Borderwork: Finnish-Russian co-operation and civil society engagement in the social economy of transformation

Abstract

This paper presents results from research projects that have investigated networks of civil society organizations (CSOs) between EU member states and neighbouring countries. The focus here is on Finnish-Russian civil society co-operation in the areas of social welfare provision as well as regional and economic development. One major objective in this conjunction is to assess the contribution of this cross-border co-operation to the development of Russia's social economy as well as to discuss the various obstacles that civil society actors face in developing co-operative projects. As such, organizational, social and technical issues are important areas to be addressed. However, civil society co-operation is not a mere technical issue; understanding of the social embeddedness of civil society are also necessary in order to promote social welfare agendas. The concluding section will reflect on experiences of CSO co-operation with regard to capacity-building processes of social learning and future prospects for social enterprise.

Keywords:

• Russian civil society
• social economy
• cross-border co-operation
• Finnish-Russian co-operation
• social entrepreneurship
• post-Soviet transformation

Notes

1. Reference is made here to the HYRMY project (Welfare, Borders and Changing Communities) funded by the University of Eastern Finland and the international research project EUDIMENSIONS: Local Dimensions of a Wider European Neighbourhood: Developing Political Community Through Practices and Discourses of Cross-Border Co-Operation (contract: CIT-CT-2005-028804), financed by the European Union's Sixth Framework Programme for Research (see: www.eudimensions.eu).

2. The concept of social entrepreneurship suggests the emergence of a new ‘entrepreneurial spirit focused on social aims” (Borzaga and Defourny 2001, 2) and that eschews personal profit motives as a basis for conducting business. The OECD (1999, 10) defines social enterprise as ‘any private activity conducted in the public interest, organized with an entrepreneurial strategy but whose main purpose is not the maximization of profit but the attainment of certain economic and social goals, and which has a capacity for bringing innovative solutions to the problems of social exclusion and unemployment’.

3. One extreme view is that of Boettke and Rathbone (2002) who argue the incompatibility of social entrepreneurship and state policies of aid provision. At the core of this argument is an inherent confrontation between. a coercive state and a largely self-organising social sphere.

4. See the website of the Euroregio Karelia: http://www.euregiokarelia.fi/EN/

5. In addition to the projects mentioned in footnote 1 (funded by the EU and the University of Eastern Finland), research into social welfare co-operation has been supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Karelia (Russian), Petrozavodsk State University (Russia), the National Institute for Health and Welfare (Finland), and the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

6. In 2008, 95 percent of the neighbouring area co-operation funds was allocated to projects carried out in Russia.

7. According to experts these official statistics should be increased 10 or even 25 times

8. Microfinance Centre: http://www.rmcenter.ru/en/news/detail.php?ID=3302. Fund ‘Our Future’: http://www.nb-fund.ru/missionseng