The Role of Mutuals for Proximity-Based and Cooperative Welfare: The Case of Italian Mutual Benefit Societies

The outbreak of the Covid pandemic kicked off an extraordinary phase of challenges and needs as well as for the resources invested in welfare at the various levels of government, from the EU to local administrations. In this ongoing scenario, non-public actors such as Mutual Benefit Societies have taken a leading role in capitalizing on practices tested during the 2008 crisis and on the results achieved in terms of social innovation, codesign practices, and multi stakeholder governance. This article investigates the role of health and social welfare mutualism in generating virtuous interlocks and synergistic logics, capable of providing emerging needs with integrated responses, and discusses the growing relevance of cooperative mutualism as a possible ally in the renewal of welfare systems.