second chamber of parliament performs no role in terms of linking the regions with the centre, despite a generic reference to this effect in the text of the Constitution. Rather, IGRs have developed in parallel with each other through cooperation among the executives. Such a practice has been institutionalised through different steps, in the process creating a complex system of executive conferences that bring together the national, regional and, in some cases, local governments. The asymmetrical nature of the Italian regional system is also mirrored in the different bilateral institutions established to bring together each of the five special regions and the national government. It is not by chance that those special regions whose autonomy is rooted in the protection of a distinctive identity have made wider use than others of such instruments, a fact that reveals the strong link the link between IGR, identity politics and asymmetrical constitutional design