The Privatization Process and Its Effects on the Italian Accountability System

The effects of the privatization process have been widely studied, but with controversial results. In many countries this process ended up with public ser-vice providers still owned by the state (partial privatizations). The paper dis-cusses how issues related to the privatization process (corruption, conflicts of interests and lack of accountability) may be discussed from different perspec-tives – New Public Management (NPM), New Public Service (NPS), and New Public Governance (NPG). While in the NPM the privatization process aims at improving efficiency in public service providers, it seems to create some ethical problems if analysed from the NPS. Moreover, NPG, as co-production, networks and cooperation, offers valid alternatives to the privatization process. Through a case study analysis on the public service providers owned by the MEF (Italian Ministry of Economics and Finance) the paper highlights the stop and go characteristic of the Italian privatization process. This situation leads to huge ethical issues. We show the main flaws in the ethical and accountability systems of these organizations suggesting possible solutions using a public governance approach.