In the context of the recent economic crisis and rising inequality, interest in the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) as a viable alternative economic model has gathered pace in Europe. This article, based on an innovative content analysis approach of organizations’ websites from the LIVEWHAT project, provides a snapshot of the SSE sectors’ main features in three European countries, namely Greece, Spain, and Switzerland, to understand how the SSE is practiced in varying contexts, uniquely affected by the current economic crisis, as well as within diverse SSE origins. The findings shed some light on distinct features and similarities indicating that the Swiss SSE sector, in line with its interrelations with the Swiss market economy, shows a greater degree of formalization and professionalization that defines its management structure, main activities, types of beneficiaries, goals, and means to achieve them. On the contrary, the relatively recent expansion of the Greek SSE sector is intertwined with the economic crisis, which has left a critical imprint on the SSE’s management structure, activities, aims, and means of accomplishing them. The Spanish SSE sector’s main features, on the other hand, lie in-between the Greek and the Swiss ones, providing an amalgam of various features.

This article deploys the Foucauldian concept of governmentality to study the political tensions that may unfold when commons are enacted through hybrid institutional configurations. We focus on civic management facilities (CMFs) that are located in the city of Barcelona. These are facilities owned by Barcelona City Council which, responding to organised citizens’ demands, are transferred to them so that they can develop their own transformative projects for the community. The hybrid institutional nature of these CMFs makes it impossible for them to avoid maintaining a relationship with the local state. Based on a survey to 51 CMFs, semi‐structured interviews with 41 grassroots members of CMFs and seven semi‐structured interviews with public employees and politicians, we argue that hybrid forms of commons lead to the development of political tensions. On the one hand, we show how the local state’s administrative procedures—to do with accountability and the use of public space—reshape the activities of the CMFs, leading to the depoliticisation of their transformative projects. On the other hand, the analysis also presents the strategies of resistance articulated by the facilities, which enable members to work towards the development of their transformative aims. We conclude that such political tensions cannot be resolved but must be properly governed in order to make the commons’ transformative project an enduring one.

No abstract

No abstract

Este artículo analiza los factores que llevaron a personas sin activismo político previo a participar en la campaña del movimiento de la Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH) la obra social de la PAH. El contexto del estudio es la crisis hipotecaria, con más de 580.000 ejecuciones hipotecarias en el Estado español entre 2009 y 2015. A través del análisis de entrevistas semi-estructuradas, los resultados muestran cómo los interlocutores construyen un relato legitimador de la desobediencia civil como última opción en una serie de protestas por el derecho a la vivienda. Haber sido desahuciado, no tener dónde vivir y la incapacidad del Estado para ofrecer vivienda social son algunas de las razones justificativas expuestas por los entrevistados. Al final suelen mostrar su voluntad de cumplir con las obligaciones ciudadanas y pagar un alquiler social según sus ingresos.