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Social action associations are confronting a crucial period in their history.Their structures, often developed on acharismatic model in relation with thefounding period, are being transformed indepth. The new way of conducting publicaffairs is largely inspired by managerialmodels taken from the world of the business enterprise. It imposes increasinglytechnocratic, even purely commercial,methods of action, while administrations have not been led to transform theirbureaucratic structures. If social actionassociations wish to preserve the essentials of their action at educational, socialand political levels, they must rediscovertheir institutional dimension and startup the development of their democraticstructures again. This renewal must bein line with a cooperative conceptionof the project, the organization, and themeaning of the action. It also must befirmly connected to the base of a social,supportive economy, in order to continueto count and to define an alternative pathfor social action.