Decentralising Education Policy in Italy. Entrepreneurship and Networks Implementation.

This chapter deals with a case study concerning the introduction of new gover- nance structures in the field of education at the regional level in Italy. In essence, it analyses the implementation process (Pressman and Wildavsky 1973) of a new policy-making institution, established by a local authority in order to cope with the increasing need for integration and coordination among the actors of the reformed education system (Kooiman 2000). The new institution replaced an older, more centralized governance structure in a local educational arena. Our aim is to show to what extent the new policy-making body is an effective tool for the governing of the local educational arena and how it reshaped the arena itself. We use structuration theory (Giddens 1984; Cohen 1989) as a theoretical framework in order to focus both on the unintended consequences of the imple- mentation process, the restructuring of the local system and the role of policy entrepreneurs in terms of strategic conduct.