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The opening chapter identifies and explains the key theoretical, conceptual, and methodological issues explored in the research. In particular, the ‘governance’ and European dimensions of public policy efforts to combat poverty and social exclusion are brought into focus. Specific attention is paid to the contribution of ‘institutionalist’ perspectives on governance and a connection is drawn between ‘discursive institutionalism’ and past analyses that have explored multiple and overlapping social exclusion discourses. It is suggested that EU policy coordination efforts are framed by competing policy frames and articulated through a range of policy discourses, which combine to produce a plurality of policy paradigms that are institutionalized within and across the governance architecture of policy coordination. Although law is decentred from this picture, this new governance architecture remains of concern to scholars of EU law.

Social scientists generally explain political behavior through interest-based explanations. In this perspective, actors are said to behave the way they do because it is in their interests to do so. This chapter argues that behavior is influenced both by material interests as well as the ideas actors hold about how to best realize their interests. Such ideas include policy paradigms, which represent the conventional wisdom in a given policy area. As policy paradigms for engaging with Chicago’s economically distressed areas changed over the course of the twentieth century, the political behavior of actors shifted to conform with the conventional wisdom of the time.

This chapter traces the different approaches to social policy as they have developed over time, starting with the early origins of the social investment perspective in the ‘productive social policy’ approach put forward in Sweden in the 1930s, before turning to a brief analysis of the Keynesian and neo-liberal eras of social policy. It suggests that the social investment perspective may represent a new, emerging social and economic policy paradigm which is based on a new understanding of social policy as a productive factor. The chapter then reviews the different critiques which have been levelled at the social investment perspective, and suggests that these critiques may be linked in part to some of the tensions and ambiguities embedded in the social investment perspective, which can be related to the different intellectual sources behind it. Finally, it presents the aims and focus of the book, which are to assess the achievements, shortcomings and potentials of social investment policies; to question whether the ‘social investment’ strategy is able to regenerate the welfare state, promote social inclusion, create more and better jobs; and helps address the challenges posed by the economic crisis, globalisation, ageing and climate change.

The rise of social innovation as a paradigm for social intervention is part of the ongoing restructuring process of post-war European welfare systems’. The chapter analyses this transformation focusing on how social innovation relates to other, more institutionalised paradigms of social intervention, namely social protection and social investment. The three paradigms’ main characteristics are represented through a metaphor using animals and their characteristics in order to exemplify their specificities. Elephants, representing the social protection paradigm as awkward, but solid and based on reciprocity and solidarity in the herd. Butterflies, representing the social innovation paradigm as flexible and creative, but fragile and unstable. Lions, representing the social investment paradigm as assertive, active in the preservation of their own status in a competitive context. The conditions within which these paradigms have developed, the institutions involved and their aims and functions are studied through a literature review. Then, the relations among them are investigated through the analysis of 31 case studies on innovation in welfare policies targeted to poverty and social exclusion conducted in the European Countries. The conclusions provide some reflections on the paradigms´ prospects by gaining an understanding of how their different combinations impact on their capacity to reduce poverty and social exclusion.

This chapter concludes that, with few exceptions, European welfare states have not really implemented a social investment perspective. The Nordic countries come closest to embracing the social investment paradigm, while a few other countries (notably the Netherlands and the UK) have made partial moves in the social investment direction, but along quite different lines. Indeed, one can identify two main ways of implementing a social investment strategy: one that combines traditional social protection with social investment; and another which tends to substitute traditional compensatory spending with investments in human capital. However, the chapter argues, based on the conclusions of the different contributions to this edited volume, only comprehensive and well-designed social investment policies that emphasise and promote both equality and quality perform well. Finally, the chapter argues that in order to become a fully fledged new social policy paradigm, this perspective needs to distinguish more clearly its ideas from the previous neoliberal paradigm and to be associated to a new economic thinking (sustainable growth), as well as supported by new political coalitions (including current outsiders).

This chapter argues that the dual city policy paradigm has become well entrenched, significantly more so than either of its predecessors in twentieth-century Chicago -- privatism and the public-private partnership of urban renewal. Prospects for change depend to a large extent on whether this paradigm continues to deliver benefits to the powerful and the privileged, how well its contradictions can be managed, and the presence or absence of alternative policy ideas that those disadvantaged by the dual city might rally around.

Chapter 2 reviews the rhetorical approaches that have been used in the study of the technology and innovation policy language and paradigms. Specifically, it analyses the nature of the policy buzzwords that have been developed interactively in research and policymaking. The concepts that have been used to make sense of these buzzwords, such as boundary concept, social representation, economic imaginary, transdiscursive term, and diagnosis of the age (Zeitdiagnose) are discussed. The key role of the OECD as a central transnational institutional link between innovation research and policymaking is examined. The rhetorical features of the major OECD documents on National Innovation System are analysed. They include anonymity, absence of alternative views and self-referentiality.

The final chapter concludes with five contemporary ‘uses’ of social investment, in full recognition of limits underscored by critics. The first ‘use’ of social investment therefore concerns its ‘paradigmatic’ bearings. To what extent does social investment represent a distinct policy paradigm for twenty-first-century welfare capitalism? A second ‘use’ relates to paradigm change, in the sense of theoretical progress inspiring interdisciplinary methodological innovation, in particular with respect to the empirical assessment of well-being ‘returns’ on social investment. The third more practical ‘use’ covers the identification of virtuous social investment policy mixes of ‘stocks’, ‘flows’, and ‘buffers’. The fourth ‘use’ is geographically confined to the European conundrum of overcoming the fiscal austerity to make way for social investment reform, as means to reignite socioeconomic convergence, at least for the Eurozone. The more general final use of social investment bears on the ‘politics of social investment’ in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

The effect of a membership policy, such as the Overseas Citizenship of India, is not only the effect of a certain legal position, of legal benefits and of status passages. Communication by India about the existence of the status and the process of its adoption per se, matter to a significant extent. The discussion on the good-will effect provides insights on how institutional configurations, policy philosophies, and paradigms affect the diaspora’s national incorporation. This effect is grounded in the fact that because of the communication by India, Indian diasporic actors feel that they are officially valued and that their contributions to India are appreciated. The good-will effect strengthens confidence and trust by diasporic actors in the Indian political system, which in turn enhances economic and other engagement by facilitating cooperation.

Technocracy is discussed as a distinct type of regime and form of statecraft. The chapter clears up the considerable confusion surrounding the relationship between technocracy, bureaucracy and democracy, which provides the foundation for the empirical analysis of the anti-bureaucratic and pro-democratic nature of contemporary technocracy. The relationship of technocracy to political ideology is discussed, leading to the suggestion that technocracy consistently pursues a position ‘beyond ideology’ while also remaining fully capable of working in lockstep with socialism, liberalism and anything in between. Finally, the chapter moves from the regime level and provides an overall model of the constitutive and intersecting policy paradigms of the New Technocracy: connective governance, risk management and performance management.