This volume, edited by Ugo Ascoli and Emanuele Pavolini, is a successful attempt to reconstruct how the Italian welfare state has changed over the past two decades, and is still changing during these years of economic crisis and austerity. Written by leading experts in the field, it is the first edited collection in the English language to analyse the evolution of welfare in Italy across different policy fields.

The book is structured in an introduction followed by two parts and a conclusion. After a clear presentation of the purpose of the book, the editors’ introduction presents an analysis of the main specificities of the Italian welfare state, and seeks to locate an interpretative framework of changes within a broader debate on the welfare state.

Part one comprises eight chapters which focus on policy changes in individual policy fields, and an opening chapter which evaluates the changing risks and inequalities faced by individuals and households. Part two meanwhile adopts a perspective that cuts across policy fields, looking at the role of the supranational organizations such as the EU in shaping Italian welfare and the persistence of territorial inequalities. In the conclusions, the two editors summarise and interpret the results of their inquiry, providing an overview of cross-national differences and an evaluation of the recent impact of changes in welfare policy. The analysis and interpretation of the changes are guided by five hypotheses: (1) more so than other Western European countries, retrenchment has featured as the principal tool in reshaping the landscape of Italian welfare; (2) this retrenchment has assumed different guises in different policy fields at different moments; (3) there has been a continuity to the reforms from before the crisis right through to the current juncture; (4) social inequalities (territorial, age-based and class-based) have proliferated; (5) the essential features of the Italian welfare state, including familism, clientelism, a mixed paradigm and fragmentation, have nevertheless endured.

The book is well organized and exceptionally easy to read. The eight chapters dedicated to various policy fields are amply supported empirically. They present strong arguments in support of the first, the second and the fourth hypotheses. It is the third and the fifth hypotheses that require, I would suggest, further empirical evidence in order to substantiate the editors’ claims.

The hypothesis that there has been continuity in welfare reforms before, during and after the crisis fails to take into consideration the rise of new bases of organized support for reform since the economic downturn. Whereas the early 2000s witnessed a plurality of proposals and reforms that lacked a unifying principle capable of bringing together the various social and political actors, the situation from 2008 onwards has been characterized by various initiatives with converging objectives and priorities, and agreement around a vision for the long-term future of the Italian welfare system. This consensus embraced both informal declarations of intent from politicians as well as formal proposals for welfare reform. Existing levels of benefit were reduced, but importantly, this occurred alongside a systematic rebalancing of the relationships between public and supplementary welfare. A new configuration of public welfare emerged directed at ensuring the overall sustainability of welfare by weakening the public system and enhancing the role of private actors that have historically played a marginal role in the Italian welfare system. Although the book ably documents both growing inequalities and new forms of dualization and also worsening opportunities for many social groups to access both public and supplementary welfare, I would suggest it underestimates the degree to which these changes have been organized purposefully with the aim of introducing a new model of social protection, mainly in the health sector and in the old age pension system. These changes enjoy the support of a majority of the political parties, a part of the union movement and employer organizations, and the wider public at large.

With regard to the fifth hypothesis, it seems that while the editors emphasize continuity in the essential features of the Italian welfare state before and during the crisis, they underplay the effects of creeping and explicit retrenchment on those same essential features. In Italy spending cuts in social expenditure have been accompanied by extensive processes of dualization and de-universalization across many policy fields. The impacts of such changes on the social protection coverage are amply highlighted by the authors of the various chapters. Nevertheless, the manner in which these changes have interacted with the historical specificity of the Italian welfare state might have been explored in greater depth. This would certainly have enriched the authors’ interpretation of the current basic institutional features of the Italian welfare model.

Despite these shortcomings, the book remains an authoritative contribution to our understanding of the Italian welfare system and the evolution of southern European welfare states in a comparative perspective.