As practically anyone can attest, bureaucrats do far more than push paper. They often make decisions that significantly affect how the legislature serves and regulates its constituents. Even though Congress has established the tax regulations, it is up to an internal revenue service agent to ascertain whether a single person’s expenses are deductible. A general assembly may pass legislation to improve children’s basic skills, but government administrators determine which programs and schools are funded. A city council can pass a rent stability ordinance, but regional officials must decide if an individual landlord’s upgrades justify increasing rent for tenants. Although each of these choices has a minor impact, they collectively establish the nature of the citizen-government interaction.
Controlling massive bureaucracies is not an issue that only democratic political systems face. Leaders of major enterprises and heads of nondemocratic countries deal with not always obedient bureaucracies. The perseverance of a finance department in performing its business by hand, for example, may hinder corporate leaders’ efforts to computerize firm finances. On the other hand, controlling bureaucracy is vital in democracies because unchecked power runs counter to the core norms of such democratic systems (Flom, 2019). When a government’s legitimacy is based on the consent of the governed, the issue becomes more than an incapacity to get the political apparatus to operate in the manner that the leaders or citizens want and a threat to the government’s essential essence.
While political skill is regarded as among the most socially successful talents for handling organizational politics, political skill necessitates additional considerations when applied to the public sphere. The purpose of general management is to put policies in place that have been decided in organizational and bureaucratic settings. It is not enough to manage programs and policies in public administration. The primary goal of public administration is to maintain democracy. As a result, public administrators play a distinct, unique, and crucial role. Public administration practitioners must thoroughly understand the skill and its implications because general political skills (PPS) are the key to completing a great job. As a result, government organizations can use coaching, mentorship, learning, and experience to help personnel develop and improve their PPS. PPS may increase job satisfaction and promotions, according to empirical studies. PPS can also protect people against the adverse effects of organizational features like red tape and purpose uncertainty.
Since the mid-1990s, local bureaucratic entities have consolidated various institutional contexts and sectors. Cost savings, attributable to economies of size and complexity, lower management and backup costs, cost-effective management techniques, and the gain in monopolists’ power in bargaining with private sector providers, are likely to be the primary impetus for consolidation. The argument that reducing the number of LHAs will lower bureaucratic expenses, increase efficiency, and free up public resources to invest in improved healthcare services is gaining traction among Italian lawmakers (Valent, 2021). Political and institutional causes for bureaucratic reform have also been suggested in scholarly research. Consolidation or decentralization may be a tool for governments concerned with policy reforms to improve their influence over the bureaucracy. Majoritarian electoral systems may aid the quest for bureaucratic restructuring. Furthermore, partisanship is linked to consolidation or decentralization opinions.
The Italian government’s convoluted bureaucracy, the delayed court system, and complex tax legislation are usually mentioned as causes for the country’s poor performance in worldwide competitiveness assessments. Italy’s public sector performs poorly when contrasted to the European Union (EU) average. There are several local state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in Italy, many of which function poorly in areas with significant obstacles to entry. As a result, SOE rationalization is related to product economic liberalization to remove bottlenecks and hurdles to competition. Moreover, the Italian government procurement system has been deemed inefficient due to a fractured legal framework, insufficient administrative ability, and poor coordination across institutions. This system, among other things, reduces the performance of a public investment.
In recent years, a systematic reform and modernization drive have marked the Italian Governmental Power. Because of the current economic crisis and expedited community legislation, one of the top tasks is to limit government spending. The Department of Public Administration places a high priority on ongoing training (Gobbato, 2018). It is required, and the employee’s administration is responsible for it. Employee and senior executive training: The National School of Public Administration (SSPA), which is also responsible for training old civil workers, is the most important of the several training centers. It hosts training sessions for recently appointed executives and provides ongoing training for other government personnel. The Italian bureaucracy is unusual because the vast number of civil servants hail from the country’s south. This bureaucracy results from the country’s economic divide between the north and the south. In such a setting, now being a civil servant has traditionally been viewed as an opportunity for young southerners.
Political stability is lower in France, the United States, and the United Kingdom than Greece, Ireland, and Italy. In recent years, countries such as France have seen a trend toward decreasing the quantity of local or state administrations or eliminating an organizational tier by transferring its powers. Italy, France, and the UK have a centralized government, while the USA has a decentralized government. UK and Greece have an apolitical civil service, USA and Italy have a political civil service, and France has a civil patronage service.
References
Flom, H. (2019). Controlling bureaucracies in weak institutional contexts: The politics of policy autonomy. Governance, 33(3), 639-656. Web.
Gobbato, S. (2018). Italy – ten years of State Beach Concessions in Italy. European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, 13(1), 61-63. Web.
Valent, L. (2021). Linda Reeder, Italy in the modern world: Society, culture and identity. European History Quarterly, 51(2), 287-289. Web.