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Napolitano, Giulio --- "Looking for a smarter government (and administrative law) in the age of uncertainty" [2017] ELECD 1102; in Rose-Ackerman, Susan; Lindseth, L. Peter; Emerson, Blake (eds), "Comparative Administrative Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 352

Book Title: Comparative Administrative Law

Editor(s): Rose-Ackerman, Susan; Lindseth, L. Peter; Emerson, Blake

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781784718657

Section: Chapter 21

Section Title: Looking for a smarter government (and administrative law) in the age of uncertainty

Author(s): Napolitano, Giulio

Number of pages: 18

Abstract/Description:

The chapter analyzes to what extent the crisis that erupted in 2008 and the subsequent age of global uncertainty changed the recipes of reinventing government and administrative reform experienced in the last two decades of the twentieth century, characterized by the rolling back of the state, due to its fiscal crisis, the opening of markets, and the advancement of globalization. As a matter of fact, in a more and more uncertain context, a global search for a smarter and simpler government, able to do more (or at least the same) with less, started in the last ten years. This chapter, however, highlights that the praise for a smarter government runs the risk of remaining an ambiguous formula, simply revealing the absence of a set of clearly successful measures in the reforms’ toolkit. Taking seriously the quest for a smarter government, on the contrary, would require huge investments in careful policy-making, highly bureaucratic capacity, continuous digital innovation, sophisticated administrative law rules and institutions.