Social Economy and Places in the Post-Pandemic Era

The COVID-19 crisis highlighted the prominent role of the places in which risk must be managed during quarantine and the places that will face changes in the near future. Local governance and institutions, as well as private actors such as businesses and the third sector, have played an important role in responding to the emergency and to addressing the post COVID-19 restart.

As a consequence of the current healthcare disaster, international, European and national institutions are approving the actions and tools they are using to deal with the expected dramatic effects on the economy. These policies implement interventions—mainly of an economic and financial nature—in support of local economies. Moreover, it is necessary to work on the "re-construction" of places and identify the actions and key drivers that can promote a place-based development strategy aimed at both core economic and social objectives.

The objective of this Special Issue is to identify the territorial experiences of social economies in the post-COVID-19 crisis response. This Special Issue aspires to stimulate an academic debate on the post-COVID 19 restart, and will contribute to the literature on local sustainable development in fragile areas.

In particular, we will also focus on the protection and enhancement of territorial resources, agri-food systems and local development, energy saving and local renewable energy supply chains. Perhaps even more than in previous crises, the severity of the situation makes social and economical changes possible, as well as institutional and technological ones, which, in ordinary times, would have been unthinkable or much slower.

In this sense, this Special Issue aims to provide an overview of the state-of-the-art strategies developed by scholars and territorial actors, institutions, businesses and communities to face the crisis in the direction of greater social and environmental justice.

Papers with a solid quantitative and qualitative scientific basis, case studies and best practices are welcomed. The key themes that might be explored focus on the following research questions:

• How are places facing the impoverishment caused by the COVID-19 crisis?
• What alliances and mobilizations have promoted their visions and proposals?
• How can we prevent the economic crisis from having a social inclusion and environmental justice impact?
• How can we reconcile the international and national addresses with attention paid to the diversity of territorial contexts?
• How can we consolidate and reestablish the confidence of the “public”?
• How can we recompose territorial relations and favor the development of fragile and marginal areas?

Dear Colleagues,

The shock produced by COVID-19 has exposed certain places’ institutional, social, economic and ecological vulnerabilities. At the same time, the pandemic has contributed to worsening territorial inequalities and the fragility of socio-economic systems. The consolidation of territorial disparities is one of the most significant risks, with social and economic impacts and political–institutional costs that could compromise the functioning of advanced democracies.

This Special Issue aims to analyse territorial experiences of social economy in response to  the COVID-19 crisis. The Special Issue focuses on new practices that may help to reduce inequalities and poverty, enhance social, natural, and economic capital, and boost the sustainable development process in various places.

Interest in the social economy has increased with the shift to place-based policies, the adoption of major territorial reforms and the decentralisation of competencies to regions over the past 50 years [1, 2]. Regional strategies may vary considerably across countries, but can be, in any case, expected to act as a factor of resilience; this concept is used to describe how an entity or system responds to shocks and disturbances [3]. The proposed perspective is placed in the framework of a civil economy [4], embedded into a place-based approach [5]. The civil economy approach seeks to find solutions to social problems within the market—while maximizing human values and minimizing government intervention—rather than trying to replace the market. It offers to communities, business and institutions a framework for a competitive market, yet one that is humane and socially accountable [6]. The place-based approach assumes that the geographical context matters; it is understood in terms of social, cultural and institutional characteristics.

The Special Issue "Social Economy and Places in the Post-Pandemic Era" invites you to submit proposals in the form of research articles, case studies and best practices. All submitted manuscripts should have a solid quantitative and qualitative scientific basis.

References

1. OECD 2020. Regional Strategies for the Social Economy: Examples from France, Spain, Sweden and Poland. OECD LEED Papers, 03, OECD Publishing, Paris.
2. Jordà Ò., S.R. Singh and A.M. Taylor. 2020. Longer-Run Economic Consequences of Pandemics. Working Paper 26934. National Bureau Of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA.
3. Martin R.L. and Sunley P.J. 2015. On the notion of regional economic resilience: conceptualization and explanation. Journal of Economic Geography 15 (1), 1-42. DOI:10.1093/jeg/lbu015.
4. Bruni L. and Zamagni S. 2017. Civil Economy Another Idea of the Market. Agenda Publishing, Columbia University Press.
5. Barca F., McCann P. and Rodriguez-Pose A. 2012. The Case For Regional Development Intervention: Place-Based Versus Place-Neutral Approaches. Journal of Regional Science, 52 (1), 134–152. DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9787.2011.00756.x.
6. Mastronardi L., Romagnoli L. 2020. Community-Based Cooperatives: A New Business Model for the Development of Italian Inner Areas, Sustainability, 12 (5), 2082; DOI:10.3390/su12052082.

Prof. Dr. Luigi Mastronardi
Dr. Aurora Cavallo
Dr. Luca Romagnoli
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• inequalities and poverty
• urban–rural relationship
• local food policies
• inner areas
• local communities resilience
• social enterprises
• place-based approach
• landscape and planning
• circular economy
• spatial econometrics