From interdisciplinarity to interculturality

The institutional structure of civil society is endowed with a democratic potential of its own. Therefore, the topic of social enterprise governance interfaces with the question of democratic governance. Governance cannot be... [ view full abstract ]

The institutional structure of civil society is endowed with a democratic potential of its own. Therefore, the topic of social enterprise governance interfaces with the question of democratic governance. Governance cannot be assessed only on the basis of value creation. Assessment must also deal with the capacity of governance to stabilize and foster the evolution of society and its political regimes. Even if social enterprise play a modest role in that matter, it is important to identify – internally and externally – the risks and opportunities provided by them relative to the democratization of society.

As mentioned in Laville contribution, several scholars have proposed theoretical frameworks to support this perspective, including Ostrom, Habermas, Polanyi and Ramos. Our own perspective in this book is based on the foundations established by these authors, on their practice of interdisciplinarity, and on the perspective of an intercultural epistemology. Thanks to them, it is possible to enlarge the scope of social enterprise studies and to supersede an implicit Western- centrism; the latter is currently reflected in the international research literature by a disparity between the amount of Anglo- Saxon cited references and references cited in other language contexts.