Di prossima pubblicazione nei quaderni della Rivista Diritti Lavori Mercati. Il saggio riprende l’introduzione al convegno La quarta riforma del lavoro pubblico, tenuto nell’Università di Catania, il 16 marzo 2018.

This short paper deals with the possible reasons for passing the ‘fourth reform’ of the employment relationships in public sector, realised with the amendments to legislative decree 165/2001 and to law 150/2009 coming from legislative decrees 74 and 75/2017, implementing law 183/2015 (the so-called Madia reform). The author believes that is possible to find at least five reasons, analyses all of them and underlines the most convincing ones in the light of the profiles and bodies of the law reviewed by an often rough legislator. The paper ends with the analysis of the historic responsibilities of the various legal cultures – especially those of the scholars of administrative law – in making the ‘tangle of administrative reforms’ and consequently of the reforms of public employment more intricate.