Social innovation and metagovernance of welfare policies

Abstract

The birth of welfare states in Europe was accompanied by the adoption of governance models typical of public planning. The crisis of welfare state and the development of welfare mix have evidenced the difficult to govern the complexity of new welfare systems. The co-presence of multiple actors with different organizational cultures and identities has drawn attention to the criticalities affecting the hierarchical approach and has given rise to the development of different forms of co-regulation involving the co-presence of approaches considered as alternatives to each other such as hierarchy, competition, and co-operation. In Europe have been developed some new governance hybrid approaches. The Scottish Community Strategic Planning is an interesting example of this social innovation of local governance practices.