The book focuses on some key aspects of social capital in the context of civic participation, governance and civil society at both national and European Union (EU) levels. The role of new EU members is particularly stressed. The texts demonstrate how social capital in the form of cooperative norms and actions facilitates the self-organisation of civil society and its internal ability to articulate policy relevant alternative proposals. The efficiency and responsiveness of governance at different local, national, and transnational levels are also addressed. Besides theoretical...

This book provides a critical re-examination of the Innovation Union Scoreboard (IUS) as the main tool used by the European Commission and other policy-making bodies to measure national innovation capacity. Given that contemporary societies and economies are to a great extent characterised by the processes of production, dissemination and application (re-combination) of knowledge, the accurate monitoring and measurement of R&D efficiency and innovation performance on national, regional and firm level are of outmost importance. The contextual reconstruction of the model of indicators used by...