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In this chapter, we undertake a systematic analysis of the empowerment dimension of social innovation initiatives. The notions of social innovation and empowerment have a rather similar history. We provide a brief historical overview of the concept of empowerment and the diverse and competing meanings the concept has acquired over time. We then specify three dimensions of empowerment to analyse the empowering potential of social innovation: the bottom-up and top-down dynamics of empowerment, the relation between individual and collective forms of empowerment and the extent to which empowerment has an instrumental or expressive focus. In the analysed case studies of social innovation initiatives, we observe a pre-eminence of top-down empowerment, the dominance of individual empowerment dynamics and a predominant focus on instrumental forms of empowerment in social innovation initiatives, especially in the governance of labour market activation.

This chapter discusses the potential of social innovations as effective policies and actions to reduce poverty. Social innovations are driven by an unconventional mix of actors and apply multidimensional approaches to respond to social needs that are not adequately met by macro-level welfare policies. The chapter first gives a brief overview of the history of social innovation as an academic concept and an important concept in current European policies to combat poverty. It then turns to the implications of adopting a social innovation perspective for our understanding of poverty. We stress the multidimensional and relational character of poverty, highlight the importance of place-based developments and their multilevel governances, and point out the crucial role of participation and empowerment. Finally, we present preliminary lessons for anti-poverty strategies based on our extensive case-study analysis, stressing the important link to broader strategies to foster social cohesion, the value of bottom-linked approaches, and the importance of collective empowerment.

Il contributo analizza il ruolo dell’Innovazione Sociale nel campo delle Scienze Sociali e Umane. Una prima analisi storica fornisce una panoramica delle sue funzioni nella modernità e nelle politiche della Commissione Europea. La varietà di approcci può essere riportata su un continuum ai cui estremi si trovano modelli economici pratico-sociali e modelli orientati a trasformazioni politico-sociali. Lo spostamento dei finanziamenti verso il primo polo risulta problematico. Così come problematica è la poca attenzione rivolta al ruolo della politica e dell’azione collettiva e alle criticità insite nella scalabilità delle pratiche di IS. Da qui la necessità di sviluppare un’epistemologia maggiormente radicata nella società, con maggiore attenzione alla storia, alla sinergia tra micro e macro-teorie e a metodologie inter e transdisciplinari. This Policy Paper examines the role of Social Innovation in Social Sciences and Humanities. It provides a historical overview of the various meanings of SI in modern times and in European Commission policies. This variety can be visualised on a continuum at the extremes of which figure models oriented to practical-social changes and models oriented to political-social transformation. The recent shift of EC research funding towards the practical pole is problematic. The role of the political, politics and collective action and scalability of SI initiatives and practices deserve significantly more research and policy attention, the paper argues. It makes epistemological suggestions on how to reequilibrate the balance between foci and approaches in European SI research.

Der Einbruch des Wirtschaftswachstums in Lateinamerika angesichts der Krise von 2008/2009 war vergleichsweise gering. Mithilfe eines modifizierten regulationstheoretischen Zugangs und dependenztheoretischer Uberlegungen wird analysiert, warum die Krise hier nicht zu Finanzkrisen gefuhrt hat. Die rasche Erholung und das folgende kraftige Wachstum hangen wesentlich mit Anderungen der monetaren Regulation und den hohen Rohstoffpreisen zusammen. Auch die zum Teil binnenorientierten Entwicklungsstrategien und Industrialisierungsprozesse wirken stabilisierend.

This article aims at broadening the scope of global and regional social policy studies to include the ‘Global South’. A strategic-relational approach, based on a combination of the ASID framework with a historical-institutionalist approach to social and distributional policies, serves as point of departure. In the final section, the theoretical reflections are exemplified by an empirical case study of Brazil’s socioeconomic development and the recent evolution of conditional cash transfers (CCTs). It is argued that considering the normative project of radical reformist practice, ‘best practice’ prescriptions are to be critically reviewed, considering diverse discursive and institutional legacies.

Der vorliegende Beitrag beschaftigt sich mit der Frage, warum die vergleichsweise progressive Fiskal- und Sozialpolitik im Post-Apartheid-Sudafrika nicht zu einem deutlichen Ruckgang von Einkommensungleichheiten fuhrte: Den Berechnungen des Statistik-Amtes zu Folge, vergroserte sich der Gini-Koeffizient von 0,56 im Jahr 1995 uber 0,57 im Jahr 2000 bis auf 0,72 im Zeitraum 2005/2006. Auch innerhalb der verschiedenen „Rassen“ vergroserte sich – gemas dieser Berechnungen – die Einkommensungleichheit.

Bernhard Leubolt deals with the current development of social policy against the background of Brazil’s historically determined socio-economic structures. Social policy was shaped by each development phase. It began in the context of voluntary welfare services in the days of slavery, developed through the granting of the worker rights during the Estado Novo, and culminated with the comprehensive social rights that are guaranteed in the 1988 Constitution. Through the establishment of minimum standards of social security, the previously patrimonial State experienced a democratization process. Essentially, Lula and Rousseff continued with the social policies of Cardoso and focused on the poverty reduction and income transfer strategies, which, under Lula, became more successful.

The current crisis confirmed that highly financialized regimes of accumulation are extremely crisis-prone. Most of the literature on financialization is focused on the economies of the centre. This paper analyses the peculiarities of financialization in the periphery, which is characterized by a high degree of extraversion and/or by considerable socio-economic heterogeneity. The theory of regulation permits analysis of different forms of financialization and the social dynamics linked with them. In contrast to Keynesian approaches, the state, international organizations and social forces shaping norms and policies are an explicit part of the theory. This allows for looking at policy-making within the analysis. Such an analysis enables us to explain policy changes (or lack of them) that are crucial for the processes of financialization and de-financialization in the periphery.

This article aims at understanding local capabilities for empowerment, dealing with the potential for progressive political movements at the local level. Applying an analytical approach to urban governance that is sensitive to path, context and scale, this article discusses participatory governance in Porto Alegre, the capital city of Rio Grande do Sul, the most southern state of Brazil. Porto Alegre's participatory budget is an international best practice model of urban governance. In recent years it has been referred to as an exemplar of pro-poor participatory governance and has been adopted by many other cities and international organisations. In this article we give special emphasis to recent transformations which we characterise as a change from a radical democratisation project towards a model of consensual governance. The former conception – linked to the administration of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (1989–2004) – tended to be a project of social transformation where conflicts were dealt with openly and democratically and the local level was treated as a space of experimentation for political up-scaling projects. Its implementation led to remarkable social progress. The latter conception – implemented by the new mayor after 2005 – has stronger links to mainstream concepts of good governance, focusing on consensual arrangements and private–public partnerships.

This article focuses on the identification and role of social innovation in urban development. The aim is to further the understanding of the contradictory relationship between state and civil society, using a thorough analysis of the process of participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre, the capital city of Rio Grande do Sul—the most southern state of Brazil. The first section spells out four different concepts of the relationship between state and civil society and their implications for social innovation. In the second section, these popular movements are shown to be embedded in the historically rooted structure of patrimonialism and capitalism in Brazil. The third section provides an historical analysis of Brazilian popular movements which represent new key actors in civil society. The fourth section offers a detailed description of the process of the participatory budget. In the final section, conclusions are drawn about social innovation in local politics, focusing on the empowering experiments with new public and democratic forms of the local state accessible to civil society and its interests.

Um der eingangs gestellten Frage nach den Moglichkeiten und Grenzen sozialer Reformpolitik in der globalen Semi-Peripherie nachzugehen, soll die oftmals sehr stark „schwarz – weis“ polarisierte Debatte zwischen KritikerInnen und BefurworterInnen der Regierungen durch „Grautone“ und „Schattierungen“ erganzt werden. Der vergleichende Charakter soll dazu ebenso beitragen wie ihre historische Fundierung und Sensitivitat fur Moglichkeiten und Grenzen gesellschaftlicher Veranderung.

Im Anschluss werden Ungleichheitstheorien diskutiert, um die soziale Konstruktion gesellschaftlicher Ungleichheit besser nachvollziehen zu konnen. In Abgrenzung von der meritokratischen Ideologie wird davon ausgegangen, dass Strukturen existieren, die die Reproduktion von Ungleichheiten erleichtern. Diese Strukturen zeigen differenzierte Auswirkungen auf unterschiedliche Personengruppen, die eingangs kurz skizziert werden. Auf dieser Grundlage wird dann auf unterschiedliche Mechanismen der (Re-)Produktion von Ungleichheiten eingegangen, um daran anschliesend mogliche Gegenmittel zu skizzieren.

Wie schon anfangs angekundigt, wird Sudafrika in dieser Arbeit weniger intensiv behandelt als Brasilien. Ein wichtiger Grund fur diese differenzierte Behandlung ist die unterschiedliche Verfugbarkeit von Literatur und Informationen. Wahrend die wichtigsten Werke und Informationsquellen zu Brasilien auf Portugiesisch veroffentlicht wurden, sind die Quellen zu Sudafrika weitgehend auf Englisch verfugbar. Neben der dadurch erleichterten sprachlichen Verfugbarkeit ist die Literatur auch inhaltlich naher an der hier verfolgten Fragestellung als die brasilianische Standardliteratur. Daher kann intensiver auf bestehende Werke zuruckgegriffen werden, die eingangs beschrieben werden, um die Nachvollziehbarkeit zu verbessern.

In die nun folgende Betrachtung der Entwicklung des brasilianischen Ungleichheitsregimes konnen umfangreiche Vorarbeiten mit einfliesen (Becker et al. 2010; Fischer und Leubolt 2012; Leubolt 2004, 2007b, 2008, 2009b, 2009a, 2009c, 2011; Leubolt und Auinger 2011; Leubolt und Tittor 2008, 2009), die nun im Hinblick auf die vorliegende Fragestellung adaptiert werden. Um strukturelle Grenzen und Moglichkeiten berucksichtigen zu konnen, wird eine historische Analyse durchgefuhrt.

Der vorliegende Beitrag geht der Frage nach, welche Auswirkungen Reprimarisierung und der Umgang mit ihr auf die Verfolgung von Entwicklungsstrategien haben. Überdies wird analysiert, inwieweit Strategien regionaler Integration und Kooperation vor dem Hintergrund subregionaler Asymmetrien mit der Rohstoffexportorientierung in Zusammenhang stehen bzw. andere Entwicklungsstrategien begünstigen können. Als theoretische Basis dient die Regulationstheorie, die mit politökonomische Theorien nachholder Industrialisierung sowie zur Rolle des Geldes/Finanzialisierung und der geopolitischen Dimensionen der Rohstoffe ergänzt wird. Darauf aufbauend werden Brasilien, Venezuela und Chile als Fallbeispiele dargestellt, die unterschiedliche Strategien der Reprimarisierung verfolgen: (1) Brasilien setzt auf Agrobusiness als Teil einer Strategie der entwicklungsstaatlichen Industrialisierung, (2) Venezuela hingegen auf Erdölexporte mit partieller Sozialisierung der Erdölrente. Beide Staaten suchen nach politischen Lösungsansätzen jenseits des Neoliberalismus. (3) Chile wird dazu kontrastierend als stärker wirtschaftsliberal orientiertes Land mit traditionell dominantem Kupfersektor gewählt. Es wird argumentiert, dass trotz Reprimarisierung der Exportstruktur wesentliche Unterschiede in den Entwicklungsstrategien auszumachen sind. Diese sind vor dem Hintergrund nationaler politökonomischer Prozesse sowie im Kontext regionaler Interaktionsmuster zu verstehen.

This paper is concerned with the spatial and institutional conditions under which localized forms of social innovation can complement and strengthen existing institutionalized welfare programs and schemes. It aims to identify relevant concepts to analytically frame socially innovative policies within the changing institutional context of welfare state policies. In order to do so, we explore several complementary bodies of literature: the literature on welfare state models and welfare mix and the literature on multi-level governance and state rescaling. The paper starts with a brief account of the emergence, evolution and classification of the European welfare states and then goes on to problematize two aspects of contemporary thinking about the welfare state in its various forms, namely methodological nationalism and state-centrism. It does so by analysing the Europeanisation of social policy, the localization of the welfare state and the changing welfare mix. The main part of the paper addresses these two shortcomings. Methodological nationalism is addressed through the literature on state spatial restructuring and multi-level governance, while state-centrism is challenged by discussing the literature on welfare mix and by unpacking the concept of governance in its multiple dimensions. At the end of this part we list the main insights and concepts derived from the literature on state rescaling and multi-level governance that help to shed light on the relationship between local social innovation and the welfare state. In the conclusion to this paper, we connect all this to social innovation and explore how variations in territorial organisation, mode of governance and welfare regimes could correspond to variations in the openness to and capacity of social innovation.

This paper surveys the literature on localized socially innovative policies and actions aimed at overcoming poverty and social exclusion. The authors show how these local forms of social innovation emerged in the late 1970s against the backdrop of the crisis and transformation of the Western welfare state, the emergence of new social risks and the transition from the Fordist to the knowledge based economy. The paper aims to learn about new or older but as yet too often overlooked poverty and social exclusion dynamics from the locally embedded and collective responses to it by civil society associations, local state institutions and/or social entrepreneurs. The paper first develops a definition of social innovation as it applies to the fight against poverty and social exclusion. In a second part the authors put social innovation in its historical context by discussing three different strands of social innovation research and practice, namely: (1) social innovation as a critique of the territorial innovation model underlying the knowledge-based economy; (2) social innovation as a critique on the bureaucratic nature of the welfare state; and (3) socially innovative forms of neighbourhood development as a response to the urban crisis. The third section of the paper then zooms in on the process dimensions of social innovation for each of the three strands discussed in the second part. The authors propose the metaphor of ‘the elephant and the butterfly’ to think through the relationship between localized forms of socially innovative actions and initiatives on the one hand and the macro-level institutions of the welfare state and dialectical interplay between state institutions and civil society associations on the other. The paper concludes with a preliminary list of social needs, trends in poverty and the reconfiguration of welfare institutions and policies that are revealed by place-based socially innovative practices.

Dieser Beitrag behandelt die aktuelle Entwicklung der Sozialpolitik Brasiliens im Kontext ihrer Einbettung in der historischen sozio-okonomischen Entwicklung. Unter Bezugnahme auf das Konzept des distributional regime (Seekings & Nattrass 2005) wird auf staatliche Interventionen fokussiert, die in Produktion und Reproduktion eingreifen und sich somit auf die materiellen Lebensverhaltnisse auswirken. Dazu zahlen neben der Regulierung der Arbeitsbeziehungen, insbesondere des Arbeitsschutzes, der Aufbau von (Ver-)Sicherungssystemen sowie die Bereitstellung von Gesundheitsversorgung, Bildungseinrichtungen etc. auch beispielsweise die Subventionierung von Grundnahrungsmitteln und Heizmaterial sowie Agrarreformen.

The transformation of the Brazilian state during the presidency of Lula (2003-2010) will be dealt with in historical perspective. First, the theoretical background will be elaborated: Theories based on Max Weber will be employed to highlight institutional factors, while approaches of political economy will introduce questions of societal power relations. Specifics of semi-peripheral statehood will be demonstrated by approaches inspired by dependency theory. On this basis, Brazilian historical legacies will be identified: slavery and patrimonialism in an externally dependent state, which was conservatively modernized in the wake of import substituting industrialization during the 20th century into a 'developmental state'. After a short liberal intermezzo during the 1990s, the Lula administration has readopted the developmentalist approach. In contrast to the 'developmental state' of the 20th century, stronger republican and socially inclusive tendencies prevail now.