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Can social investment empower social innovation? A comparative discourse analysis of UK and Scottish policy

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: Social investment can act as an empowering funding mechanism that could activate the economic agency of marginalised people while addressing their social needs. Nonetheless, political agendas might cause divergence in the achievement of social investment’s potential benefits. To develop our understanding in this area, this paper aims to extract discursive policy framings of social investment by comparing the UK and Scottish Government policies to identify the use of social investment and its implications on social innovation. Using corpus linguistic methods that allows for a framing analysis, the paper’s findings are twofold. Firstly, both the UK and Scottish Governments share similarities in the framing of social investment policy, especially in the proclivity towards the privatisation of social welfare delivery using market mechanisms. Secondly, the governments differ in their intensity of conviction for social investment which creates divergent implications for social innovation practice in the countries.

Source: Journal of Social Policy

DOI: 10.1017/s0047279424000102

Authors: Nadeen Purna, Lauren Tuckerman, Syahirah Abdul Rahman

Institutions: Oxford Brookes University, University of Glasgow

Language: English

Topic: Community Development and Social Impact

Subfield: Finance

Field: Economics, Econometrics and Finance

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,450