Controllo o partecipazione? Il Patto di inclusione sociale come strumento per trasformare l’obbligo della condizionalità in attuazione di un diritto sociale

This paper offers a contribution based on the experience of the 2019 and 2020 editions of the formative course “Professional experts in management of the instruments for the assessment and the projection of the interventions for families receiving the minimum income guaranteed by State”. This course was wanted by the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies to accompany the introduction of the new national measures of minimum income, that is guaranteed by the State. The paper presents a reflection based on the first results of a pilot research carried out on some experiences presented by social workers, who took part in the first edition of the course. In these experiences, social workers should have sanctioned subsidy recipients because they had disattended the commitments that were required to maintain the subsidy. Instead of sanctioning them, social workers decided to interpret recipient’s missed fulfilment as a “critical event” (Žižek 2014). This interpretation allows to review the “critical event” as an opportunity to examine in depth personal and contextual circumstances that caused that event and to redefine targets and actions of the personal project designed for the person, by adopting an approach aimed at promoting people’s capabilities and participation instead of sanctioning them. This pilot research has demonstrated that the conditionality expected by the Italian minimum income presents a dimension of control, coercion and potential punishability that may be used as a leverage to promote in the recipient a process of reflectivity that may enhance his participation and capabilities.