Abstract
The article argues that closer attention to how solidarity is understood and expressed in different European contexts can shed light on the conditions for establishing a social and solidarity economy. Drawing on data collected within the H2020 SOLIDUS project, which explores current expressions of European solidarity, the comparative analysis covers three social economy initiatives, each representing a country with different political and economic context. The analysis focuses on solidarity as reciprocity and, in particular, how it is affected by such factors as actor motivations, internal participatory functioning, resource mix and political legitimacy. While further empirical work is needed, the findings suggest that solidarity as reciprocity produced by social and solidarity economy organisations thrives where political institutions are both supportive and trusted, where public funding is accessible, and where partnerships with relatively autonomous social and solidarity economy organisations are genuinely collaborative.
Highlights
As noted on the pages of this journal, there is a distinct European understanding of the various kinds of organisations, initiatives, and movements that contribute to the social economy
Drawing on data collected within the H2020 SOLIDUS project, which explores current expressions of European solidarity, the comparative analysis covers three social economy initiatives, each representing a country with different political and economic context
The analysis focuses on solidarity as reciprocity and, in particular, how it is affected by such factors as actor motivations, internal participatory functioning, resource mix and political legitimacy
Summary
As noted on the pages of this journal, there is a distinct European understanding of the various kinds of organisations, initiatives, and movements that contribute to the social economy. This understanding is three-dimensional rather than scalar (more/less) and emphasizes the critical importance of governance in addition to the usual economic and social dimensions (Pestoff and Hulgard 2016). Like Pestoff and Hulgard (2016), we focus on the governance dimension, but extend it to cover both internal governance (participatory governance arrangements) and external governance (political context). Our specific piece of the puzzle is solidarity, and we argue that closer attention to how solidarity as the performance of reciprocity is manifested in different European countries sheds light on the conditions for establishing the social and solidarity economy (hereafter SSE)
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