Italy and the peripheral: national policies in search of cohesion

After decades of development policies focusing on urban centres, peripheral areas are now gaining attention in research and policy, emphasizing the social, economic, and political impacts of spatial inequalities. Whereas the European Union (EU) has launched its cohesion policy at the end of the 1980s, its effectiveness in addressing the structural challenges of inner peripheries has been rather unsatisfactory. In recent year, the growing recognition in the EU discourse of the need to address peripherality more effectively has triggered the introduction of a number of initiatives within the different member states, that however remains heterogeneous and rather fragmented. Aiming at shedding light on the matter, the chapter explores the national policy instruments put in place in the Italian context, offering valuable insights into the challenges of balancing competitiveness and cohesion and, in turn, of addressing peripheralisation across Europe.