Participatory Development: An Analysis of Ostrom’s Framework of Seven Design Principles in the Context of Social Enterprises in India

Social enterprises have intense interaction with their local communities and “are explicitly committed to generating social value in perpetuity” (Katz & Page, 2010). They bring cohesiveness and trust to their host communities and they are the civil society’s way of becoming the “primary stakeholders” (Cornwall, 2003) in development agendas. These are the aspects of societal living that Ostrom (2008) demonstrates through her research on local self-reliance and the development of a concerned civil society, which takes initiative for the management of its own resources. The analysis done in this chapter demonstrates the interplay of the social enterprise and public policy. Ostrom’s (2008) framework of seven design principles, which provide a normative reference for local self-governance initiatives, is mapped onto four social enterprise cases, selected for their extent of community engagement and self-regulation. This chapter follows a case-based methodology, with an analysis of four diverse types of social enterprises, within the Indian context. A discussion of the design principles, within the social enterprise framework, is followed by the analysis of these cases. Each of the enterprises has a different level and style of community engagement and we use the design principles to demonstrate the effectiveness of their community participation. The case analysis demonstrates a way for policymakers to integrate and support the social enterprise as a crucial part of participatory development. Moreover, it aids entrepreneurs in evaluating the degree to which their host communities are invested in a truly participatory experience.