Questioning new regionalism from an Italian perspective, or the resistible rise of Italian regions

Résumé 0

The Italian regional articulation is well-known to be one of the most differentiated in Europe and has been the base for a progressive regionalization since the birth of the Republic in 1946. The article summarizes the main stages of the definition of the Italian regions since the national unification in 1861, underscoring the artificial nature of the regional subdivision and, despite it, the increasing relevance of the regional institutions in the governmental framework of the country. The regionalization process has crossed the new-regionalist wave during the nineties of the last century, creating a complex and for some aspects inefficient mechanism of power distribution. The relatively recent constitutional reforms (2011) and the failed re-centralization with the last proposal of reform (2016) are investigated in their impacts on the relationships between the state and the regions.