Yuri KAZEPOV (University of Vienna)

 

Yuri Kazepov, Mart 2015’ten bu yana Viyana Üniversitesi’nde (Avusturya) Uluslararası Kentsel Sosyoloji ve Karşılaştırmalı Refah Sistemleri profesörüdür. Avrupa Üniversitesi Enstitüsü’nde Forum Jean Monet Üyesi (1995-96); Bremen, Lund, Växjö, Leuven ve ARC üniversitelerinde misafir öğretim üyesi ve New York City Üniversitesi Mezuniyet Merkezi’nin de seçkin üyelerindendir. Avrupa Sosyal Politika Analizi Ağı’nın (ESPAnet) kurucu üyesi ve Uluslararası Sosyoloji Derneği’nin Kentsel ve Bölgesel Gelişimi Araştırma Komitesi RC21’in eski başkanıdır.

İlgi alanları çok düzeyli yönetişim, vatandaşlık ve kentsel yaşam kalitesi, karşılaştırmalı perspektifte sosyal politikalar ve politikaların bölgesel boyutudur. Avrupa Komisyonu için bu konularda kapsamlı karşılaştırmalı araştırma ve değerlendirme faaliyetleri yürütmektedir. Mevcut projeleri arasında, Horizon 2020 içinde finanse edilen Young AduLLLt ve COHSMO; Geçiş Sürecinde Viyana: Avrupa Kentinde Kentsel Değişimin Sürek(siz)liliği; Düşük Karbonlu bir Topluma Dönüşümde İklim ve Sosyal Konut Politikalarını Dengelemek: Avusturya için Entegre Politika Karışımları Tasarlamak projeleri yer almaktadır.

 

Son yayınlarından bazıları:

Avrupa Şehirleri (2005)

Değişen Bağlamlar, Yerel Düzenlemeler ve Sosyal Uyum Konusundaki Zorluk, Blackwell (ed.), (2010)

Avrupa’daki Çok Düzeyli Yönetişime Yönelik Sosyal Politikaları Yeniden Ölçeklendirme, Ashgate (ed.); (2018)

Geçiş Sürecinde Kapitalizm. Küresel Değişimler ve Yerel Zorluklar (A. Andreotti ve D. Banessi ed.) Manchester University Press.

 

"The multi-scalar struggle of local social policy innovation"

 

Yuri Kazepov (University of Vienna)

 

The local dimension of social policies gains momentum. The slow shift towards in-kind services and decentralisation trends make cities an important actor. Also social innovation in welfare policies has been understood predominantly as a local phenomenon by most of the scholars investigating it. The emphasis on the local as the locus and on bottom-up dynamics as the modus of social innovation, however, entails manifold risks. The idea that all social needs are better met at the local level is overstated as is the potential of local agency in addressing structural global processes of social exclusion. The same is true for the assumption that other (higher) spatial, institutional and political levels are hostile to social innovation. In other words, there is the risk of falling into “the localist trap”, that is the a priori assumption that the local scale is preferable to larger scales. Escaping the local trap means problematizing social policy innovation as a solely bottom-up practice, to embrace a more comprehensive and relational approach on how it actually moves between and across scales, depending on the strategies it adopts and on the institutional scalar arrangements framing its development. This does not mean that the local does not play a relevant and special role. Many initiatives are indeed ‘bottom-linked’ and the ‘local’ is the level where all other levels conflate. My endeavour at addressing social innovation within social policies through the lenses of multi-scalarity is organised as follows. In the first section of the presentation, I will introduce the concept of scale in relation to social policy innovation, and will provide a description of the rescaling processes involving social policies in Europe and their implications for social innovation. The second section will present empirical findings from the analysis of the case studies of the ImPRovE project. Here I will identify which scales are mainly involved in social innovation and how opportunities and constraints are distributed among those scales. Then, I will propose a typology of social innovation aimed at overcoming the narrow conceptualisation of social innovation as solely a bottom-up practice, by looking at the strategies that socially innovative initiatives adopt in order to establish connections between and across scales. Finally, in the conclusions I will identify the potential avenues for further research to better disentangle the "multi-scalar puzzle" of social innovation.

 

Yuri Kazepov is professor of International Urban Sociology and Compared Welfare Systems at the University of Vienna (Austria) from March 2015. He has been Forum Jean Monet Fellow at the European University Institute (1995-96) and visiting professor at the University of Bremen, Lund, Växjö, Leuven and ARC distinguished fellow at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is a founding member of the Network for European Social Policy Analysis (ESPAnet) and a past president of RC21, the Research Committee on Urban and Regional development of the International Sociological Association. His fields of interest are multilevel-governance, citizenship and urban quality of life, social policies in comparative perspective and the territorial dimension of policies. On these issues he has been carrying out extensive comparative research and evaluation activities for the European Commission. Among his current projects we have Young AduLLLt and COHSMO both funded within the Horizon 2020; Vienna in Transition: (dis)continuities in Urban change in a European city (FWF) and Balancing climate and social housing policies in the transformation to a low carbon society: Designing integrated policy mixes for Austria (BALANCE). Among his publications, we have (2005) Cities of Europe. Changing contexts, local arrangements and the challenge to social cohesion, Blackwell (ed.), (2010) Rescaling social policies towards multilevel governance in Europe, Ashgate (ed.); (2018) Capitalism in Transition. Global changes local challenges (editor with A. Andreotti and D. Benassi) Manchester University Press.