Abstract

Long-term care has become a public policy field starting from the 2000s, also due to an increasing European debate and to the contribution of comparative research. In each country, it has resulted from the stratification of social care, disability and eldercare services and provisions since the 1960s and 1970s. Notwithstanding the specificities of the national trajectories, it is possible to identify clusters of countries that with different timing initiated Ltc policies based on similar policy models. At the same time, we observe common phases of development in which shared ideas and approaches prevail across countries. However, due to the re-existing institutional differentiation, the spreading transnational ideas translate into different policies, interventions and practices across clusters. This contribution aims at understanding the specific Italian trajectory from a comparative and historical perspective, based on a literature review and on the articles published by «Autonomie locali e servizi sociali» since the foundation of the journal in 1977.