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

Abstract

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.

Taking stock of the trajectories of South Korea’s government-certified social enterprises: perspectives on a fluid semi-public sector model

“…This aligns with a “welfare-to-work” (or “workfare”) institutional logic, which connects welfare to self-help and self-sufficiency, consistent with the layered legacy – or “palimpsest” – of Korea’s “developmental state” (Jeong, 2015, 2017; Lim, 2021). Lim (2021) describes the Korean state as a “workfare state”, reluctant to increase welfare expenditures. Instead, it relies on private organizations, including GCSEs and for-profit companies, to achieve welfare objectives efficiently.…”

“…Dart (2004), Yi (2023b) observed that the "moral legitimacy" of SEs, emerging from the neoconservative, neoliberal climates of the 1980s and 1990s in the UK and the USA, was due to their entrepreneurial orientation and capacity for profit generation, distinguishing them from government-dependent welfare organizations. A similar preference for self-sustainable, prosocial, business-like entities informed the Korean public sector's promotion of SEs (Jang, 2017;Lim, 2021;Lim and Endo, 2016;Yi, 2023a). Our findings indicate that while adherence to the EMES economic and entrepreneurial dimensionwhich encapsulates this notionvaries considerably among GCSEs, there is a strong resonance with the framework's social dimension.…”

“…This strategy embodies a "developmental-universalist" approach, aiming to merge social welfare with economic policy by linking welfare initiatives to productive economic activities (Lim and Endo, 2016;Holliday, 2000). This aligns with a "welfare-to-work" (or "workfare") institutional logic, which connects welfare to self-help and self-sufficiency, consistent with the layered legacyor "palimpsest"of Korea's "developmental state" (Jeong, 2015(Jeong, , 2017Lim, 2021). Lim (2021) describes the Korean state as a "workfare state", reluctant to increase welfare expenditures.…”