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.WISEs being part of organized civil society (movement organizations, welfareassociations), they are also prone to have a positive general impact ondemocracy, since they contribute to political stability and to a strongerintegration of the citizens.They may open up a space of civic action forpeople with heavy social problems, interrelating social, educational andprofessional aspects in a process of secondary socialization.In that way,social enterprises can form a pre-political space, similar to othernot-for-profit organizations, civic associations or social clubs.Within amovement context, they may even provide an opportunity for connectingindividual problems with problems of society, be it on the local or on thenational level.For instance, some not-for-profit organisations in Germanysimultaneously act as an interest group for the jobless and as socialenterprises offering fixed-term employment or training to unemployed people(cf.Bode 1999).A further hint to the democratic potential of socialenterprises in Germany is given by the fact that they bring together differentsocial partners (e.g.employer organizations, trade unions, business chambers,churches).This may enhance consensus building and reduce potential socialconflicts and their costs.Many German WISEs use – and likewise cultivate – social capital:by building up voluntary support;by striving for fund raising and donations;by establishing social links between different sectors (including publicauthorities) - multi-stakeholder directories can be very supportive withrespect to that;by supporting trust, proximity and confidence in their inner structure as wellas in their relations to their social and political environment;by interweaving the development of supply and demand when building up new goodsand services together with the potential customers as "co-producers" (Evers etal., 1999, p.44).To sum up, social enterprises stand out due to a tight integration of socialcapital.Networking and an activation of civic engagement, as well as themobilization of sponsorship, have been important resources for a large numberof employment projects.The German case shows that there are several dimensionsof social capital building by WISEs.At the horizontal local / regional level, social enterprises can for examplenetwork representatives of the local economy, of the churches, of associations,of public administrations as well as individuals driven by civic concerns.In avertical direction, WISE that are members of wider umbrella organizations likethe welfare associations can make use of these bonds for obtaininginformational and material resources.Moreover, the training and employmentcurricula of WISEs are often not limited to in-house projects but also includeperiods in which the participants work in other organizations, such as, forexample, advanced vocational training in the local economy.Thus the democraticbenefit of WISEs also refers to their ability to give access to economicpartners.When reflecting on collective benefits, one might also think in a qualitydimension and evoke innovations set up by WISEs.As already stated, in Germany,publicly financed projects making use of long-term unemployed persons arepromoted only on condition that they respect the criterion of being additionalto already existing types of paid work, products and services, and only if theycan prove their public utility.An employment project is said to be"additional" if the service at stake is rendered neither by the state nor bythe market.So far, this rule has been restricting the scope of activities ofWISEs, pushing them quite often into niches in which social and ecologicalconcerns are at stake.In practice, WISEs are also involved in activities suchas cultivating waste lands (e.g.those formerly used by old industries) [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]