Riforme del governo locale in Italia e Spagna tra riforme e sostenibilità istituzionale

This paper aims at giving a theoretical contribution in four steps: first, by proposing a series of dimensions through with the concept of institutional sustainability can be detected; second, by linking these dimensions to the main challenges local governments have been facing since years; third by relating the (Dente & Kjellberg, 1988) typology of local government reforms to these challenges and (fourth) to the Italian and Spanish cases. The final goal is to trace a map of the kind of local government reforms the two countries have chosen and to single out which are the expected effects on the institutional sustainability of local levels.