IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/eurrev/v22y2014i01p145-169_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Bonifacio, Matteo

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Bonifacio, Matteo, 2014. "Social Innovation: a Novel Policy Stream or a Policy Compromise? An EU Perspective," European Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 145-169, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:eurrev:v:22:y:2014:i:01:p:145-169_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1062798713000707/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Brita Hermelin & Grete Rusten, 2018. "A place-based approach to social entrepreneurship for social integration – Cases from Norway and Sweden," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 33(4), pages 367-383, June.
    2. Karine Oganisjana & Anna Svirina & Svetlana Surikova & Gunta Grīnberga-Zālīte & Konstantins Kozlovskis, 2017. "Engaging universities in social innovation research for understanding sustainability issues," Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, VsI Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center, vol. 5(1), pages 9-22, September.
    3. Giulia Granai & Carmen Borrelli & Roberta Moruzzo & Massimo Rovai & Francesco Riccioli & Chiara Mariti & Carlo Bibbiani & Francesco Di Iacovo, 2022. "Between Participatory Approaches and Politics, Promoting Social Innovation in Smart Cities: Building a Hum–Animal Smart City in Lucca," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-15, June.
    4. Karine Oganisjana & Svetlana Surikova & Konstantins Kozlovskis & Anna Svirina, 2018. "Financial, organisational and informative involvement of the society in social innovation processes in Latvia," Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, VsI Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center, vol. 6(1), pages 456-471, September.
    5. Karine Oganisjana & Anna Svirina & Svetlana Surikova & Gunta Grīnberga-Zālīte & Konstantins Kozlovskis, 2017. "Engaging universities in social innovation research for understanding sustainability issues," Post-Print hal-01708963, HAL.
    6. Marival Segarra‐Oña & Angel Peiró‐Signes & José Albors‐Garrigós & Blanca De Miguel‐Molina, 2017. "Testing the Social Innovation Construct: An Empirical Approach to Align Socially Oriented Objectives, Stakeholder Engagement, and Environmental Sustainability," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(1), pages 15-27, January.
    7. Karine Oganisjana & Svetlana Surikova & Konstantins Kozlovskis & Anna Svirina, 2018. "Financial, organisational and informative involvement of the society in social innovation processes in Latvia," Post-Print hal-02168630, HAL.
    8. Madhuwanthi Premadasa & Janaka Siyambalapitiya & Kumudu Jayawardhana & Imali Fernando, 2023. "Conceptualizing the Role of Social Entrepreneurial Orientation in the Triple Bottom Line in the Social Enterprise Context: Developing Country Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-21, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:eurrev:v:22:y:2014:i:01:p:145-169_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/erw .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.