Active Cities for Activation Policies. Entrepreneurship support and young people in Milan and Barcelona

Abstract

The thesis is framed in the disciplinary field of urban sociology and aims to analyse municipal entrepreneurship support policies promoted by the cities of Milan (Italy) and Barcelona (Spain), with a focus on the experiences of young people up to the age of thirty-five who have benefited from the different measures during the years 2012 to 2016. The concept of entrepreneurship, explicitly and sometimes implicitly accompanied by that of self-employment, is central in many policy agendas at many levels of government. In Europe, indeed, the growing concern about the persistence of high levels of unemployment, especially among young people, combined with the consolidation of activation as a paradigm in the reorientation of public actions for social inclusion, have made entrepreneurship a key instrument not only for economic development strategies, but also for activation policies (inclusive entrepreneurship). At the local level, European cities are particularly active in supporting inclusive entrepreneurship, being also able to count on the fact that new economic opportunities have found fertile ground in urban contexts, driven primarily by the growth of the service sector and a distinctive capacity for innovation. However, despite its relevance, this issue has been scantly addressed in the literature. In this context, the thesis proposes an interpretative framework for exploring this object of study that incorporates, on the one hand, neo-Marxist-inspired and neo-Weberian approaches to urban policy and governance and, on the other hand, the socio-economic literature and theoretically relevant institutional documentation on entrepreneurship, including within the framework of studies on the reorganization of the welfare state. The critical reading of the reference literature has led to two analytical macro-approaches. The first highlights the thesis of the convergence of urban policies towards neoliberal modes of governance, and welfare models based on market needs and competitiveness instead of social cohesion. A trend that entrepreneurship support policies seem to exemplify. The second highlights the peculiarities of the European city, identified with the resistance of the compromise between growth and social inclusion objectives, and supports the opposite thesis of the divergence between cities, the relevance of the political dimension and the local policy actors. Within this framework, the research has focused on how local political actors interpret, invalidate or reproduce the mainstream approach to entrepreneurship support policies and the role played in this respect by institutional factors and political aspects. Besides, the investigation included the analysis of the implications in terms of redistribution of risks and opportunities among the young people interviewed. To this ends, the research has availed itself of a qualitative methodology, case-based comparative analysis and the technique of the interview. The study revealed the heterogeneity of municipal entrepreneurship support policies concerning ideas and values, objectives, measures and tools, as well as the experiences of the young beneficiaries. Finally, the thesis highlights how policy orientations, local political paradigms, institutional legacies and governance arrangements interact to shape specific and different approaches to entrepreneurship support policies in the two cities, and how these influence the capacity to govern socio-economic changes.