In recent decades, local welfare systems have been emerging in many Western countries as a consequence of bottom–up and top–down transformative pressures. Local welfare systems are defined as dynamic arrangements in which the specific local socioeconomic and cultural conditions give rise to different mixes of formal and informal actors, public or not, involved in the provision of welfare resources. This article presents some of the most important implications related to the emergence of local welfare systems and the challenges they face in seeking to build social cohesion. After a brief description of the reasons that justify a local approach to welfare, an account is provided of the scientific debate on local welfare and an indication given of the possible relations and tensions between the emergence of local welfare systems and the production of social cohesion
In this article I explore the hypothesis that the four countries which make up the southern part of the European Union constitute variants on a particular model of capitalist development. This model is char acterized by relatively dynamic family enterprises and self-employment, non-wage contributions to house hold livelihood strategies; and the relatively limited formation of a fully proletarianized working class engaged in manufacturing industry.
The tendency towards the diffusion of more localised welfare provision is part of the wider post-industrial transformation and challenges the citizenship protection system that developed during the Fordist age. It is assumed that local welfare provision is more efficient and less expensive than centralised national welfare programmes. In this article we argue first that the process of transformation and localisation of welfare is driven by two different (sometimes opposing) forces: (1) the necessity to identify effective ways of responding to the need for social support which is increasingly individualised, fragmented and heterogeneous, and therefore to expand ‘active’ social policies; and (2) the necessity to keep under control (and more often reducing) national public spending. Second, we argue that a more integrated welfare system (involving the third sector, voluntary organisations and private providers) and one which is more locally differentiated poses a series of problems in terms of social and territorial inequalities. We then identify some conditions that can help to keep inequalities under control. In the conclusion we will see how the crisis is exacerbating these tendencies.
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