Extending the social movement approach: Co-operative development as practical problem-solving practical problem-solving

Technical assistance mobilization also plays an important role in the effective

development of co-operatives. While adult education has been assigned an important, even leading, role in the successful development of co-operatives (Hammond Ketilson et al., 1992; Stefanson, 2002), this is particularly true for emergent sectors such as worker co-operatives (Cornforth & Thomas, 1990; Adams & Hansen, 1992; Quarter, 1989;

Krimerman & Lindenfeld, 1992; Benello, 1982). Recognizing the dual structure of co-operatives as both movement-based, democratic associations and market-based,

commercial enterprises, Cornforth et al. (1990) argue that the Co-operative Development Agency (CDA) network played a decisive role in the new wave worker co-operative boom that swept the U.K. in the 1980s, swelling that sector from about 35 co-operatives in the early seventies to over 1000 by 1985 (Cornforth et al., 1988, p. 1). Through movement-building activities and delivering effective technical assistance to emerging co-operatives and sectors, they conclude the CDA network was ―probably the most important development in the continuing development of the U.K. worker co-operative sector‖ (p. 19). Along with France‘s boutiques de gestion, it also inspired the re-invention of this innovation in Québec in the 1980s (Tremblay, 1985).

Like the institutional intermediaries which linked pockets of insurgency together into a sustained civil rights movement in McAdam‘s conception, Cornforth et al. (1988) suggest co-operative campaigns also require intermediaries to bridge the centralization of apex resources and the dispersion of local initiatives. These bridging institutions can facilitate the necessary political, cultural, and entrepreneurial mobilizations of a co-operative development campaign. This study‘s theoretical synthesis therefore proposes that co-operative innovation is dependent on political processes (McAdam, 1982), generally associated with social movements, and technical supports (Cornforth et al., 1988), more closely associated with business development. Certainly, there are substantial differences between the models advanced by McAdam and Cornforth et al.. Their studies were conducted in separate fields of disciplinary specialization; treat distinct historical periods in different national contexts; and the co-operative case clearly diverges from the general case of social movements, focused on political protest rather than economic action.

Nonetheless, the emphasis Cornforth et al. place on CSO leverage aligns well with the role of meso-institutions in McAdam‘s political process model. This conceptual overlap provides for constructive theoretical extension of Develtere‘s conception.

Much as the American network of black colleges, churches, and NAACP chapters scaled up the civil rights mobilization, Cornforth et al. (1988) suggest the British CSO network

drove mobilizations for worker co-operation. However, like the mobilizing network that forged the American civil rights movement from 1955 to 1968, the British CSO network of the early 1980s was also embedded in a wider ensemble of social movement relations and alliances. Like Develtere (1992), Cornforth and Thomas (1990) conclude that an institutional perspective on co-operative development thus needs to be embedded in a social movement approach to be sensitive to contextual and cultural factors:

We need to go beyond concentration on individual co-operatives and the individual mechanisms for support and to look more closely at cultural and ideological factors in particular movements. This is one route to explaining why some support structures work well at regenerating co-operative ideals while others with similar structures can be more or less stultifying. Hence it is important to look at the processes at play within co-operative movements as well as at individual co-operatives and their requirements. (p. 459)

Clearly, the dual structure of co-operation—as a business sector and a movement of democratic associations—has implications for how we conceive of co-operative

development. It logically follows that developing co-operatives, unlike investor-owned businesses, requires a movement (and social movement organizations) to animate, educate, and organize co-operative proponents and members into vital democratic associations. At the same time, they require a technical assistance infrastructure (or business development organizations) to help build strong businesses that can succeed in market competition. Rather than treat co-operatives as economic units operating in a self-enclosed, functional economic system, and development as a series of isolated, utility-maximizing ―transactions‖ of atomized joiners, this perspective places development in a larger socio-historical context populated by evolving and inter-dependent institutions, networks, ideologies, and movements. Co-operatives thus emerge in a field of

relationships that either help, or fail to help, define and develop them.

Following on Rogers (1995), innovation-adoption decisions take place in an historical context of institutionally structured choices. In other words, the founding members‘

decision is a contingent decision: it is shaped by prior innovation-adoption decisions by social movements and other players. For example, the co-operative movement and state

may decide to develop intermediary organizations, financing pools, or tax incentives to support co-operative innovation. Co-operative firm formation is therefore both part of a broader, historical process of social innovation (i.e. developing the field or climate for co-operative development) and a discrete business decision by one particular set of founding members of one particular co-operative in one time and place. Long-range strategic movement decisions necessarily define the range of tactical options available to prospective new co-operative sponsors in the short-term. By raising the innovation‘s profile, minimizing risk, and introducing incentives for adopters of the co-operative model, prior innovation decisions can inform, motivate, protect, and persuade. While the transactional approach thus discounts the historic role of movements in conditioning future innovation-adoption decisions, the relational (or developmental) approach places a premium on this aspect; this is the conceptual basis for active development strategies.