EUROPEANIZATION in CONTEXT by Francesco
REFORMING ITALY’S BUDGET PROCESS, 1960-1999: EUROPEANIZATION IN CONTEXT by Francesco Stolfi Laurea in Economia e Commercio, Università di Roma, 1995 M.A. in Urban Studies, Portland State University, 1998 M.A. in Political Science, University of Pittsburgh, 2001 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2006 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Francesco Stolfi It was defended on April 10, 2006 and approved by Mark Hallerberg, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Emory University Anibal Perez-Liñan, Assitant Professor, Department of Political Science B. Guy Peters, Professor, Department of Political Science Claudio M. Radaelli, Professor, Department of Politics, University of Exeter Dissertation Advisor: Alberta Sbragia, Professor, Department of Political Science ii Copyright © by Francesco Stolfi 2006 iii THE REFORMS OF ITALY’S BUDGET PROCESS, 1960-1999: EUROPEANIZATION IN CONTEXT Francesco Stolfi, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2006 By studying the reforms of Italy’s budget institutions this research aims to define the factors that explain the timing and content of institutional and policy reform in the context of extreme policy stability. It argues that the timing of reform depends on the preferences regarding the status quo of the parties in the government majority, and that these preferences depend on the nature of the party system (whether it allows government alternation or not) and on the type of electoral rules. Specifically, lack of government alternation and the use of proportional representation minimize the likelihood of reform, since it gives incentives to parties to develop a distributive policy orientation.
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