From leadership research to district action: Towards the Democratisation of Care? Insights From Co‐Governance in Local Welfare in Spain and Italy

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Evidence and transfer

Education-related source: verify which participants, institutions and outcomes were actually studied before district adoption. Source publication type: research-article. License and identity checks do not establish study quality or causality.

Original authors’ abstract, reproduced under the source license:

ABSTRACT The organisation and distribution of care responsibilities represent a central issue in contemporary welfare debates. Although welfare systems have progressively sought to socialise care related risks tackling distribution's inequality, the organisation of care services received less attention. The organisation of care should be democratic which requires inclusive governance that engages all stakeholders. In decentralised systems such as those in Italy and Spain, the local level plays a pivotal institutional role in shaping care policies, influenced by both vertical and horizontal subsidiarity. This article examines to what extent local governance contributes to the democratisation of care and what are the factors that shape local differences through a comparative analysis of four cities—two in Emilia‐Romagna (Italy) and two in Andalusia (Spain)—and across two policy areas: Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) and Long‐Term Care (LTC). Drawing content analysis of 79 policy documents and 25 interviews, we investigate the degree of care democratisation from a multilevel territorial perspective. Our findings reveal significant differences in governance between ECEC and LTC, largely attributable to supramunicipal frameworks and to the multilevel distribution of responsibilities. Regional traditions and path dependency further shape care arrangements. Nonetheless, the local dimension, particularly the political will, resources availability, and openness to participatory processes, emerge a relevant factors. We argue that national and regional institutions should reinforce municipal capacity to promote co‐governance. Moreover, enhancing the inclusion of less‐structured and marginalised actors across all levels is essential to advancing a more democratic and therefore equitable care system.

Study methods

The aim of this study is to deepen our understanding of care democratisation with a particular focus on the role of the local level. To this end, we concentrate on local policy‐making within care sectors by posing the following question: To what extent local care governance democratise care? We analyze the degree of democratisation focusing on the variety of actors included into the policy making and the horizontality of public‐private relationships. Our central hypothesis is that the factors that foster or hinder the inclusion of different voices, generating variation among local modes of care governance, include the supramunicipal institutional environment, the political actors, and the political culture (DiGaetano and Strom 2003).

Limitations

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A 90-day district inquiry

Days 1–15 · Appraise. Read the source methods, recruitment, comparator, outcomes and limitations. Record how the study setting differs from your district and which claim the design can support.
Days 16–30 · Design. Select one recurring district decision. Publish the decision owner, evidence requirements, consultation process and appeal route; test the process on a bounded low-risk decision. Agree participation, privacy protections, baseline and stopping rules before starting.
Days 31–60 · Observe. Collect the pre-agreed measures, keep a log of implementation changes and invite confidential voluntary feedback. Preserve existing support for staff and learners.
Days 61–90 · Decide. Track decision time, unresolved objections, documented reasons, appeals and access differences. Review whether the process changes who can participate and who carries the burden. Make a dated decision to stop, revise or extend the inquiry.

Board decision brief

Present the local problem, source setting, evidence limits, intervention, responsible owner, total cost, measured changes and uncertainty. Separate staff perceptions, implementation measures and student learning outcomes.

Attribution and reuse

Francesca Donati; María Jesús Rodríguez‐García. Towards the Democratisation of Care? Insights From Co‐Governance in Local Welfare in Spain and Italy. The British Journal of Sociology (2026-03-17). https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.70108

Prepared 2026-11-07. Source authorship and DOI are preserved. The abstract and source passages are attributed extracts; this editorial guide is offered under the same CC BY 4.0 license.