ILPC 2026

The empirical research on participation in cooperatives suggests that this kind of organization cannot be seen as a stronghold of lively participation. Referring to the so called ‘degeneration thesis’ (Storey et al. 2014), cooperatives are often regarded to rather produce ‘facades’ of participation. According to previous studies several phenomena can be observed: cooperatives practice ritualized and formalized participation, because of coercive pressures made by legal requirements. At the same time there exist numerous informal forms of participation, e.g. in terms of direct personal communication between the management and members of the cooperative. Studies on international co-operatives such as Mondragon have shown that there is a process of decoupling of democratic cooperative principles and day-to-day practice (cp. Heras-Saizarbitoria 2014). Furthermore, Cheney et al. (2014) point to tensions cooperatives deal with in case of maintaining participative values, such as conflicts between democratic principles and technocratic tendencies or the demands of global markets. However, the recent empirical research can hardly reflect the large width of participative practices in cooperatives, since most scholars have dealt with large cooperatives, such as cooperative banks or cooperatives operating on a multinational level. Whether similar forms of participation can be observed in smaller cooperative organizations or in producers' cooperatives, is still to be clarified.

Our first results based on case studies on German cooperatives show a wide range of forms of participation. These practices vary from a highly conscious decision in favour of participation of all members and daily maintaining participatory decision-making despite considerable frictions and tensions resulting from it, through participation as a ceremonial ritual of the whole community of members to participation as a necessary evil tolerated by the management.

It turns out that observed practices of participation correspond to the ascribed identity of members and workers and the self-understanding of the cooperative. These constructions of identity are based on forms of membership, the impact of market- or member-orientation and the size of the organization. If economically-driven identity is prevailing and cooperation between the cooperative and its members is constrained to the exchange of economic goods, forms of participation can be found which are completely subjected to the economic goals; here, members can hardly exert political influence on decision making within the cooperative. The only goal of participation is the economic optimization of the firm. In this case, more or less bureaucratized forms of participation can be observed, such as ritualized and non-dialogical general meetings, standardized member surveys or trainings for member firms initiated by the management of cooperatives.

Furthermore, efforts of participation seem to produce numerous tensions within the organization. In addition to the tension between economic efficiency and participation of members which was already addressed in the research studies, this study makes clear that there are tensions regarding the subscribed identity of cooperative members as participating actors or as customers.

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