In the early 2000s, the issue of water resource management as a common good captured the attention of the Italian public, thanks to the efforts of the Italian Forum of Water Movements, one of the most heterogeneous, cross-cutting, and participatory social movements of recent decades. This movement reconceptualized the commons with the support of legal experts and water management specialists, theorizing that water, as a common good, is essential for meeting the fundamental needs of individuals and communities, both present and future, and should therefore be freely accessible to all. Based on this, the Forum argued that such resources should be managed directly by citizens, following principles of equity and social justice, rather than being governed by market mechanisms.
The Forum launched several initiatives aimed at institutionalizing the concept of the commons, including efforts to amend the Civil Code and the promotion of the 2011 referendum opposing the privatization of Italy’s water services. The remunicipalization of Naples' water utility in 2011 offered a concrete opportunity to test the model of water co-management by citizens and local governments, as advocated by the Forum.
This paper aims to trace the process of co-managing the water service in Naples, focusing on the collaboration between citizens and the local government from the early 2000s to the present. By applying the Explaining Outcomes Process Tracing Methodology, this study seeks to reconstruct the causal processes leading to the outcomes observed, using qualitative data collected through interviews and document analysis. The participatory governance experiment is then analyzed through Archon Fung’s Democracy Cube, a theoretical model that assesses who participates, how decisions are made, and how these decisions affect public action.
The investigation highlights the various attempts to implement the commons co-management model theorized by the Forum, explaining the experimental outcomes through an analysis of conflicts among local political actors and the challenges faced in applying an innovative decision-making model within a context marked by lobbying forces, clientelism, and a severe budget deficit that constrained infrastructure investment. This study provides useful insights into how polycentric governance models can be adapted to contexts characterized by economic and political constraints, thus strengthening the debate on the conditions necessary for the success of co-management in complex situations.
