The Intervento Straordinario, its successor policies and the political economy of regional development in the Mezzogiorno: an anatomy of failure

The " Intervento Straordinario", its successor policies and the Political Economy of regional development in the Mezzogiorno: an anatomy of failure by Leonardo Piccinetti Leonardo Piccinetti Candidate Number 98102002 Thursday, September 14, 2000 6 INTRODUCTION The economic difference amogst North and South Italy is old and huge unsolved problem, that it undertaken and still untertaking the Italian government, the European Union and specially the local authorities. The research of solution going throught policies analysis during last decades. Formerly government help to depressed areas was of the public works/public assistance variety. The development policy, as of the other areas depressed of the country, always come to always depend more on the participation of the European regional policies. Now it is accepted that measures on purely local term are ineffective, and that local economies must be fitted into regional, national and European frames. The Mezzogiorno is no longer just Italy's problem region, for it also the most pronouncement problem region within the European Union. Thus have arisen far researching regional policies that aim imposing new direction and character to regional economies by means of massive government investment and interventions. Italy has had to confront its own southern question, that being the question of the Mezzogiorno. The South has suffered enormous underdevelopment, while the North has enjoyed prosperity. "Italy has the distinction and the challenge of combining one of most advanced industrial economies of Western Europe with one of the continent's poorest and most depressed areas - the Mezzogiorno, the land of the midday sun" (Chubb, 81). Carlo Levi portrayed a depiction of the southern peasants' lifestyles in the book Christ Stopped at Eboli. This is an extraordinary illustration of how serious the economic gap was at that time (1935). He went so far as to describe Gagliano, a town in the province of Basilicata, as "quella nera civilita`" (Levi, 235), that black civilisation. He painted quite a vivid, but truthful picture of the situation. This dissertation is divided mainly in three parts. The first part regards the main phases of the Intervento Straodinario in the Mezzogiorno. These are pre-industrialisation policies (1950- 57); the industrialisation policies (1957-74); the transition decade (1974-1984) and finally the end and failure of the Intervento Straordinario (1984-1992). After will be examined, in the second part of dissertation, the establishment of the European regional policy measures. Finally we shall deal the new regional policy in the Mezzogiorno and supports the theory that these new approach to local development policies. We shall analysis the most innovative aspects of two important models: the Territorial Pacts and the Area Contracts considering past experience (above all in the industrial districts) and present experience in Apulia region.