eventi_rps_multi_inglese
19-21 settembre 2013, Università della Calabria, Arcavacata di Rende (CS)
19-21 settembre 2013, Università della Calabria, Arcavacata di Rende (CS)
In un tempo in cui l’incertezza sul futuro condiziona drammaticamente l’Unione Europea la conferenza si interroga sulla sua integrazione sociale e politica.
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lavoro
Unione europea
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politiche sociali
governance
occupazione
servizi sociali
mercato del lavoro
protezione sociale
Italia
anziani
Europa
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politiche familiari
corso di vita
politiche per la non autosufficienza
politiche socio-assistenziali
economia
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sistema socio-sanitario
social policies magazine archive
Welcome in the rps magazine archive, this is made to let you find what you're looking for. You might use this pages to browse all the rps issues just by clicking on the arrows at the bottom of the page or you might search for a specifical issue going to the "indexes" section but you have the chance to look for a single article in the "article index" section. You can search inside all the rps contents just by clicking on the search button, there's a search engine in your language too.
The Public Ruling Class
Government roles and administrative capacity
2012
Supplemento n.4
Description
The book is based on the work of the 2012 edition of the annual Forum organized by the Rivista delle politiche sociali in collaboration with ESPAnet-Italia. In a period of daunting economic crisis requiring both a containing of public expenditure and greater efficiency of action, the Forum was intended to represent an opportunity to analyze and discuss the role of the public ruling class and the relation between the administrative class and political decision-making. The analysis of the situation in Italy has been the focus of reflection, but a specific attention has been given to the comparison between other Country traditions and experiences. Starting from the assumption on the value of the competence emphasis was placed on public ruling classes in their ability to confront the challenge posed by global change. In this context, it was also examined the relation between public ruling classes and legality. In order to emphasize the influence of context variables on the work of ruling classes, several essays are dedicated to the joints of the central government, regional and local levels.
To buy this issue go to the italian version
Public management in Italy: changes challenges and questions
The International System and Italian Politics: from Support to Constraint
The essay argues that the international and European systems have
had different effects on post-war Italian politics. The way Italian democracy
is structured and the logic of its functioning were, first, supported
and, later, challenged by the outside context. The international
constraints of the Cold War supported, or even justified, the multipolar
structure and the consensus logic of Italy’s «First Republic». At
the same time, the European constraints deriving from the single currency
have seriously weakened the bipolar structure and competitive
logic of Italy’s «Second Republic». This is due to the fact that the inevitable
logic of competition has not been supported by a reorganization
of political representation, institutional reforms, or a change in
the cognitive schemas suitable for governing a country in the Eurozone.
Is There a Recipe for Improving the Morality of the Ruling Class?
The ruling class is a longstanding question in Italian politics. What
should be done to obtain a more competent and moral political ruling
class? The question of competence is extremely difficult. Who decides
who is competent and who is not? It is simpler to establish a criterion
of morality: politics is the sphere of the general interest and politicians
should not pursue their own interests. Checks and balances can help
achieve this objective, but the problem of problems is a society that
not only punishes immorality, but that functions and develops without
needing to resort to illegal conduct.
Crisis of bureaucracy: the new «business» vision of the state and its relations with politics
Regulating Public Management and the Relations between Politics and Administration
There is a review of the various aspects of the relations between bodies
wielding political power and administrative managers, as they
emerge from Italian regulations, compared with the situation in other
European countries, bringing out their salient characteristics and the
main problematic features. Although there are clearly limits to the legal-
legislative solutions we can propose for the critical elements of the
state of management in its relations with political authority – deriving
basically from general institutional data, cultural factors and the modus
operandi of those directly involved in the situation – the essay
indicates the general lines of a possible revision of the present discipline
in the matter.
Public Management in Italy: Competences, Mobility, Criteria and Evaluation Systems
Public-sector management is not a single monolithic thing, and this is
still truer for the regional administration systems. The essay analyses
relations between politicians and public-sector managers in three regional
governments in Italy (Veneto, Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna),
focusing on the systems of recruitment, mobility and evaluation. The
changes in the national and regional laws have called attention to
the need to examine how different systems for the evaluation of
performance and careers structure the relation between the political
and administrative classes. In particular, we still know very little
about the policies adopted, tools used and the impact on managerial
profile at regional level for the evaluation of management performance.
This essay demonstrates the existence of different styles of
relationships between politicians and management involving the role
of performance and human resources evaluation, recruitment and
career policies.
Keywords: public-sector management :: regional administration systems :: evaluation systems :: spoils system ::
Ruling Classes and Legality: Neo-patrimonialism and Crisis of Bureaucracy
The paper focuses on representations of the legality of the local governing
classes. Through a sample enquiry that involved 5 Italian universities
and the same number of regions, it has been possible to study some aspects
of the crisis of legality in the representations of politicians, administrative
managers, doctors and businessmen. There emerges a personalization
of power with elements of Weberian patrimonialism, although
that is found in societies based on the centrality of rules with a separation
between private goods and the goods being administered. Although
this form of neo-patrimonialism is more evident in southern Italy, it also
concerns the whole of the country, and is closely linked to the way in
which the process of bureaucratization has developed and the relations
that have become established in the course of time between politics and
economics, and politics and society, often determining what is a social
de-construction of legality.
Public Managers and Administrations on the Wave of Reforms, Waiting for Change
Like other countries, Italy too in the last twenty years has witnessed a
series of laws that have tried to bring to the Italian institutional context
changes in the public administration in line with the precepts of
the New Public Management, in general inspiration and in some particular
solutions. The essay tries to clarify if and how much these trends have
deliberately modified how Italian administrations behave. In particular,
it brings out that, at least as regards public-sector managers, the
most traditional characteristics of their socio-professional profile
continue to dominate how it can be represented today, although some
new features are starting to emerge (in the composition of publicsector
managers by gender, age and qualifications). But they are weak
signals coming from institutionally distinct areas with unresolved internal
inconsistency and stratifications. In addition, the most obvious
changes do not necessarily depend on the reforms introduced, but on
external and largely unforeseen environmental factors.
Influence on the performances of public administrations: sectorial and territorial organization
Why some Local Policies Function and others don’t
The essay concentrates on factors in metropolitan contexts that may
influence the capacity of local policies to achieve their objectives.
Considering four main explanatory dimensions in detail. The first
concerns the importance of the characteristics of the context in which
the policies are carried out; the second the specific features of the
type of collective good that is being aimed at; the third the characteristics
of the policy sector of the intervention; while the fourth is
linked to the choices and strategies followed at local level. The analysis
shows that, if we want to study the efficiency of local policies, we
need interpretative tools that can combine the importance of «context» factors with those more linked to individual action, bringing out
how these two dimensions influence each other.
Regional Administrative Management: Characteristics, Conditionings and Contextual Dynamics
This contribution starts from the premise that administrative management
is one of the most important factors in bringing about good administration – in the sense of effective response to the social demands
that local regions are required to satisfy. After a brief reference
to the reference framework of the premise, the essay considers the
factors or variables that may best explain the characteristics that distinguish
and differentiate regional management, asking if these vary as
a result of contingent factors that, as such, may be different from one
case to another, and if they are they connected to systematic variables
in the context. The hypothesis advanced considers some variables of
the socio-economic, cultural and political context in a particular region
as a starting-point for comparing and discussing the data in recent
studies of the management of Campania, Emilia-Romagna and
the Veneto.
«A Generative Dance». The Study of the Health Service in Italy: Management, Professions and Politics
This essay tackles the question of how a series of key figures in the
system of the Italian health service are adapting and responding to the
process of managerialization. In particolar, it focuses on the changes
in the forms and relations of power that concern the new technicalmanagerial
figures of the health service (the Director Generals), the
doctors and the politicians, with the aim of evaluating how much the
hitherto prevailing professional-bureaucratic model in the health
service is actually changing.
Building up Administrative Capacity in Southern Italy
Administrative capacity is an essential dimension of the rule of law.
That is why, if democracy is to improve in quality, whether at national
or local level, it depends on capacity building. Initiatives of
this kind are based on the use of various tools (rules, incentives and
socialization), which determine different levels of impact (introduction
of rules, implementation and internalization). The essay analyses
these processes of capacity building, starting from the study of
three cases.
Mafias and Grey Areas in the Health Service
The Mafia is interested in the health service for many reasons –
money-laundering, treatment for criminals on the run, and social and
political influence. But the health service is tempting to other types of
criminal cartels too – consisting of businessmen, members of the professions,
doctors, managers of the public services and politicians –
with whom the Mafia can cooperate, though not always successfully.
The empirical evidence the article draws on concerns the cases of two
health authorities that have been disbanded as a result of mafia infiltration:
Locri (2005) and Reggio Calabria (2008). Challenging the common
view that the Mafia is able to control all the social relations it
enters into, the conclusion is that the outcome in the health service is
not necessarily predictable, but depends to a great extent on the opportunities
and constraints of each of the categories of participants.
Traduzione dall’italiano
Company welfare
Dimensions and dynamics in Italy and Europe
3
2012
July - September
editor's note
Description
Scritto da:
With no. 3/12, which analyses the characteristics of welfare in the workplace, Rps once again considers the future of Italy’s welfare system, examining in detail the sector of company welfare. The central section of this issue anticipates some of the results of research carried out by Ires and the Polytechnic University of the Marches on the same subject, while the other sections contain detailed studies of its main features in Italy and Europe, starting from an analysis of what is actually new, in terms both of extent and specific aspects. The result is an account of the elements of discontinuity between the present characteristics of occupational welfare and traditional social action on the part of employers as it manifested itself in Italy down to the 1960s. What emerges is how it is partly rooted in and maintained by the Italian system of industrial relations, and also how, at the moment, occupational welfare is not subject to proper public regulation. Other pieces deal with the idea of what is known as «second welfare» and analyse the phenomenon in other western countries. Finally, regional social policies are the focus of the two essays in the «off-topic» section.
To buy this issue go to the italian version
Matrices and origins
The Social Protection of Labour in the Rhetoric and Practice of Industrial Relations
The relationship between the introduction and provision of social
protection – or welfare – and the dynamics of industrial relations is
quite intricate. The article offers a preliminary investigation of the different
ways in which at different levels issues related to welfare programmes
entered the rhetoric and practice of industrial relations. The
passage from a phase of «competence specialization» and a phase of
rupture and crisis of the previous equilibrium is discussed. In the
former, a clear division of competences between the domain of the
state – responsible for welfare provision – and of the social partners –
responsible for the negotiation of labour terms and conditions – predominated
in the strategies and practices of industrial relations. In the
latter, the system of competences and tasks assigned the different actors
started to become uncertain and was somewhat reshuffled, while
welfare related issues invaded and permeated the public discourse of
industrial relations.
The Social Action of Companies in Contemporary Italian History
The article traces the development of employers’ paternalism and accompanying
social action from the mid nineteenth century until the
post-war period, bringing out the importance of occupational welfare,
not only for the industrial history of Italy, but also for the creationand establishment of the welfare state. Along with the complexity of the markets, present entrepreneurial strategies are the result of a vision
of the industrial system that is profoundly different from those
of the past, which placed a healthy relation with the local context and
community at the centre of their action. Today a company welfare in
the original sense is unimaginable.
Company welfare in Italy: backgrounds and profiles
Toward an Employment-Linked Welfare? Collective bargaining and Corporate Initiatives in Italy
In the light of the recent changes in Italian welfare – which has been
affected by reductions and privatizations, and, as a result, is less and
less able to provide adequate, universal protection – this essay gives
the main results of a survey carried out by Ires and the Polytechnic
University of the Marches on the characteristics of what is known as
corporate welfare in a sample of more than 300 large Italian businesses.
There emerges a widespread system of interventions, but one
that is to a great extent dominated by supplementary health and pension
funds, which have a limited capacity to deal with the so-called
«new social risks». In addition, many of the measures of this kind are
the by-products of national bargaining between the social partners.
Contractually Agreed Welfare and Bilateralism
Following the profound changes that have affected the socioeconomic
dimension and industrial relations, sectorial and corporate
welfare and bilateralism have gradually assumed more central importance.
In this context the essay investigates and reconstructs the main
features of these welfare phenomena in Italy, which are only new in
some respects. The central suggestion of the essay is that, while contractually
agreed welfare arrangements, along with a new, widespread
drive towards company welfare, can have some positive effects, particularly
in protecting needs that otherwise go unanswered, they also
risk weakening industrial relations, becoming tools that replace rather
than complement public, universal welfare.
The Role of Trade Unions in the Choices of Company Welfare
Corporate welfare is not in itself a novelty in the handling of human
resources. Companies and unions have often introduced these questions
to personnel policies, with the unions playing an active role
through cooperation and bargaining. There has been a consolidation
of this role through new policies for managing the labour force (in
matters concerning dispute settlements rather than health and supplementary
benefits), to the point that it has become increasingly institutionalized.
However, when the unions have fewer members in a
company, occupational welfare can be a way for companies to reduce
the potential role of the unions in personnel policies. The article presents
some case studies read in this light.
Pension and Health Funds in Company Welfare
Based partly on an analysis of particular companies, the essay analyses
the main characteristics of supplementary funds for pensions and
health. Overall, funds are becoming more widespread in both sectors
and, in particular, in the field of social security where the social partners
have a stronger role. They offer the future possibility of serving
as a second pillar of social security and health insurance, complementing
the public system, apart from some exceptions such as longterm
care. However, both the contribution systems and the services
guaranteed for workers vary considerably, depending on the sector and
the individual’s position in the firm. If these differences become more
marked instead of being at least partially absorbed, then clear inequalities
will be created between workers, and citizens in general, particularly if
there is a reduction in national social and health security.
Company Welfare and «New Social Risks»
The essay analyses the widespread welfare practices introduced by
companies, with particular reference to measures designed for the so-called «new social risks». Faced with the socio-economic changes that have been affecting Italy for twenty years now (from increasing care
needs to the importance of work-life balance, and the opening up of the labour market), Italy has for many years been notably slow in «recalibrating» its system of public welfare to deal with these changes. As
a result of the uncertainty and hesitancy of public action, companies,
workers and their representatives have been developing responses for
some years, starting from collective bargaining (often de-centred), or
unilateral choices by companies. This is increasing, and is starting to
have a significant role both inside companies and in the functioning
of public welfare. These changes present a series of challenges that
present both positive aspects as well as genuine problems.
Interview
Adriano Olivetti and the «Social Services»: Unresolved Questions for today. Interview with Luciano Gallino
The interview describes the features of Olivetti’s company welfare,
particularly in the two decades following the war, against the background
of post-war reconstruction, the «economic miracle» and the
birth of the welfare state in the new republic of Italy. It demonstrates
Adriano Olivetti’s political and cultural vision and his strategies for
renewing the production structure and the economic and social vocation
of the business, which were inseparable from the demands for
worker participation and for improving the living standards of employees.
This framework is then related to the present trends of company
welfare, suggesting reflections on the role of business, the benefits
for workers, the implications for industrial relations and the relation
with public welfare.
Topic. Company welfare in second welfare
«Second Welfare» and Companies: Connection and Perspectives
With the recent economic crisis exacerbating the retrenchment of the
welfare state, a number of new figures have entered the welfare arena,
leading to a new «welfare mix» or – as it has been called in the Italian debate – «second welfare». Among these new figures, the contribution
of business has become a primary issue. Although a growing number
of large and often multinational companies in Italy set up welfare
systems in order to offer benefits and services to their employees, the
Italian industrial system is made up of SMEs – small, medium and
even micro enterprises – that cannot afford the costs of goods and
services provided to the workforce. Other social actors – such as
trade unions and employers organizations, local and regional governments,
and private companies and consultants – have started to study
and implement «territorial» networks for welfare in order to favour
SMEs through the sharing of costs and services as well as to advocate
«service infrastructuring» at local level.
Company Welfare: Institutional Profiles
«Company welfare» has many different forms that can be analyzed
from different perspectives. Juridically, it can include contractually guaranteed
security, supplementary social security (health and otherwise),
free assistance, non-monetary compensation, and even the
content and context of the work. We need to set about building a
public policy for company welfare that aims at linking total-reward
company policies, horizontal subsidiarity and bilateralism.
Usa and European countries: experiences and analyses
Cross-National Perspectives on Firm-Level Family Policies: Britain, Germany, and the Us
With a shift in the political debate to more market-driven social policy
approaches during the past decade, politicians in a number of European
countries have argued that employers should take on greater responsibilities
in the provision of social policy. Corporations have indeed
expanded their provision of family policies over the past decade.
The puzzle to be addressed in this chapter is: why do employers get
involved? Looking at Britain, Germany, and the Us, our findings
show that for the overwhelming majority of employers engaged in
firm-level family policies their main aim is to recruit and retain (highly) skilled employees. However, the industrial sector and the national political
economy are key context conditions, influencing employers’
agency in the domain of family policies.
Keywords: Britain :: employers :: family policy :: Germany :: the United States :: work/family reconciliation ::
Social risk protection in collective agreements: Evidence from the Netherlands
To what extent can collective bargaining compensate for a decline in
or absence of welfare state protection against social risks? In this article,
we use a comprehensive collective agreement database to analyse
social risk coverage in the Netherlands from 1995 to 2009. We compare
two forms of social risk, disability and work–life arrangements,
analysing the share of collective agreements that offer these arrangements
across time. Our results show that collective bargaining differs
across the public and private sector but is similar at different levels of
bargaining. In general, our findings demonstrate that collective agreements
often compensate for declining welfare state coverage or a lack
of state provision. As a result, the findings presented here suggest occupational
welfare, in the form of collective bargaining, is an important
component of welfare provision that is oftentimes overlooked in
the current welfare state literature.
Off topic
Welfare Cuts: Trends and Characteristics of Regional Social expenditure
This article aims to analyze recent trends in regional social expenditure
in the face of the progressive cuts in welfare taking place at central
level. Concentrating on social assistance policies, it highlights
similarities and differences between five regions. Taking up the most
recent debate, it also emphasizes the positive aspects as well as those
that require particular attention in the context of a process aimed at
decentring to the regions the main welfare programmes currently
handled by the state.
Income Distribution in the Italian Regions and Influence of Equivalence Scales
In income-distribution analyses and in most selective welfare policies
the family is regarded as the most appropriate unit for evaluating individual
living standards. There are, however, methodological problems
in comparing the incomes of families of differing size and composition:
the incomes of differently structured units are made comparable
by equivalence scales, but there is no clear agreement in the literature
as to which is the most appropriate scale. Different scales attribute
different living standards to units according to their size,
making it more or less likely that they will end up near the bottom of
the distribution and satisfy the requirements for being able to receive
selective welfare transfer payments. There is, therefore, a wellfounded
possibility that a choice that seems secondary and purely
technical, like that of the equivalence scale, can modify the relative
position of families of different sizes and, as there are structural differences
in the diffusion of different family types in Italian regions,
the average economic conditions of those residing in the different areas.
Features
OBSERVATORY EUROPE
Observatory Europa. Periodical Note of Information on the Main News Concerning the Eu’s Social Action
Making the decisions of the European Council and the Eurozone’s
heads of state and governments in June 2012 become a reality will be
a long and difficult process. The proposed measures aim to create a
banking and fiscal Union without first constructing a political Union.
Meanwhile, the conditions of access to the financial markets for certain
countries like Spain and Italy are worsening, while Germany
benefits, among other things, from loans at practically zero interest rate. In the face of such a problematic situation, many are betting on
the collapse of the Euro, despite the proliferation of speeches on its
irreversibility from leaders of the European institutions, above all the
President of the European Central Bank, which is a genuine institution
of the Union even though it has no «political role», as its President
recalled in a letter published in the German press (Die Zeit) on
29 August 2012. The social protests caused by the austerity measures
are still swelling, without, however, modifying the conviction of the
European institutions that the «neo-liberal» structural reforms they
are requesting are an essential condition.
