Welfare state and the social economy in compressed development: Self‐sufficiency organizations in South Korea

Current studies tend to theorize the relationship between the social economy (SE) and social policy based on the experiences of Western welfare states, missing the evolution of social economy organizations (SEOs) in later developing, transitional welfare states. This article fills this gap by examining self‐sufficiency organizations in South Korea, which originated from urban SEOs but became agents for microbusiness start‐ups under the newly introduced universalistic public assistance scheme. To explain this evolutionary trajectory, this article applies a concept of “compressed development,” where different stages of development coexist. The compressed industrialization created large informal sectors and rudimentary community movements in urban slums. The compressed universalization of public assistance promoted urban community movements as agents of the workfare through microbusiness start‐ups outside the regular labor market. This article argues that the speed and timing of industrialization and welfare development need to be considered in studies of the SE in a transitional welfare‐mix.