Reconfiguring the Social and Solidarity Economy in a Danish/Nordic Welfare Context

When looking at definitions and understandings of the social and solidarity economy, one issue stands out as particularly significant: that of how research links the organizational analysis of particular social enterprises to societal dimensions at the macro-level. As suggested by Granovetter (1973) the ways in which action at the organizational micro-level relates to, and even transforms, into new structures, is a constant puzzle for the social sciences. He opened his now-famous article by noting that contemporary sociology is marked by a fundamental weakness, since “it does not relate micro-level interactions to macro-level patterns in any convincing way” (Granovetter, 1973, p. 1360). A similar critique is relevant, when we look at research in the field of social enterprise. We have solid knowledge on micro-level interactions within social enterprises and also knowledge on macro-level eco-systems even at the supra national level. However the link between micro-level interaction within social enterprises and macro-level eco-systems tends to be an object of only marginal interest. In the social economy tradition, social enterprise is primarily a matter of organizational criteria and specificities (Borzaga and Defourny, 2001). Accordingly, when applying a social economy perspective to the field of social enterprise, the analysis of organizational characteristics is only indirectly linked to the broader societal framework of economy and democracy. Compared with this, the solidarity economy perspective is aimed exactly at linking the organizational analysis to a societal analysis. Thus, it asks questions of what type of democracy and what type of economy are the social enterprises engaged in realizing.