In this work we develop a research in order to deepen our understanding of the operation of democracy within the solidarity economy. While a segment of academic literature production associations oppose the productive capitalist enterprise and deepen democracy, the other side rejects those possibilities. Denying this binary, through qualitative analysis, working with nine groups in the metropolitan area of Porto Alegre, we conclude that there is some hybridism in relation to these practices with a weak and non-deterministic trend to vertizalization and hierarchization that is caused by several factors.
democracy; solidarity economy; participation; work
