The Logic of A Co-Operative Economy and Democracy 2.0: Recovering the Possibilities for Autonomy, Creativity, Solidarity, and Common Purpose

Abstract

Over the past 30 years, the collectivist-democratic form of organization has presented a growing alternative to the bureaucratic form, and it has proliferated, here and around the world. This form is manifest, for example, within micro-credit groups, workers' co-operatives, nongovernmental organizations, advocacy groups, self-help groups, community and municipal initiatives, social movement organizations, and in many nonprofit groups in general. It is most visible in the civil society sector, but demands for deeper participation are also evident in communities and cities, and the search for more involving and less bureaucratic structures has spread into many for-profit firms as well. Building on research on this form of organization, this article develops a model of the decisional processes utilized in such organizations and contrasts these "Democracy 2.0" standards for decision making from the Democracy 1.0 (representative and formal) standards that previously prevailed. Drawing on a new generation of research on these sorts of organizations, this article and this special section discuss: (a) how consensus decisional processes are being made more efficient; (b) how such organizations are now able to scale to fairly large size while still retaining their local and participatory basis; (c) how such organizations are cultivating a more diverse membership and using such diversity to build more democratic forms of governance; (d) how such organizations are combatting ethnoracial and gender inequalities that prevail in the surrounding society; and (e) how emotions are getting infused into the public conversations within these organizations and communities.

Cooperative or Uncooperative Cooperatives? Digging into the Process of Cooperation in Food and Agriculture Cooperatives

“…As a way to anticipate the role of power on situational interactions and emotional labor, the present work follows Rothschild (2016), arguing that cooperation is best seen as joint ownership, egalitarian values, and sustained dialog. It does not treat process, working together, and ends as merely procedural-particular values and practices (e.g., sustained dialog) are necessary facets of cooperation (Rothschild, 2016). Cooperation is found in social bonds where "any property at hand must be socially or collectively owned or such organizations will be unable to sustain egalitarian decisional processes" (Rothschild, 2016, p. 57).…”

“…What previously was patterned and often informal has become formalized in legal cooperative organizations (co-ops) which are user owned, user controlled, and distribute benefits on the basis of use (Mooney, 2004). While the cooperative form has seen its ups and downs in terms of popularity, recently it has seen a resurgence of interest (Katz & Boland, 2002;Rothschild, 2016). Though national data trends suggest that the number of cooperative grocers has been fairly consistent (S. Reid, personal communication, Nov. 10, 2017) and the number of producer cooperatives has actually decreased (Kidd, 2015), our fieldwork has suggested the presence of renewed activity not captured in national trends.…”

“…We begin by briefly situating this research in the literature on cooperatives, taking time to introduce the relevance of Rothschild's (2016) work on the subject, while folding in the discussion elements of Goffman's Dramaturgical approach. We then pivot by bringing this literature into conversation with the community capitals literature, with particular emphasis given to building and bridging capital.…”

Cooperative Membership and Community Engagement: Findings From a Latin American Survey

“…Discussing cooperatives’ democratic decision making in depth, Kaswan () argued that cooperative decision making would promote the capacity to align members’ individual interests with those of the larger community. Moreover, Rothschild () differentiated large nonprofit organizations (“Democracy 1.0”) from cooperatives and other small civil society organizations (“Democracy 2.0”) in terms of the decision‐making structure. According to her typology, large nonprofits tend to have their organizational values specified in their mission statement, while the latter group embraces the values in almost every decisional occasion.…”

Governments Should Play Games

“…Online tools further offer the advantage of transcending the physical limitations of classical means of civic engagement, thus reducing the costs of civic engagement initiatives, and extending governance inclusion to more people (Gordon et al, 2014;Phang & Kankanhalli, 2008;Sánchez-Nielsen & Lee, 2013). Regardless of the administrative purpose or the technological design of civic engagement platforms, sufficient volunteer citizen contribution is essential for their survival and success in reaching their functional objectives (Coronado Escobar & Vasquez Urriago, 2014;Jin et al, 2013;Macintosh, 2004;Rothschild, 2016). However the ICTs we adopt to support civic engagement increasingly end up as having an adverse effect on the civic engagement they were intended to facilitate, thus highlighting the challenges of maintaining quality civic engagement through tools that are mostly speedy and impersonal, and which de-emphasize the value of human interaction (Gordon et al, 2014).…”