New co-operativism as social innovation: Progress or regress?

This paper re-conceptualises a framework by Vieta (2010) describing ‘new cooperativism’ using social innovation theory. Practice-oriented scholars in the P2P Foundation, Commons Transition Movement and FairShares Association have each formulated a challenge to ‘old cooperativism’ by proposing a ‘new’ and more ‘open’ cooperativism. Conaty and Bollier (2015) distinguish ‘old’ and ‘new’ approaches based on the division of benefits between co-operative members and wider society. They argue for a common good orientation in which new cooperativism deploys multi-stakeholder governance, co production and socio-political co ordination to prioritise local production. This intersects with commons-based peer production and the digital economy in the Commons Transition Movement, and the FairShares Model that advances multi stakeholder ownership, governance and management. By deconstructing texts available through wikis, websites and publications, the social innovations of new cooperativism are assessed. Progressive elements offer ‘development towards a new or advanced condition’ whilst regressive elements advocate ‘returning to a former or less developed state’ (Oxford Languages, 2021). After repeated reading, 30 texts were coded using NVivo. The macro themes of commoning and multi-stakeholder orientation were added and other aspects (e.g., worker and citizen action) were separated. The revised theory distinguishes three forms of social innovation operationalised through 10 practices.

This paper updates Vieta's theory of new cooperativism after a study of wikis, websites and articles published by the P2P Foundation, Commons Transition Movement and FairShares Association about new approaches to organising and constituting co-operatives.