Evaluation and Program Planning 56 (2016) 7687

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Evaluation and Program Planning

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From local development policies to strategic planningAssessing

continuity in institutional coalitions
Francesco Mazzeo Rinaldia,b,*
a
University of Catania, Social and Political Science Department, Catania, Italy
b
KTH, Royal Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and the Built Environment, Stockholm, Sweden

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history:
Received 17 October 2015 In the last two decades, EU policies have had a fundamental role in orienting regional/local development.
Received in revised form 19 January 2016 The objective of this work is set in this context as it intends to analyze the local development programs
Accepted 25 March 2016 activated in Sicily in the last three programming periods. The main aim is to explore whether the EU
Available online 1 April 2016 partnership principle inuenced cooperation among local actors, assessing the continuity of local
institutional coalition in managing different local development programs within the regional
Keywords: development policy system. We focus, in particular, on Strategic Plans (SP) promoted in Sicily in the
Local development transition phase between the 20002006 and the 20072013 periods.
Partnerships
2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Cohesion policy
Strategic planning

1. Introduction the protection and enhancement of local resources, cannot be

Local development policies (LDP) have become progressively
dominant in the last 20 years, as many governments have sought to
address growth, development and social problems, by supporting
locally-based or bottom-up approaches and programs (Accetturo &
de Blasio, 2012; Coffey & Polse, 1985; Viesti, 2002). Several
international organizations involved in developing programs, in
both developing and developed countries, have started to react to
growth and development challenges with new approaches
grounded on spatially-blind or place-based approaches (Barca,
McCann, & Rodrguez-Pose, 2012; Bentley & Pugalis, 2014; Celata &
Coletti, 2014; Huggins & Thompson, 2014; Partridge, Rickman,
Olfert, & Tan, 2013). The idea behind LDP is more than a range of
small-scale initiatives activated locally. It is more an approach for
integrating different programs and policies at a local level in order
to liberate synergies and stimulate co-ordination, thus improving
local governance through involving stakeholders in the denition
and delivery of policy (Dente, 2014).
The cooperative, partnering and pluralist nature, which the EU
has greatly promoted through the Cohesion Policy (CP), is based on
the belief that issues related to the growth strategies of a territory,
on the responsible and shared management of common goods and
* Corresponding author at: University of Catania, Social and Political Science
Department, Catania, Italy.
E-mail address: fmazzeo@unict.it (F. Mazzeo Rinaldi).
imposed exogenously by public power. This orientation is also
supported by the numerous experiences relating to the severity of
the implementation of some decisions; severity that over time
actually voided the very reasons for certain area planning
processes and planning procedures (Pennisi, 2007). These issues
require theoretical assumptions and foreshadow the decisions and
choices that will not only attract new players in the programming
processes, but redene roles and responsibilities of public and
private players, both oriented to the achievement of a collective
benet that it is assumed cannot be achieved otherwise (Mazzeo
Rinaldi, 2008, p. 397).
Integration, cooperation, partnership, etc., are just some of the
terms that more and more pervasively have come not only into the
language of economics, but into European, national and regional
programming structures, taking on an increasingly binding
character for access to funding (Barca, 2009). Also in the just
started 201420 programming period, the EU, despite having
partly reduced the weight given to these instruments, continues to
strongly support local development initiatives. Among the
different kinds of EU regulations and administrative norms, the
EU CP ones have an ad hoc character, and national laws are obliged
to respect the dened principles (e.g. the partnership principle). A
member state that disregards these norms cannot obtain nancing
(on international administrative procedures, see Cassese, 2005).
The partnership principle produced signicant pressures for
institutional and administrative changes, particularly in some

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2016.03.008
0149-7189/ 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 F. Mazzeo Rinaldi / Evaluation and Program Planning 56 (2016) 7687
Mediterranean and Central and Eastern European Countries where
centralized administration and decision-making is traditionally
embedded in the institutional culture (Bache, 2010a, 2010b among
others). Quite apart from the legitimate doubt about the potential
for the effective institutionalization of partnership principle to
these member states, the new administrative norms imposed
from Brussels for planning and implementing the CP programs,
have pervasively effected the center periphery relationships in
these MS (Dabrowski, 2011), developing a bottom-up regional and
local involvement in development policies, generating valuable
administrative experimentation and procedures, that should be
seen as a main resource for the creation and combination of
knowledge for decision-making processes (Ladeur, 2011). These
processes have not only represented, in particular for the EUs
lagging regions, big opportunities due to the rich economic
incentives received, but have offered grounds on which to
experiment with new organizational assets and local program-
ming instruments able to generate innovation in the modes and
mechanisms of transformation and regional development. Admin-
istrative law cannot be conceived of as being essentially an
outcome of the legislator. In this context, the local uses of EU norms
and procedures and the resulting administrative experimenta-
tion are ingredients of the knowledge basis for public decision-
making (Ladeur, 2011).
Nevertheless, the current literature on CP, at least the one
considered the most reliable, is generally oriented to measure
quantitatively the impact of the EUs regional policy on the
convergence process, with contradictory and conicting conclu-
sions. Some research concludes that, in general terms, the EU
Structural Funds has had hardly any impact (Dallerba & Le Gallo,
2008), while other studies show that the impact has been limited
or controversial (Esposti & Bussoletti, 2008; Martin, 1999; Mohl &
Hagen, 2010; Percoco, 2005; Puga, 2002; Puigcerver-Pealver,
2007), and others still show that it has been positive (Beckera et al.,
2012; Cappelen, Castellacci, Fagerberg, & Verspagen, 2003;
Kyriacou & Roca-Sagals, 2012; Ramajo, Marquez, Hewings, &
Salinas, 2008).
Although several scholars have recently pointed out the
importance of considering new decision-making practices (Leo-
nardi, 2006; Mairate, 2006), partnerships (Bache, 2010a, 2010b;
Bache & Chapman, 2008; Batory & Cartwright, 2011; Gore & Wells,
2009; Potluka & Liddle, 2014) and institutions (Acemoglu, Johnson,
& Robinson, 2005; Acemoglu & Johnson, 2006) in analyzing
regional development effectiveness, arguing that local governance,
administrations and institutions are critical for the design and
implementation of effective development strategies (Bailey & De
Propris 2002; Hughes, Sasse, & Gordon, 2004; Milio, 2007;
Rodrguez-Pose, 2013), the degree of institutionalization of the
partnership principle within the regional development policy
systems remains uncertain. Little attention has been paid to
analyzing the robustness of local institutional coalition in managing
different local development programs in the CP framework. The
strategic nature of the CP is not only in the goodness of its
programs, but rather in the recursive nature of these new
europeanised procedures that such programs gradually make
available, strengthening the capacity of public administrations
and institutions in the region. How do local institutional actors
respond to the partnership principle? Do they just comply with the
CP-imposed rule? Or, is the partnership principle recursively
assumed over time becoming a resource of the regional develop-
ment policy approach? The paper deals with these questions by
drawing on the ndings from a preliminary study conducted in one
region of Italy, where the continuity of institutional coalitions at
the local development program level, activated over the last three
EU programming periods, has been assessed.
77
This preliminary stage of the study aims also to select specic
areas with high level of persistence of institutional coalitions for a
following qualitative case study approach, planned to assess the
conditions (e.g. political and administrative) within which the
institutional coalitions have been established as well the effects of
partnerships on local development.
2. Aims, methodology and research phases
Even in the differences and diversity that have characterized
the different families of EU local development programs
promoted over the years, many of which are the subject of our
analysis, the basic principle is that of integration, understood on the
one hand as a cooperation of local actors (public and private),
through the construction of governance mechanisms, which
gradually has been given the role of satisfying multiple demands
(John, 2001), and on the other hand as the integration of other
sectorial policies on the basis of a unied development strategy
(Crescenzi, De Filippis, & Pierangeli, 2014), able to exploit local
resources and promote regional competitiveness. Integration
requires, moreover, signicant institutional and administrative
capacity that is often beyond the resources available to local
players nominated for these roles. Organizational and decision
making challenges are reected on the premises of the institu-
tional coalitions that over the years have been called on to carry out
more and more well-structured and complex roles.
This research aims to explore whether the EU partnership
principle inuenced cooperation among local actors, assessing the
continuity of local institutional coalition in managing different
local development programs within the regional development
policy system. This is done by analyzing the number of local
development programs activated in Sicily in the last three EU
programming periods, to assess possible dimensions of continuity
(or discontinuity) between the different experiences, from the
Territorial Pacts (Patti Territoriali PT) to the latest Integrated
Territorial Development Projects (PIST) and Integrated Urban
Development Projects (PISU). Sicily provides some relevant
examples for investigating sub regional experiences in this context,
given the extraordinary variety and large number of the local
programs activated, and the considerable involvement of local
councils in these programs over the period considered. Moreover,
Sicily has experienced substantial autonomy in the eld of urban
and regional policy, given its special Autonomy Status recognized
by the national Constitution.
In particular, attention is concentrated on Strategic Plans (SP),
promoted in Italy according to the Directions of the Inter-
institutional Table for the FASs (Fund for Underutilized Areas),
and carried out in Sicily following the Planning Departments
announcement published on 20 January 2006, so right in the
transition phase between the 20002006 and the 20072013 pro-
gramming periods. The SP (and, specically, the Intermunicipal
Strategic PlansISP), were designed from the regional level as a
turning point in the context of planning policies and as an
important opportunity to identify development strategies of local
systems. Thus, it offers a remarkable opportunity to assess whether
the building of coalitions for ISP was inuenced signicantly by the
size thresholds1 imposed by the regional call, or whether, on the
contrary, it is reected in the sub-regional partnership identied
1
In the rst regional call, provincial capital towns or towns with populations of at
least 50,000 inhabitants and groups of towns and villages with populations of at
least 50,000 inhabitants could participate. With the second call there is a jump in
quality, oriented at giving more weight to the urban component, through the
insertion, as ulterior requirement for town and village groups, of the presence of
one town with a population of at least 30,000 inhabitants.
78 F. Mazzeo Rinaldi / Evaluation and Program Planning 56 (2016) 7687
also for the other instruments of the previous programming
periods (especially PT and Territorial Integrated ProjectsPIT) and
later (PIST/PISU and Local Action GroupsGAL).
The research carried out was structured in two main steps. The
rst one began with an analysis of different instruments that have
followed each other in the last three EU programming periods,
aimed at building an updated picture of the experiences of local
development in Sicily. For each of the programs under consider-
ation, mapping through GIS was made of the areas concerned and
their relative activated institutional coalitions. In this way, by
reading the different maps in sequence, it was possible to analyze
changes of local development programs in the various areas.
The goal, in this phase, was to analyze how local councils
reacted to the EU partnership principle over the last three
programming periods, as well as to highlight the most dynamically
participating town councils in local development programs.
To do so, a database where the 390 Sicilian councils were
associated with the local development programs in which each
council participated was created. Through the construction of two
synthetic indexes (1) Degree of Local Planning, dened as the
number of local development programs in which every council has
participated (or participates) and the (2) Index of Local planning,
dened as the level of dynamism with regards to local develop-
ment tools it was possible to analyze the local response to
partnership principle and to identify the most dynamic councils in
terms of participation in local development programs over time.
These indexes, which are mapped by referring both to the councils
and to the Local Labour Systems (SLL)2 (a local aggregations not
related to EU planning policies) were developed adapting the work
done by Dematteis, Governa, and Vinci (2003) and Vinci (2008).
The results from this rst phase of the research were organized
and used as a basis for discussion for carrying out a Focus Group
(FG), in which some executives of the Department of Regional
Planning and members of the Sicily Regional Evaluation Unit were
invited to participate. The FG had a double objective: on one hand,
to verify the initial results with those who, in the last decade and
more, had actively pursued the different programming periods and
over time had acquired signicant knowledge of the different local
contexts, and on the other hand, to gather suggestions and
directions in relation to the second phase of the research, which
included a study of the role played by the Strategic Planning in the
dynamics of local development between the 200006 program-
ming period and that of 200713. That is, to understand whether
(and how) the SP had capitalized on the partnership experience of
previous CP programs and if they were able to project it in a more
or less enhanced manner, onto subsequent programs.
In the second phase, then, the focus was shifted to the
32 Sicilian SP, and in particular to the 15 ISP, to assess whether the
institutional building of coalitions was the result of sub-regional
coalitions already formed within the CP local programming
instruments analyzed in the rst phase of research both
before and after the SP, or if, on the contrary, it was inuenced
signicantly by the size thresholds imposed by the regional call. To
do this, a third index was built (3) Index of territorial continuity,
2 4
The Local Labour Systems are regional sub-units made up of several
municipalities that are consecutive amongst themselves, geographically and
statistically comparable. They are an appropriate (and common) analysis
instrument for investigating the social economic structure of Italy from a regional
or local perspective. The study that lead to the identication of Local Labour
Systems is the result of an agreement between ISTAT and the department of
Economy of the University of Parma. The project can be placed along a line of
scientic and methodological continuity with the previous experiences that ISTAT
had already conducted in 1981 and in 1991 in collaboration with Irpet and the
Universities of Newcastle and Leeds.
which is a measure of the persistence of the institutional coalitions
before or after the SP.
Index
Research aims Degree of Index of Index of Territorial
Local Local Continuity
Planning planning
Institutional actors response U U
to partnership principle
Continuity of Institutional U
Coalition
Case Study identication U U
The results of the research thus set out made it possible to
outline an initial certainly not exhaustive picture of the local
institutional coalition experiences activated in Sicily on different
local development programs, setting the foundations for a
subsequent in depth study through a qualitative case study
approach, which will be carried out to understand the contextual
conditions within which the institutional coalitions have been set
up and to assess the main effects of these coalitions on local
development.
3. Results
3.1. Mapping local planning in sicilycomparing town councils
In the 1990s, Italy witnessed a series of political and
institutional discontinuities that changed the perspective in which
the problem of the South was traditionally framed (Bull & Baudner,
2004; La Spina, 2003; Petrusewicz, 2001; Prota & Viesti, 2012).
Until then, attempts to reduce the lagging development of regions
of the South compared to other parts of Italy, had always been of a
centralized character, with the southern regions as object and not
subject of policy and program development (De Pascale, 2006;
Riall, 2000; Schneider, 1998).
In Sicily, in particular, since the mid 1990s, there has been,
regardless of the more or less positive results, a signicant
mobilization of political, institutional and social services at central
and local level, and this is particularly signicant in an
administrative context that is traditionally weak on issues of
coordination in the planning of comprehensive strategies for the
development of the region.
Taking into account the last three programming periods,
including the one still ongoing for 20072013 (considered the
still embryonic phase of the 20142010 programming period, it
was decided not to consider it in our analysis), we can identify
three main instruments of local development, one for each period:
the PT3 for 19941999; the PIT4 for 20002006; and the PIST/
PISU,5 for the 20072013 programming period. The SP are not
closely related to a EU CP, but are located temporally in the
transition phase between the 20002006 and the 20072013 peri-
3
It is an agreement between representatives of local government, entrepreneurs
and workers unions that integrates incentive actions for companies, to compensate
for the localized disadvantages of the region. The main objectives are the promotion
of cooperation among public and private subjects of a given region.
PIT are dened as a group of inter-sectorial actions, tightly coherent and
connected between each other, that converge towards a common objective for
regional development, and justify a unitary implementation approach. With PITs,
there is an attempt to bring the previous experiences of planning for local
development to unitary programming.
5
PIST and PISU reect the orientations taken by European regional policy in the
20072013 programming period. In this programming context, in fact, the urban
dimension becomes central in regional development policies. The theme of urban
development adopts a double relevance, both as incentive for regional competi-
tiveness and with a view to social cohesion.
 F. Mazzeo Rinaldi / Evaluation and Program Planning 56 (2016) 7687 79

20002006
20002006
20002006
20042006
Time range

19982001

20072013
20072013
19941999
ods. They are, on the whole, instruments that bring programming
closer to the territories, in order to allow, in theory, a better
denition of development strategies. The strategic planning of
metropolitan areas in Europe that began in the late 1980s is a new
approach to local government (Roberts, 1993). In the formulation
and implementation of programs and projects, a strategic nature
is attributed to the ability of local communities to promote and
activate the potential of partnership systems around the medium
and long term, permanently monitored and evaluated targets,
Number of programs started

aimed at identifying a shared vision of the future development of a

given region (on SP in Italian local governments, see Cavenago &
Trivellato, 2010; Martinelli, 2005; Perulli, 2004; Mazzara,
Sangiorgi, & Siboni, 2010; Percoco, 2014).6
In the initial stage of our analysis, in order to reconstruct the
geography of local development instruments which over time
have been stratied in Sicily, the other four tools that contributed
signicantly to launching local development were taken into
33

35
32
26
12
15

16
8

consideration, in addition to these three main policy instruments

and SP (Table 1).
The instruments of local programming identied, of course,
have characteristics, objectives and constraints (specic to each
instrument) that are often very different. For example, PIT, PIST
and PISU cater to the entire region, while the SP focus mainly on
Type of tool and source of funding

urban areas.
However, the goal at this stage was mainly to highlight, by
mapping, the most dynamically participating council in the
programs of local development Fig.1 and 2.
To do that a database (Table 2) was constructed, in which to the
funds
funds
funds

funds
funds

390 Sicilian councils were associated the local development

programs identied in which over the years each council has
UE Structural
UE Structural
UE Structural

UE Structural
UE Structural
National FAS
National FAS

National FAS

participated.
It was possible to identify, for each council, the degree of local
planning, dened as the number of local development programs in
which every council has participated (or participates). This index
was used also in the studies for the drafting of the Regional
Urbanistic Plan of the Sicily region (Dematteis et al., 2003; Vinci,
2008).
Given that there are nine instruments considered,7 the highest
level of planning is precisely 9. In particular, among the
Programs of urban requalication and sustainable development of the territory (PRUSST);

390 Sicilian councils there are only three, and of medium size
Local Action Groups of the Rural development program 20072013 (GAL 20072013)

(Avola, Caltagirone and Monreale), who reach that value; vice

versa, the minimum value obtained is 3, found for 15 councils,
mostly of small size.
This index, which is mapped by referring both to the councils
(Fig. 3) and to the Local Labour Systems (SLL) (Fig. 4), helped to
identify the areas with special thickening of the level of planning,
i.e. the most dynamic regional territories in building (and
Local Action Groups of the Leader+ Program (GAL 20002006)

Integrated plans of territorial/urban development (PIST/PISU);

participating in) local development policies.

In particular, if we consider the map of the level of planning by
council, the areas that emerge are those of Alto Belice Corleone,
Madonie, Etna and the Alcantara Valley, the Val di Noto and the
Calatino. It is worth noting that these areas coincide largely with
those reported as the most dynamic in the FG held with executives
Territorial pacts specialized for agriculture
Programming Instruments comparison.

Integrated territorial Projects (PIT)

6
Even at risk of simplifying, it is useful to distinguish two different moments that
Programming instruments

have characterized the launch of strategic planning processes in Italy. The rst
regards some cities of the north (Turin, La Spezia, Pesaro, Verona etc.) that were the
Territorial Pacts (PT)

rst to start the strategic planning process with regards to the needs and problems
Strategic Plans (SP)

identied at local level, using mostly local resources. The second, more recent and
object of our study, is not activated following specic problems of development or
explicit needs to resort to different programming tools, but following opportunities
made available by national funding instruments.
7
Table 1

In this case PIST and PISU are considered separately given that, in the area of
PIST coalitions, the municipalities with more than 30,000 inhabitants had the
faculty to also carry out a PISU.
80 F. Mazzeo Rinaldi / Evaluation and Program Planning 56 (2016) 7687
Fig. 2. Strategic Plans.
of the department of regional planning. The central-southern
region of the territory, however, has low levels of planning.
This is even more evident considering the map of the degree of
planning by SLL (the degree of planning, in this case, is given by the
average of the degrees of planning of the councils that make up the
SLL). The highest levels of planning, in fact, are concentrated in the
north and in the east of the island, while the central-southern end
of the region is, on the whole, uniformly weak.
At this point, further reading was considered necessary, which
takes into account the different weight taken on by the leading
councils of the local development programs considered and that
would allow us to develop an index of local planning.8
A result of these operations was a new ranking of the councils,
which can be dened as a classication of the level of dynamism
with regards to local development tools. In this case, the maximum
value is reached by the councils of Messina and Palermo, which
activated the maximum number of possible instruments and
which, moreover, are always the leaders (Fig. 5). In general, in this
new ranking, the towns of larger size, which are often the leaders
of the programs activated, regain positions. However, if on the one
hand, Messina, Palermo, Catania, Enna and Siracusa, which are
8 we focused on seeking any evidence of continuity of institutional
To obtain such an index we proceeded through: an operation of weighting the
grade of planning, by assigning 1/3 more to those town councils that were the
leaders of a program (the value of 1/3 more was assigned also in the case where the
program is managed by a single council), obtaining in this way the weighted grade
of planning and the maximum number of local development tools that every
council could have activated, multiplied by 1/3.
among the top ten on the list, demonstrate a high level of dynamic
planning, on the other hand, several medium-large councils,
including the other four provincial capitals (Agrigento, Caltanis-
setta, Ragusa and Trapani) are not among the rst twenty.
The mapping of this new data, both in the index map of local
planning by council (Fig. 5) and in that for SLL (Fig. 6), brings back
the directions that are in line with the previous ones, but shows a
further screening of the results. Within the clusters of local
planning noted above, those councils emerge that have participat-
ed in all (or most) of local planning initiatives considered and
which have often been the leaders. These councils are those who
have, more than others, held a leading role in the experiences of
local development and that, presumably, were the pull for the
neighboring towns.
3.2. The continuity of institutional coalitions: the strategic planning
phase
The degree of local planning developed has allowed us to
analyze how local institutions responded to the EU partnership
principle over the last three programming periods, as well as to
represent the level of dynamicity of individual councils and the
local density of local programming initiatives. In this second phase
coalitions, gained through the diverse experiences of local
development, with the phase of Strategic Planning. To do this, it
was decided to take the SP as a reference (and, specically, the
coalitions dened for ISP) and to build an additional index, which
 F. Mazzeo Rinaldi / Evaluation and Program Planning 56 (2016) 7687
Fig. 1. Territorial Pacts (PT).
realized, this time, the level of continuity, through the various local
development instruments, the inter-municipal coalitions built for
the SP, which is a measure of the persistence of the coalition of the
SP in instruments before or after the same SP.
To do this, for each council leader of an ISP, one datasheet per SP
was created through the data base, structuring the composition of
the coalitions of the various instruments in which the leading
council participated, highlighting the cases where the coalition of
the SP is also found in other instruments (even within larger
coalitions).
Hence, an index of territorial continuity was developed,
obtained from the ratio of the number of councils in the coalition
of the SP present also in other policy programming instruments
and the number of councils in the coalition of the SP.9
In each tab, moreover, the index was broken down into two
sub-indexes: an index of pre SP continuity, which detects the
persistence of the coalition of the SP in the program instruments
prior to SP, and an index of post SP continuity, which instead takes
into account only the tools after the SP. These two ratios show how
much the proposed coalition in the SP already had behind it (before
the SP) a consolidated experience of partnerships among the
councils that compose it, and how the same coalition was revived
(post SP) by other means (Table 3).
9
In this way, when the ratio is equal to 1 it indicates that the councils that make
up the coalition of the SP also participate in the construction of the specic
instrument taken into account. Obviously, in the case of mono-municipal SP, such
an index would lose utility, which is why it was used only for ISP.
81
From the data it is noted that, in most cases, the pre SP
continuity index is less than the average value found and is much
lower than the post SP index. This highlights the fact that with SP,
coalitions that bear only a partial correspondence with the
coalitions dened by previous local development instruments
have often been identied. Contextually, it emerges from the data
that in 9 cases out of 15 the post SP index of territorial continuity is
equal to 1, i.e. the coalition dened for the SP is then entirely
revived (also with possible enlargements) in the subsequent
instruments. On average, the post SP index is equal to 0.92,
indicating that the coalitions identied for SP were conrmed, to a
large extent, also in other subsequent tools.
Only in four cases (Avola, Monreale, Partinico and Patern) is
the index of continuity after SP quite low, and this may suggest that
coalitions built for these SP were not uniform (but this should be
veried through specic studies). In making these remarks, in fact,
we must bear in mind that if the coalition of the SP is not revived in
subsequent instruments, this may also depend on the constraints
of the instrument, such as the areas of territorial re-composition
dened by the Region for the PIST. In general, however, there is a
certain continuity between the SP and PIST, and this reects the in
continuity approach foreseen by the Region (and also emerged
during the FG), but also between SP and GAL 20072013.
It should be noted, nally, that, in the overall ranking index of
territorial continuity, the councils of Comiso, Sciacca and Ragusa,
that did not have high values in the ranking of the degree of local
planning and, therefore, showed themselves to be little dynamic in
participating in local development processes, reach very high
values here, indicating that, although these councils have
82 F. Mazzeo Rinaldi / Evaluation and Program Planning 56 (2016) 7687

Table 2
Extract from the Council Instruments database.

NAME PT PIT SP PISU. PIST GAL 00_06 GAL 07_13 PRUSST Agr Degree of
Council Pacts planning
Alcamo Golfo di PIT 6, Alcamo Alcamo citt 3, Asse del Belice Golfo di Sicilia Terre 7
Castellammare Alcesti baricentrica. Castellammare d'Occidente.
Buseto Trapani Nord PIT 18, Erice 1, Territori e isole EricinaTellus. Elimos 6
Palizzolo Alcinoo del trapanese
Calatami- Golfo di PIT 6, Castelvetrano 3, Asse del Belice Elimos Sicilia Terre 6
Segesta Castellammare Alcesti dOccidente.

participated in a few local development programs, when they did,
they were almost always accompanied by the councils with which
they built the coalition of the SP.
At this point, having obtained values of the two indexes
considered (the index of local planning and the index of territorial
continuity), in order to identify the inter-municipal SP for which
there are high levels both of dynamism of the leader town council
and SP coalition territorial continuity through the different
instruments, a cross-reading of the data was made, through the
construction of a scatter plot. The value pairs identied, in fact,
have been included in a graph (g. 7) in which on the y-axis there is
the index of local planning (which takes into consideration the
dynamicity of the leading council of the SP) and the on the x axis
we have the index of territorial continuity (indicating the
persistence of the coalition of the SP). In this way some points
on the graph have been identied each of which represents an ISP.
Taking as a reference point what has for coordinates the average
of the two indexes, namely (continuity index = 0.81; planning
index = 0.71), the town or city councils with both values above
average are San Pier Niceto (0.92; 0.72), Monreale (0.82; 0.86) and
Catania (0.82; 0.86).
In general, it appears that there is no direct relationship
between the high level of planning and high territorial continuity
of the coalition of the SP. On the contrary, the councils with high
local planning index have a below average territorial continuity
index, and, similarly, the councils with high territorial continuity
index have a below average local planning index.

Fig. 3. Degree of local planning per council.

 F. Mazzeo Rinaldi / Evaluation and Program Planning 56 (2016) 7687
Fig. 4. Degree of local planning per SLL.
This could be because the councils participating in several
instruments necessarily nd themselves dealing with coalitions
with variable geometry. Vice versa, the councils participating in
few instruments tend to almost always talk with the same
partners.
4. Conclusions
Since 1998, through the Single European Act (SEA) and the
subsequent reforms of EU Structural Funds, several local develop-
ment initiatives have been nanced across Member States by CP, all
based on the concept of partnership building. In many of these
contexts, the choice to start a project in partnership might have
been made because local authorities and councils were forced by
EU rules. However, such settings probably would not last much
longer than the end of the project. Notwithstanding the fact that
partnership can rstly be driven by the increased possibility of
gaining funding, the local actors involved might start learning how
to collaborate with each other, valuing the utility of making
partnerships and start looking for a longer-term cooperation
within different local development programs and initiatives.
This research focuses on the institutionalization of the CP
partnership principle within the regional development policy
system. The purpose of the preliminary study here presented was
to explore whether the EU partnership principle inuenced
cooperation among local actors, assessing the continuity of local
institutional coalition in managing different local development
programs.
83
To do so we start reconstructing and analyzing the geography of
local development instruments activated in Sicily in the last three
EU programming periods, for a total of eight Programming
instruments and 177 activated programs. Through the construction
of two synthetic indexes (Degree of Local Planning, and Index of
Local planning), it was possible to analyze how local institutions
reacted to the EU partnership principle over the last three
programming periods, as well as to represent the level of
dynamicity of individual councils and the local density of local
programming initiatives.
This rst part of the analysis has given back a comprehensive
random portrait, characterized by contexts (Alto Belice Corleonese,
Madonie, Etna, etc.) that are more dynamic in activating (and
participating in) these processes, and other contexts (above all in
the central/southern area of the regional territory) that are, on the
contrary, more passive and less reactive in taking up the
partnership opportunities proposed by the regional level and by
EU funding. The most dynamic areas founded coincide mostly with
those described as the most active in the FG held with ofcials of
the department of regional planning.
In general, the larger towns of the region, such as Messina,
Palermo, Catania, Enna and Siracusa, which are frequently the
leaders of the partnership activated, showed a high level of
participation, on the contrary, several medium-large councils and
provincial capitals (such as Agrigento, Caltanissetta, Ragusa and
Trapani) are not even among the rst twenty.
The aim of the second phase of the analysis was to nd any
evidence of continuity of institutional coalitions, taking the SP
84 F. Mazzeo Rinaldi / Evaluation and Program Planning 56 (2016) 7687
Fig. 5. Local planning index by council.
envisioned by the regional administration as a strategic tool for
preparing town councils and territories for the programming
period 20072013 as a reference, and building an additional
index (territorial continuity) to measure the persistence of the
coalition of the SP in local programs before or after the same SP.
The data shows, in most cases, that pre SP continuity index is
much lower than the post SP index. Only in few cases (above all in
small sized contexts, such as Sciacca and Comiso) the SP coalitions
have been developed by regional coalitions already experimented
in other local development instruments. In most cases they are
supported by regional coalitions that are partially validated in
previous programming experiences or in other regional aggrega-
tions (SLL). Such coalitions, therefore, do not seem to have been
dened in order to be cohesive and to coagulate around shared
objectives, but rather they were forced, induced by limitations
imposed by the regional call.
On the other hand, in most cases (nine SP coalitions out of
fteen considering both PIST and GAL, and eleven coalitions out of
fteen considering only the PIST), the councils that have developed
an ISP nd themselves all together also in the subsequent
instruments. That probably depends on the fact that, as the SP
were conceived as a tool of preparation for the 20072013 pro-
gramming period, the coalition tested for the SP is nearly always
restated also for the subsequent instruments. In reality, we cannot
exclude another hypothesis: or rather, we can imagine that for
some SP different coalitions were dened compared to the past as
those tested previously did not prove cohesive; the new coalitions,
instead, having shown a high cohesion, were reproposed also in the
PIST.
Beyond this aspect, anyway, crossed reading of the synthetic
indexes taken into consideration (local programming index and
territorial continuity index) was useful to bring out contexts
where, presumably, the SP were inserted in a fertile collaborating
context for local development. In fact, the programming dynamism
of the leading council in the SP through the diverse programming
instruments (both previous and subsequent) were considered two
indicators of the persistence of the coalition in dealing with local
development processes. The council that emerged from this
analysis (Monreale, San Pier Niceto and Catania) will, therefore,
be taken into consideration as for future investigations. In fact, this
study was aimed also at identifying active areas to look at through
a qualitative case study approach, which will be carried out as a
third step of this research to assess the political and
administrative conditions within which the institutional coalitions
have been established and implemented over time as well as to
assess the main effects of these coalitions on local development.
The ndings presented in this preliminary study showed that
the institutional actors involved in local development initiatives
respond differently to the rules and practices promoted by the EU
CP.
The analysis showed substantial differences among areas and
local councils in adopting the partnership principle, with some
more hesitancy in participating, while others not only actively
involved in several programming initiatives, but it also seems they
have even been able to internalize the EU principle within the
regional development policy system. These differences cannot be
explained solely in terms of council size, they cannot depend only
on resource availability (e.g. match-funding) and administrative
 F. Mazzeo Rinaldi / Evaluation and Program Planning 56 (2016) 7687 85

Fig. 6. Local planning index by SLL.

capacity (e.g. qualied human resources), and they seem to be
untied from the regional administration directly involved in
promoting and implementing the programming instruments here
analyzed.
The implications of these results are twofold. Firstly, they
emphasize the importance of local political or social factors and
not only administrative capacity. The political inertia or aversion of
local politicians to set up partnerships among local actors might
preclude any efforts to develop local programs. Thus, in areas
missing cooperative political culture, the partnership based
approach may lack the social capital on which to institutionalize
its practices. On the other hand, they put into a different
perspective the role played by the regional level in inuencing
these processes. The incapacity or reluctance to participate or, on
the contrary, the capacity of some areas and councils to build
lasting partnerships going beyond the single CP program, does not

Table 3
Index of territorial continuity of the coalition of the SP.

COUNCIL Index of territorial continuity of the coalition of the SP (TCI) TCI TCI
(Leader of inter-municipal SP) Pre SP Post SP
Sciacca 1.00 1.00 1.00
Comiso 1.00 1.00 1.00
Ragusa 0.95 0.90 1.00
San Pier Niceto 0.92 0.90 0.93
Partinico 0.83 0.83 0.75
Monreale 0.82 0.81 0.74
Catania 0,82 0.70 1.00
Erice 0.81 0.61 1.00
Licata 0.78 0.55 1.00
Augusta 0.75 0.63 1.00
Avola 0.75 0.71 0.71
Castelvetrano 0.72 0.53 1.00
Favara 0.71 0.42 1.00
SantAgata di Militello 0.68 0.53 0.90
Patern 0.66 0.59 0.69
AVERAGE 0.81 0.71 0.92
86 F. Mazzeo Rinaldi / Evaluation and Program Planning 56 (2016) 7687
Fig. 7. Index of local planning and territorial continuity index compared.
seem to be inuenced by the level of regional administrative
capacity, nor by the regional government stability; issues that
sometimes are used as the main factors in explaining the successes
or failures of CP local development programs.
The SP and the other programming instruments here analyzed,
should not be seen as a goal oriented process, but rather, they refer
to a complex mapping of different partnership initiatives, which
are supposed to generate a public domain of actions, from which
specic strategies might emerge in a recursive way. Aware of the
importance of a detailed reading at case study level, the ndings
presented here allow us to contextualize and identify single cases
within a well-dened scenario, to assess the political and
administrative conditions under which institutional coalitions
seem to recursively assume a European character.
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