Luca Fazzi

Civil society, third sector, and healthcare: The case of social cooperatives in Italy

In many European countries, the third sector is considered an actor able to improve both the efficiency and the efficacy of public healthcare systems afflicted by the crisis of the welfare state. Attributed to third-sector organizations is the role of a hybrid actor tasked with the professional supply of services, not for profit but rather for mutualistic purposes, and to serve the public interest. However, empirical evidence on the capacity of the third sector to pursue objectives of social inclusion in a phase of withdrawal by the public sector is almost entirely lacking in the European countries. The article describes the results of research on the transformation of the Italian healthcare system and on the emergence of a new third sector in Italy. The results of the inquiry highlight the strategies, characteristics, and governance processes which enable third-sector organizations operating in the healthcare sector to pursue objectives of inclusion, and to serve the needs of disadvantaged groups by assuming the form of social enterprises.

Social Enterprises, Models of Governance and the Production of Welfare Services

Abstract This article reports the results of an empirical study on the relationship between models of single- and multi-stakeholder governance and the competitive advantages of social enterprises (SEs). The results of the research show that SEs with models of multi-stakeholder governance perform functions which are different from those of single-stakeholder SEs. If contracting-out is to be managed efficiently and effectively, these differences must borne in mind and valorized according to the specific objectives of service outsourcing processes.

Social work, exclusionary populism and xenophobia in Italy

The relationship between the emergence of political populism and social work has not been well investigated. This article reports the results of research conducted by means of in-depth interviews and questionnaires on a sample of 90 social workers employed by municipalities governed by populist parties in Italy, where the phenomenon of xenophobic politics has recently grown to particularly worrying proportions. The article describes the effects of populist programmes on social work and highlights the different reactions of social workers in response to the new scenario.

The Democratization of Welfare Between Rhetoric and Reality: Local Planning, Participation, and Third Sector in Italy

The third sector, traditionally considered in the Italian welfare state as a residual actor of social policies, has increasingly engaged itself in various types of partnerships and collaborative planning processes with the local authority in recent years. In the rhetoric of welfare reform, third sector organizations play an important role, for they contribute to regenerating local democracy, stimulating communities, and fighting social exclusion. The article examines 12 local area plans, which have been realized in eight regions of Italy since 2000, by relying on empirical data and interviews. The article concludes that the so-called co-governance of local welfare can produce very different levels of democratization and improvement of social programs. In some areas, it may be that valorizing the third sector can effectively renew social policies, while in others the exact reverse may happen. The article offers an analysis of the main factors that influenced this result.

Are We Educating Creative Professionals? The Results of Some Experiments on the Education of Social Work Students in Italy

Abstract Creativity is a competence crucial for the practice of social work. In particular, it is associated with a greater ability to solve complex problems and to learn, and it is considered to be an integral element of the professional identity of social workers. Nevertheless, in the past 20 years, neoliberal policies and bureaucratization have promoted models of education focused more on technical skills than on imaginative and ideational capacities. This article presents the results of two experiments conducted to determine the effects on creativity and imagination of the technical education of social workers. The results show that creativity is not a variable independent of the type of education delivered to students and that educational programmes which emphasise only the technical dimension of social work can have a direct influence on the creative abilities of students. It is therefore necessary to strike the right balance between education aimed at the acquisition of technical skills and education that promotes creativity.

Social enterprise as a bottom-up dynamic: part 1. The reaction of civil society to unmet social needs in Italy, Sweden and Japan

ABSTRACT Over the past decades, social enterprises have been acknowledged as key welfare actors in several EU countries. In spite of the dramatic research devoted to exploring them, several issues concerning the definition, drivers and roles played by policies in sustaining social enterprise growth are still highly contested. Drawing on the papers published in this Monographic section, the introduction to this issue reconstructs the debate that has accompanied the emergence and development of social enterprises with a view to providing evidence of the advantages of collective participation for social enterprise emergence and growth. Next, the introduction pays attention to the factors that have led to the emergence and success of social enterprises as a form of self-organization of civil society; and briefly describes the papers included in this issue.

Social enterprise as a bottom-up dynamic. Part 2: the reaction of civil society to unmet social needs in England, Scotland, Ireland, France and Romania

Over the past three decades, enterprises of a new kind, explicitly pursuing social aims, have emerged worldwide as new welfare actors (Borzaga et al. 2016). This evolution was boosted by the engagement of traditional non-profit organizations in the direct delivery of a wide spectrum of general interest services. These enterprises, commonly known as social enterprises, deliver mainly social, educational, and general or community interest services. No general consensus exists at the international level for the definition of what constitutes a social enterprise; however, intensive research by scholars and the intervention of several European legislatures has gradually resulted in a convergence of meanings that embodies the specificities of this new type of enterprise in laws. Despite the increasing number of scholars and governments that recognize the role and importance of social enterprises in solving many contemporary societal problems, the economic and social roles of social enterprises and the factors explaining both their upsurge and consolidation are still poorly understood. The widely believed idea is that social enterprises do not have features such to make them actors able to operate and develop in full autonomy (Christie and Honig 2006). Many researchers and policymakers have expressed the belief that the birth, and even more so the consolidation and scaling up of social enterprises, has been possible only because they have been incorporated into public policies and thus benefited from the related financing. An alternative explanation is that social enterprises have been promoted either by non-profit organizations as income-generating activities or by innovative entrepreneurs as a modernized form of philanthropic solidarity (Dees 1998, Yunus 2007, Laville et al. 2015). In essence, these views on social enterprises agree that they cannot emerge and develop spontaneously with a view to either address unsolved social problems or fill gaps in general interest service delivery. In one way or another, their existence must be externally driven. The failure to embrace a comprehensive approach that acknowledges the diverse modes of creation and the distinctive characteristics of social enterprises brings with it the risk of not fully understanding the phenomenon and adopting inconsistent regulations and erroneous support policies. In fact, if one follows these dominant interpretations, one almost inevitably comes to consider the collective and participatory dimension of social enterprises as not an advantage, but a cause of inefficiency. In fact, the non-profit nature