This paper aims at presenting an analysis of the different organizational forms that belong to the Social and Solidarity Economy sector (hereinafter SSE) in Chile at different levels. More specifically, this research focuses on a conceptual, historical, and legal analysis of SSE organizations in Chile.
The paper firstly presents a conceptual analysis of the main terms employed in order to identify SSE organizations in Chile, where four main concepts have been employed: 1) the “popular economy”, a concept employed to define informal, community-based initiatives that arise from the civil society in order to face necessities of income generation, generally without any margin of accumulation; 2) the “social economy” concept, mainly deriving from the European, and especially French, school of thought; 2) the “third sector” or “nonprofit” concept, influenced mainly by the US stream of thought; and 3) the “solidarity economy” or “social and solidarity economy” concept, a concept that has benefitted from the contribution of the Chilean scholar Luis Razeto (Razeto, 1986, 1998), as well as several other Latin American scholars, who have interpreted these organizations as economic activities that are alternatives to neoliberalism and capable to bring about change. The entrepreneurial economic logic on which they are based is focused on cooperation and exploits the potential of social relations, including traditions and personal ties (Coraggio, 1999, 2011; Gaiger, 2009).
Secondly, following Radrigán et al. (2010), we present the historical development of SSE in Chile, describing five main periods, or historical phases of SSE development, together with salient political, economic, and sociocultural events that marked each phase. The main focus is on understanding how public policies have favoured or hampered the development of SSE in each phase.
Thirdly, a legal approach is considered, analyzing the following main categories of SSE organizations according to the Chilean law, and their coherence with the ICSEM approach. The following main categories are identified: 1) neighborhood organizations, 2) cooperatives, 3) trade associations, 4) indigenous organizations, 5) mutual societies, 6) nonprofit enterprises, 7) nonprofit foundations. The analysis based on the legal approach concludes that this is not sufficient in order to identify the complexity and differences between the main typologies of SSE organizations.
Consequently, we propose an integrated perspective based on the three approaches presented above (conceptual, historical, legal) and we identify three main categories of SSE organizations in Chile: 1) Traditional cooperatives, at least those that have an explicit social aim and/or are directed towards the welfare of the community in which they are embedded and not only to serve the interests of their members 2) Nonprofit organizations, including those organizations that, using the legal figure of foundation, nonprofit corporation or NGO, aim to develop a common interest activity.; 3) Community enterprises, that include some indigenous productive organizations, education and health community initiatives, “new cooperatives” (Vieta, 2010), based on autogestión (self management), horizontalized labour processes and decision-making structures. this last organizational category has recently started to emerge in Chile, thanks also to the connection with social movements.
To conclude, it is worth mentioning that in Chile the level of visibility and recognition of the SSE is still insufficient, despite its relative importance (Gatica, 2011), and national studies on this sector are still very few in number. In this sense, following Radrigán and Barria (2005), the future projection of the SSE sector in Chile faces three possible scenarios, that are presented in the paper.
1. Concepts and models of social enterprise worldwide
