Betting on children at risk: Actors’ views on the introduction of social impact bonds in the French field of “childhood in danger”

ABSTRACT

Social impact bonds (SIBs) were recently introduced in France as a result of the creation of a state label. A set of promises were associated with the bonds allowing experimental projects to test new methods in dealing with social risk. Social entrepreneurs offered to pioneer them and engage in social innovation. Yet the device immediately triggered questions about the benefits of this type of public−private partnership and the compatibility of the welfare system with social finance. Empirically, it had already been tested abroad, with mixed results. Theoretically, some assumptions to help modelize social risk proved debatable. This paper documents key actors’ views on SIBs in terms of their present and foreseeable effects. Its specific subfield is that of children’s services. Its main contribution is dual. It first consists of identifying what type of arguments and positions work better to promote SIBs in France. Secondly, it points to several forms of decoupling between discourse and practices caused by the superior success of moderate and relatively vague descriptions of SIBs as a set of promises, prefigurative of a major restructuration of the field.

Notes

1. FSE funds are unpopular because associations have to put in money first, this is a pre-condition and the criteria for projects are also quite selective.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elen Riot

Elen Riot is an associate professor in strategy and entrepreneurship. She is a graduate from the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon and HEC Paris. Her fields of investigation include different professions where workers and producers are faced with the transformations involved by new public management reforms controlled by rules and standards prevailing in large corporations. She conducts participant observation in such different fields as farmers, fishermen, artists and children in institutions to document actors’ situations and the possibility to cooperate and emancipate.