Introduction

The processes of socioeconomic and demographic transformation affecting European countries since the 1970s brought about the need for active welfare states and increasingly individualised social policies. Although this need seems to be the same in all European countries, embedded in a common social discourse supported by national and transnational institutions and organisations, it leads to different concrete transformations and restructuring of the former welfare systems (Borghi, 2005; Borghi and Van Berkel, forthcoming: 2007).

Looking at the Italian context, one may – even though it is difficult to identify really individually tailored measures and schemes (see below) – observe some easily recognisable (institutional) consequences of the pressures towards the activation and individualisation of policies. The emergence of new forms of governance, indeed, can be linked to the necessity of providing new services and reforming the already existing ones. First, the increasing complexity of emerging social needs implies the integration of different competencies and professional skills in order to address these adequately with – usually – less and less standardised measures. Second, the increasing tendency to externalise, privatise and outsource public services to third sector bodies implies a pluralisation of actors and imposes the need to coordinate public and private agencies through new forms of governance arrangements (Pavolini, 2003). As a consequence, the problem of coordination (horizontally, among the different actors involved in the implementation of the policies; vertically, among the different levels at which the policies are designed and ruled) emerged as the central one (Kazepov and Sabatinelli, 2002).

In order to understand the specific Italian translation of the pressures towards active and individualised policies, we will try to summarise some important features of the country's welfare regime, focusing then on two particular fields of policy and reform – social assistance and labour market services – in which it is possible to see some efforts (and the respective problems) heading in that direction.

The context of welfare policies in the Italian case

The characteristics of the Italian model of welfare and unemployment have been studied for nearly thirty years and have been well known in the international debate since the 1970s (Ferrera, 1996; Trifiletti, 1999; Naldini, 2002; Saraceno, 2002; Ferrera et al, 2003).