Tackling Social Exclusion in Europe

Roger Spear has been active in research on Co-operatives and Employee Owned Enterprises for many years. Studies have included a three year research project on co-operatives in the UK, a training pack for UK co-operatives and community businesses, a six country study of Worker Buyouts in Europe; a study of social co-ops in the UK; A comparative study of employee ownership in Netherlands and UK; a four country study of Social Audit in the social economy funded by DG23; a study of labour market integration in several European countries; a comparative study of social enterprises in Europe (EMES project FW4)). He is one of the co-ordinators of a major CIRIEC project on unemployment and the third system (funded by DG12). Jacques Defourny, University of Liège, Belgium, Louis Favreau, University of Quebec at Hull, Canada Jean-Louis Laville, CRIDA-LSCI, CNRS, Paris, France

• Contents: Introduction: Introduction to an international evaluation, Jacques Defourny, Louis Favreau and Jean-Louis Laville. Work Integration and the New Social Economy in Ten Industrialized Countries: Austria: recent employment initiatives within a strong tradition of public action, Peter Ulrich Lehner; Belgium: voluntary organizations and integration through work in Francophone Belgium, Jaques Defourny, Marthe Nyssens and Michel Simon; Canada: social mobilization, insertion and local development in Canada (Québec), Louis Favreau; Finland: voluntary organizations and co-operatives for socio-economic reintegration in Finland, Pekka Pattiniemi, Harri Kostilainen and Marianne Nylund; France: voluntary sector initiatives for work integration, Danièle Demoustier; Germany: work integration through employment and training companies in Berlin and its surrounding region, Karl Birkholzer and Gunther Lorenz; Italy: the impressive development of social co-operatives in Italy, Carlo Borzaga; Spain: a new social economy still inadequately known and recognized, Isabel Vidal; Sweden: co-operative development agencies as a means of bridging recent failures of the system, Yohanan Stryjan and Filip Wijkstrom; United Kingdom: labour market integration and employment creation, Roger Spear. Theoretical Issues: The specific role of non-profit organizations in the integration of disadvantaged people: insights from an economic analysis, Carlo Borzaga, Benedetto Gui and Fabrizio Povinelli; Third sector and social economy re-examined in the light of initiatives promoting insertion, Jean-Louis Laville; Legitimate orders of social participation and the logic of social change, Bernard Eme. Conclusion: New directions in a pluralist economy, Jacques Defourny, Louis Favreau and Jean-Louis Laville; Index.

’...interesting and important...it addresses issues that will become more important as the public sector retreats from welfare provision and employment regulations are continuously loosened.’ Labour and Industry