Blind policy-maker: An empyrical evidence from the italian case

The role of the policy-maker in Italy (Tesauro, 2011) ideally has always been associated with institutional actors in the public sector, while it really also involves individuals operating in private organizations which, by their nature, are strongly linked with the socio economic environment. The most obvious example of private policy-maker is represented by companies for the provision of infrastructure services which, with their policies, generate significant impacts on the socio economic context (Campisi, Tesauro 1997) (Tesauro, 2007). In Italy, most of the infrastructure service companies, certainly the most important ones at the national level, until a few years ago were managed by public corporations, as for example: telephone, electricity, household gas, rail, highways, airlines, ferries and so on. For this reason, their activities were subject to the control of national policy and therefore, even if indirectly, to the control of the citizens, the "policy-takers", through the normal tools of institutional democracy, as is the case for the activity of local authorities policy-makers ie municipalities, regions, provinces and so on. In recent years, however, the process of privatization of public enterprises has effectively removed from the policy, and thus indirectly to the citizens, the control over the policies adopted by these companies. This effect is further amplified by the fact that many of these activities are currently, or will be shortly, managed by companies with foreign capital, so increasing the distance with the subjects assigned to the control. In addition, the ranks of private organizations capable of generating induced effects on the territory increased by a substantial number of companies linked to other economic sectors, through pricing policies based on "custom" criteria generate meaningful effects in the socio economic national context, then becoming as real blind policy-makers. The objective of this paper is therefore to analyze how many and what types of economic activities constitute in fact new forms of policy makers in the context of national socio economic environment, if the national public subjects are aware of their activities, including the effects they generate, and what instruments are adopted to control their actions.