This study examines the development of the social economy in South Korea, focusing on the experiences of marginalised informal social service providers that have newly incorporated as social economy organisations (SEOs) through top-down government policies. Drawing on in-depth interviews with organisers of new SEOs as well as other related actors, the study explores their motivations, challenges, and newly constructed values. While extant studies on the social economy in Korea characterise it as government-led or highlight how already politicised social economy actors resist against the state and market, this study shows how even top-down policies can catalyse the self-awareness of marginalised actors by bringing into focus the contradictions between government expectations and their lived experiences. This leads them to reinterpret their roles in ways that transcend government intentions.
BassiAFabbriA (2020) Under pressure: Evolution of the social economy institutional recognition in the EU. Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics91(3): 411–433.
2.
BraunVClarkeV (2006) Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology3(2): 77–101.
3.
ByunY (1996) Ways to legalise unauthorised social welfare facilities. Health and Welfare Forum10: 65–68. (In Korean)
4.
ChangK-S (1999) Compressed modernity and its discontents: South Korean society in transtion. Economy and Society28(1): 30–55.
5.
ChangK-S (2010) South Korea Under Compressed Modernity: Familial Political Economy in Transition. London: Routledge.
6.
ChangK-SSongM-Y (2010) The stranded individualizer under compressed modernity: South Korean women in individualization without individualism. The British Journal of Sociology61(3): 539–564.
7.
ChauRCMFosterLYuSWK (2016) Defamilisation and familisation measures: Can they reduce the adverse effects of pro-market pension reforms on women in Hong Kong and the UK?Critical Social Policy36(2): 205–224.
8.
ChauRCMYuSWK (2013) Defamilisation of twenty-two countries: Its implications for the study of East Asian welfare regime. Social Policy & Society12(3): 355–367.
9.
ChoHS (1998) The policy of openness in residential institutions for the disabled to the community. Journal of Rehabilitation Research2(2): 106–129. (In Korean)
10.
ChoiH (2013) Social enterprises as a strategy for a new practice of community welfare. In: Korea association of community welfare conference, Spring 2013, pp. 58–59. (In Korean).
11.
ClarkeVBraunV (2017) Thematic analysis. The Journal of Positive Psychology12(3): 297–298.
12.
DefournyJ (2014) From third sector to social enterprise: A European research trajectory. In: Defourny J, Hulgård L and Pestoff V (eds) Social Enterprise and the Third Sector. London: Routledge, pp. 17–41.
13.
DefournyJHulgårdLPestoffV (2014) Introduction to the ‘SE field’. In: DefournyJHulgårdLPestoffV (eds) Social Enterprise and the Third Sector: Changing European Landscapes in a Comparative Perspective. London: Routledge, pp. 1–14.
14.
DefournyJKimSY (2011) Emerging models of social enterprise in Eastern Asia: A cross-country analysis. Social Enterprise Journal7(1): 86–111.
15.
DefournyJNyssensM (2014) The EMES approach of social enterprise in a comparative perspective. In: DefournyJHulgårdLPestoffV (eds) Social Enterprise and the Third Sector: Changing European Landscapes in a Comparative Perspective. London: Routledge, pp. 42–65.
16.
Dos Santos LL and Banerjee S (2019) Social enterprise: Is it possible to decolonise this concept?. In: Eynaud P, Laville J-L, Dos Santos LL, et al. (eds) Theory of Social Enterprise and Pluralism. London: Routledge, pp.3–17.
17.
Esping-AndersenG (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
18.
GerrardJ (2017) Welfare rights, self-help and social enterprise: Unpicking neoliberalism’s mess. Journal of Sociology53(1): 47–62.
19.
GiarelliGSpinaE (2014) Self-help/mutual aid as active citizenship associations: A case-study of the chronically ill in Italy. Social Science & Medicine123: 242–249.
20.
GraefeP (2005) Roll-out neoliberalism and the social economy. In: The annual meeting of the Canadian political science association, 2 June 2005, University of Western Ontario. Available at: https://www.cpsa-acsp.ca/papers-2005/Graefe.pdf.
21.
HardillIDwyerP (2011) Delivering public services in the mixed economy of welfare: Perspectives from the voluntary and community sector in rural England. Journal of Social Policy40(1): 157–172.
22.
KimH (2008/2009) The process of the development of social enterprises in Korea. (In Korean). Korea Foundation for Social Investment webpage.
23.
KimS (2014) Street-level struggles against marketisation: A case study of nonprofits in a South Korean workplace partnership programme. Critical Social Policy35(2): 207–227.
Laville J-L and Eynaud P (2019) Rethinking social enterprise through philanthropic and democratic solidarities. In: Eynaud P, Laville J-L, Dos Santos LL, et al. (eds) Theory of Social Enterprise and Pluralism. London: Routledge, pp.18–43.
26.
LeeC (2014) Coexistence of social service industry and social economy. Health·Welfare Issue & Focus250: 1–8. (In Korean).
27.
LeeIJ (2017) Social economy and social service practice change. Journal of Social Sciences20(1): 25–48. (In Korean)
28.
LeeK (2013) Strategies for local welfare practice and social economy. In: The Korean association of local community welfare spring conference, pp.19–23. (In Korean)
LimSH (2021) Welfare state and the social economy in compressed development: self-sufficiency organisations in South Korea. Public Administration and Development41(5): 267–278.
31.
LimSHEndoC (2016) The development of the social economy in the welfare mix: Political dynamics between the state and the third sector. The Social Science Journal53(4): 486–494.
32.
LipskyM (2010) Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
33.
MendellMSpearRNoyaA, et al. (2010) Improving social inclusion at the local level through the social economy: Report for Korea. OECD Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED) Working Papers, 2010/2015, OECD Publishing. Available at: https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5kg0nvg4bl38-en.
34.
Ministry of Health and Welfare. (2018) [Press release] Various local welfare services are blossoming: The Welfare Administration Award 2018 will take place (10 December), 115 local authorities with excellent performances will be awarded. (In Korean). Available at: https://www.mohw.go.kr/
35.
Ministry of Health and Welfare. (2019) [Press release] Integrated training workshop for fostering social economy in the social service sector. (In Korean). Available at: https://www.mohw.go.kr/.
Nyssens M (2014) European Work Integration Social Enterprises: Between social innovation and isomorphism 1. In: Defourny J, Hulgård L and Pestoff V (eds) Social Enterprise and the Third Sector. London: Routledge, pp. 211–230.
38.
OchiaiE (2011) Unsustainable societies: The failure of familialism in East Asia's compressed modernity. Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung36(2): 219–245.
39.
PestoffV (2012) Co-production and third sector social services in Europe: Some concepts and evidence. Voluntas23(4): 1102–1118.
40.
PestoffV (2014) Collective action and the sustainability of co-production. Public Management Review16(3): 383–401.
41.
PolanyiK (1922/2005) Sozialistische rechnungsregung. In: PolanyiK (ed) Chronik tagder groβen Transformation: Artikel und Aufsätze (1920–1945), Band 3: Menschliche Freiheit, politische Demokratie und die Auseinandersetzung Zwischen Sozialismus und Faschismus. Marburg: Metropolis-Verlag, pp. 171–113. (In German)
42.
PolanyiK (1927/2018) On freedom. In: PolanyiK (ed) Economy and Society. Cambridge, UK: Polity, pp.15–40.
43.
PolanyiK (1957/2001) The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston: Beacon Press.
44.
Related Ministries. (2019) Support plan for revitalising self-help groups for people with developmental disabilities using social economy. (In Korean). Available at: https://www.mohw.go.kr/.
45.
Related Ministries. (2020) [Joint press release] Promotion of social services through social economy: Announcement of measures to vitalise the social economy in the social service sector. (In Korean). Available at: https://www.mohw.go.kr/.
46.
RiefS (2023) Karl Polanyi’s ‘socialist accounting’ and ‘overview’ in the age of data analytics. New Political Economy28(2): 284–298.
47.
RingenSKwonHYiI, et al. (2011) The Korean State and Social Policy: How South Korea Lifted Itself from Poverty and Dictatorship to Affluence and Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press.
48.
ShinMHKimHI (2002) History of producers’ community movement and the self-sufficiency support programme. Journal of Korean Social Trends and Perspectives53: 6–37. (In Korean).
49.
SmithGTeasdaleS (2012) Associative democracy and the social economy: Exploring the regulatory challenge. Economy and Society41(2): 151–176.
50.
SmithSRLipskyM (1993) Nonprofits for Hire: The Welfare State in the Age of Contracting. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
51.
WhittakerDHZhuTSturgeonT, et al. (2010) Compressed development. Studies in Comparative International Development45(4): 439–467.
52.
WiewelWHunterA (1985) The interorganizational network as a resource: A comparative case study on organizational genesis. Administrative Science Quarterly30(4): 482–496.
53.
WolchJ (1999) Decentering America’s non-profit sector. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations10(1): 25–35.
54.
YoungDRSalamonLM (2002) Commercialization, social ventures, and for-profit competition. In: SalamonLM (ed) The State of Non-Profit America. Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, pp. 521–548.
