An Overtake or a Change of Direction? Third Sector Infrastructures, Social and Solidarity Economy and Trajectories of Local Development in the South of Italy

• In Event: Volunteering and Organisational theory

Abstract

The third sector (TS) in Italy is in a moment of contradiction. The normative pressure considers third sector entities (TSE) as actors of social economy, flattening the dimensions of active citizenship to service provision. On the other hand, all nonprofits recognized as TSE, including social enterprises and benefit corporations, are hailed as promoters of ‘general interest’. What this means is not clear.

Especially in the health/welfare sector, outsourcing to nonprofits can run the risk of being associated with a model of development that has shown its failure. So far, the ‘Northern’ has been the only valid ‘model’. Merely quantitative descriptions of TS are paradigmatic: North-Center spells ‘many’, ‘rich’, ‘big’ – while the South (and Isles) are the opposite.

Not any more.

The data-review we promoted (Memo 2023) has shown that in the past twenty years the nonprofit has grown in the South much more than in the rest of Italy. Newly incorporated NPIs in the Southern regions grow from 9.3% (of all NPIs in Italy) in 1980-90s to 25.6% by 2015. This boom-and-bloom involves voluntary organizations (from 8.3% in 1995 to 16.8% in 2019) and social cooperatives alike (from 19.4% in 2001 to full 28% in 2018). The same pattern is valid for the newest of organizational forms of TS, social enterprise. In Center-North (data 2022) these represent 0.7% of all business entities; in the South the quota doubles to 1.5% and in the Isles is even higher, 2.5% (Polidori Lori 2023).

This surpass has happened under unfavorable circumstances (Viesti 2021).
We puzzled: Is it an overtake in the making or a change of direction, with respect to the model of development?

If it is just about running faster, the risk of a historical failure may be around the corner. Cassano (2009) assigns the failure of the State to resolve the ‘Southern Question’ to an approach that exported Northern models of development and vehiculated them through political élites and public institutions, the very embodiments of backwardness. The opposite view champions an autonomous and original strategy of development rooted in the characters of the territory, which includes the third sector (Cotturri et al. 2009).

The following question then is: What roles play in these dynamics the volunteer support centers (VSC) and other TS infrastructural institutions?

VSC get established in the South only in 2005. In parallel, national TS networks initiated an educational program for TS leadership. In 2006 “Fondazione CON IL SUD” is born; in 2016, its spin-off targeting educational poverty. All are examples of TS infrastructure, peculiar arrangements of public-private partnership, investments channeled through TSE themselves.

Given the scant theoretical elaboration on the role (Osborne 1999; Brudney 2005) of VSC (Henriksen 2021), we recurred to an experimental mixed-methods research in historical institutional perspective (Steinmo et al. 1992). Our hypothesis is that the infrastructural organizations, an avantgarde of TS, act through functions of local development agencies (OECD/Mountford 2009).

Our analyses of the nexus between TS and development trajectories at local level would benefit from comparisons with other social/political/economic contexts.

References

Banfield, E.C. (1958), The moral basis of a backward society, Glencoe, IL, The Free Press.
Brudney, J. L. (2005). Report on the State of Volunteer Centers in 2003. Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation. Points of Light Foundation. Volunteer Center National Network.
Cassano, F. (2009), Tre modi di vedere il Sud, Bologna, Il Mulino.
Cotturri, G., Fantozzi, P., Giunta, G., Marino, D. e Musella, M. (2009), Per un altro Mezzogiorno. Terzo Settore e “questione meridionale” oggi, Roma, Carocci.
Henriksen, L. S. (2021). Volunteer Centers. In R. A. List, H. K. Anheier, & S. Toepler (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of Civil Society (pp. 1-5). Springer Publishing Company.
Memo, G. (a cura di) (2023), Il Terzo Settore nel Mezzogiorno, Soveria Mannelli, Rubettino.
OECD/Mountford, D. (2009), “Organising for local development: the role of local development agencies. Summary Report”, 26-27 November 2009, working document, CFE/LEED, OECD, www.oecd.org/dataoecd/54/41/44682618.pdf?contentId=446
Osborne, S. P. (1999). Volunteer Bureaux and the promotion and support of volunteering in local communities in England, Voluntary Action, 1(3), 67–84.
Polidori S., Lori M. (2023), Le imprese sociali: organizzazioni dell’economia sociale nello sviluppo dei territori e delle comunità, Inapp Working Paper n.102, Roma, Inapp
Putnam, R. (1993), Making Democracy Work. Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, Princeton, Princeton University Press.
Steinmo, S., Thelen, K. A., & Longstreth, F. (1992), Structuring politics: Historical institutionalism in comparative analysis, Cambridge University Press.
Viesti, G. (2021), Centri e periferie. Europa, Italia, Mezzogiorno dal XX al XXI secolo, Bari-Roma, Laterza.

Authors

• Ksenija Fonovic, Charles University - CSV Lazio

• Guido Memo, LabTS