Neoliberal drivers in hybrid civil society organizations: Critical readings of civicness and social entrepreneurism

Civil society organizations (CSOs) and social entrepreneurship take up a significant position in a welfare system in transformation. Voluntarism and civil society have played an important role in the development of the welfare state and its services in Denmark, as in the rest of Scandinavia, for at least a century. Recently, however, the positioning and context for civic society organiza-tions has changed quite profoundly, due to neoliberal welfare policies and steering regimes. In this chapter, I point to neoliberalism as both a political discourse about the nature of rule, but also a set of practices that facilitates from a distance. In this way, neoliberalism deeply influ-ences the everyday lives of both professionals and individuals. I identify two themes, which represent significant neoliberal organizing principles and, drawing upon one illustrative single case, I provide insight into hybrid organisations rooted in civic society and social entrepreneur-ism: firstly, the human rights subject versus the entrepreneurial labour market subject and sec-ondly, the commodification and performativity of civil services and human growth.