The Role of Federation Strategies in Shaping the Conditions for Alternative Organizations

• In Event: 1483 - Open Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 01. Collective Behavior and Social Movements Across Contexts: Discourse, Demographics, and Policy

Abstract

This conceptual paper puts forward the argument that in order to understand the conditions for alternative organizations, more attention to the structures and processes that link cooperatives across the field at the meso-level of organizing is required. Due to the associative force of cooperation, field-level organizing such as federation is a key avenue for alternative organizations to shape the conditions of their existence. This paper reviews historical cases of federation and field-level organizing to show the relevance and explanatory power of meso-level strategy for the fate of alternative organizations. We need more studies that aim at the meso-level, or field level, of sets of alternative organizations and meta actors such as associations, consultants, and networks, to understand how cooperatives navigate political economic and social structural environments and how form shifts may occur or be avoided.

Author

• Carla Ilten, University of Illinois at Chicago