ABSTRACT
The concepts of democratic innovations share much with those of social enterprise, social innovation and co-production. Evidence of greater client and staff influence stems from social enterprises providing childcare in Sweden. It concludes that governments need to develop more flexible, service-specific and organizational-specific approaches for renewing public services that promote social enterprise, social innovation and co-production, rather than looking for simple one size fits all' solutions to the challenges facing public service delivery. The academic debate on social enterprise, particularly in Europe, emphasises the importance of several different aspects or dimensions. The public debate about social enterprise and social entrepreneurship suffers from a mix of the vagaries of two contrary tendencies. The terms social entrepreneurship and social enterprise are sometimes used interchangeably, but they should nevertheless be distinguished from each other. Social innovation is an ambiguous term, with many and often contending definitions.
