A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN EUROPE, USA AND JAPAN ON THE ROLE OF THE THIRD SECTOR IN THE POST-WELFARE STATES

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(1)In the last year of this project, we had tried to deepen our theoretical study on the social economy, social enterprises and social capital. Our project team had held meetings and discussed the theoretical framework about social enterprises to write the final report of this research project. The main theme of our discussion was whether the social enterprise will or not be able to play a key role of the social services in the welfare society.(2)We had made field studies of social enterprises and solidarity economies in the several countries for our comparative study.1)Some of our team members made field studies of social enterprises in Britain. The institutions and organizations they visited were Social Enterprise London, Social Enterprise Sunderland, Account Three (London) and etc. They did research voluntary and community organizations (VCOs) and intermediate organizations for supporting VCOs.2)On the other hand, some of our members did research of social enterprises, agricultural co-operatives and workers' co-operatives in Spain, especially Madrid and Mondragon. They also collected the material on the Spanish co-operative movement and social economy.3)A member of the project team attended the 3rd international meeting held in Dakar (Senegal) to exchange views about the solidarity economy. Many researchers participated in the meeting from North and South America, European countries.(3)The co-researchers wrote papers on the social economy, social enterprises and reported at some academic meetings(4)The head investigator wrote the book, the title of which is Social Enterprise and Regeneration of Communities. This book is one of the results of this research project.