Exploring the link between administrative styles and policy output: The case of the Italian Extraordinary Commissioner for the Covid‐19 Emergency

Abstract

Administrative style is a central concept in public policy and administration research. Despite the developments in the field, less is known about the effect different administrative styles have on policy output. To contribute to filling this gap, the article offers an original framework to explore the link between administrative styles and policy output based on the consolidated distinction between functional and positional orientations as constitutive elements of administrative styles. This framework is applied to an under-investigated case of public organization in the Italian context, that is, the administrative apparatus headed by the Extraordinary Commissioner for the Covid-19 Emergency, to test the general hypothesis that what makes the difference in determining output performance is an administration's positional orientation, not only its functional one. Doing so, the article contributes to "second generation" administrative style research and provides a theoretical and analytical framework to be tested in future cross-national and cross-sectoral comparisons.

The response of the Italian regions to the pandemic: a quanti-qualitative analysis

“…In addition to the central issue of health during the pandemic, the regions adopted a series of measures and initiatives, complementary or additional to those activated by the government, aimed at supporting families and the business sector in their territories. The aim of this paper is to provide a first preliminary analysis of the role of the regions and their governments in Italy during the pandemic (see Casula & Malandrino, 2023;Casula & Pazos-Vidal, 2021;Baldi & Profeti, 2020). The paper thus contributes to recent studies which have explored the way in which federal countriescharacterized by their multi-level government institutional setting -managed the health emergency (e.g., Steytler, 2022).…”

Three years of COVID‐19 pandemic: Coping with crisis governance in the long term

“…Based on administrative style theory, Casula and Malandrino (2023) analyze the case of the Extraordinary Commissioner for the COVID-19 Emergency in Italy, with a focus on the action of its administrative apparatus in two areas that played a key role amidst the governmental response to the pandemic, that is, public procurement and vaccinations. More specifically, they compare the two apparatus configurations that succeeded one another with the government change that occurred in 2021.…”