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The austerity discourse is usually analysed as an academic as well as a policy discourse on current European reform processes. This paper explores how the austerity concept is used by different economic expert discourses to create identity images in the European political economy. Starting from an economic sociology as well as social studies of science perspective, the analysis investigates how three different expert discourses produce certain identity images of the “me” and the “other”. An analysis of identity images is essential to understand how roles for actors in the political economy are constructed. Whereas the “me” image points to the speaker of a certain discourse, the image of the “other” always relates to ways how the speaker interprets and perceives other actors. These images as role models appear in different political, media and economic contexts as means in social struggle over hegemony. Thus, austerity discourses contribute to the cultural and discursive formation of the European political economy. The analysis takes three examples to illustrate the diversity of the current discursive struggles over the present and future form of Europe: ordoliberal “law-and-order” economist’s discourses develop a “resolute” me-perspective, the economic experts from the Keynesian camp constitute the discursive “me” as a “critical” discourse position, and the pragmatists from the ECB take a “moderate” position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social innovation is attracting increasing attention in research and policy, heightened by continuing austerity across Europe. Therefore, this paper examines earlier research into community-led local development (CLLD) initiatives in rural areas of Europe to develop our understanding of the meaning and scope of rural social innovation. We draw on a Schumpeterian view where innovations emerge from new combinations of resources that bring about positive changes and create value in society. A Schumpeterian social innovation framework is derived as the basis for re-analysing data from previous evaluations of LEADER policy in five different national contexts. This elicits a clearer understanding of social innovation in a rural development context, identifying different processes and outcomes that create social value. As the CLLD agenda and the demand for innovation in Europe gather pace, our aspirations are to inform future research and other initiatives on how to integrate social innovation into the design and evaluation of new rural development policies and programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]