As the sectors of intervention traditionally assigned to the responsibility of the State gradually become spaces of mobilization for a plurality of actors, the notion of “public” appears problematic: it is difficult to define what distinguishes the structures of governance, the actors involved, and the problems and interests treated, as being of a public nature. This article tackles these issues with particular attention given to governance of social policies in Italy. The aim is twofold: to shed light on the ambivalence of the current transformations of the public realm and to outline their implications with respect to public administration.
ArendtH. (1958). The human condition. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago.
2.
AscoliU.RanciC. (Eds). (2004). Dilemmas of the welfare mix: The new structure of welfare in an era of privatization. New York, NY: Kluwer Academic & Plenum.
3.
BifulcoL.de LeonardisO. (2005). Sulle tracce dell’azione pubblica. In BifulcoL. (Ed.), Le politiche sociali. Temi e prospettive emergenti (pp. 193-221) [On the track of public action]. Roma: Carocci.
4.
BifulcoL.CentemeriL. (2008). Governance and participation in local welfare: The case of the Italian Piani di Zona. Social Policy and Administration, 42, 211-227.
5.
BoltanskiL.ThévenotL. (1991). De la justification [On justification]. Paris: Gallimard.
6.
BorghiV.van BerkelR. (2007). New modes of governance in Italy and the Netherlands. Public Administration, 85, 83-101.
7.
BorghiV. (2006) Metamorfosi della sfera pubblica?, Studi organizzativi, 1, 111-126.
8.
BoxR. C.MarshallG. S.ReedB. J.ReedC. M. (2001). New Public Management and substantive democracy. Public Administration Review, 61, 608-619.
9.
BozemanB. (1987). All organizations are public: Bridging public and private organizational theories. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
10.
BreviglieriM.PattaroniL.Stavo-DebaugeJ. (2003). Quelques effets de l’idée de proximité sur la conduite et le devenir du travail social. Revue Suisse de Sociologie, 29, 141-157.
11.
BurroniL.CrouchC.KeuneM. (2005). Governance caleidoscopica, debolezza istituzionale e sviluppo locale [Kaleidoscopic governance, institutional weakness and local development]. Stato e Mercato, 75, 423-454.
12.
CefaïD. (2002). Qu’est-ce qu’une arène publique? In CefaïD.JosephI. (Eds.), L’héritage du pragmatisme. Conflits d’urbanité et épreuves de civisme (pp. 51-81). [What is a public arena?] Paris: Editions de l’Aube.
13.
ClarkeJ. (2004). Dissolving the public realm? The logics and limits of neo-liberalism. Journal of Social Policy, 1(33), 27-48.
14.
CrouchC. (1999). Social change in Western Europe. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
CrouchC.EderK.TambiniD. (2001). Introduction. Dilemmas of citizenship. In CrouchC.EderK.TambiniD. (Eds.), Citizenship, markets and the State (pp. 1-20). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
17.
de LeonardisO. (1998). In un diverso welfare [In another welfare]. Milano: Feltrinelli.
18.
DeanH.BonvinJ.-M.VielleP.FarvaqueN. (2005). Developing capabilities and rights in welfare-to-work policies. European Societies, 7, 3-26.
19.
deLeonL.DenhardtR. (2000). The political theory of reinvention. Public Administration Review, 60, 89-97.
20.
DiMaggioP. J.PowellW. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48, 147-160.
21.
DemortainD. (2004). Public organizations, stakeholders and the construction of publicness. Claim and defence of authority in public action. Public Administration, 82, 975-992.
22.
De MunckJ.ZimmermannB. (Eds.). (2008). La liberté au prisme des capacités. Amartya Sen au-delà du libéralisme [The freedom and the capabilities. Amartya Sen beyond the liberalism]. EHESS, Paris: Coll. Raisons Pratiques.
23.
DeweyJ. (1927). The public and its problems. New York, NY: Henry Holt.
24.
DonoloC. (1997). L’intelligenza delle istituzioni [The intelligence of the institutions]. Milano: Feltrinelli.
25.
DonoloC. (2005). Dalle politiche pubbliche alle pratiche sociali nella produzione di beni pubblici? [From public policies to social practices in the production of public goods?] Stato e Mercato, 73, 1, 33-65.
26.
DuranP.ThoenigJ. C. (1996). L’État et la gestion publique territoriale’. Revue Française de Science Politique [The State and the territorial public management], l46, 580-623.
27.
ElsterJ. (1998). Deliberation and constitution making. In ElsterJ. (Ed.), Deliberative democracy (pp. 97-122). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
28.
FischerF. (2003), Reframing public policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
29.
FraserN. (1997). Justice interruptus. New York, NY: Routledge.
30.
FreedlandM. (2001). The marketization of public services. In CrouchC.EderK.TambiniD. (Eds.), Citizenship, markets and the State (pp. 90-110). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
31.
GeddesM.Le GalèsP. (2001). Local partnerships, welfare regimes and local governance. In GeddesM.BeningtonJ. (Eds.), Local partnerships and social exclusion in the European Union (pp. 220-241). London, UK: Routledge.
32.
HabermasJ. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
33.
HaqueS. (2001). The diminishing publicness of public service under the current mode of governance. Public Administration Review, 61, 65-79.
34.
HoggettP. (2006). Conflict, ambivalence, and the contested purpose of public organizations. Human Relations, 59, 175-194.
35.
ISTAT. (2008). L’indagine censuaria sugli interventi e i servizi sociali dei Comuni. Anno 2005, Roma.
KathiC.CooperT. L. (2005). Democratizing the administrative State: Connecting neighborhood councils and city agencies. Public Administration Review, 65, 559-567.
38.
LascoumesP.Le GalèsP. (2007). Introduction: Understanding public policy through its instruments—From the nature of instruments to the sociology of public policy instrumentation. Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions, 20, 1-21.
39.
LowiT. (1972). Four systems of policy politics and choice. Public Administration Review, 32, 298-310.
40.
LynnE. L.Jr. (2001). The myth of bureaucratic paradigm: What traditional public administration really stood for. Public Administration Review, 61, 144-160.
41.
MarchJ. G. (1981). Footnotes to organizational change. Administrative Science Quarterly, 26, 563-577.
42.
MarchJ. G.OlsenJ. P. (1995). Democratic governance. New York, NY: Free Press.
43.
MarshallT. H. (1950). Citizenship and social class and other essays. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
44.
MayntzR. (2006). From government to governance: Political steering in modern societies. In ScheerD.RubikF. (Eds.), Governance of integrated product policy (pp. 18-25). Aizlewood Mill, UK: Greenleaf.
45.
MirabileM. L. (Ed.). (2005). Italie sociali. Il welfare locale fra Europa, riforme e federalismo [Social Italies. Local welfare among Europe, reforms and federalism]. Roma: Donzelli.
46.
MonteleoneR. (Ed.). (2007). La contrattualizzazione nelle politiche sociali: forme ed effetti [The contractualization of social policies: forms and effects]. Roma: Officina.
47.
NewmanJ. (2005). Remaking governance: Peoples, politics and the public sphere. Bristol, UK: Policy Press.
48.
NewmanJ. (2007). Rethinking “the public” in troubled times: Unsettling state, nation and the liberal public sphere. Public Policy and Administration, 22(2), 27-47.
49.
OstromE. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge University Press, UK: Cambridge.
50.
PaciM. (Ed.). (2008). Welfare locale e democrazia partecipativa [Local welfare and participatory democracy]. Bologna: Il Mulino.
51.
RhodesR. A. W. (1996). The new governance: Governing without government. Political Studies, 44, 652-667.
52.
SenA. K. (1992). Inequality re-examined. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
53.
StorperM.SalaisR. (1997). Worlds of production. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
54.
StreeckW.SchmitterP. C. (1985). Private interest government: Beyond market and state. London, UK: SAGE.
55.
ThévenotL. (2006). L’action au pluriel [The action in the plural]. Paris: La Découverte.
