For years, 29 Nordic authors have scrutinised this subject and compiled the most thorough Nordic contribution, offering a collaborative history, a welfare-state and research overview, a conceptual and theoretical framework, and empirical cases. The new book “The Collaborative Turn in the Nordic Welfare States. Critical Perspectives on Co-production in Policies, Civil Society, and Institutional Changes“, edited by Linda Lundgaard Andersen, Bernard Enjolras, Ari Niemenen and Johan Vamstad, offers a critical examination of the collaborative turn unfolding across the Nordic welfare states. Focusing on co-production—partnerships between citizens, public authorities, and civil society—the volume explores how this approach is reshaping policies, institutional arrangements, and the role of civil society in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark.

While co-production is increasingly promoted as a solution to persistent challenges—such as policy complexity, democratic deficits, and fiscal pressures—the Nordic experience reveals important variations in its scope, forms, and implications. Is this shift a genuine transformation of the welfare state, or an adaptive strategy cloaked in collaborative rhetoric? Drawing on comparative perspectives, the book highlights how Nordic traditions of universalism, egalitarianism, and strong public institutions create distinct conditions for collaboration—conditions that differ markedly from those in liberal or residual welfare regimes where co-production theories have largely been developed. In doing so, it challenges dominant frameworks and argues for a reconceptualization of co-production through a Nordic perspective.

According to co-editor Linda Lundgaard Andersen, long-standing member and currently in the Board of Directors of EMES:

“The themes explored in The Collaborative Turn in the Nordic Welfare States speak directly to core EMES research concerns: the role of civil society, hybrid organisational forms, and the evolving relationship between citizens and public institutions and social change. The book’s empirical cases—from Danish parent-led disability initiatives to Finnish rural social enterprises—mirror the grassroots, community-embedded practices EMES has documented for more than two decades.”

The volume’s emphasis on co-production as institutional transformation aligns with EMES’ long-standing interest in how social enterprises and civil society organisations act as democratic innovators, not merely service providers. The Nordic examples show how co-production can strengthen local welfare ecosystems, build social capital, and create new governance arrangements—themes central to EMES’ comparative research on third sector organisations and social innovation.

Moreover, the book contributes to EMES debates on hybridisation, showing how Nordic organisations navigate the intersections of public mandates, volunteer engagement, professional expertise, and marketisation. The analysis of shifting professional roles, collaborative governance, and bottom‑up experimentation resonates strongly with EMES’ conceptual frameworks on participatory governance and community-based welfare solutions.

In short, the collaborative turn documented in this volume offers fresh empirical and theoretical insights highly relevant to EMES scholars studying social enterprise, civil society, and the future of welfare systems.

Good read and looking forward to hearing more about the reception and debates around this volume!