From full cooperation to all against all? Italian regions in intergovernmental relations during the pandemic

Intergovernmental relations (IGRs) in federal and decentralized systems were challenged by the pandemic. In Italy, the recentralization of decision-making made regional participation in the process dependent on the type of policy arena, government in office, and degree of problem pressure. Much more remains to be said about the subnational governments’ behaviour during the health crisis. The aim of the paper is to investigate Italian regions’ behaviour in vertical and horizontal IGRs during the pandemic. The analysis focuses on the contents of over 300 newspaper articles collected during the state of emergency in Italy. The results show that regional behaviour towards other regions depended on the type of interest at stake, while in vertical relations, subnational governments were usually always conflictual towards the central government.