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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tags_rps_multi_english
welfare
occupazione
Italia
politiche familiari
politiche per la non autosufficienza
politiche sociali
povertà
servizi sociali
anziani
Unione europea
mercato del lavoro
Europa
immigrazione
sindacato
cittadinanza
economia
corso di vita
governance
welfare state
sistema socio-sanitario
welfare locale
protezione sociale
famiglia
politiche socio-assistenziali
lavoro
Welfare: public roles and private cultures
Re-calibration, beliefs, crisis
2
2011
April - June
Description
This issue tackles some important and topical subjects determined by various converging and contradictory factors connected with the ongoing privatization processes in the Italian and European welfare systems. The volume was conceived with various underlying intentions: the first was to bring out the specific nature of the Italian case, which is marked by an unfortunate combination of longstanding weakness in its welfare system and the questionable choices made by the present government as to what and where to cut. The cuts risk both eliminating any form of help for the weaker sections of society and limiting the educational and health services offered to the middle classes, and contribute to reinforcing the Mediterranean “solution” of offloading social protection and care onto the family. The second intention was to avoid undervaluing the impact of the crisis on the financial sustainability of welfare, evident in the section on the public debt and the governance of the euro-zone, the key word "privatization" and the section analyzing the new combinations of welfare and recalibration processes in Europe. The last two sections provide an analytical account of the situation in Italy.
To buy this issue go to the italian version
The specifics of the Italian case
Missing Welfare. Unanswered Social Demand, Emerging Risks
The social state had already been under pressure for some years as a result of the costs brought about by longstanding protection schemes, the need to face the so-called new social risks, and the increasing undermining of the egalitarian ideal and the public role. The crisis has added new difficulties everywhere, making budget limits more rigid and sharpening the requests for social protection. The difficulties are particularly evident in Italy. The main aim of the essay is to present an overall picture of the new and old social demands that are on the agenda today in Italy, so as to make clear what will be lost, in terms of
fairness and overall wellbeing, should the present difficulties lead to further privatization of welfare. It also indicates some lines of intervention for a project to re-launch the social state.
The New Poor and the Old Poverty
The essay examines the reasons behind the conceptual conversion from old to new forms of poverty. At the same time it brings out the consequences of this formulation, which effectively makes poverty seem to disappear, because, while it is true that the traditional economic approach to the study of poverty has limitations in how it interprets and represents reality, where it is no longer essential goods that play a decisive role in defining life choices and conditions of wellbeing and/or privation, it is equally true that in putting everything on the same plane we run the serious risk of paralyzing any corrective action. In the light of these considerations, it concentrates on the state of poverty in Italy, bringing out its relative stability in the medium and long term, as well as the relation between serious forms of economic poverty and less dramatic ones. The result is a picture of an Italian model of poverty, founded on a high levels of inequality in the distribution of income, its relative persistence and a high intergenerational correlation, to which two other characteristics should be added: the gap between North and South, and the strategic role of the family.
Welfare Cuts in Italy. Reasons and Consequences
The article discusses the reasons and effects of the reduction and near-elimination of national financing for welfare policies that is taking shape in 2011-2012, partly in relation to the definition of ways of implementing fiscal federalism, which give little attention to these policies. The elimination of national funding seems destined to lead to further limitations in the services offered, which are already less developed than in other countries, and risks sinking the original plan of law 328/2000, of creating an autonomous welfare system that was nationally founded, professional and available for all citizens. Instead, the future seems to hold a system that will be partly limited to health policies and labour policies, and otherwise residual, varying from one region to another, and directed mainly at the marginalized subjects.
Crisis public debt and European governance of the euro-zone
The New Phase of the Crisis: Public Debt and the Return to Neo-laissez-faire Policies
After analysing the present phase of the crisis, which is marked, among other things, by continuing unemployment, the essay discusses the draconian measures adopted by various states (which have made
the general macroeconomic scenario even more uncertain) and the characteristics of the disparities between European countries. This can be ascribed to the worsening of the public deficit and to the reinforcing of specific global imbalances between states that pre-dated the crisis and to a return to business as usual. All these factors, as well as the inadequacy of the measures adopted by the recent European Council (where there seems to be a return to a blind, monetarist, neolaissez-faire orthodoxy) will have clear reverberations on the action and inaction of the Italian government in economic policy.
Debts and Economic Reforms after the Global Crisis
One of the consequences of the large-scale international financial crisis has been an alarming increase in debts and public deficits in the developed countries. The remedies proposed by international bodies and governments for dealing with this situation have been the traditional ones: cuts in public expenditure and/or tax increases. As the adjustment indicated is on average 8-9 points of Gdp, clearly this policy can be achieved only through a radical downsizing of welfare systems, unless we develop and adopt systems for managing the public debt created by the crisis that will free the national budgets of their burden, as happened after all the large-scale financial crises in the past.
Critical paradigm: the Big Society
The Big Society and the New Austerity
The Uk Coalition Government has launched plans for a Big Society while making deep cuts to public services. The combined effects mark the end of the post-war welfare settlement. The Big Society narrative includes some progressive ideals, including empowering citizens and strengthening civil society. But it makes no provision for equal participation, or for accountability, and opens up new opportunities for big business to take over public services. This paper provides a detailed critique of the «Big Society» in the context of radical deficit reduction and sets out recommendations for realising its progressive potential.
The Big Society, the Welfare State and Inequality
The debate that has accompanied the British Prime Minister David Cameron’s Big Society does not give sufficient attention to questions of equality. The article offers, first of all, some reflections on the subject, drawing attention to the risk that the Big Society might sharply increase inequalities, whatever level of generosity it might express. On inequality, it discusses the possible limitations of a solution exclusively
based on public welfare, quite apart from the problem of the resources available. Finally, drawing on the work of Lord Beveridge on voluntary action, it briefly discusses some possible ways of integrating
welfare and society that might obviate the risk of excessive and unjustifiable inequalities.
In Search of a Big Society? Conservatism, Coalitions and Controversies
This article explores a series of puzzles about the rise of the idea of the Big Society in British politics. First, I ask how we should approach the idea itself: is it a policy, a programme, a philosophy; an exercise in political re-branding? How we answer this question makes a difference for the sorts of criticism that follow; and because the Big Society has mired in controversy from its outset, distinguishing between types of criticism and their significance is important. Second, I consider the puzzle of the politics of a «big idea» that has so few supporters or enthusiasts. When it is greeted sceptically by both political friends and enemies, what is its political value? Third, I examine the puzzle of what is big in the Big Society? How is this imagined society peopled: what sorts of agents and actors make the Big Society big? But let me first take a step back and locate the recent history and significance of the idea itself.
Keywords: Big Society :: British politics ::
Europe: new combinations of welfare and recalibration processes
Northern Countries: Fields, Processes and Effects of Ongoing Privatizations
In Sweden the criterion of «free choice» between private and public is at present guiding the policy of the centre-right government both in care and in education. The disappointing results of this choice have set off a debate that also touches on other aspects of «privatization», such as that of housing policy. In the field of unemployment benefit there is talk of a possible «nationalization» of the Ghent system, but, paradoxically, in this case too there is a dynamic of «privatization».
Keywords: Scandinavia-system :: Ghent-vouchers ::
In Search of New Forms of Stability. Care, Reconciliation and Public Intervention in European Welfare Systems
The essay examines the relations between families and welfare, with particular reference to policies for reconciling work and family life and for looking after minors. By examining legislation and the most recent reforms on the subject, it analyses the developments in five European countries: Germany and France for the Continental Europe, Sweden for the Scandinavian countries, the Uk for the Anglosaxon Europe, and Italy for the Mediterranean cluster. The analysis focuses on innovative elements that tend to delineate a different
system of social policies that has not yet fully established itself, but that can already give us a glimpse of some future developments that could lead to new ways of balancing family care, involvement in the jobs market and public-sector functions in a framework where the family and the welfare system will complement each other more and more. This general trend towards a multiplicity of supply channels means there will be a greater mixture of services and monetary and juridical recognition of caregiving, but the outcomes of the reforms still vary considerably from one country to another.
Re-calibrating the Dutch Health System. An Institutional Analysis of two Decades of Reforms
Successive Dutch coalition governments have worked for nearly twenty years on the development of a national health insurance scheme, complemented with regulated competition among insurers and providers. In this article, we argue that these gradual and incremental reforms in Dutch health care cannot be understood in the regressive terms of retrenchment, but instead, need to be understood in terms of welfare state recalibration: an effort to reform and revitalize the Dutch health care system so as to make it more capable of sustaining solidarity and universal coverage in the long term.
Keywords: Dutch health care :: welfare state recalibration ::
Italy: scenarios evidence and diversification in the public-private relation
Third Sector: from Integration to Replacement of the Public System?
The article shows the decisive impact of three dimensions linked to the role of the third sector in social policies: how politicians see nonprofit organizations, how social services delegate, and how social policies involve and plan at local level. As a result of how these three aspects are developing, the subsidiarization of welfare is almost naturally starting to modify the roles of those involved, towards spaces of new privatization of social intervention, that betray the institutive aims of non-profit organizations.
Improving Private Care Work
In the last ten years Italy has seen an exponential growth in private care work, a sector that is to a great extent unregulated, marked by misinformation, uncertainty of labour relations, little correspondence between supply and demand, and dynamics of domestic segregation. In the absence of a national policy on non-self-sufficiency there has been a proliferation of regional and local services to support this sector. These interventions need to be coordinated and integrated with each other, creating a regulated market with a minimum set of rules, accepted by both families and carers.
Social Vouchers: an Analysis of the Situation in Lombardy
This contribution analyses the Lombardy model applied to social vouchers. After examining in detail the regulations in support of the reform process in Lombardy, illustrating the model for regulating services, the author analyses the actual experience of social vouchers in practice. The second part of the essay evaluates the application both of the model and the instrument.
Contracts and Costs in Crèches and Child Support Services: in Need of Rethinking
As long ago as 1971 an Italian law, no. 1044, set up crèches under the responsibility of local councils, as a first step towards a public system. Years later the reality is somewhat different. For a series of reasons,
the most cogent of which are linked to the increasing lack of available resources for local bodies and the failure to follow up the initial law, the range of educational services for the years 0-3 has taken on the
connotations of a mixed public/private system. Under pressure to provide educational services for the populace, this system has been entrusted more and more to private bodies, whether socially committed
or not, through accreditation, contracts and conventions, with the private bodies making use of national contracts that are not always even for the sector. This makes it fundamental to identify minimum
levels of costs – above all, labour costs – that will guarantee quality. An integrated system that is already weak risks deteriorating further if left to a purely speculative market logic.
Social Capital and Health Strategies: a Practical Experience
In the two years 2009/2010 Emilia-Romagna carried out various
training courses in support of innovation strategies for the social and
health services, aimed at managers and professionals in local health
services and local bodies. An analysis of the literature, data and discussions
with those taking part revealed that the main critical feature
of the public system of health and social services in Emilia-Romagna
was the crisis of trust in the relations between service providers and
users, the community and the organization, and professionals and the
organization. It was agreed to invest in the development of the social
capital of the organizations and the communities as a strategy to guarantee
sustainability to the system and improve the running of it. As
part of the this strategy, some proposals for action were also formulated,
which took the form of local laboratories of innovation to be
created with the involvement of the health authorities, local bodies,
the universities, citizens, citizens’ representatives, workers and the
third sector, and other significant figures in the area.
Italy. Local welfare: re-institutionalization and alternative paths
De-institutionalizing the Territory?
The essay gives a critical account of the subject of institutionalization, particularly in its present new forms, or apparent such, compared with those that attracted attention and cultural, intellectual and political mobilization in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Starting from an «operative» interpretation of Martha Nussbaum’s conception of capabilities, and considers the link between discrimination, segregation and institutionalization, proposes an epidemiology of citizenship as a methodological basis for giving visibility to these phenomena, analyses the lack of information available and finally suggests a framework of proof-rights-experimentation for social workers and all those involved, to summarize today the liberating effect of the de-institutionalizing movements in the so-called reform period.
Re-institutionalization? Extreme Forms of Marginalization
The homeless are the most obvious category of extreme poverty.
They are increasing in Italy and the western world: as well as alcoholics, drug addicts and those with psychiatric problems, there are new social figures from the categories of foreign migrants and newly poor
Italians. When the hopes of the former come to nothing, the street is the definitive sign of their failure; among the latter, there are many fathers who have lost their jobs and then their homes. Among migrants, refugees and political refugees, b ut also the Romas, enjoy greater assistance, but at the price of reduced overall freedom. Policies for the homeless require finding homes, which are the starting point for any possible progress. A fixed domicile, even just for purposes of registration, is essential for the exercise of some fundamental
rights. The response is inadequate, dealing mainly with urgent
questions and emergencies, much less on organizing forward-looking
measures that could bring about the necessary social integration.
The lack of assistance encourages repressive attitudes that increase the
seriousness of the problems and the underlying economic-social
costs.
Re-institutionalization? Immigration
The economic, social and cultural crisis that is conditioning negatively
relations between people and an open attitude to diversity, along with
the political delay in tackling immigration pragmatically and not as an
emergency, are driving significant numbers of migrants into conditions
of marginalization and institutionalization. Methodological approaches
that lead to local policies that resist the definitive stabilization
of situations of exclusion for the migrant population see inclusion
policies as a strategy for improving the life of the whole community
and suggest interventions on various levels, from actions that
would affect the social representation of immigration to more integrated
services, which are necessary if we are to fully grasp their complexity.
Features
Discussion
The Social in Social Policies
The author considers the essence of the idea of «social» in sociological analyses and in the analysis of public policies. The social is interpreted as «states of the world that are indirect effects of others» originating in social action. The essay also presents a short comment on the concept of social by B. Latour and a digression on the idea of social capital and the principle of subsidiarity (still more crucial for any future
social policy). Starting from the peculiarities of the social that have been brought out, it also deals with a comments on some implications for analysis and for social policies.
Key word 1
«Privatization»
The article presents and discusses three senses of the term «privatization» with reference to the welfare system: one regarding finance mechanisms, one the role of intermediate bodies, and one the supply of services. The first option – more or less extensive replacement of the present national insurance systems with private insurance – actually worsens the macroeconomic sustainability of expenditure and has negative implications for the aims of welfare. The second sense – a Big society based on transferring from the state to intermediate bodies responsibility for certain measures of social policy – foreshadows a pre-modern idea of citizenship, broken up by group or category membership. The article concludes by placing the third sense in the framework of public control of the system that exploits the role of the market and private initiative in the supply of services, to improve efficiency and satisfy needs.
Key word 2
«Re-familiarization?»
The essay reconsiders the subject of welfare support for family responsibilities. Providing a chronology of the emergence of the category of de-familiarization, it also underlines the shifts of content that the present debate seems to underplay, but that have important effects on its possible emancipatory value in overcoming gender imbalances in welfare. It also asks how much this interpretation poses the problem of the possible limits of the trend to individualize social rights.
European Observatory
Observatory Europa. Periodical Note of Information on the Main News Concerning the Eu’s Social Action
In June 2010, the Council of Europe adopted the Strategy Europe 2020, the new ten-year plan for creating an «intelligent», «sustainable» and «inclusive» growth in the member countries of the Eu. The article recalls the recent developments in the implementation of the new governance. In the social sphere, the overall picture seems alarming. With the crisis, all the Council of Europe’s priorities and the legislative agenda of the European Commission seem concentrated on economic governance. This number of the column recalls the features of the new Pact for the Euro plus, and the European Parliament’s intervention on the coordination of economic policy. The Eu’s action is taking form in a context of union resistance to the multiplication of austerity plans in the Eu. At the same time, fundamental rights too are frequently at the centre of debate. This number of Observatory Europa underlines the evident risks of the European institutions, and so the national governments too, entering a spiral of austerity policies that may already be leading to a further reduction in social rights, with the risk of worsening the outlook of a feeble economic recovery.
