Regional Policy Frameworks of Social Solidarity Economy in South America

Published in Conference: Potential and Limits of Social and Solidarity Economy At: UNRISD Geneva, Occasional Paper No. 6
Authors

Saguier, M. and Brent, Z.
Publication year 2014
DOI n/a
Affiliations
  • Department of International Relations, Latin American School of Social Science, FLACSO-Argentina 
  • Food First, Institute for Food & Development Policy, Oakland, United States
IAI Program

CRN3
IAI Project CRN3101
Keywords
Regionalism
Social and Solidarity Economyl
Development
South America

Abstract

This paper looks at how the Social Solidarity Economy (SSE) discourse has been
deployed at the regional level by UNASUR and MERCOSUR and the implications
of these new policy frameworks for the advancement of SSE practices. Though
civil society groups have presented SSE as a new economic paradigm, regional
policy frameworks implement it as an add-on or compliment to dominant capitalist economies. This happens in two key ways: 1.) The SSE sector and cooperatives in particular are cast as drivers of regional integration and socioeconomic policy, however limited involvement in major integration projects represent missed opportunities for SSE to be mainstreamed and 2.) Though SSE policy is portrayed as a kind of intervention that combines social and economic policies, implementation almost exclusively by ministers of social development means that SSE is institutionally limited to the realm of poverty eradication not restructuring of the dominant economy. SSE is also fiscally dependent on those dominant industries, which ultimately does not reverse or challenge the ongoing process of economic centralization in key sectors.