Community and Cooperation: the Evolution of Cooperatives towards New Models of Citizens’ Democratic Participation in Public Services Provision

The community cooperatives spreading today in many parts of the world are the arrival point of an evolutionary process that has seen the progressive shift of cooperatives’ focus from specific social and professional groups to society as a whole. This evolution is marked by two changes. The first took place at the turn of the 19th century when there made their appearance the first community cooperatives that catered to the needs of a whole community. Among them were electric cooperatives, cooperative banks and some kinds of agricultural cooperatives. A further relevant development occurred towards the end of the last century with the enlargement of cooperatives’ aims to embrace society’s benefit. From this process there emerge four categories of cooperatives which taken together constitute a complete classification of the cooperative universe. Today’s community cooperatives are the direct descendants of the old ones but they lack a clear definition. The term “community cooperative” itself is relatively new and similar institutions are named differently at different times. Moreover, though having a few basic features in common, they differ much from one another and from the old ones. To take care of this we elaborate a concept of community cooperative consistent with its evolution and the classification of cooperatives we have identified. Basic elements of the concept are community goods, territory and citizenship, which are discussed extensively with reference to factual cases. We then examine the differences between new community and old cooperatives. The paper closes with a discussion of their future prospects.