Social impact bonds and the tactics of feasibility: experience from Chile, Colombia and France

Abstract

Public policy innovations such as social impact bonds (SIBs) have prompted critical attention in recent literature. Yet, little is known about the operations they require and the shapes they take. This study contributes to this research agenda through a focus on the problem of ‘feasibility’. We consider this notion as a vernacular preoccupation put forward by SIB practitioners. We theorize this phenomenon with reference to the notions of tactics (making sense of situations in which schematization and ordering are difficult) and trials (the success of an action depending on the transformations it faces in the process of becoming explicit). We focus on how ‘feasibility’ emerged as a distinctive concern in a number of SIB cases in Chile, Colombia and France. We show how this concern translated recurrently into ways of orienting the SIB arrangement toward shapes in which it could prove viable and tractable.

Notes

1 A list of SIBs is available from the Impact Bond Dataset published on the GO Lab (Government Outcomes Lab) website https://golab.bsg.ox.ac.uk/knowledge-bank/indigo/impact-bond-dataset-v2/?query=&countries=France (accessed September 2021).

2 Ethnographic observations, qualitative interviews and archival research were carried out exclusively by the first author. Both authors contributed to the analysis and the writing.

3 In July 2021, iiLab rebranded as FAIR as a result of a merger with Finansol, the association of French solidarity-based finance practitioners. See FAIR’s website: https://www.finance-fair.org/ (accessed September 2021).

4 The first author’s research was carried out in the form of an industrial doctoral research contract with iiLab.

5 Ultimately, no SIB was launched after this scoping work. The government took up the subject in mid-2021 with a call for tenders to define a methodology for setting up SIBs.

6 A series of publications and project highlights are available from the website of the IDB Lab: https://bidlab.org/en (accessed September 2021).

7 See SIBs.CO’s website: http://www.sibs.co/ (accessed September 2021).

8 See Boual, Jean-Claude, Michel Chauvière, Eric Denouyelle, Gabrielle Garrigue and Irena Havlicel. 2016. Quand le social finance les banques et les multinationales. Les Contrats à impact social, des Social Impact Bonds à la française. Collectif des Associations Citoyennes. Available from: http://www.associations-citoyennes.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/CAC-LivretSIB-mai2016.pdf (accessed September 2021), and Alix, Jean-Sébastien, Michel Autès, Nathalie Coutinet, and Gabrielle Garrigue. 2018. “Les contrats à impact social: Une menace pour la solidarité ?” La Vie des Idées. Available from: https://laviedesidees.fr/Les-contrats-a-impact-social-une-menace-pour-la-solidarite.html (accessed September 2021).

9 The department and team in charge of SIB policy changed over political election cycles. It was under the Ministry of State for the Social and Solidarity Economy attached to the Ministry of Economy and Finance until 2017. The Ministry of State then became the High Commissariat for the Social and Solidarity Economy and the Social Innovation in the Ministry of the Ecologic and Solidarity Transition, and, again in 2020, it became the Ministry of State for the Social, Solidarity and Responsible Economy attached to the Ministry of Economy, Finance, and Recovery (‘Secrétariat d’État Chargé de l’Économie Sociale, Solidaire et Responsable’ in French). The administrative department for the social and solidarity economy within the Treasury, which has managed the technical and legal aspects of SIBs, has remained unchanged.

10 The code of ethics is available from the website of FAIR (formerly iiLab): https://www.finance-fair.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/20210517-CHARTE-DE-LA-FINANCE-A-IMPACT-SOCIAL.pdf (accessed September 2021).

11 See GO Lab (Government Outcomes Lab). 2018. “Procurement for Social Impact Bonds”. Available from: https://golab.bsg.ox.ac.uk/documents/150/Webinar_Procurement_for_SIBs_180306_AA.pdf (accessed September 2021). For more information on the structure developed in France, see also: Groupe de travail présidé par Frédéric Lavenir. 2019. Pour un développement du contrat à impact social au service des politiques publiques. Paris: Haut-Commissariat à l’Economie sociale et solidaire et à l’Innovation sociale. Available from: https://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/Rapport%20-%20Pour%20un%20d%C3%A9veloppement%20du%20contrat%20%C3%A0%20impact%20social%20au%20service%20des%20politiques%20publiques.pdf (accessed September 2021).

12 Documentation on SGEIs in the context of EU legislation is available from the website of the European Commission: https://ec.europa.eu/competition-policy/state-aid/legislation/sgei_en (accessed September 2021).

13 Feasibility studies are carried prior to contracting. They have varying degrees of influence on the final design of the SIBs. The example that follows may not reflect the final design of the Connectee SIB.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Association Nationale de la Recherche et de la Technologie (ANRT) (grant agreement 2019/0301).

Notes on contributors

Mathilde Pellizzari

Mathilde Pellizzari is a PhD candidate at the Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation (Mines ParisTech, PSL University) and FAIR (former Impact Invest Lab). Drawing on Science and Technology Studies, economic sociology and the anthropology of finance, her research investigates the establishment of social impact bonds, an innovation at the crossroads of public policy and impact investing.

Fabian Muniesa

Fabian Muniesa, a researcher at the Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation (Mines ParisTech, PSL University), is the author of The Provoked Economy: Economic Reality and the Performative Turn (2014, Routledge) and the coeditor, with Kean Birch, of Assetization: Turning Things into Assets in Technoscientific Capitalism (2020, The MIT Press).