The Swing of Development Policies. Institutions and Strategic Infrastructures in Southern Italy

The recovery of growth in Southern Italy, following the international crisis, requires the deployment of policies to support the demand in order to create positive expectations for enterprises and lead them to raise investments. The infrastructure is the policy area that can perform this function, but also stimulate the supply of production, improving the territorial accessibility requirement for local productive systems, enhancing the efficiency of transport systems. The «National Strategic Plan of the Port and Logistics» provides a strategic perspective of Southern Italy in the Mediterranean, even though, in order to be achieved, it needs to implement close coordination between both industrial and infrastructural policies. Such project requires coordination between central and local institutions, overcoming the dichotomy between top down and bottom up approaches that characterized Southern Italy development policies. Stopping the institutional swing of development, by identifying connecting and monitoring institutions, in addition to intermediate institutions that implement them, is a precondition for the effectiveness of interventions.