All the president's men and women. Prime ministerial staffs in Italy, 1998-2018

This study has three main objectives. First, it suggests a novel theoretical framework that bridges advice-related literature with the recent developments in the study of political leadership. Second, it fills a knowledge gap in the study of the Italian executive by providing a comprehensive recognition of the appointed personnel at the direct disposal of prime ministers. Third, it tries to explain the uncertain and non-linear consolidation of prime ministerial staffs in Italy by addressing the political and psychological motivations accounting for different staffing arrangements. Political staffs are perceived as increasingly consequential actors in modern democracies. Yet, the literature has long been dominated by accounts of advisory structures in countries of the Anglo-Saxon model, and of their alleged impact on the neutrality of the civil service. More recent analyses have tried to go beyond the normative-prescriptive approach by focusing instead on different typologies and definitions of advisory work. Overall, neither of these works provide a consistent account of advisers within the broader narration of political leadership. By adopting a relational, resource-dependent approach, this work challenges the dominant framework(s) and focuses on both ends of political advice. Its theoretical contribution unfolds along with a systematic definition of staffing stages, strategies, motivations, and factors. Namely, it: (i) postulates that staffing strategies differ with regard to the selection, internal organisation, and external deployment of appointed personnel; (ii) frames those differences in terms of mirroring or compensation – i.e. aiming at either reinforcing or expanding the prime minister’s expertise, informational, and relational capacity; (iii) motivates either strategy as need- or preference-based; (iv) draws needs and preferences from the incumbent’s political constraints and personal inclinations. The descriptive effort relies on extensive documental analysis, qualitative interviews, and data triangulation, and offers a first-time outlook of the background and work of political staffs: who are the members of prime ministerial staffs? What do they do? And how do they perceive their role and functions? – are some of the questions addressed in the first empirical section. The analytical part focuses on the political constraints and personal preferences that may lead to different staffing strategies in each of the three dimensions of advice. Through a Qualitative Comparative Analysis of prime ministers’ political capital, personality traits, and observed strategies of selection, organisation, and networking, it finds that a) constitutional prerogatives are neither sufficient nor necessary to explain the failed consolidation of prime ministerial staffs; b) the political context alone does not account for all the observed variations; c) personality matters, but in a way which is sometimes counter-intuitive. Namely, certain personality traits seem to operate as enablers for prime ministers to pursue their preferred arrangements even when the political constraints would suggest otherwise.