New Welfare Narratives in Italy: Risks and Supposed Virtues

Abstract

In Italy, for some years, a series of new terms, such as ‘Civil Welfare’, ‘Community Welfare’, ‘Welfare Society’, ‘Generative Welfare’, and ‘Second Welfare", have appeared in public discourse. These labels have different origins and traditions. However, all of them are reform narratives promoting ‘new’ welfare-mix solutions to ensure the sustainability of the social protection system in the face of the permanent austerity (Pierson 1998, 2001) and the crisis of the public welfare. Moreover, all of them are presented as recalibration strategies betting on coordination, integration, networking, and synergy’s capabilities of formal and informal components of the welfare system, reinforcing the role, not of the state, but of the other points of the so-called ‘welfare diamond’ (Ferrera, 2006): individuals and families, third sector, but also companies and market. The contribution aims to critically present the different narratives, highlighting their similarities and differences, and—above all—to discuss their implications. For this purpose, the promises to provide sustainable, flexible, and plural welfare solutions (Osborne, 2006), as well as the presumed advantages and the risks of what appears to be a strategy of delegation to the private sector, will be subject of careful evaluation.