Choice agendas in disability policy and practice: An analysis through the lenses of professional actors The cases of England and Lombardy in comparison

‘Choice’ is nowadays a popular concept in welfare policy. In the past twenty to thirty years, the popularity of choice has in fact spread from the private sphere of everyday life to the less-private context of public policy.
Choice, however, has not entered public policy on its own. Different actors - from disability activists to politicians and policy-makers - have advocated for choice, often for diverse and contrasting purposes. Also, specific tools have been associated with the entry of choice in welfare services, and these tools are neither purely technical nor neutral.
This thesis aims to understand the effects of ‘choice agendas’ at the point in which they make their way into public services; and it does so through the lenses of the professional actors in charge of translating ‘choice’ from policy into practice. In particular, drawing on street-level-bureaucracy, policy practice and network theories, choice agendas are analysed in the specific context of social care services for disabled people as developed both in England and the Italian region of Lombardy.
The application of a mix of qualitative research methods brought me to the conclusion that power differences and asymmetries are at play among different professional actors; with some having stronger discretion and policy steering capacity compared to others. Such differences imply that only certain visions of choice are legitimated in practice, with questionable implications in terms of the nature of the transformation brought about by choice agendas and their contribution in offering more ‘choice and control’ to disabled people.