Territorial Inequalities in Welfare Access in Italy: Multi-level Governance, Administrative Capacity and Institutional Design
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15257/ehquidad.2027.0010Keywords:
territorial inequality, multilevel governance, administrative capacity, institutional fragmentation, welfare state, italian regional disparitiesAbstract
This article analyses territorial inequalities in effective access to welfare state provisions in Italy, with particular attention to the North-South divide. Unlike predominant approaches that explain this gap in purely socioeconomic terms, the paper proposes an analytical framework centred on institutional variables: multi-level governance, local administrative capacity, and institutional design fragmentation. Through a territorial comparative analysis of secondary sources (ISTAT, INPS, Eurostat, OECD and World Bank), the article examines indicators such as effective benefit coverage, processing times, per capita social services expenditure and administrative digitalisation indexes. It is argued that Italian decentralisation without robust inter-territorial coordination mechanisms generates a structural implementation gap that converts formal entitlements into real welfare exclusion. The article contributes theoretically to the debate on multi-level governance and hidden inequalities, and offers implications for the design of territorially sensitive redistributive policies.
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