The Italian Local Welfare: Between Fragmentation and Social Innovation

In the Italian reality, some territorial differences are emerging among different regions and local authorities in defining new welfare policies. The author argues that it is not possible to talk about a general Italian welfare regime but we should speak of different local systems characterized by a considerable fragmentation of welfare services. At the same time, the Italian local systems witness the emergence of some best practices and social innovations strictly linked to the local context. This chapter has therefore two main descriptive goals. First, it shows which distinctions and logics of re-configuration allow a better understanding of some of the directions assumed by the new local welfare in Italy. Second, it examines some example of social policy inspired by new relational configurations of local services in specific fields of implementation which correspond to different new social risks such as youth unemployment; work-life balance and childcare. In the concluding remarks, the attention is focused on some factors which respectivley enable or restrain the current re-configuration of local welfare in Italy