A different kind of social enterprise: social cooperatives and the development of civic capital in Italy

Viewed predominantly as service-based institutions, the contribution of social enterprises to civil society has not received much attention. In the discussion that follows, I draw from a variety of primary sources, including an in person survey of presidents and directors of 140 Italian social cooperatives, as well as in-depth interviews with leaders of the Italian Cooperative Movement, to investigate the capacity of social cooperatives to generate collective benefits for Italian civil society. Combining a social economy framework with emerging conceptual work on civic capital, I analyze the relationship between this unique form of social enterprise and two key challenges to community development in Italy: parochialism and clientelism. By combining systematic empirical research of Italian social cooperatives, as a novel though increasingly important form of social enterprise in Europe, with a conceptual framework which focuses on the solidaristic aspects of these organizations, for which there is very little published research in English, I hope to broaden our understanding of how third sector organizations are able to cope with challenges endemic to community development in contexts that extend well beyond Italy.