EN
This paper attempts to provide a perspective on defining the social economy on social science. It addresses the question of the relevance of a unifying concept with its need to embrace the existing diversity of approaches and concepts. To this end, it surveys both historical and contemporary academic literature, as well as practice-rooted conceptualisations of the social economy. The social economy is presented as a hybrids solution between market and state activity. But this traditional social science "classificatory" approach does not lead to an operational definition of the social economy.