Bringing democracy to life in cooperatives: ongoing experiments. The cases of Railcoop and SmartCoop

Justine Monique Florine Ballon , Thomas Blondeel , Marius Chevallier (1, 2) , Orville Pletschette

1 GEOLAB - Laboratoire de Géographie Physique et Environnementale
2 GEOLAB-CE - Capital Environnemental

This paper examines the democratic governance of large cooperatives (in terms of number of members) through the prism of systems and practices designed to strengthen member participation. We compare the evolution of formal and informal mechanisms supporting the dynamics of participative democracy at Railcoop and SmartCoop. This research is based on an ongoing action-research based on statistics and qualitative data. It sheds light on their practices, the tensions encountered and the experiments undertaken to reduce them. This working paper puts into perspective the initial results of a descriptive and comparative analysis of two schemes designed to increase member participation: circles at Railcoop and the Smart in Progress process at SmartCoop. In this respect, we demonstrate the importance of ongoing reflexivity on our practices, through surveys, collective writing, and spaces conducive to critical and contradictory discussions, provided this is done in a constructive and transparent manner. Beyond this, we show the value of highlighting the 5th and 6th principles of ICA - education, training and information on the one hand, and intercooperation on the other - between two cooperatives sharing issues relating to governance and democratic participation.

Mots clés: cooperative governance; democracy; participation; experimentation; action-research; democracy cooperative; social innovations

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société; Économie et finance quantitative [q-fin]

Justine Monique Florine Ballon, Thomas Blondeel, Marius Chevallier, Orville Pletschette. Bringing democracy to life in cooperatives: ongoing experiments. The cases of Railcoop and SmartCoop. Innovating in cooperative governance - governing cooperative innovations, International cooperative alliance, Jul 2023, Leuven (BE), Belgium. ⟨hal-04576634⟩