Social Innovation: a Novel Policy Stream or a Policy Compromise? An EU Perspective

Matteo Bonifacio

European Review, 2014, vol. 22, issue 1, 145-169

Abstract: Spurred by the recent global economic crisis, Social Innovation (SI) has gained increasing attention in the European Commission (EC) agenda. However, it remains a heterogeneous and ill-defined concept, whose boundaries are unclear. Currently, within EC discussions, it encapsulates a variety of concepts from social enterprises to societal change. Adopting an ethnographic methodology, this analysis provides insight into the contrasting official ‘front-stage’ and ‘back-stage’ views, constraints and practices by which SI has been adopted and promoted by the EC. While the ‘front-stage’ perspective is more intentionally based on the official situations, documents, and statements, the ‘back-stage’ is informed by both the ethnographic analysis and its relationship with the ‘front-stage’ perspective. The main finding of the analysis is that SI might presumably be seen as the only way to align the Commission's conservative-liberal policy, which is rooted in the Lisbon Agenda, with the pressing social demands that stem from the 2008 financial crisis. However, this analysis also indicates that, rather than a novel policy stream, SI can also be seen as a policy compromise that can be used to detract from debates around the need to develop a fully-fledged EU Social Policy; more deeply, it can detract the policy debate from facing a thorough reflection on our society and development model. The analysis here will also provide an overview of the risks associated with current thinking viewed from the perspective of EU players operating in the socio-political domain.

Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:eurrev:v:22:y:2014:i:01:p:145-169_00

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in European Review from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().