Francesco Laruffa

Crises are moments of acute disruption in which – as political theory has long noted – the boundaries of what is politically desirable and possible collapse and become renegotiable. In these moment...

Democracy and sustainability—two fundamental normative orientations and self-identifiers of societies in what until recently was emphatically referred to as the “Western world”—appear to be in deep...

Social investment is one of the dominant approaches to welfare reform worldwide. Highlighting the positive contribution of social policy to the economy, social investment constitutes a valuable alternative to austerity. In this research note, we argue that—despite its merits—social investment is problematic from an ecological and global justice perspective, as it remains tied to the capitalist regime of overproduction and overconsumption that causes the transgression of planetary boundaries and the exploitation of the global South. Against this backdrop, we propose “sustainable welfare” as an alternative framework for social policy reform. Rejecting productivism, the sustainable welfare paradigm embraces a post‐capitalist socioeconomic system, which puts the care for people and planet center stage.

While ‘social investment’ is today one of the most influential approaches for framing welfare reform among social policy scholars, the concept of investment is not usually discussed in this literature. Filling this gap, Fred Block has recently proposed a new definition of investment, grounding it on the social investment approach to welfare reform and on feminist theories of social reproduction. Highlighting the economic value of caregiving and social policy, Block’s conceptualization has clear progressive implications. Yet this new definition is also problematic – especially once ecological limits and issues of global justice are considered – because it fails to question the purpose of production, that is, its social-ecological ‘utility’. Building on a critique of Block’s proposal, I offer an alternative conceptualization of investment. While I retain Block’s emphasis on social reproduction, I suggest looking at both social policies and the economy through the prism of care. In terms of spatial logics, this conception of investment rejects the paradigm of competitiveness that informs social investment – whereby states/regions/cities compete to attract mobile capital – for focusing on the improvement of habitation. I argue that this conceptualization – which demands a democratic debate on the purpose of investments, rather than letting (global) markets determine their value – is not only better suited to promote social-ecological justice but also more in line with Block’s own scientific and political aims.

The article advances debates on just transition by addressing both conceptual and practical dimensions of justice and development. It proposes an integrated evaluative framework that bridges justice and development perspectives, which are often treated separately in the literature. – Drawing on the capability approach, the framework links normative evaluation with participatory co-production, thereby supporting the design of more transformative just transition policies. Based on an extensive review of the literature, the article identifies seven dimensions of a comprehensive conception of social-ecological justice – distributive, epistemic, restorative, planetary, intergenerational, ecological, and procedural – and distinguish two ideal types of development – growth-driven development and social-ecological development. We argue that the extent to which the dimensions of justice are realised, both in number and degree, determines the scope and depth of shifts from growth-driven to social-ecological development and thereby shapes the transformative potential of just transition policies. The article applies this framework empirically through an evaluation of the International Labour Organisation’s approach to just transition. By grounding the analysis in a capability-based conception of justice and development, our framework positions co-production as central to processes of transformation that seek to be just. As part of this co-production process, the article calls for a more engaged and ethically grounded scholarship that contributes actively to the collective pursuit of just and sustainable futures.

This article highlights a central paradox of the current conjuncture: while capitalism is the root-cause of the current polycrisis, promoting social-ecological goals within this system possibly requires to reinforce some of its key features – and especially economization (i.e. the extension of profit-making logics to non-economic domains). In contemporary dominant strategies (policies for inclusive-green growth; ethical-political consumption; and Corporate Social Responsibility), solutions to social-ecological problems become investment objects that deliver growth and profits. While these strategies, if fully implemented, may potentially improve social-ecological outcomes, they would make the ideal of social-ecological justice more difficult to achieve. This problem of ‘non-linearity’ in social change generates an ‘unrealistic-pragmatism’ versus ‘necessary-utopianism’ dilemma for progressive forces: seemingly realistic strategies are actually unable to address the polycrisis whereas approaches discarded as utopian offer the only rational solution to it, namely abandoning the myth of endless growth and subordinating the economy to social-ecological needs.

Socioeconomics designates the interdisciplinary attempt to provide an alternative to mainstream economics, involving economic sociology, political economy, and heterodox economics. While Polanyi’s work largely informs this endeavor, his theory is also ambiguous, and scholars have interpreted it in opposing ways. The notion of the always-embedded economy is by now widely accepted, but this perspective potentially undermines the critique of (neoliberal) capitalism. In this article, I develop a coherent framework for socioeconomics built on three pillars. The first pillar affirms that the economy is always embedded in cultural, sociopolitical, and ecological frameworks. The second pillar asserts that the power over socioeconomic issues can be more or less privatized. The third pillar involves a commitment to a “real” democracy, whereby the economy is subordinated to social-ecological needs. This political ideal was not only Polanyi’s own vision: it is also central for contemporary societies—and socioeconomics itself can contribute to its realization.

Within the space of a few years, eco-social policies evolved from being endorsed by a marginal community of heterodox scholars to being established in mainstream circles. While this is a welcome development, it also raises questions among critical social policy scholars. How should an emancipatory eco-social policy look? Rather than specifying concrete policies, this article contributes to answering this question by discussing the relationship between eco-social policies and capitalism. The discourse of ‘sustainable welfare’ tends to problematise growth rather than capitalism, risking a technocratic co-optation by neoliberal elites. Recent attempts to provide empirically applicable ‘non-normative’ definitions of eco-social policies risk weakening the critical potential of sustainable welfare ideas, de-politicising global capitalism with its inherent inequalities and unsustainability. I argue that critical scholars should embrace a democratic, feminist, and anti-racist/anti-colonial eco-socialism as the normative horizon of eco-social policies; discuss challenges related to the realisation of this ideal; and propose an agenda for critical eco-social policy research.

In this article, we study the political project promoted by the European Commission (EC) for tackling simultaneously socioeconomic and environmental issues. Based on a detailed analysis of the most relevant EC policy documents (adopted between 2000 and 2020) that explicitly articulate ecological and socioeconomic questions, we offer two contributions to the literature on eco-social policy. First, we identify the nature of what we call the ‘European Eco-Social Model’. This political project subordinates social-ecological goals to the economic rationality of growth, competitiveness and profits and de-politicizes the efforts to promote more sustainable societies and economies. Second, we show how the Commission is repositioning itself as a global leader in the transformation to sustainability, attempting to extend its particular eco-social model to the whole world. Overall, we argue that this ‘model’ is based on self-contradictory assumptions and cannot demonstrate how it should be able to solve problems of social inequality and climate change on a global level.