Co-production paradigm: Threat or Opportunity for Social Economy?

The aim of this contribution is to examine the “co-production” paradigm, focused on the cooperation between public services and their users, and its connections with the role of the social economy organizations, or Civil Society/Third Sector Organizations. Firstly, the paradigm itself and all the related concepts, such as co-creation, codesign, co-governance and so on, are deeply analyzed through a review of the scientific literature. Secondly, the authors take into consideration the “dark side” of the paradigm, i.e. its negative effects and implications, such as the risk of neglecting the importance of the Public Administration professionals’ contribution, and the underestimation of the Civil Society/Third Sector Organizations, which instead are primary stakeholders, especially in Europe. This strong collaboration between Public Administration and Third Sector Organizations is a peculiar form of co-production called “joint production”. Two empirical case studies of joint production are taken from the Italian context and are examined in order to identify the structural elements that can facilitate or hinder the different phases of the co-creation/co-production process. They belong to the fields of emergency and healthcare services, in both of them the Third Sector Organizations historically played a primary role and are still playing it. This collaboration has strongly contributed to the high performances of the Italian health care system. In the final section the authors illustrate the factors that boosted the joint production of public services in these fields, either by the public sector side and by the Third Sector side.