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This paper serves as an introduction to a special issue that discusses the role of civil society in the labour market integration of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in six European countries: the Czech Republic, Finland, Greece, Italy, Switzerland and the UK. The paper presents a typology of civil society's involvement in migrant labour integration—a policy-contested field—based on the relationship between non-profit and public sector organisations. Such ideal-type models are traditional public administration delivery, co-management, co-production with a partial or non-existent role for public sector organisations, and full co-production. In the six countries covered by the special issue, the existing relationship between the public sector and the civil society sector is affected by the specific social, cultural and economic contexts that underpin both their labour markets and welfare states. Although one model predominates in each of the six countries, in different ways and with different mechanisms, in all of them there is a trend towards the development of coproduction whereby the state plays either a central or a residual role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature in the field of employability and the third sector has focused upon the impact of marketisation on third sector providers, elaborating how commissioning processes have led to a contraction of (smaller) third sector organisations (TSOs) and an expansion of larger private sector bodies. Extant research does not however explore the role of third sector organisations in the employability of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. Therefore, our paper explores this gap by adopting a qualitative approach via a total of 36 interviews involving migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and managers of third sector organisations, alongside a categorisation of TSOs. Our findings reveal that TSOs are the primary (and for asylum seekers perhaps the only) providers of integration support services and training or education services. We found that only a limited number of organisations provide formal employability services or skills development services which seem to be only residual in terms of the range of activities that TSOs can organise. Thus, perhaps the main function that TSOs perform that enables integration into the UK labour market is providing a safe and trusted environment that people can use to increase their confidence, improve their well-being, broaden their social circle, learn the language or increase their work experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper serves as an introduction to a special issue discussing social enterprises historical development and functions against welfare regimes across six European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Scotland, Serbia). While discussing convergences and diversities among them, the introduction proposes a comparative analytical framework for understanding social enterprises and welfare state as contingent phenomena developed at different point in time, within a broader political-institutional framework regulating states-peoples' relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food security and food waste are unanimously recognised as relevant issues affecting the whole society and should be therefore acknowledged as a priority on the public agenda. Nonetheless, in many countries the third sector stands in for public actors and operates to tackle both these issues. This paper explores the role of public and third sector in tackling food poverty and food waste, particularly analysing the role of the non-profit organisations involved in the food recovery and redistribution processes in two European regions: Lombardy (Italy) and Baden-Württemberg (Germany). By comparing the two different policy framework and the organisations' actions, the study recognises the ability of the non-profit sector to create new relationships among different actors (private for-profit, private non-profit as well as public actors) while answering various unmet needs. The paper draws on a mix of secondary and primary data including observations and interviews in the two regions carried out in 2014 and focuses on two relevant case studies (the 'Associazione Banco Alimentare' and the 'Tafel'). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]