Active citizenship: from politics to policy

During the ‘trente glorieux’ years following WWII, the Italian welfare system developed along two different lines. In the first, political cultures and practices imbued with particularist tendencies and even patronage produced a weak adherence to universalistic principles in social benefits and public service provision. As a consequence, families – particularly women – went on bearing the greater burden of caring for their members in need, so conferring on the Italian welfare system a familial nature. A central role was also played by private charities and church bodies, partly because of the cultural and political influence of the Catholic Church. These features of social service provision suggest that the Italian welfare system, categorised as ‘corporatist’ by Esping-Andersen, has in fact greater affinities with the ‘Mediterranean’ model (Ferrera 1996; Mingione 2001).

But a second, and equally important, line of development in the same period configured a welfare regime of rights consistent with the universalistic model. I refer here to normative innovations that were promoted by social claims and political mobilisations, as well as what would now be termed ‘practices of active citizenship’. In that period, Italy was marked by a high level of politicisation, a strong communist party, trade unions playing an important role even in welfare issues, widespread and diverse social movements (not least women's liberation), the mobilisation of public service staff, and a myriad of local initiatives and bottomup experiments. Three building blocks of an universalist welfare were introduced: (i) the Workers’ Statute (1971) that not only established rights linked to employment status but also allowed work to be recognised as a right in itself; (ii) new legislation on mental health (1978) that accomplished fifteen years of de-institutionalisation and the invention of new services, and abolished internment in psychiatric hospitals, and which led to a more general mood against total institutions and in favour of granting civil and social rights also for the disabled and children; and (iii) the health reform instituting the National Health Service (in 1980).

However, by the time the National Health Service was established the situation was already undergoing rapid change: the above-mentioned social forces were exhausted, and the ‘crisis of the welfare state’ was officially inaugurated.