Higher Education Reform in Italy: Tightening Regulation Instead of Steering at a Distance

In December 2010, a comprehensive reform (Law 240/2010, or ‘Gelmini reform’) changed the institutional governance and internal organization of Italian state universities. This paper describes the new legal framework and evaluates how it has affected the power-­‐sharing arrangement and coordination mechanisms in the Italian higher education system thus far, by analysing the following governance dimensions: external regulation, external guidance, competition, academic self-­‐ governance, and managerial self-­‐governance. Though Law 240 was presented as a fundamental change with respect to the traditional Italian governance regime, based on detailed state regulation and academic self-­‐governance, it did not have any substantial impact on power distribution. The policy suffers from strong path dependency, presenting only reactions to solve previous inefficiencies, and stimulating adaptive behaviours of Italian universities. Law 240 does not depict a new governance regime for the Italian higher education, and bureaucratic fulfilment remains the dominant approach for universities.