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Madama I. Beyond continuity? Italian social assistance policies between institutional opportunities and agencyThe article addresses recent developments of social assistance policies in Italy with two interpretative aims. The first regards the approval of the long‐awaited framework law in 2000 and deals with the factors that made a path‐shifting national reform possible in a policy sector which had evolved through successive accretions and gradual revisions. The second regards the effectiveness of the reform, providing an assessment of the (scant) achievements subsequent to its adoption. The reform process was investigated through a model that combines factors of historical neo‐institutionalist derivation and agency dynamics, the latter of which is intended to overcome the structuralist bias of purely neo‐institutionalist explanations. The article draws two conclusions. The first concerns the resilience of Italy's backwardness in this policy field. The second, a theoretical consideration, is that if institutions function as constraint generators as well as opportunity generators for actors, agency dynamics are crucial in order to fully understand the timing and specific contents of institutional change.

"In the field of anti-poverty policies, the interplay between the Europe 2020 overarching strategy and the "Semester" have marked major discontinuity vis à vis the Social OMC of the Lisbon phase. This book therefore asks whether and how Europe matters in the fight against poverty and social exclusion by assessing the emergence and possible institutionalization of a European multi-level, multi-stakeholder and integrated policy arena in the new institutional framework. Supranational developments, multilevel interactions, as well as effects at the national level are explored in six European countries - Belgium, Germany, Italy, Poland, UK and Sweden. The book also aims to capture the key factors affecting the implementation of the Europe 2020 anti-poverty strategy.This book will be of key interest to students, scholars and practitioners in social policy, political science and European governance, and more broadly to European Union politics, European integrations studies, sociology and economics."--Provided by publisher.

AbstractThe introduction of the Single Universal Child Allowance in 2021 marked a sharp turning point in Italian family policy. Presented as a major revolution aimed at combating the country's alarmingly low birth rates as well as child poverty, the reform was also meant to rationalise the benefits system while overcoming the historical fragmentation and uneven protection granted to families. Against this backdrop, the article contributes to the literature from two different angles. First, the study offers fresh empirical evidence of the path‐shifting scope of the reform, marking a rupture with the longstanding weak model of income support. Second, the article engages from an interpretative standpoint with the puzzling emergence of a cross‐party consensus around approval. Drawing from the comparative literature on institutional change and the modernisation of family policies, the article asks which factors made it possible—after decades of substantial inertia—to overcome path dependency through cross‐party agreement in Italy, providing an in‐depth, original examination of parties' positions throughout the legislative process and identifying key elements of agreement and conflict.

Conciliation policies have traditionally been very marginal and characterised by limited coherence in the overall employment policy setting of Italy, which is primarily designed to meet the needs and demands of the standard 'male breadwinner' model. Nevertheless, over the past ten to fifteen years a number of reforms have addressed conciliation issues in quite a new fashion. The aim of this article is to provide an analysis of the evolution of and changes in conciliation policies in Italy, looking in particular at the ways in which Europe has been used by national policy-makers, i.e. as a point of reference for proposed reforms. After a brief introduction, section 2 offers an overview of the traditional Italian welfare state configuration, and aims to highlight the (limited) effort made within in it to promote the conciliation between paid work and family responsibilities. The third section focuses on recent reforms, in order to assess the extent and dynamics of the changes. Section 4 considers the role played by Europe in domestic policy change, investigating whether and how Europe has been 'used' by national political actors to reshape the Italian policy landscape with respect to conciliation policies.

Italy is one of the countries with the oldest population in the world. In spite of that fact and the alarming estimates about future demographic trends, long-term care (LTC) policy is still struggling to be acknowledged as a relevant issue in the public debate and political agenda. In sharp contrast with the policy inertia prevailing at the national level, in recent years, many territories have been experimenting with new solutions in the field of LTC, addressing the challenge of building more inclusive local care environments for frail (dependent) elderly people and their families. Building upon this, the current paper aims at dealing with the most recent academic literature on social innovation and the policy discourse elaborated by the European Union to i) develop a "working definition" of social innovation, with specific reference to LTC and elderly care; ii) provide a comparative analysis of a set of selected innovative solutions, which fall between full institutionalization and full family-based care, implemented in two Italian regions, namely, Lombardy and Piedmont; and iii) discuss the factors behind the adoption of socially innovative policy solutions at the local level, thereby shedding light on the key role played by new actors and multistakeholder networks. ; Italia es uno de los Países más envejecidos del mundo. A pesar de eso y de las alarmantes estimaciones sobre las tendencias demográficas futuras, la política de cuidado de larga duración (Long Term Care - LTC, por sus siglas en inglés) está encontrando dificultades para ser reconocida como uno de los temas centrales del debate público y de la agenda política. Sin embargo, en contraste con la inercia que prevalece a nivel nacional, en los últimos años, muchos territorios han experimentado nuevas soluciones en el campo de la LTC, enfrentando el desafío de crear entornos de cuidado local más inclusivos para las personas mayores vulnerables (dependientes) y sus familias. El presente documento apunta a la literatura académica más reciente sobre ...

Experts review the leading social policy scholarship from the past year in this comprehensive volume. Published in association with the Social Policy Association, the latest volume in this long-running series addresses current issues and critical debates throughout the international social policy field with a particular focus on employment policy, housing policy and climate justice. Contributors also explore key developments including researching during the COVID-19 pandemic, migrants' access to social benefits in Germany, the right(s) to healthcare in Italy, American and European homelessness policies and much more. This annual review is essential reading for students and academics in social policy, social welfare and related disciplines