All smoke, no fire? Sharing practices and political investment in two Italian cities

Abstract

The practice of sharing products, services, and other activities among people living in the same city has emerged as one of the most important waves of social innovation in recent years. However, the public and scientific debate have, to date, been mostly rhetoric and rarely relied on empirical evidence. A study of the role played by local institutions in governing the phenomenon is still lacking. This paper addresses the issue of the relationship between local governments and private actors in the sharing economy sector, exploiting the ‘political exchange’ approach. Departing from this governance perspective, it appraises the political exchange – and its outputs in terms of co-operation – underlying the governing structures in two Italian cases between 2014 and 2018. We thus bridge the gap between a theoretical understanding of the sharing economy and empirical cases, providing scholars with a framework to study this phenomenon which highlights the crucial impact of the political investment of public institutions.

Institutionalizing innovation in welfare local services through co-production: toward a Neo-Weberian State?

“…During the last few decades, political scientists engaged in welfare policies research have been showing an avid interest in the study of co-production of local public services (Steen et al ., 2016; Bussu and Galanti, 2018; Sinclair et al ., 2018; Polizzi and Bassoli, 2020). Innovative practices based on the involvement of citizens as co-producers of welfare services are considered as new ideal practices that welfare systems should incorporate to effectively tackle emerging social problems (Osborne and Strokosch, 2013; Gasparre and Bassoli, 2020).…”