Governance and Participation in Local Welfare: The Case of the Italian Piani di Zona

This article analyses four cases of governance in Italian local welfare systems. Following Law 328/2000, the design and management of the social services system in Italy involve different public responsibility levels, mainly regional and municipal. In order to manage social policies, Italian municipalities have to join in new inter‐municipal groupings called ‘Piani di Zona’ (Area Plans). Moreover, the law provides for engaging in these Plans even local third‐sector organizations and citizens. The article attempts to highlight the implications of this complex system that is leading local authorities to open new governance arenas. We hereby present the results of a research project on two Piani di Zona in the Region of Lombardy (Northern Italy) and on two in the Region of Campania (Southern Italy), carried out by means of institutional analysis. We particularly focus on the dynamics of participation triggered by the Piani di Zona. Our hypothesis is that the role of public administration is a fundamental variable to understand the different ways of participating. In this sense, we discuss the dynamics of local governance by relaying them to four main questions: who participates in what, where and how?