Fra market-making e market-embedding: appalti pubblici e regolazione del lavoro in alcune sperimentazioni italiane = Between market-making and market-embedding: public procurement and labour regulation in selected Italian experimentations

In recent decades, outsourcing has shifted the state’s role in public services from direct employer to regulator, reducing its control over working conditions but leaving room for indirect influence through purchasing power and regulation. This influence can either reinforce market-making effects, which is often detrimental to working conditions, or enable market-embedding, where social and ethical considerations in procurement contracts help sustain better employment standards. Thus, drawing on advanced Italian experimentation in embedding labour and social standards into public procurement practices, this article investigates how these strategies of market-embedding can counterbalance the structurally negative effects of state-led market-making. The analysis shows that while market-embedding initiatives yield positive results, their impact is limited by the dominance of market-making principles within a competition-driven regulatory framework, underscoring the structural tension between these two logics and the challenges of using public procurement to strengthen labour protections.