A framework to assess and plan welfare institutional arrangements and provision forms: theory and practice in two prominent Italian regions

Modern Welfare States are characterized by the provision of a complex mix of public and private services. The traditional configuration of Welfare regimes as the sole responsible for social security has been replaced in theory and practice by the presence of institutional networks of various actors with a varied allocation of resources and responsibilities (Heitzmann, 2006). Not only Public but also Private and Non for profit organizations together with families, are thus involved in service provision (Powell & Barrientos, 2011). Even if the assumption of the prevalence of welfare mix (Esping Andersen, 1990) rather than public Welfare regimes is clearly stated in the literature, the issue is not systematically approached and a gap in methods and analytical tools exists. Moving from a critical appraisal of previous contributions, in this paper we aim to develop an analytical framework aimed at studying services provision forms and institutional arrangements in a welfare mix context. Moreover, we test this method on the case of social care in two prominent Italian regions, Lombardia and Emilia-Romagna. Relationships between public and private actors have been addressed in different disciplines and networks: Economics - focus on the allocation of public and private expenditure; Social Science - investigating norms and values; Political Studies - defining ideology and policy values - and Management – with emphasis on networks of providers and efficiency in administrative processes. In synthesis, four different approaches to welfare mix might be distinguished: 1) Welfare provision, interpreting welfare mix from a production perspective and considering different industrial models and features of services delivery systems (Vogel, 1999; Dahlberg, 2005); 2) Regulation and Governance, adopting a wider perspective by adding to provision the dimension of regulation and governance (for example supply and demand regulation and financing mechanism) (Goodin and Rein, 2001; Ascoli and Ranci, 2003; Bode, 2006); 3) Norms and values that define Welfare participation, analyzing circumstances inducing public and private actors to take part in the Welfare Mix (Evers and Laville, 2004); 4) Synergetic approach, exploring welfare mix systems with a focus on relationships and allocation of responsibilities within and between Welfare actors (Borgonovi, 2002). Our method is tested on two case studies: social care provision in Lombardia and Emilia-Romagna, two prominent Italian regions, with 10 and 4 million inhabitants, accounting together 24% of the national population, and about 30% of national Gross Income Product (500 billion Euros). The two regions present consolidated and mature Welfare systems, where national social reforms 1 were implemented since the early years of 2000. The resulting Welfare systems are very different and representative of others regimes existing in Europe: Lombardia Welfare system, on one hand, is strongly based, at least in its inspiration, on publicprivate partnership and users’ free choice; Emilia-Romagna Welfare system, instead, is more inclusive with a strong focus on public planning and a distinctive finance pooling mechanism (the “Fondo per la Non Autosufficienza”). We use case study method to verify the validity of an emerging theory, as proposed by Eisenhardt (1989) and Eisenhardt & Graebner (2007), through the definition of two instrumental studies (Stake, 2005). Social care has been chosen among other services, because it is representative of Welfare regimes due to its intrinsic relevance and increasing importance (Daly and Lewis, 2000; Jensen, 2008) and because it is a policy field where, traditionally, the interaction between Public, Private and Not for Profit Organizations and families is high