The french Dispositif Local d'Accompagnement (ie local support program) : a flexible and asymmetrical public policy program helping the third sector ?

The non-profit sector, a highly dynamic field in France, is one of the main actors of the social economy, since it generates jobs, responds to territorial needs, creates social ties and supports, and sometimes even supplements... [ view full abstract ]

The non-profit sector, a highly dynamic field in France, is one of the main actors of the social economy, since it generates jobs, responds to territorial needs, creates social ties and supports, and sometimes even supplements public policies. However, confronted to decreasing public subsidies and an administrative reorganization inspired from the rules of the New Public Management (Bezes, 2012), third-sectors associations, have seen their position weaken. Since 2003, the French government has added a new program to its employment policies, the DLA (Dispositif Local d’Accompagnement), without charge for the associations. The DLA aims at helping job-creating organizations in the social economy sector in terms of professionalization, job preservation and development. At the local level (ie les départements), supporting structures, which are also third-sectors associations, provide professionals in support of the implementation of the program. Such support is divided into three phases: after a diagnosis carried out by the professionals in collaboration with the association, a new project is designed over a few days with an external provider, on the basis of the terms of reference predefined between the professional and the association; and finally, the professional, the association and its partners gather for a final report.

The ESSAQUI research program, from the Centre Emile Durkheim, (Sciences po Bordeaux), is currently realizing a case study of DLA in the area previously known as region Aquitaine (ie Dordogne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Gironde, Landes, Lot-et-Garonne). Viewed by the professionals as a flexible policy program (Cottin-Marx, 2016), the DLA can be described as a tool box allowing for significant freedom. The issue of our research resides in the ways by which this “governance by support” is built according to a territory (Pecqueur et Itçaina, 2012), and eventually reveals the economic and social local dynamics. Indeed, public actors may sometimes use the DLA for purposes other than employment, for example by asking an association to carry out a real public service mission or, on the contrary, by putting pressure on the professionals to carried out a DLA on associations that get public funding. The professionals, as authentic advisers, are in charge of fostering relationships amongst the actors of the social economy and policy makers. Nonetheless, their implication has consequences, they say that they are here to help the associations, and realize the DLA according to their own perception of the DLA public program regardless of the local context.

This empirical research program, combining a qualitative approach (with participant observation, and semi-guided individual interviews) with a quantitative one (by survey), underlines that it is possible to describe territorial regimes of social economy, generated by institutionalization and desinstitutionalization dynamics. Our presentation will first describe how the DLA works, and is depicted by the professionals as a program “without fault”, even if sometimes it forces the associations to eliminate jobs. We will then realize a comparative analysis of the practices developed within three associations that manage the dispositif in the Aquitaine region, whose professional identities (association de développement, bureau de gestion, association sportive) and relationships with local institutions differ.

Bibliographie

Bezes Philippe (2012), «État, experts et savoirs néo- managériaux. Les producteurs et diffuseurs du New Public Management en France depuis les années 1970. » (in) Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, n°193, juin.

Cottin-Mars, Simon (2016), Professionnaliser pour « marchandiser » (et inversement). Quand l’État accompagne les associations employeuses, directeur de thèse Gilles Jeannot, thèse pour le doctorat en sociologie, soutenance le 21 novembre 2016.               

Pecqueur B., Itçaina X. (2012), « Economie sociale et solidaire et territoires : un couple allant de soi ? », RECMA – Revue internationale de l’économie sociale, n°325, p. 48-64

Armelle Gaulier

Post-Doctorante Centre Emile Durkheim

Bordeaux University

France

armellegaulier@scpobx.fr