ABSTRACT
During the 1990s the growing preoccupation with the costs and efficacy of social policy has led to a revival of the traditional notions of targeting and selectivity. Effective targeting requires some institutional preconditions that are often taken for granted in much of the comparative debate: an efficient state administration, a reliable tax system and, more generally, a civic culture capable of circumscribing fraudulent and corrupt behaviors on the side of both users and bureaucrats. The most absurd epilogue of the 1983 targeting provisions came in 1993/1994, when the Constitutional Court ruled them as partly illegal and forced the government to repay arrears for several trillions of lire. Given the "soft" character of the Italian state the introduction of targeting has raised number of serious organizational problems and distributive distortions. Italy has a mixed model of welfare. But the highly heterogeneous and fragmented character of social protection policies has made the path to selectivity a winding road bristling with distributive dilemmas.
