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Background: Vaccine hesitancy was defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2019 as a major threat to global health. In Italy, reluctance to receive vaccines is a widespread phenomenon that was amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic by fear and mistrust in government. This study aims to depict different profiles and characteristics of people reluctant to vaccinate, focusing on the drivers of those who are in favor of and those who are opposed to receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Methods: A sample of 10,000 Italian residents was collected. A survey on COVID-19 vaccination behavior and possible determinants of vaccine uptake, delay, and refusal was administered to participants through a computer-assisted web interviewing method. Results: In our sample, 83.2% stated that they were vaccinated as soon as possible (“vaccinators”), 8.0% delayed vaccination (“delayers”), and 6.7% refused to be vaccinated (“no-vaccinators”). In general, the results show that being female, aged between 25 and 64, with an education level less than a high school diploma or above a master’s degree, and coming from a rural area were characteristics significantly associated with delaying or refusing COVID-19 vaccination. In addition, it was found that having minimal trust in science and/or government (i.e., 1 or 2 points on a scale from 1 to 10), using alternative medicine as the main source of treatment, and intention to vote for certain parties were characteristics associated with profiles of “delayers” or “no-vaccinators”. Finally, the main reported motivation for delaying or not accepting vaccination was fear of vaccine side effects (55.0% among delayers, 55.6% among no-vaccinators). Conclusion: In this study, three main profiles of those who chose to be vaccinated are described. Since those who are in favor of vaccines and those who are not usually cluster in similar sociodemographic categories, we argue that findings from this study might be useful to policy makers when shaping vaccine strategies and choosing policy instruments.

Following years of attempted federal reforms, the relationship between the State and the Regions in Italy is still marked by various shortcomings. The essay explores this issue in the formulation of the Italian NRRP by investigating, on the one hand, the vertical relations between the State and the Regions, highlighting both the weak coordination between the two levels of government and the limited involvement of the Regions in the governance structure; on the other, the horizontal relations between the regions, which are affected by competitive drives aimed at defending regional interests that are differentiated according to the North-South cleavage. Based on the analysis carried out, the study proposes some interpretative keys which call into question polity, politics, and policy factors.

Il volume raccoglie i risultati del progetto “New Policies and Practices for European Sharing Cities –EUcity”, attivato nell’ambito dello Jean Monnet Project e co-finanziato dall’Erasmus+ Project dell’Unione Europea. Muovendo dall’assunto per il quale le città sono i principali recettori dei cambiamenti del mercato poiché si distinguono come legami interconnessi tra la società, lo Stato e l’Unione europea, gli Autori hanno analizzato il fenomeno della sharing economy, alcuni modelli di governance e di fornitura di beni e servizi sul mercato. Come illustrato dal nucleo argomentativo dell’opera, infatti, le sfide normative della sharing economy non derivano solo dalla novità del modello economico p2p, ma anche da una distribuzione completamente nuova delle responsabilità normative tra gli attori coinvolti. A differenza della regolamentazione del mercato tradizionale, la regolamentazione dell’economia della condivisione è principalmente una questione comunale. Allo stesso tempo, anche il diritto europeo offre spunti di riflessione notevoli. Attualmente, sia gli amministratori locali che gli operatori privati di alcuni settori del mercato (ad es. la casa, i trasporti, etc.), ma anche i cittadini che vogliono sperimentare nuovi servizi, sono obbligati ad agire all’interno di sistema normativo difficilmente intellegibile. In virtù delle considerazioni svolte, quindi, il testo apre un fronte critico argomentativo diviso in tre parti: 1) “Sharing cities”, in cui si introducono i temi principali relativi ai fenomeni urbani in un contesto di sharing economy; 2) “Trasporti, Turismo e politiche abitative nelle Sharing cities”, contenente un focus riguardante gli aspetti dinamici del vivere in contesti smart; 3) “Esperienze a confronto”, parte dedicata all’analisi empirica delle realtà sperimentate da Bologna e Barcellona.

Following pressures toward restoring public finances in the era of global crisis, the Italian local governments have been recently the object of several proposals of reform aimed at the «rationalization» of functions, competences, and costs. Among these proposals, however, only the «Delrio Law» of 2014 had been definitely approved by the Parliament, producing relevant - albeit transitory - changes in the institutional system. Drawing upon a comparison with former attempts of reform, the article analyses the process of formulation and approval of the Delrio Law in order to assess the type and amount of change it has been able to produce, as well as the determinants of its «success» beyond the austerity rhetoric.

From the start of 2021, the vaccination campaign against SARS- CoV-2 was high on the agenda of governments everywhere and the Italian Government was no exception. In this article, we shall describe the progress of the anti-Covid vaccination campaign in Italy with a particular focus on the policy tools adopted by the Government to encourage citizens’ compliance and to combat reluctance. After considering the problem of engaging with the vaccination campaign using the analytic framework provided by studies of compliance, focus will be first on how the targets of the vaccination campaign came to be defined and the infrastructural facilities for administering the doses established, and then on the measures the Government took to overcome popular resistance to the vaccines and to maximize compliance, considering them in terms of their degree of ‘intrusiveness’. In the final section, we conclude by highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the campaign and by offering an assessment of the coherence and the timing of the Government’s measures.

This article focuses on the mix of reorganisation measures recently adopted by Italian governments in the delivery of public services in four policy sectors that are (co)managed at different levels of government, but all mostly delivered locally. The aim is twofold: to understand whether a single, coherent approach to rationalisation can be identified in the policy provisions; and how – and how much – the onset of austerity affected governments’ choices. Little attention has in fact so far been paid to the task of providing an overall, cross-sectoral analysis of the changes that have been made to the organisation of public intervention at the local level, and especially those bodies actually providing public services to citizens. The empirical evidence adduced shows that the recent changes in the Italian administrative geography have been the effect of a cost-cutting-oriented, recentralising trend reflecting a one-size-fits-all solution for each and every policy sector: consolidation through ‘merger mania’ or upscaling. Moreover, the reorganisation measures described for the various policy sectors have had side effects with significant political implications, especially as far as centre-periphery relations are concerned.

In parallel to the formulation of the Europe 2020 strategy, the new regulation of the EU Cohesion policy has experienced some changes which - at least on paper - seem to rejuvenate its solidarity profile, bringing the aims of fighting poverty and promoting inclusive growth among the core priorities of the EU. In order to understand how and to what extent such changes in policy discourse correspond to concrete change in policy practices, this chapter tries to assess the nature and relevance of the social dimension in both the regulation of cohesion policy and the operational programs co-financed by the EU Structural Funds (today European Structural and Investment - ESI Funds), with a specific focus on the 2007-13 and 2014-20 programming periods. A distinction is made between measures oriented at increasing employment, such as services for employment, active labour market policies, human resources development and training activities, and measures which are more explicitly "social" in nature, such as reduction of poverty, fighting discrimination and the creation of social infrastructures.