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Alternative economic practices in Spanish cities: from grassroots movements to urban policies? An institutional perspective
Abstract
Alternative economic practices (AEPs) challenge capitalism and have flourished in Spain since 2008, when the economic, social, and political crisis severely hit the country. Cities are the principal places in which these practices are developing because unemployment, poverty, and foreclosures quickly rose in urban areas between 2008 and 2015. After the local election in 2015, left-wing coalitions took office in the major Spanish cities. These new governments replaced the former neoliberal and pro-growth coalitions and assumed the promotion for alternative economic modes of coordination as a part of their political agendas and new regulations. This article draws on institutional theory to frame the locally contingent outcomes of the interaction between alternative institutions and formal regulation in six Spanish cities. Empirically, we found that comprehensive plans by local authorities to enhance AEPs led to mutual reinforcement of regulations and institutions in Madrid and Barcelona. In contrast, institutions of AEPs in Oviedo, Valencia, and Valladolid substituted for the absence of regulatory response. Finally, Salamanca illustrates the case of competition between AEP institutions and local regulations, which even worked to replace AEPs.
... Relevant scholars believe that the constantly developing and changing economic and market environment has led to a positive correlation between the financial capabilities, financial innovation, and sustainable development capabilities of grassroots power supply enterprises [14][15][16]. Taking the volatility of the economic environment as the input variable, scholars establish an evaluation model with financial innovation, financial capability, and sustainable development capability as the core and reveal the interrelationship and mechanism of action among them [17,18]. ...
On the basis of the generation, evolution, and development of the basic power supply enterprise’s financial core competence, this article determines the connotation and essence of the basic power supply enterprise’s financial core competence, so as to play a guiding role in fully and correctly grasping the basic power supply enterprise financial core competence. This article focuses on the formation mechanism and factors of the financial core competence of grassroots power supply enterprises and reviews the latest research hotspots and their theoretical significance in academia. By applying the random matrix model to evaluate the core financial capabilities of grassroots power supply enterprises, it proposes a path for cultivating and improving the core financial capabilities of grassroots power supply enterprises. Through a detailed and powerful discussion, it is possible to effectively improve the financial management efficiency of grassroots power supply enterprises and quickly adapt to the needs of market changes, so as to meet the interests of relevant stakeholders of grassroots power supply enterprises as much as possible. Considering the market competition environment, it is found that the positive relationship between corporate responsibility information disclosure and the degree of earnings management is only significant in low-competitive markets, which also shows that with the intensification of market competition, the degree of information asymmetry decreases. The ability of power supply is also increasing, which will weaken the mechanism of grassroots power supply enterprises to conceal earnings management behavior through corporate responsibility information disclosure. The results show that corporate responsibility information may become a tool to cover up the management of grassroots power supply enterprises to manipulate earnings and reduce the quality of earnings reports, and this behavior will be different in grassroots power supply enterprises with different characteristics and external environments. This will help to form an objective understanding of corporate responsibility information disclosure behaviors, identify the motives of grassroots power supply companies’ responsible behaviors for regulators, standardize corporate responsibility disclosure norms, and take differentiated measures for different situations.
... Similarly, in Spain, the left-wing coalitions that took office in local governments after 2015 encouraged alternative economic modes. Particularly, Valencia, Barcelona, and Madrid, being hardly hit by recession, spearheaded progressive municipalism in the country, adopting a wide spectrum of SE practices (Sánchez-Hernández & Glückler, 2019;Chaves-Avila & Gallego-Bono, 2020). In Italy, the Conte administration utilized SE ventures so as to achieve sustainable waste management. ...
Social Economy (SE) has been praised for contributing to a humane and sustainable economic growth, whilst effectively tackling the detrimental effects of economic, ecological , and other types of crises. With many of its member states experiencing a heap of such problems, the EU has actively facilitated the setting up and operation of social enterprises. The paper at hand offers a theoretically-grounded empirical analysis of SE in four South EU countries (Spain, Italy, Greece, and Cyprus), and specifically, it examines the pertinent policies and their post-implementation impact. To do so, it employs a mixed-methods approach comprising a critical scrutiny of national policy frameworks, a quantitative analysis of secondary regional data on SE workforce and enterprises, and an interview-based fieldwork focused on SE stakeholders and experts. Highlighting the crucial differences among national policy frameworks lays the groundwork for deciphering the uneven dynamics in SE development across the study regions. Our analysis underlines that, albeit SE is often presented as a viable alternative to neoliberalism, it is bound by the latter's intrinsic characteristics. Specifically, not only SE fails to limit (youth) unemployment and inactivity drastically, but on the contrary, it often becomes a fertile ground for labor practices that are exceedingly precarious.
... Se han publicado diversos estudios de caso sobre las PEA existentes en algunos "ayuntamientos del cambio", como Madrid (Gonick, 2016;Michelini et al., 2017;Méndez & Monteserín, 2019;Méndez, 2018), Barcelona (Conill et al., 2012;García et al., 2015;Yates, 2015;Fernández & Miro, 2016) y Valencia (Salom et al., 2017;Salom et al., 2019) (Sánchez et al., 2017). A ellos hay que añadir algunos estudios comparativos (Subirats & García, 2015;Díaz et al., 2018;Sánchez & Glückler, 2019). Para el presente estudio de caso se ha elegido Zaragoza, una ciudad en la que los nuevos movimientos sociales tuvieron el suficiente arraigo y fuerza como para acceder al gobierno municipal y que no ha sido objeto de ningún trabajo monográfico, aunque sí está incluida en el ya citado de González & Torres (2019). ...
En las últimas décadas, con más intensidad a raíz de la crisis del 2008, han proliferado algunas prácticas económicas alternativas al sistema dominante, especialmente en las áreas urbanas en que los nuevos movimientos sociales han tenido más arraigo. Se toma como estudio de caso la ciudad de Zaragoza, que estuvo gobernada en la pasada legislatura por una coalición de la nueva izquierda, siendo uno de los llamados ayuntamientos del cambio. Se han seleccionado prácticas que funcionan a escala local siguiendo procedimientos alejados de los convencionales: huertos urbanos comunitarios, mercados y grupos de consumo agroecológico, monedas comunitarias (banco de tiempo, mercados de trueque y moneda social) y centros sociales autogestionados. Se emplea una metodología cualitativa basada en entrevistas semiestructuradas, combinada con cuestionarios cerrados y observación participante. Dichas prácticas se localizan de modo disperso por todo el espacio urbano. Se han puesto en relación con los movimientos sociales urbanos y con la política local. Se concluye que su impacto es limitado en términos cuantitativos, pero que disponen de un amplio potencial transformador por las características de sus practicantes y el apoyo de la administración local.
... Others find that time banks fail to achieve and retain the critical mass of people to show continuous commitment and long-term engagement (Seyfang & Longhurst, 2013). After the beginning of the economic crisis in 2007, time banks have blossomed in many Spanish and other European cities and regions (Sánchez-Hernández & Glückler, 2019), yet frequently, they began to wither after a few years. How, then, do time banks really work and what are the processes through which they grow and decline? ...
Time banks have become a popular type of civic organization constructed to facilitate egalitarian economic exchange through a community-bounded currency. Especially after the recent economic crises in Europe, the rise in the number of time banks has been accompanied by relative transience and sometimes short lifespans. We adopt a relational perspective to explore the dynamics of decline in the civic engagement of a time bank in southern Germany. Using methods of longitudinal social network analysis, we analyze the relational processes and individual trajectories of members within the emerging transaction network over a period of eight years. Rather than explaining why, we have found how relational trajectories of members through a structure of core and periphery have led to creeping decline in activity and membership. Given the repeated observation that time banks and other types of alternative economic practices are often characterized by considerable volatility and potential collapse, relational thinking and network analysis are especially suited to unpacking the underlying relational mechanisms that shape these outcomes of volatility and demise.
... Hay que mencionar también que la incipiente institucionalización que vienen experimentando este tipo de iniciativas en Sevilla es un proceso que también está presente en otras ciudades españolas, como Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Zaragoza, Valladolid u Oviedo (Fernández & Miró, 2016;Méndez, 2018;Sánchez Hernández & Glückler, 2019). ...
Los graves impactos provocados por la crisis sistémica y las políticas de austeridad han puesto en cuestión el modelo económico neoliberal propiciando, a su vez, el interés por prácticas económicas alternativas basadas en la colaboración ciudadana y en la solidaridad. Este artículo analiza dichas prácticas en la ciudad de Sevilla, prestando especial atención a su dimensión espacial y al papel que puedan ejercer en la evolución de ciertas zonas urbanas; se consideran, además, sus trayectorias, tipologías y actores. La ausencia de estadísticas oficiales ha requerido trabajo de campo y entrevistas. Junto a lo anterior, ha sido necesaria la aplicación de métodos y técnicas de análisis de redes sociales para poder estudiar las relaciones de colaboración inherentes a estas prácticas. De la investigación se desprende que el entorno territorial resulta clave para entender las razones que explican su proliferación y su evolución en barrios que guardan similitudes urbanísticas, socioeconómicas, culturales e ideológicas. Su destacada presencia en la zona norte del casco antiguo de la ciudad parece estar convirtiendo a algunos de sus barrios en espacios urbanos dinámicos, solidarios e inclusivos que pueden aportar un nuevo o renovado carácter a la ciudad.
... Around the globe, alternative modes of social and economic organizations with different kinds of interactions are on the rise: associative production (i.e., cooperatives), non-monetary currencies, local trading schemes (i.e., non-monetary exchange), fair and ethical trade, ethical banking, social entrepreneurships, and so on. These alternative initiatives have mostly flourished since the economic crisis of 2008, and those engaged in them express criticism of exploitation, competitiveness, and profit-seeking all with an aim of creating an economic system that fulfils human needs instead of capital accumulation (Castells 2017;Sánchez-Hernández and Glückler 2019;Zademach and Hillebrand 2013). Through challenging current forms of capitalism, alternative economies seek to transition toward a sustainable economic system, one goal of which is also being recognized as a green economy endeavor. ...
This article explores how particular layers of the Western Zeitgeist and the Croatian social and economic context influenced the emergence and development of green entre-preneurship, and whether they could be helpful in understanding the potential transition to a green economy. It is argued that what initially drove several of interviewees to green entrepreneurships could be subsumed under the label rejectionist ethic used here to encompass different modes of rejecting modern economic institutions and the usual life trajectory of completing one's education and working at a job in line with one's social position and/or education.
... With the distinction of different types of interdependence, it is now possible to better assess the degree of alignment and synchrony among institutions as well as between institutions, actors and policies in a specific institutional context. Institutional analysis may contribute to the lack of knowledge regarding the coherence of an institutional context during periods of relative stability (Pike et al., 2015) as well as its tensions during periods of change (Bathelt & Conserva, 2018;Benner, 2019;Glückler & Lenz, 2018;Hacker et al., 2015;Sánchez & Glückler, 2019;Streeck & Thelen, 2005). Hence, the analysis of the institutional context includes the identification of the crucial categories in each of its pillars and the assessment of the quality of interdependence between these pillars. ...
A key problem of downscaling or transferring policies across regions is embedding these policies into a place for them to unleash the full potential of regional economies. This paper elaborates on the analytical framework of “institutional context” to bridge the gap between rich theorizations and poor empirical capture of institutions in studies of regional development. The institutional context is constituted by three pillars—regulations, organizations, and institutions—as well as by the interrelations between these pillars. Applied to the British region of Coventry and Warwickshire, a qualitative analysis of expert interviews finds institutional patterns of short‐termism, moderate levels of social capital and an embryonic relational infrastructure to constrain the place‐based strategy for industrial diversification. This regional case illustrates the more general challenge for regional policy in the UK of devising place‐based strategies under conditions of continuous rescaling of regional governance and the implementation of a new National Industrial Strategy. In conclusion, the analysis suggests a shift from “nodal” to “linking” policies that support cross‐network connections and help grow a regional field for collective action to cross‐fertilize knowledge and foster innovation and entrepreneurship in emerging industries.
... For the purpose of this study, we endorse a specific and more micro-social concept of institutions: Institutions are the patterns of repeated social interactions that are based on legitimate beliefs and enforced by social sanctions (Glückler & Lenz, 2016). This definition has proved helpful in carving out institutional regularities and inter-regional differences in recent empirical research of European regions (Benner, 2019;Sánchez & Glückler, 2019). Theoretically, such a concept follows North (1991) in part by excluding organizations as players of the game, but differs by excluding rules as institutions. ...
Recent research has called for institutional approaches to help surpass the limitations of structural growth models in accounting for regionally specific development paths. The region of Heilbronn-Franconia in Baden-Württemberg is one such puzzling case for its economic and industrial structure is inconsistent with extant models, and yet the region represents one of the most prosperous economies with the highest concentration of hidden champions in Germany. This paper explores the institutions –patterns of social interactions and underlying beliefs – that characterize entrepreneurial practices on the levels of the firm, inter-firm and civic relations of this rural region. Based on a mixed-methods approach, including 132 interviews with managers and a survey of firms in strategic sectors, we unveil the interaction patterns of ‘life-long engagement’, ‘tinkering’, ‘doing’, ‘leadership networking’, and ‘civic engagement’ as well as the underlying beliefs that inform these patterns, as the institutions that are coherent with a particular mode of continuous innovation and entrepreneurial stamina. We conclude by proposing the
hourglass model as the institutional morphology of rural industrialism.
This article analyzes the structure of socially embedded exchange under uncertainty in the context of a community currency system in Germany. We discuss three relational and path-dependent mechanisms—experience-based trust, networked reputation and public reputation—which serve as navigation practices to mitigate uncertainty. We furthermore associate these mechanisms with observable structures of exchange, namely repeated transactions and reciprocity, transitivity and provider activity, and discuss differences in product-inherent uncertainty as a source of variation in network structure. Based on original observations of more than 4000 transactions over a period of 8 years, we use relational event models to demonstrate that the history of transactions exhibits structure consistent with the three hypothesized mechanisms, with some variation across different types of transactions. This variation is partly in line with differences in product-inherent uncertainty, but we also discuss alternative sources of variation related to organizational and institutional conditions of the exchange system.
This thesis analyzes alternative local initiatives in mainland Portugal under two emancipatory matrices: degrowth and the feminist perspective of care, which share a common concern with maintaining the sustainability of life on the planet, in conditions of social justice.
Degrowth criticizes economic growth defined as a priority social objective, stimulates the re-politicization of debate and the embedment of the economy in the social and political dimensions. The feminist vision of care broadens the notions of economy, work and social reproduction, in an understanding that starts from the recognition of the interdependence between human beings and their ecodependence whith the rest of nature.
Alternative local initiatives create new forms of collective organization, constituting a field of experimentation that roots these movements and builds bridges between utopia and practice.
We start from crossing these local experiences with feminist proposals of care, which challenge the prevailing gender and production relations and the ecological concerns of degrowth. In this thesis we map alternative local initiatives in Portugal and characterize this field; we identify their conceptions of degrowth and care; proceeded to a critical setting-up of the practices linked to these two notions; identify the social transformation notions that guide these initiatives, based on their position before capitalism; and, finally, we systematize the critical learning that the initiatives identify, based on their experiences.
We conclude that the processes of social transformation that integrate the notions of degrowth and care see their emancipatory potential reinforced by the centrality they grant to the creation of conditions for the sustainability of life. While the potential of these experiences may be uncertain or limited, they open glimmers of hope in the face of very likely collapse scenarios that cloud our horizon.
en The alternative economies of the Ecoxarxes (eco-networks) are created by autonomous networks of like-minded groups that use social currency and mutual support practices for producing and exchanging goods, services and knowledge in the Spanish region of Catalonia. Drawing on ethnographic research, we show that these commoning projects aim to establish and sustain alternative economies that are predominantly framed as fostering cooperation, mutual aid and the commons. However, we complicate the picture by using a social studies of economisation approach as an analytical method, highlighting the variegated and contested character of the Ecoxarxes. This perspective demonstrates how economic projects, including alternative ones, have their own framings, frictions, challenges and misfires that emerge from within. As much as the Ecoxarxes have a post-capitalist spirit and a commoning praxis, we equally engage with issues such as overaccumulation of social currency, the need for regulation, burnouts and constraints to participation.
Resumen
es Las Ecoxarxes (eco-redes) son redes autónomas de grupos afines que generan economías alternativas usando moneda social y prácticas de ayuda mutua para producir e intercambiar bienes, servicios y conocimientos en la región de Cataluña. Basándonos en métodos etnográficos, mostramos que estos proyectos establecen y sostienen economías alternativas que se enmarcan en el fomento de la cooperación, la ayuda mutua y los bienes comunes. Sin embargo, introducimos más complejidad en el análisis utilizando el enfoque de los estudios sociales de la economización como método analítico, para destacar la diversidad de las Ecoxarxes. Esta perspectiva demuestra que los proyectos económicos, incluidos los alternativos, tienen sus propios marcos, fricciones, retos y fallos que surgen desde su interior. En la medida en que las Ecoxarxes tienen un espíritu poscapitalista y una praxis orientada hacia los bienes comunes, también nos ocupamos de cuestiones como la sobreacumulación de moneda social, la necesidad de regulación, el desgaste personal y las limitaciones a la participación.
This open access book focuses on the role of civil society in the creation, dissemination, and interpretation of knowledge in geographical contexts. It offers original, interdisciplinary and counterintuitive perspectives on civil society. The book includes reflections on civil and uncivil society, the role of civil society as a change agent, and on civil society perspectives of undone science. Conceptual approaches go beyond the tripartite division of public, private and civic sectors to propose new frameworks of civic networks and philanthropic fields, which take an inclusive view of the connectivity of civic agency across sectors. This includes relational analyses of epistemic power in civic knowledge networks as well as of regional giving and philanthropy. The original empirical case studies examine traditional forms of civic engagement, such as the German landwomen’s associations, as well as novel types of organizations, such as giving circles and time banks in their geographical context. The book also offers insider reflections on doing civil society, such as the cases of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, epistemic activism in the United States, and the #FeesMustFall movement in South Africa.
In the context of economies referred to as diverse or different, Alternative Economic Practices (AEP) are actions that, alternative to capitalism in varying degrees, aim to fulfil people's basic needs. The Great Recession of 2008 gives a new incentive to their theoretical and empirical analysis as a result of the new meaning given to alternative economic and political spaces, particularly in an area hit hard by the crisis-Southern Europe. This paper examines an aspect hardly represented in academic literature: the profile of the social basis of alternative economic practices and its operational significance. By means of the frameworks provided by institutional economic geography and contributions made by the theory on urban social movements as well as social mobilisation, it explores the characteristics of the social basis of Spanish AEP using that which prior studies highlighted from the profile of the participants in Greek practices as a point of comparison and reference. We suggest that the contextual conditions determine the attributes of the key actors and the strategies to challenge the existing social institutions and structures and mobilise the social forces to support collective projects that contradict the dominant relations. The result is that of nominally identical AEP, belonging to a common alternative repertoire yet composed of social bases with clearly distinct profiles. This means that both are built upon different values, discourses, motivations and identities, leading to their varied geographical significance and potential to transform.
To understand how policies for the social and solidarity economy can contribute to economic democratization and identify the challenges linked to this, we examined the impetus plan which Barcelona city council implemented between 2016 and 2019. Based on semi-structured interviews with policy actors, social entrepreneurs and engaged activists, and on participative observation of two city council assessment workshops, we explore the limitations of the social and solidarity sector from a political economy perspective. Barcelona's approach has previously been acknowledged as an outstanding and innovative strategy that confronts the lack of transversality across public administrations and the complexities around co-construction within the social sector itself. In this examination, we observe how sector actors address issues of cultural tensions around economic thinking and stress the need for a plural and transformative approach towards economic activity. We conclude that, to couple social and solidarity economy policies with economic democratization goals and enable tracking of changes in cities’ socioeconomic governance, it is necessary to work with an integrative perspective that takes into account other policy fields besides social entrepreneurship, and other types of actors, while also considering the connections between public bodies and the social and solidarity economy sector.
La Geografía Económica ha mostrado un notable dinamismo disciplinar durante las dos primeras décadas del siglo XXI. Este dinamismo se ha traducido en una creciente interacción entre los tres proyectos científicos que han impulsado la disciplina desde sus orígenes a finales del siglo XIX: el proyecto ambiental, preocupado por la relación entre economía y Naturaleza; el proyecto locacional, que identifica los patrones de localización espacial de las actividades económicas y sus implicaciones para el desarrollo regional; y el proyecto estructural-contextual, atento a la interdependencia entre las estructuras globales de acumulación capitalista y la diversidad de trayectorias socioeconómicas locales. Esa interacción intradisciplinar está dando lugar a una Geografía Económica menos compartimentada en escuelas de pensamiento estancas y más híbrida en sus inquietudes y conceptos, como respuesta a la condición transversal de los problemas ambientales, económicos, sociales y políticos que desafían a la Humanidad. Esta hibridación, apoyada en la acreditada capacidad de la Geografía Económica para incorporar los avances teóricos de otras ramas del conocimiento, está muy relacionada con la penetración de los planteamientos ambientalistas en los proyectos locacional y estructural-contextual, tradicionalmente más atentos a los dimensiones espaciales y socio-territoriales del funcionamiento de la economía.
The author of this article goes beyond acknowledging networks as a governance mode to elaborate on the actual forms of governance that convey legitimate and acceptable coordination. He advances the concept of lateral network governance in the empirical context of organized networks, in which organizations pool resources and join their interests in the pursuit of common goals. To solve the puzzle of having independent equals commit themselves to coordinating their actions, the author aims to overcome the traditional dualism between formal and informal mechanisms of governance. Instead, he conceives lateral network governance as a structure for the legitimate delegation of decision-making. He develops a social network analytic approach to assessing the relational distribution of legitimacy. With his empirical analysis of two case studies of inter-firm network organizations, he illustrates the degree to which the actual legitimacy distribution diverges from formal governance authority. Lateral network governance has practical implications for inter-organizational networks and network managers.
The main objective of this thesis is to improve understanding of citizen participation in science in Spain. Specifically, it analyses the characteristics of current participatory practices and the opinions and attitudes of two of the main actors involved (scientists and citizens). The research has been divided into three studies based on qualitative (semi-structured interviews) and quantitative (questionnaires) methodologies. The main results suggest that activities of citizen participation in science require solid scientific communication throughout the process, as well as prior planning and training (for participants and for researchers). The results indicate that Spanish researchers do not fully know their publics. However, scientists consider that they have a responsibility in science communication and public engagement activities. Spanish civil society organizations participate to a less extent in science and do not know their own potential to produce more socially relevant research.
http://hdl.handle.net/10803/670304
This paper focuses on the relations between state and Social Solidarity Economy (SSE) practices regarding the case of Law 4430/2016 on Social and Solidarity Economy actors in Greece. This legal framework was introduced at a time when a new wave of cooperativism had already emerged in crisis-ridden Greece and a party of the radical left with strong affiliations with social movements was elected to power. In this context, it is interesting to explore the potential for a new trajectory in state and SSE interactions through the analytical perspective of the co-construction of public policies. The results presented in this paper are based on a research project funded by the Heinrich Boell Foundation Thessaloniki Office. The research design is based on mixed methods: a content analysis of the contributions implemented by relevant stakeholders during informal and formal consultation processes and the analysis of data from semi-structured interviews with selected networks and support organizations for SSE in Greece.
There is a general trend toward more active, broader, and more inclusive participation of different stakeholders in science. Civil society organizations’ inclusion in the scientific process is being promoted. However, there are few attempts to understand the role of civil society organizations in research. This study is based on the analysis of 31 semi-structured interviews with Spanish civil society organization managers and representatives. Our main results regarding the current relationship between civil society organizations and the research system are (a) civil society organizations mainly participate in science within one single research moment and they are unaware of their potential. (b) We identify a lack of resources, mutual knowledge (among civil society organizations and academia), and capabilities as barriers for civil society organizations’ participation. (c) There is a need to strengthen links between civil society organizations and research by training in collaborative methodologies and communication skills, promoting participatory research, increasing mutual understanding about the research system and the third sector, and aligning research and civil society organizations’ objectives.
El artículo profundiza sobre las formas que adopta la innovación social, focalizando el interés en las políticas urbanas y prácticas ciudadanas de economía alternativa. El objetivo es conocer y valorar en qué medida las administraciones y la sociedad civil, a través de la política urbana, implementan ideas transformadoras que incrementan el empoderamiento ciudadano y el bienestar social, contribuyendo, así, al desarrollo urbano. Para la consecución de este objetivo se han considerado las experiencias de la ciudad de Sevilla (España). De la investigación se desprende que las acciones públicas y civiles de innovación social son más que estrategias defensivas frente al impacto de la crisis, pues plantean modelos alternativos de desarrollo; aun así, su eficacia y capacidad para contribuir a impulsar procesos de desarrollo local sigue siendo limitada.
Purpose
This paper explores economic moralities in self-organised alternative economies and argues that the diverse economies approach is particularly useful in elaborating the self-understandings of such economic communities. The analysis focuses on two types of alternative economies in Finland: ridesharing and timebanking.
Design/methodology/approach
Through qualitative data, the paper looks into moments of negotiation where economic moralities of self-organised alternative economies are explicitly debated. The main research data consists of social media conversations, supplemented by a member survey for the participants of the studied timebank. The data are analysed through theory-guided qualitative content analysis.
Findings
The analysis shows that the moments of negotiation within alternative economies should not be understood as simple collisions of mutually exclusive ideas, but rather as complex processes of balancing between overlapping and partly incommensurable economic moralities. While self-organised alternative economies might appear as functionally uniform at the level of their everyday operations, they still provide considerable leeway for different conceptions of the underlying normative commitments.
Originality/value
To date, there is little qualitative research on how the participants of self-organised alternative economies reflect the purpose and ethics of these practices. This study contributes to the body of diverse economies research by analysing novel case studies in the Finnish context. Through empirical analysis, this paper also provides a theoretical framework of how the different economic moralities in self-organised alternative economies can be mapped.
Identifying the existence of democratic governance rules in economic activities is considered a necessary first step towards linking the solidarity-based economic sector to the promotion of social innovation. Faced with a non-critical use of the notion of social innovation (and considering that democratic economic principles applied to business activities always manifest themselves gradually), one of the first issues to be tackled in order to foster social innovation with socially transformative aims is to identify certain basic principles to define economic practices that may be included within what is known as the social and solidarity-based economy. As the previous literature has shown, these practices are basically defined by their aims and by their governance rules and they are not directly linked to an exclusive legal form. Although the sector has been historically and ideologically related to the development of democratic cooperativism, the practices that can be framed within the social and solidarity-based economy are defined primarily by the ways in which they face the effects of different economic cycles in terms of social and ecological transformation. In addition to the search for a human and socially transformative scale for economic activity, one of the main common criteria signalled in the literature is the identification of participative and democratic governance practices in business decision-making. This involves the development of strategies to consider the complexity occasioned by the existence of a growing multiplicity of types of actors engaged in economic processes, in consonance with what are called multi-stakeholder dynamics. In this sense, economic activity may be an area of democratic experimentation and the search for private gain is no longer going to be the main ruling principle of the system. The positive disposition towards social innovation shown by initiatives framed within the social and solidarity-based economy is reinforced by their inclination to link non-speculative productive activities with democratic development, but also by many of their organisational aspects. The resilience of the sector's entities, or the economic risk that they are capable of assuming, has popularised (especially in the current context of multidimensional crisis) the identification of the sector with an approach that confronts the multiple social challenges that emerge in the context of economic globalisation and its particular negative effects on territories. These types of economic practices are especially suited both to fostering partnerships between different kinds of actors involved in the provision of welfare services and to promoting an integrated approach to local economic development. Since the mid-1990s, there has been an awareness in Europe of the third sector's role in providing solutions to basic social services, considering the growing importance of new modes of organisation as well as new productive factors. This is linked to the increase of different types of actors with different forms of commitment and different modes of operation that define social enterprises as especially hybrid organisations in comparison to hegemonic forms of private enterprise. From the public administration's perspective, this coincides with the social innovation paradigm in which public management systems may gain in complexity by adapting themselves to issues such as the activation of citizens as co-producing agents of public services. Other innovative trends with a special presence in the social and solidarity-based sector are: The intensive use of the Internet; the adoption of crowdsourcing dynamics; the cooperative consumption of goods and services; the initiatives' territorial sense of belonging; the emphasis on the construction of communities supporting concrete collective practices; or multi-activity as a principle promoting entrepreneurialism, among others. In addition to these organisational dynamics, it is necessary to consider changes in production factors. For instance, the social sector has witnessed and adapted itself to growing selectivity in volunteer work and organisational activism, which nowadays are especially geared towards concrete aims. Also, it has been particularly exposed to the effects of the influx of financial resources from public policies in terms of the aims, objectives, and working dynamics that drive the operation of social entities. Considering the previously cited aspects, and approaching the main question of the research from a local administration perspective, it is crucial to consider the importance and complexity of promoting and spreading knowledge of a set of economic practices that are not easily parameterised. Through an analysis of the existing literature and the consideration of different case studies derived from our fieldwork in the province of Barcelona, we can underline three basic mechanisms used by municipalities in this regard: (1) the organisation of citizen awareness-raising events; (2) the study and parameterisation of the sector and (3) the development of outreach activities geared towards policy makers and public managers. The strategy of awareness-raising through the organisation of events requires avoiding the 'folklorisation' of the sector and the linking of its popularisation to situations of exceptionality. In turn, the study and parameterisation of the sector involves confronting analytical complexity in its delimitation and developing a shared diagnosis in conjunction with the sector itself. Lastly, with regard to popularisation among policy makers and public managers, it is crucial to avoid the risk of sectorialisation that policies geared towards the promotion of the solidarity-based economy have. This means seeking a cross-cutting approach in the incorporation of economic democratisation principles. On the other hand, apart from the popularisation of the sector, there is a set of administrative stimuli and concrete executive measures used by some municipalities to promote the sector. Financial supports for social entrepreneurs, aimed at helping small initiatives in their development phase, are useful mechanisms, especially in the search for providers responding to local needs. Another promotional measure is to support those spaces that are useful for backing socio-communitarian activities, fostering collective learning about the challenges for local development and exploring the intersection between entrepreneurial activities and citizenship practices. In this regard, local governments can also foster exchanges between networks, as well as boost complementary currencies as a tool to tackle financial scarcity and to promote labour activation, while at the same time offering opportunities to small businesses. In this sense, we can also identify the introduction of social clauses in the administration's contracts as a way to incorporate social and environmental criteria in contract documents and as a policy tool allowing multiple applications. Lastly, public stimulus for business transformation involves encouraging the improvement of social, economic, and ecological aspects through incentives for the private sector. Despite the variety of possibilities presented here for public policies linking social innovation and solidarity-based economic practices, and in an effort to offer some practical conclusions, it is important to point out several limitations. Firstly, public policies fostering the sector have to face the crucial difficulty of the absence (for the meantime) of a clear articulation of the interests of the social and solidarity-based sector at the macroeconomic level. This is considered a necessary step to guarantee the positive development of the relative weight of the social and solidarity-based sector in relation to the rest of economic activity. Secondly, it is necessary, as already indicated, to seek cross-cutting and integrated approaches in policies fostering social and solidarity-based economic practices. This means avoiding their institutionalisation as a specific activity niche within public policies and promoting their presence as a driving principle in all public management areas. Lastly, a third important unresolved issue for public policies fostering social innovation is that the social and solidarity-based economy, in its operating and governance principles, is geared towards the subversion of the hegemonic model of the capitalist enterprise motivated by private profit. As a consequence, this requires a complementary effort not only in favour of the emergent sector but also in favour of defending economic democracy in a broad sense. This means, for instance, penalising and regulating the scope of business practices that are contrary to the principles of social and environmental justice.
Este artículo emplea la teoría de los órdenes de justificación para estudiar las prácticas económicas alternativas que cuestionan el capitalismo. Los datos proceden de un cuestionario aplicado a participantes en 55 experiencias de seis ciudades españolas, y del análisis de once casos en Salamanca mediante entrevistas semiestructuradas, observación directa y seguimiento de sus espacios virtuales. Estas iniciativas alternativas construyen comunidades igualitarias, autogestionadas, autónomas y respetuosas con la naturaleza. Sin embargo, para garantizar su funcionamiento interno y satisfacer las exigencias del entorno normativo, deben introducir métodos industriales y comerciales de índole empresarial que son legitimados a través de compromisos con los argumentos domésticos y ecológicos.
Las prácticas económicas alternativas son modalidades de coordinación económica que se rigen de forma autónoma mediante mecanismos de democracia directa, que promueven valores comunitarios, cooperativos y sostenibles, y que pretenden sustituir, transformar o superar el capitalismo. Pueden actuar en redes de alcance global o centrarse en iniciativas de escala local, formando comunidades basadas en la confianza interpersonal y el encuentro habitual en sedes ubicadas en locales, solares o plazas. Esta obra estudia las prácticas de ámbito local que operan en distintas ciudades españolas. Se han analizado 67 experiencias, que comprenden bancos de tiempo, huertos comunitarios, grupos de consumo agroecológico, mercados de productores y de trueque, monedas sociales y centros sociales autogestionados. Estas iniciativas están impulsadas por personas con una fuerte conciencia crítica que aspiran a construir una sociedad más justa y más sostenible a través de su compromiso con las comunidades que se constituyen en torno a esta clase de propuestas económicas. Sin embargo, la escasez de medios materiales y la dependencia del trabajo voluntario de sus integrantes son factores que afectan a la capacidad de estas prácticas para transformar el modelo económico imperante e impulsar la transición hacia una economía, una sociedad y una política diferentes.
El sistema capitalista vive una de esas fases de transición y consiguiente turbulencia que siguen a las grandes crisis que, de forma cíclica, marcan su historia. Han transcurrido ya diez años desde el estallido de la grave crisis sistémica que puso en cuestión el modelo de globalización neoliberal de las últimas décadas. Surgida en el ámbito financiero y con una incidencia inmediata sobre un sector inmobiliario que creció en muchos países soportado por una enorme burbuja de crédito y endeudamiento, afectó luego al conjunto de la actividad económica, con fuertes impactos sociolaborales y políticos repartidos de forma desigual según la diferente vulnerabilidad de los territorios y su marco institucional. Lejos de dibujar un rumbo bien definido, la evolución posterior a esa Gran Recesión parece marcada hoy por profundas contradicciones, con rasgos del pasado reciente que se resisten a desaparecer e incluso se acentúan (la financiarización de las economías, la amenaza de nuevos ciclos de endeudamiento y burbujas inmobiliarias, la precariedad laboral y el desempleo de larga duración, la desigualdad social, la paralela segregación urbana, el deterioro ambiental…), junto al desarrollo de otros que cobran creciente protagonismo (en el plano de las tecnologías de información y las redes digitales, los nuevos movimientos sociales, las nuevas formas de economía…). Para algunos investigadores, estas tendencias dispares parecen anunciar el final de una época y el progresivo surgimiento de un nuevo mundo regido por lógicas diferentes a las hasta ahora hegemónicas. En ese contexto, se ha difundido el concepto de postcapitalismo que, propuesto hace ya un cuarto de siglo por el experto en gestión empresarial Peter Drucker (1993), ha sido recuperado recientemente por autores como Gibson-Graham (2006), Sassower (2009), Triginer (2014), Srnicek y Williams (2015), o Mason (2015). A partir de diagnósticos y bases teóricas bastante diferentes, todos comparten el carácter excepcional de esta última crisis y el consiguiente agotamiento de un capitalismo minado por la intensificación de sus contradicciones, el poder disruptivo de las tecnologías digitales, la supuesta abundancia y movilidad crecientes de la información, junto a la multiplicación de redes colaborativas no regidas por la competencia y el beneficio como pautas básicas de funcionamiento, o la progresiva reducción del empleo 1 El artículo se integra en el proyecto de investigación sobre Espacios y prácticas económicas alternativas para la construcción de la resiliencia en las ciudades españolas (CSO2015-65452). Plan Nacional de I+D+i. (Retos). Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad.
The last decade has witnessed an important development of practices that involve alternative proposals to the dominant production, consumption and exchange patterns. In the present article, we present an analysis of the interwoven patterns of alternative economic practices in Valladolid, a mid-sized city in Spain.This urban profile differs from the cities that have typically been used to design the body of research on the transformation power that consumer networks, bartering, time banking, social coin and community orchards have.Taking into account the value of both the context and the scale under investigation, this study proposes a reanalysis for these types of cities:under this view,the potential is not placed in the economic sphere but rather in the social practice and experience as well as in the political culture.
Scholarship on institutions across the social sciences faces a set of fundamental dilemmas. On the one hand, it needs to explain how institutions change. Yet explanations of change which point to external factors run the risk of reducing institutions to a mere transmission belt for other, more fundamental causes. On the other, it needs to explain how institutions can have meaningful consequences. Yet in practice it is often hard to distinguish the institutions that cause a particular behavior from that behavior itself. In this chapter, the author shows how, these dilemmas affect the relatively discrete approaches to institutions offered by rational choice, historical institutionalist and sociological institutionalist accounts. He map out the different ways in which authors have sought to resolve these dilemmas and then briefly outlines an alternative approach that borrows from evolutionary theory and an understanding of institutions as congregations of beliefs to offer a better answer to these problems.
This chapter explores the dynamic nature of institutions in response to changes in regulations and the institutional context. Seeking to refine the understanding of how and to which extent institutions change or sustain, the authors dismantle two institutions by analyzing the dynamics of their form and function separately. They propose a simple taxonomic model that helps explain how institutions can either sustain their form while their function responds to a changing institutional context (institutional drift) or, vice versa, retain their function while adapting their form to an altered context (institutional morphosis). Empirically, the latter case is illustrated by public procurement in Germany’s construction sector, whereas the journeyman years of artisans serve as an example of drift. The authors thus adopt an endogenous perspective and foster finer-grained concepts of institutional change that might help improve the understanding of the workings of policies that are at odds with or consistent with the underlying institutional reality.
RESUMEN: El objetivo de este artículo es presentar los resultados de un análisis y cartografía de las ini-ciativas de innovación social que han surgido en la ciudad de Valencia en los últimos años. Mediante trabajo de campo y técnicas fundamentalmente cualitativas (FocusGroup, entrevistas, cuestionarios a informadores cuali-ficados), se han recopilado y analizado las iniciativas de este tipo que se encuentran actualmente activas, ana-lizando su tipología, cronología y localización geográfica, con el fin de determinar las variables que han condicionado su nacimiento y, en particular, su posible vinculación con las características de los barrios en que se han originado (problemática social, estructura sociodemográfica, tradición participativa, redes y capital social existente, etc.). Los resultados muestran la gran diversidad temática existente, así como su vinculación con las demandas percibidas por la población y su vinculación a barrios con población joven y áreas consolidadas con tradición participativa, como Ciutat Vella, Benimaclet y Marítim.
Analysis of urban governance models not only requires consideration of the structural context but also the specific local conditions of cities. The evolution of the Barcelona and Madrid urban governance models show an extreme complexity and strong particularities for both cases. This study is based on a series of in-depth interviews with public authorities and civil society entities, a literature review and an analysis of secondary sources referred to the evolution of governance and the agenda for competitiveness and social cohesion in Barcelona and Madrid. Results clearly show two different models of urban governance, each with its own characteristics and its specific historical development. Nevertheless , in both cases the accelerated exhaustion of the previous models allowed for new attempts of socio-political and economic proposals in the context of the new urban agenda. keywords.
Los grupos de consumo constituyen la cara más visible de un conjunto de prácticas agroecológicas alternativas que han adquirido especial notoriedad en Madrid en años recientes, particularmente a partir del clima de movilización ciudadana inaugurada al calor del 15M. Este artículo analiza sus características y significado en un espacio central y otro periférico de Madrid —Lavapiés y Vallecas— y evalúa su capacidad para contribuir a propuestas de resiliencia urbana. Nuestros resultados muestran que el potencial socialmente transformador de estas iniciativas varía con el contexto territorial y los actores que las impulsan.
En las ciudades españolas han proliferado formas alternativas de coordinación económica y social durante la crisis económica. La proximidad geográfica entre los participantes propicia el surgimiento de estas iniciativas. En el barrio del Oeste (Salamanca), la acción vecinal está transformando un entramado urbano densificado en un espacio atractivo para las actividades económicas que incorporan valores sociales y comunitarios.Alternative forms of social and economic coordination have flourished in Spanish cities during the economic downturn. Geographical proximity among partners fosters the development of these initiatives. In the Oeste district (Salamanca), grassroots action is reshaping a highly densified environment into a more attractive area for economic activities inflected with social and community values.
The reproductive and care work predominantly undertaken by women has historically been undervalued in traditional measures of the economy. However, calls for more work, or better work for women (and men) doesn’t necessarily solve the issues surrounding waged labour such as zero hour contracts, the ‘double work day’, and other forms of increasing precarity and competition. In this article I explore how alternative forms of labour exchange in the Wellington Timebank provide one way in which subjects can partially operate outside the waged economy. I draw on Jacques Rancière’s understanding of how a radical equality underpins a democratic politics to explore the everyday negotiations around labour that occur in this alternative economy. I connect work being done by the Community Economies Collective to ideas of radical equality and a feminist ethic of care to show how embodied and everyday practices like timebanking enable subjects to challenge the inequalities of waged work and in Rancière’s terms, partially construct alternative ‘distributions of the sensible’.
Resumen Este artículo pretende explicar el giro hacia la política electoral e institucional de buena parte del activismo procedente del movimiento 15M. Desde el año 2014, se ha pasado del ámbito de la pro-testa y la contestación social-en gran medida desde posiciones autonomistas y autogestionarias-, hacia formas de participación política convencionales, como partidos políticos y candidaturas electorales. Los cambios en el ciclo de protesta iniciado en 2011 con el 15M responderían a una tensión entre dos marco de referencia y dos proyectos espaciales alternativos. Dichos proyectos contendrían tendencias antagónicas, pero igualmente reduccionistas en sus planteamientos sobre lo político, el fetiche del Estado y el fetiche de lo comunitario. A partir de entrevistas semi-estruc-turadas y del análisis de documentos se concluye que, en una coyuntura de crisis, son las propias prácticas autonomistas las que sientan las bases políticas para un giro sobre las instituciones. Palabras clave: Fetiche del Estado; proyectos espaciales; movimientos sociales; movimiento 15M. Abstract From 15M to the electoral turn. Space projects and political fetish in collective action strategies. This article strives to contribute to the debate on how and why a large sector of Spanish activ-ism has shifted to institutional politics after the 15M or Indignados movement. Since 2014 there has been a transition from protest and social contestation, i.e. autonomous and self-managed activism, towards politically conventional participation within the realm of political parties and electoral candidacies. Strategic changes within the protest cycle started in 2011 with the burst of the 15M respond to the tension between two reference frameworks and two alternative spatial projects. These projects drive to antagonistic tendecies towards the fetishization of the State and the fetishization of the community. Drawn on semi-structured interviews and analysis of social movements and political organisation documents, it concludes that autonomist practices are the basis for a shift on the institutions in a context of crisis.
Las redes alimentarias alternativas constituyen una temática de investigación emergente en los
estudios urbanos, que cuestiona los modelos dominantes de producción, distribución y consumo
de alimentos. Una de sus manifestaciones son los mercados de productores, que ponen en contacto
directo a productores periurbanos y rurales con consumidores urbanos, favoreciendo las
relaciones de proximidad y los circuitos cortos. El artículo investiga los mercados de productores
en Madrid mediante una estrategia multimétodo que combina entrevistas, encuestas y otras técnicas
complementarias. Los resultados confirman su diversidad interna, identifican las estrategias
de los diferentes actores y delimitan su impacto territorial, mostrando también sus limitaciones.
Alternative food network in big cities: the farmers’ markets in Madrid
Alternative food networks have become an emerging topic of research in urban studies, which
discuss and review the dominant patterns of production, distribution and consumption of food.
The farmers markets are one of its forms that put in direct contact rural farmers and urban consumers,
fostering proximity relationships and short circuits. This paper analyses the farmers
markets in Madrid using a multi-method strategy that combines interviews, surveys and other
complementary techniques. The results confirm their internal diversity, identify strategies of the
different actors and defines their territorial impact, showing also their limitations.
Drawing on insights from feminist and Science and Technology Studies writing on care and vulnerability, this paper will critically explore conceptualisations of responsibility, care and vulnerability in relation to contemporary approaches to Responsible Innovation (RI). Drawing on examples of some of the social and ethical challenges of precision medicine, we highlight the on-going, distributed and complex nature of innovation and responsibilities in relation to markets, patient and carer experience and data practices associated with these new technologies to highlight some of the limits of RI. We end by reflecting on the implications of our analysis for the social and ethical challenges of precision medicine and RI more generally.
This paper develops a research agenda toward the systematic inclusion of institutions into the analysis of regional policy effectiveness. Departing from the commonly shared observation that formal rules of regulation and policies not always lead to the intended outcomes, we argue that institutions are crucial mediators of the workings of regulation and regional policies in specific geographical contexts. By defining institutions as stable patterns of interactions based on legitimate mutual expectations (Bathelt and Glückler, 2014), we open analytical scope for analyzing the multiple relations between regulated rules and regular social practice. Hence, we build on Helmke and Levitsky's (2004) conception of the interdependencies between regulation and institutions, and extend their heuristic into a dynamic framework at the regional scale on how to pursue what we call institutional policy-making.
RESUMEN: El artículo desarrolla una agenda de investigación orientada a la inclusión sistemática de las instituciones en el análisis de la efectividad de la política regional. A partir de una observación comúnmente compartida de que las reglas formales de regulación y las políticas no siempre conducen a lograr los resultados perseguidos, se argumenta que las instituciones constituyen media-dores cruciales de los trabajos de regulación y de política regional en contextos geográficos específicos. A partir de definir las instituciones como estructuras es-tables de interacciones basadas en las mutuas expectativas legitimizadas (Bathelt y Gluckler, 2014), se abre un campo analítico para analizar las múltiples relacio-nes entre reglas reguladas y prácticas sociales regulares. A partir de ello y sobre la concepción de Helmke y Levitsky (2004) sobre las interdependencias entre regulación e instituciones se extiende su contenido en un marco dinámico a es-cala regional sobre cómo llevar a cabo lo que nosotros llamamos policy-making institucional.
In the context of apolitical tendencies in food studies, this paper explores how alternative food networks can contribute to developing emancipatory food politics rather than constitute a tool to reproduce neoliberal subjectivities. For this purpose, I contend that the post-political literature offers a useful approach to examining the concept of food politics by developing a more robust theoretical framework, permitting the establishment of linkages with broader contemporary processes of social change. The analysis of an action-research process with buying groups in Spain is used to examine the "politics of collectivity" at play, that is, how these initiatives institutionalise "the political". Specifically I explore the motivations mobilised to construct place-based ethical repertoires and unveil how these groups govern the relationality of consumption practices in the pursuit of broader processes of change. I conclude by discussing the contribution of these initiatives to building egalitarian food democracies.
RESUMEN: Este artículo se pregunta por el papel de la innovación social en el contex-to de la crisis en los municipios de Cataluña. En concreto, el artículo indaga sobre en qué medida las prácticas llamadas de innovación social consiguen penetrar en los barrios y municipios más afectados por la segregación urbana y, en términos más generales, sobre la importancia de la cooperación ciudadana en las áreas urbanas más desfavorecidas. El artículo parte de una investigación en la que se ha combinado el análisis estadístico y cartográfico de la segregación urbana en el periodo 2001-2012; el mapeo de más de 700 prácticas de innovación social; y el análisis comparado de seis estudios de caso. La tesis principal de este trabajo es que la innovación social no se produce necesariamente entre las comunidades más desfavorecidas, sino entre aquellos grupos con más recursos para la acción colectiva. Se destaca, sin embargo, que los barrios que más resisten los efectos de la crisis son aquellos que tienen más capacidad de organización y de acción social.
It is widely believed that there is no alternative to capitalism. Over the last
two decades however, the critical geography literature on diverse
economies has demonstrated the existence of alternatives to capitalism by
revealing the persistence of non-capitalist forms of work and organisation.
The aim in this paper is to question the validity and usefulness of
continuing to frame these non-capitalist practices as "alternatives".
Positioning non-capitalist economic practices as “alternatives” fails to
capture not only the ubiquity of such practices in everyday life, but also
how those engaging do not see them as “alternatives” in the sense of a
second choice, or less desirable option, to capitalist practices. The intention
in doing so is to reveal that it is not non-capitalist practices that are
“alternative” but rather, capitalist practices themselves, thus opening up
the future to the possibility of a non-capitalist world more fully then has so
far been the case.
How to create radical democracy in a moment of crisis and austerity? On the one hand, geographies of autonomy, solidarity, and resistance can offer hope, promise, and utopian anticapitalist alternatives for future action. On the other hand, agonistic initiatives that discard consensus in favor of conflictive engagement with institutions of state rule can allow for pluralism and the acceptance of difference. Perhaps, however, actually existing democracy can be achieved through an emphasis on process that bridges both activist ideologies. Looking to competing forms of activism in Madrid’s housing movement, I identify two strands of action—radical autonomy versus agonistic engagement. Despite their profound disjunctures, however, I argue these strands complement each other to ultimately experience convergence, which in turn contributes to the flourishing of new political initiatives. Within this convergence, feminist perspectives attuned to difference have been crucial in forcing transformation through existing democratic structures. The resulting political projects engage with mechanisms of state rule while drawing on practices and procedures from autonomous struggles to elaborate frameworks for institutional change. In the process, I demonstrate the possibility of collaboration between competing modes of activism—often conceived as incommensurate—in the broader quest for emancipation from neoliberal state rule.
The study of institutional work has emerged as a dynamic research domain within organization studies. In this essay, we situate the papers published in the Special Issue. We first review the evolution of institutional work as a scholarly conversation within organization studies. We then introduce the papers in the Special Issue, focusing in particular on where they fit into the current scholarly conversation and how they move us in important new directions. Finally, we discuss a set of neglected issues that deserve further attention.
The term responsible (research and) innovation has gained increasing EU policy relevance in the
last two years, in particular within the European Commission’s Science in Society programme, in
the context of the Horizon 2020 Strategy. We provide a brief historical overview of the concept,
and identify three distinct features that are emerging from associated discourses. The first is an
emphasis on the democratic governance of the purposes of research and innovation and their
orientation towards the ‘right impacts’. The second is responsiveness, emphasising the integration
and institutionalisation of established approaches of anticipation, reflection and deliberation in
and around research and innovation, influencing the direction of these and associated policy.
The third concerns the framing of responsibility itself in the context of research and innovation as
collective activities with uncertain and unpredictable consequences. Finally, we reflect on possible
motivations for responsible innovation itself.
Radical and autonomous urban movements like the European squatters' movement tend to resist integration into the institutions of the state, although particular legal and political conditions in each country or city may significantly alter this tendency. In this article, I examine the controversial issue of ‘institutionalization’ among squatters, focusing on the few cases of legalized squats (social centres) in the city of Madrid. Negotiations with the state authorities and processes of legalization are the major forms of institutionalization involving squatters. However, an anomalous kind of institutionalization also emerges once squats, whether legalized or not, become consolidated and socially accepted. For squatting to have a successful impact, then, depends on both the type of autonomy achieved by squatters and the different outcomes of the processes of institutionalization. The case of Madrid provides empirical evidence that: (1) negotiations with state authorities were very frequent among squatters, but most were defensive; (2) the few cases of legalization were due to specific conditions such as the urban centrality of the squats, single-issue identities, social network solidarity, favourable media coverage, formal organizations working as facilitators and the squatters' leadership of the process. Furthermore, legalized squats in Madrid preserved a high degree of autonomy, self-management and ties to other radical social movements. In conclusion, both the legalized squats and the squatters' movement in Madrid as a whole, avoided ‘terminal institutionalization’ and, instead, gave shape to a ‘flexible’ one.
The governance of emerging science and innovation is a major challenge for contemporary democracies. In this paper we present a framework for understanding and supporting efforts aimed at ‘responsible innovation’. The framework was developed in part through work with one of the first major research projects in the controversial area of geoengineering, funded by the UK Research Councils. We describe this case study, and how this became a location to articulate and explore four integrated dimensions of responsible innovation: anticipation, reflexivity, inclusion and responsiveness. Although the framework for responsible innovation was designed for use by the UK Research Councils and the scientific communities they support, we argue that it has more general application and relevance.
This paper develops a rigorous concept of institutions to investigate the interrelationships between institutional and economic change from the perspective of economic geography. We view institutions neither as behavioural regularities nor as organizations or rules, but conceive institutions as stabilizations of mutual expectations and correlated interaction. The paper discusses how economic interaction in space is shaped by existing institutions, how this leads to economic decisions and new rounds of action, and how their intended and unintended consequences impact or enact new/existing institutions. The paper explores three modes of institutional change – hysteresis, emergent change, and institutional entrepreneurship.
Human geography is in a unique position to understand how local structural factors shape social, political, and ultimately economic outcomes. Indeed, the discipline has had much to say about the interaction between local institutions and the economy in general, and about how the broader institutions of society influence local economic development. Yet, to date, geographers have for the most part avoided debates on more generalized theories of economic growth and development. With the increasing recognition – among sociologists, political scientists and even economists – that explaining economic growth robustly requires taking into account the role of both formal society-wide institutions and local and sometimes informal institutions, geographers are in a position to make an important contribution. In order to do so, however, they will need to take greater account of the theories and developments that are taking place outside the discipline. Using the framework of community and society as complementary structural forces shaping development trajectories, this paper presents a broad overview of the principal theoretical and empirical developments in the institutionalist approaches to economic development and identifies areas in which geographical research could contribute to them.
The use of the term institution has become widespread in the social sciences in recent years, reflecting the growth in institutional economics and the use of the institution concept in several other disciplines, including philosophy, sociology, politics, and geography. The term has a long history of usage in the social sciences, dating back at least to Giambattista Vico in his Scienza Nuova of 1725. However, even today, there is no unanimity in the definition of this concept. Furthermore, endless disputes over the definitions of key terms such as institution and organization have led some writers to give up matters of definition and to propose getting down somehow to practical matters instead. But it is not possible to carry out any empirical or theoretical analysis of how institutions or organizations work without having some adequate conception of what an institution or an organization is. This paper proposes that those that give up are acting in haste; potentially consensual definitions of these terms are possible, once we overcome a few obstacles and difficulties in the way. It is also important to avoid some biases in the study of institutions, where institutions and characteristics of a particular type are overgeneralized to the set of institutions as a whole. This paper outlines some dangers with regard to an excessive relative stress on self-organization and agent-insensitive institutions. This paper draws on insights from several academic disciplines and is organized in six sections. The first three sections are devoted to the definition and understanding of institutions in general terms. The first section explores the meaning of key terms such as institution, convention, and rule. The second discusses some general issues concerning how institutions function and how they interact with individual agents, their habits,
As well as review the literature on the notion of institutional entrepreneurship introduced by Paul DiMaggio in 1988, we propose a model of the process of institutional entrepreneurship. We first present theoretical and definitional issues associated with the concept and propose a conceptual account of institutional entrepreneurship that helps to accommodate them. We then present the different phases of the process of institutional entrepreneurship from the emergence of institutional entrepreneurs to their implementation of change. Finally, we highlight future directions for research on institutional entrepreneurship, and conclude with a discussion of its role in strengthening institutional theory as well as, more broadly, the field of organization studies.
This book can be downloaded free-of-charge using the following link:
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-319-75328-7
This open access book bridges the disciplinary boundaries within the social sciences to explore the role of social institutions in shaping geographical contexts, and in creating new knowledge. It includes theorizations as well as original empirical case studies on the emergence, maintenance and change of institutions as well as on their constraining and enabling effects on innovation, entrepreneurship, art and cultural heritage, often at regional scales across Europe and North America. Rooted in the disciplines of management and organization studies, sociology, geography, political science, and economics the contributors all take comprehensive approaches to carve out the specific contextuality of institutions as well as their impact on societal outcomes. Not only does this book offer detailed insights into current debates in institutional theory, it also provides background for scholars, students, and professionals at the intersection between regional development, policy-making, and regulation.
This chapter explores the interrelations between institutions, defined as stabilized interaction patterns, and innovation, since successful innovation rests on the design of institutional contexts and since inconsistent institutional contexts constrain or even impede successful innovation. Such situations require processes of adjusting innovations to the institutional context (robust design), circumventing resistant institutional contexts (peripheral dominance), or creating new institutional contexts that fit the innovation process (institutional entrepreneurship). The chapter criticizes studies that focus on formal legislation and regulation as indicators of national institutional variety, while neglecting institutional practices and how these also differ at the sub-national level. From a relational perspective, supportive innovation policies need to respond to geographically and temporally varying institutional contexts even within a single legal and regulatory regime. It is argued that policy needs to understand the interrelationships between institutional practices and innovation, rather than viewing rules and regulations as determinants of innovation outcomes.
The entrepreneurial city is no longer (only) a growth machine: recession and austerity, new forms of financialization, and diverse experiments in urban policy have diluted local elites’ focus on growth. But entrepreneurial urban governance remains remarkably resilient despite its inability to deliver growth. Indeed, in many cities entrepreneurial tactics – e.g. municipal speculation, place branding, and inter-urban competition – are simply standard operating procedure. Recent scholarship on entrepreneurial urban governance demonstrates a need for re-theorizing the assumed interdependence between entrepreneurial practices and growth politics. This calls into question the nature of the ‘entrepreneurs’ of the entrepreneurial city, that is, the nature of municipal states. They increasingly (i) apply entrepreneurial practices to multiple governance agendas in parallel to growth, (ii) evaluate their portfolios in both speculative and more broadly experimental ways, and (iii) challenge top-down narratives about inter-urban competition through inter-urban diplomacy. Each of these characteristics shows the disruptive potential of interventionist forms of municipal statecraft.
Alternative financial spaces Although geographers have had a longstanding interest in finance and the spatial circulation of capital (e.g., Harvey, 1982), research in the ‘new economic geography’ has only recently begun to examine ‘alternative’ financial institutions and the spaces these institutions occupy (Lee, 1996, 1999). In the case of one such ‘alternative’ institution (Gunn and Gunn, 1991), the British community credit union, the local development space is usually referred to as the common bond area, which in this instance is delimited by the area of residence and/or workplace of members of the credit union. 1 The common bond area serves as a basis of mutuality for the credit union and provides the geographical boundaries within which the pooling of savings and lending of money at relatively low cost to members occurs. It is tempting to examine ‘alternative’ institutional forms like community credit unions solely in terms of social and un ...
The relations between everyday life and political participation are of interest for much contemporary social science. Yet studies of social movement protest still pay disproportionate attention to moments of mobilization, and to movements with clear organizational boundaries, tactics and goals. Exceptions have explored collective identity, 'free spaces' and prefigurative politics, but such processes are framed as important only in accounting for movements in abeyance, or in explaining movement persistence. This article focuses on the social practices taking place in and around social movement spaces, showing that political meanings, knowledge and alternative forms of social organization are continually being developed and cultivated. Social centres in Barcelona, Spain, autonomous political spaces hosting cultural and educational events, protest campaigns and alternative living arrangements, are used as empirical case studies. Daily practices of food provisioning, distributing space and dividing labour are politicized and politicizing as they unfold and develop over time and through diverse networks around social centres. Following Melucci, such latent processes set the conditions for social movements and mobilization to occur. However, they not only underpin mobilization, but are themselves politically expressive and prefigurative, with multiple layers of latency and visibility identifiable in performances of practices. The variety of political forms - adversarial, expressive, theoretical, and routinized everyday practices, allow diverse identities, materialities and meanings to overlap in movement spaces, and help explain networks of mutual support between loosely knit networks of activists and non-activists. An approach which focuses on practices and networks rather than mobilization and collective actors, it is argued, helps show how everyday life and political protest are mutually constitutive.
© London School of Economics and Political Science 2014.
How might academic practices contribute to the exciting proliferation of economic experiments occurring worldwide in the current moment? In this paper we describe the work of a nascent research community of economic geographers and other scholars who are making the choice to bring marginalized, hidden and alternative economic activities to light in order to make them more real and more credible as objects of policy and activism. The diverse economies research program is, we argue, a performative ontological project that builds upon and draws forth a different kind of academic practice and subjectivity. Using contemporary examples, we illustrate the thinking practices of ontological reframing, re-reading for difference and cultivating creativity and we sketch out some of the productive lines of inquiry that emerge from an experimental, performative and ethical orientation to the world. The paper is accompanied by an electronic bibliography of diverse economies research with over 200 entries.
Mainstream comparative research on political institutions focuses
primarily on formal rules. Yet in many contexts, informal institutions,
ranging from bureaucratic and legislative norms to clientelism and
patrimonialism, shape even more strongly political behavior and
outcomes. Scholars who fail to consider these informal rules of the
game risk missing many of the most important incentives and constraints
that underlie political behavior. In this article we develop a
framework for studying informal institutions and integrating them into
comparative institutional analysis. The framework is based on a
typology of four patterns of formal-informal institutional interaction:
complementary, accommodating, competing, and substitutive. We then
explore two issues largely ignored in the literature on this subject:
the reasons and mechanisms behind the emergence of informal
institutions, and the nature of their stability and change. Finally, we
consider challenges in research on informal institutions, including
issues of identification, measurement, and comparison. a
You can’t discuss the state of IT governance without first talking about Peter Weill, Chairman of the MIT Sloan School of
Management’s Center for Information Systems Research (CISR). Peter joined the Sloan faculty in 2000 to become director of
MIT CISR and was named chairman in 2008.
Institutional theory and structuration theory both contend that institutions and actions are inextricably linked and that institutionalization is best understood as a dynamic, ongoing process. Institutionalists, however, have pursued an empirical agenda that has largely ignored how institutions are created, altered, and reproduced, in part, because their models of institutionalization as a process are underdeveloped. Structuration theory, on the other hand, largely remains a process theory of such abstraction that it has generated few empirical studies. This paper discusses the similarities between the two theories, develops an argument for why a fusion of the two would enable institutional theory to significantly advance, develops a model of institutionalization as a structuration process, and proposes methodological guidelines for investigating the process empirically.
Institutions are defined as systems composed of regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive elements that act to produce meaning, stability and order. Institutional elements move from place to place and time to time with the help of carriers. Four types of carriers are distinguished--symbolic systems, relational systems, routines, and artifacts--and two of these--symbolic and relation systems--are described and illustrated. It is argued that carriers are not neutral vehicles but have important effects on the elements transmitted. Copyright 2003, Oxford University Press.
Diagnosi participativa. Les economies comunitàries de Barcelona
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Another economy is possible. Culture and economy in a time of crisis
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& Seale, K. (2017). Another economy is possible. Culture and economy in a time of crisis.
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Otra vida es posible. Prácticas económicas alternativas durante la crisis
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Proyectos espaciales y fetiches políticos en las estrategias de acción colectiva
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Del 15M al giro electoralista. Proyectos espaciales y fetiches
políticos en las estrategias de acción colectiva [From 15M to the Electoral turn. Space projects
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L'economia social y solidària a Barcelona [Social and solidary economy in Barcelona
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economy in Barcelona]. Barcelona: Comissionat d'Economia Cooperativa, Social y Solidaria -Ayuntamiento de Barcelona.
Los factores y límites de las prácticas económicas alternativas en León y Oviedo [Factors and limits of alternative economic practices in León and Oviedo
- A López
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López, A., & Benito, P. (2019). Los factores y límites de las prácticas económicas alternativas en
León y Oviedo [Factors and limits of alternative economic practices in León and Oviedo]. In
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Arraigar las instituciones. Propuestas de políticas agroecológicas desde los movimientos sociales [Embedding institutions. Proposals of agro-ecological policies by social movements
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Propuestas de políticas agroecológicas desde los movimientos sociales [Embedding institutions.
Proposals of agro-ecological policies by social movements]. Madrid: Libros en Acción.