Demos-Ethos: a framework to study the Icelandic and Basque cases through Critical Social Innovation and Applied Ethics

This article presents a framework informed by two disciplines, Social Innovation and Applied Ethics, to be used in an ongoing analysis of territorial democratic systems. It aims to combine Social Innovation and Applied Ethics analysis to better understand the socio-political regeneration process in Iceland initiated with the 2008 global crisis. This crisis, particularly in Iceland had an economic and political aspect affecting the self-understanding of the territories as a whole, but in the Basque Country at present, it also deals with the current peace process to settle down political violence and its causes. In both cases there are deep underlying value issues. Nevertheless, this article introduces only the results obtained in Iceland. While its democratic system has proven to be able to contest the causes of the crisis, there is no definitive evidence that the re-examination process that was opened in October 2008 is resolved yet.