“With Whom Do We Govern the Region?” Continuity and Change in the Regulation of Public Resources for Territorial Development. Political Strategies and Interest Representation in Apulia (Southern Italy)

Clientelism – here conceptualized as a specific type of political strategy based on the exchange of public goods and services for electoral consensus (Piattoni, 1998 ; Mattina, 2016) has for long time characterized the regulation of development policies, notably companies’ aids, in Southern Italy. Previous research has shown that in the 1990s domestic political and institutional reforms as well as the process of Europeanization have contributed to trigger a change in the territorial system of political and interest representation at the regional level (Fargion, Morlino, Profeti, 2008). New arenas for the representation of interests (notably of social partners) have been institutionalizing around the management of public resources for development (structural funds). This went hand in hand with a shift in the power-balances between policy-actors. In the case of Southern regions, the role of parties and of political leaders has been drastically undermined in favor of local administrative actors (Graziano, 2006). If this process can be considered a favorable change for the institutional capacity of Southern regions, it raises nevertheless the issue of how social interests are nowadays mediated in these arenas and of democratic representation. Building on this previous research, our aim is pursue a reflection brought about by Piattoni on the “virtue of clientelism” (Piattoni, 2007) for the delivery of collective goods and the building of a local development strategy by investigating how policy-actors (political leaders, administrative élites and representatives of socio-economic organizations) have modified their practices over time. The paper will be based on the empirical material (semi-structured interviews, documentary analysis of policy reports related to the socio-economic partnership and the allocation of structural funds) collected during a case-study research on the politics of territorial development in Apulia (2004-2018). We will argue that in order to put aside the moral criticism against clientelism and the in-capacity of allocating and spending European resources, local policy-makers have embraced a ‘managerial drift’ driven by a common representation of the efficient management of public resources (capacity to spend, responsiveness in the instruction of companies ‘demands, transparency and monitoring; etc.). This managerial drift has however engendered an isolation of politicians from their social constituencies as well as a depoliticization of debates. Moreover, one of the features which is associated with clientelism, the fragmentation of aids for matching particular demands which is considered detrimental for collective action and ultimately development (Piattoni, 1998) has not been overcome. This fragmentation can be considered as a heritage of the clientelist pattern, which is reproduced in the highly technocratic process of allocation of public resources. This managerial drift has contributed to overshadow a collective reflection on the objectives underlying the use of the structural funds for the development of the region, which are rarely debated neither sources of controversies. This has an effect on the political capacity to integrate the expectations of social groups and communities in the region, in a project of territorial development as well as on the capacity of representatives of socio-economic organizations to challenge established collective representations and moving off from the status-quo.