Inter-municipal cooperation: From cooperation through rules to cooperation through networks–empirical evidence from Puglia

Abstract

In recent years, inter-communal cooperation has been steadily growing across all European countries. This is especially true for Italy, where in connection with the recent reforms dictated by the objectives of public spending containment, a gradual increase in the number of municipal unions has been noted. This paper, which is based on the literature and the best practices of Italian municipal unions, aims to identify the factors that underlie their success and to detect the conditions that facilitate the transition from the simplest forms of cooperation to more complex ones. In particular, in the south of Italy (in Puglia, specifically), it seems that these conditions exist. The region has particular and common features with the best practices of Italian municipal unions, but also critical issues to solve. Therefore, this paper will initially present the context of cooperation in Italy, and then will focus on the situation in Puglia. The Apulian union’s features, objectives, roles and ongoing task assignments will be examined and compared with the exiting data in order to verify their efficiency. In this way, the type of inter-communal cooperation will be identified in relation to the municipal unions that exist in the region. The study will then be deepened to verify the existence of favourable conditions for the transition to more complex forms of cooperation.