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Investigates, in Part 1, the effects of West German stagnation in the 1980s following on from the welfare state doctrine of the 1960s and 1970s, which led to an economic and social crisis becoming inevitable. Shows this is not purely a German problem but one that also affects almost all other capitalist countries – either developed or developing. Expresses irony that the former communist bloc countries should also be engulfed in such crises. Proffers explanations and recommendations to offset the problems in Germany. Part II looks at Israel and how it has begun to emerge from its 1974 austerity programme by Rabin. States that Israel must initiate a new system of stable equilibrium to open a new era that is very possible, but involves economic and social thinking to avoid previous mistakes.

Policy actors around the world are increasingly looking to the social economy – markets explicitly oriented towards meeting social needs, usually through the third sector – to underpin livelihoods and deliver welfare services. Once considered an adjunct to markets and states, and possibly even a residual, the social economy is being seen as a legitimate player in the plural economy, able to thrive through the effort of dedicated individuals and organisations committed to ethical entrepreneurship. The assumption is that future capitalism can accommodate, perhaps even requires as recession deepens, the energies of the social economy in making new markets and meeting welfare needs. While a body of research has emerged examining the economic characteristics of social enterprises and how they succeed or not in managing the interface between market and ethical priorities, little is known about what it is like to be involved in the social economy or about what different social actors gain from the experience. However, most academic and policy thinking assumes that engagement in the social economy is both rewarding and empowering. This paper aims to fill this gap.

This paper draws on sobering case evidence from Bristol relating to the experience of social entrepreneurs, employees and volunteers.

The critical question raised by this study is whether the role of the social economy should be that of returning the socially disadvantaged back into the formal economy. The evidence in this study tends to suggest that this expectation could be misguided and overly ambitious.

The paper offers insight into the backgrounds, motivations, experiences and futures of people involved in the social economy.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

There is still no universal definition of the third sector in Europe, but it can be seen as including all types of non-governmental not-for-profit entities such as non-profit organizations, mutuals, cooperatives, social enterprises and foundations. This article attempts to make sense of the current shifting conceptualization of the third sector in Europe. It is based on short country summaries of the images and concepts of the third sector in 13 European countries by EMES Network’s members, first presented in 2008 (Defourny and Pestoff, 2008; nine of them were recently revised and are found in the appendix to this article.). The perception and development of the third sector in Europe is closely related to the other major social governance institutions/mechanisms, like the market, state and community and through the third sector’s interaction with them. Moreover, many third sector organizations (TSOs) overlap with these other social institutions, resulting in varying degrees of hybridity and internal tensions experienced by them. TSOs can generate resources from their activities on the market, by providing services in partnership with the state and/or by promoting the interests of a given community or group. The country overviews document a growing professionalization of TSOs in most countries and a growing dependency of public funds to provide services. This has important theoretical and practical implications for orienting the articles included in this book. Thus, it can provide a key for better understanding the discussion and analysis in the remainder of this volume.

Gorbachev′s vision of democratic, decentralised and market‐oriented socialism has generated diverse and controversial perceptions in the Soviet Union. Gorbachev′s claim that the USSR is not retreating from socialism but advancing towards it, having dismantled the Stalinist Command model, is assessed.

To what extent Mikhail Gorbachev′s Glasnost and Perestroika anticipate the paradigm of a socialist market economy, is investigated. Gorbachev, like China′s Deng Xiaoping, realises that socio‐economic theories which abstract themselves from the observations and needs of daily life have little relevance. That is, a meaningful paradigm has to pay attention to society′s values, especially to the interrelationship of personal initiative, morality, law, government and public policy. Hence, Gorbachev advocates the establishment of more favourable socio‐economic conditions to lay the foundation for a “functional socialist social market economy”, however defined, in the Soviet Union.

The failings of the new experiment launched in the Soviet Union between 1985‐1990 under the formula of glasnost and perestroika, are outlined and explained. As an alternative, one which if successful may lead to an “economic miracle” even greater than that of the recovery of Germany and Japan after the Second World War, a programme for recovery and stabilisation of the Soviet economy and finances is formulated. There is a need for critical evaluation of both capitalism and socialism to correct their weaknesses by introducing a new social economic order – “liberal socialism”, if you use the terminology in the East; “social liberalism” in the West. This can be achieved only if certain conditions are met (conditions of equilibrium: monetary, banking, organised markets, and competition). Wide‐ranging reforms are advocated, including the passing of a Law of Social and Economic Justice in the privatisation of industry, artisanship and commerce; reforms of organised securities, commodities and foreign exchange markets; the establishment of the Federal Central Bank of the Soviet Union; agrarian reforms; and new legislation in communications, public administration and international balance of payments. The ultimate goal of the plan is the realisation of a social economy of free, just and stable markets.

In their well-known contribution to the “varieties of capitalism” debate, Peter Hall and David Soskice (2001, Ch. 1) highlight the distinction between a “coordinated market economy” as exemplified by Germany and a “liberal market economy” as exemplified by the United States. Under the heading, “Liberal Market Economies: The American Case”, Hall and Soskice (2001, p. 27), argue:Liberal market economies can secure levels of overall economic performance as high as those of coordinated market economies, but they do so quite differently. In LMEs, firms rely more heavily on market relations to resolve the coordination problems that firms in CMEs address more often via forms of non-market coordination that entail collaboration and strategic interaction. In each of the major spheres of firm endeavor, competitive markets are more robust and there is less institutional support for non-market forms of coordination.

The purpose of the article is to develop a new institutional approach to build the social market economy, which would allow balancing traditions and innovations, stability and technological progress in view of the specifics and priorities of the national economy, based on which regional models of social management will be built. The research study is performed to develop new institutional approach by the example of modern Russia by determining the institutional matrix of social management in economies of the regions that achieved the highest progress in formation of the social market economy.

The authors use the proprietary methodology of evaluating the level of sociality of state management in region's economy, which includes the estimate formula and the scale for qualitative treatment of the results. The research subjects are top ten regions of Russia listed in the quality of life index in the year 2019.

The authors determine the regression dependence of the sociality index of state management in region's economy on the selected factors and compile the equation of multiple linear regression, as well as determine the optimal influence of the factors on state management of region's economy for increasing its sociality to the maximum level possible.

The specifics of building the social market economy in Russia are determined. Based on the established national peculiarities of the social market economy in Russia, the institutional matrix of social management in the Russian regions' economy is developed and it allows for optimal balance of stability and sustainability with innovations and digitalization.

The unequal distribution of economic activities, transposed in economic, social and territorial disparities is the general characteristic of the European economy. Gaps increased in the context of European Union (EU) enlargement towards Eastern and Central Europe and of the economic crisis, thus bringing new differentiations among member states’ economies. The main aim of the chapter is to emphasise the centre-periphery differentiations in the European economy, by using a composite index of peripherality, in order to better understand the determinants of growth and convergence in Central and Eastern European countries and to reach normative conclusions for increasing Cohesion Policy (CP) effectiveness. The first part of the chapter provides a short overview of the main theories and models of the peripherality analysis and the relationships between the centre and the periphery, in order to find out how this analysis relates to the research in the field. The second part provides a comparative analysis of the evolution of European economies during 2003–2014, in order to find out whether the EU enlargement process stabilised the EU core-periphery pattern or, on the contrary, the process of core-periphery structural convergence occurred. The third part includes the suggested model of analysis (methodology, data, and main results) from a multidisciplinary perspective, underlining the centre-periphery differentiations on the two axes, North–South and West–East. The results have been interpreted in conclusions, with a focus on their relevance for the European CP challenges.