This paper demonstrates that regionalist parties in Spain, Italy and the UK have contributed to the development of sub-state models of welfare governance, which have challenged the role of state-wide political actors and institutions as providers of social protection. Indeed, regional social policy may be used to foster territorial solidarities and identities that in turn reinforce the centre-periphery cleavage. So far, very few studies have focused on the relationship between the politicization of regional identities and welfare governance. Therefore, by comparing five cases of regionalist parties - the South Tyrolean People’s Party, the Northern League, Convergence and Union, the Basque Nationalist Party and the Scottish National Parties – I aim to demonstrate that territorial mobilization has transformed regions into new arenas of welfare building. At the same time, I show that regionalist parties may promote qualitatively different models of welfare depending on their ideology and political (and social) alliances.
