The Role of Active Citizenship in Local Governments' Implementation of Social Enterprise Support Policies: Focusing on the ‘Priority Purchase System of Social Enterprise Products by Public Organizations’

As the type and category of social problems expanded, it became complicated that could not be solved only by the state or market mechanism, and a social economy that combines social values and market economy emerged as a new alternative. The government recognizes the usefulness of social enterprises as a voluntary subject of social value creation and provides support policies for them, but the implementation level of support policies for social enterprises varies considerably from local governments. Therefore, in order to promote the implementation of social enterprise support policies, it is necessary to diagnose what factors cause differences across jurisdictions. The political and socioeconomic environment and conditions have been considered important as factors affecting the activism at the local government level. In this study, citizenship held by members of the local community is presented as one of the main environmental variables that affect the implementation of social enterprise support policies. As a result of analyzing local governments' social enterprise product purchases and citizen awareness survey data, it was confirmed that the solidarity factor of active citizenship had a positive effect on the execution of social enterprise support policies. Therefore, in order to develop the social economy, including social enterprises, policy efforts to promote citizens' social efficacy should be expanded.