The social economy

Today, it is interesting to explore the renewal of the social economy in Europe and in Canada in the final third of the twentieth for a number of reasons. [...] In the first section, we identify the major periods in European history in which there is a clear articulation between the economy and solidarity, including the recognition of the social economy and the emergence, in recent decades, of a new dynamic that we explore in the context of the ambiguities inherent in the position taken by the European Union. [...] The literature and the experiences that we draw upon for our overview in this article is the result of extensive research and engagement of the three researchers in close collaboration with the research teams3 to which they belong – ARUC-ÉS and CRISES in Canada and CRIDA and LISE in France. [...] Similarly, the Conseil de la Coopération du Québec and the Chantier de l’économie sociale are both represented in the Canadian section of the International Centre of Research and Information on the Public, Social and Cooperative Economy (CIRIEC) and in the Réseau d’investissement social du Québec (RISQ), an investment fund dedicated to the social economy. [...] While the aspirations of the 1970s for sustainable development and quality of life continued to prevail over the last two decades, the renewal of the social economy (as a reality and not as a concept) in Canada was deeply affected by the crisis in the early 1980s and the impact of globalisation and the opening-up of markets, economic restructuring and the rise of the knowledge-based economy, polit