Mechanisms and Public Administration Reform: Italian Cases of Better Regulation and Digitalization

This article applies a processual approach to the explanation of administrative reform in Italy over fifteen years. By carrying out a comparison between better regulation and digitalization policies it shows that the oscillation in the level of implementation over time and across policies can be explained by the intensity and direction of spillover and certification mechanisms and that in turn these mechanisms are activated by design features and contextual factors at different levels of analysis.