The Third Sector in Italy and Its Role in Public Services: Contracting Out, Co-production, Co-creation, Subsidiarity

What is the nature and the specific socio-economic role of Third-Sector entities? How can one envisage a model of effective cooperation between the Third Sector and Public Administration in the area of public services? This chapter endeavours to provide an answer to these research questions with reference to the Italian case. To this end, after a brief characterisation of Italian Public Administration intervention strategies from the post-war period to the present, the chapter argues in favour of the principle of circular subsidiarity as different from both horizontal and vertical subsidiarity. The suggestion of future and fruitful lines of research concludes the work.