Professional Autonomy vs. Political Control: how to deal with the dilemma. Some evidence from the Italian core executive

The paper is an attempt to assess the impact of New Public Management (NPM) - inspired reforms on the trade-off between bureaucratic professional autonomy and political control. It investigates the extent to which administrative reforms have affected traditional political and administrative roles, based upon an empirical account of the main changes in the Italian Senior Civil Service. The Italian central government was involved in a significant NPM reform process during the 1990s, which introduced the principle of the separation of administration and politics. The separation of politics and administration has paradoxically resulted in the search for new forms of political control and mechanisms of integration between political and bureaucratic elites. The gradual introduction of reforms combined with attempts to obtain a more responsive bureaucracy by increasing political control seems to have had a positive effect on the level of professionalisation of the Italian Senior Civil Service.