Inter-municipal cooperation in Italy. Analysis and an opening research agenda for the Municipal Unions case

In Italy, inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) has been increasingly adopted to tackle issues of territorial scale and cost reduction. Implementing policies involves different tiers of government, defined as inter-governmental relations. This study aims to offer a single, detailed picture of the phenomenon of Municipal Unions (MUs). Though there are many calls to reshape administrative boundaries, little is known about how these unions are distributed and their internal governance structure. The results of the analysis outline the fragmentation of the situation in regional terms and the heterogeneous implementation of unions across the country, with the need for further study of the phenomenon.