Implementing Regulatory Reform in Multi-Level Governance Systems: The Case of the Reform of the Water Sector in Italy (1994-2006)

So far relatively few studies have explicitly addressed the issue of how are regulatory reforms implemented (Gönenç et al., 2001; Eisner, 2004; Durant, 1984; Hanf, 1982). In particular, little attention has been placed so far on how the multi-level governance systems – as the institutional and polity context (Hooghe and Marks, 2001; 2003) in which regulatory reform implementation takes place – can affect the transition from a non-regulatory to a regulatory system. This research addresses this issue by investigating the case of the implementation of the 1994 water reform in Italy, in the period from 1994 to 2006. This case shows how a given configuration of multi-level governance system – partly constituted by Italy's system of intergovernmental relations – affected the design of the implementation process, the effort of actors involved, and ultimately the ways in which sub-national governments regulated this particular infrastructural service.