ISTR Sixth International Conference Toronto, Canada / July 11-14, 2004 Contesting Citizenship and Civil Society in a Divided World

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	Abstracts

Changes in local politics triggered by co-operative work
by
Marcelo Marchesini
FGV/EAESP

Labor co-operatives are the typical organization of workers on the "solidary economy". The Brazilian situation of higher unemployment and crescent poverty, and missing perspectives are taking more and more workers to organize themselves in co-operatives. This tendency is reinforced by the recent appearing of many entities on civil society that are dedicated to research, disseminate and support the formation of new co-operatives.

A central objective that drives the work of those support organizations is the preservation of the “authentic spirit” of cooperativism among co-operatives. In a few words, it is possible to assume that “authentic cooperativism” is guaranteed by enacting the principles of cooperativism. Thus, individuals are enabled to develop new capacities, in proportion to the decision taken and the action according democratic procedures, in a process that is described by Marty Sen. (1999) as “development as freedom”.

There are few studies detailing which levels of individuals’ existence undergo the highest changes. One field of special relevance to the Brazilian society is the study of the possible effects on political life. It is not known whether is possible to emerge a different political action by the individuals after working in co-operatives. One important point to bear in mind is that Brazilian democratization is a very recent process, which began in the 1980s.

This study intends to analyze the case of small towns, up to 100,000 people, where big co-operatives operate or a cluster of co-operatives is in action. The choice for small towns rests in the assumption that, if there were any changes on the political behavior of individuals, it would happen first at the local level, which is easiest to identify on small towns.

The aspects that should be studied in relation to the co-operative labor are simultaneously internal and external to the co-operative. It takes a long process to co-op workers to internalize an autogestionary culture of making decisions and respect the collective decisions. This is a totally different behavior that the one represented in a capitalist firm, where the boss commands and the workers obey. After all those steps, when the co-operative is working, there is a requirement of other actors, as the public sector, to a "command figure". It is a big problem because it demands of the co-operative president, for example, to act with all the powers, as the owner of a capitalist firm. It is very common to use autogestionary management as an excuse to stop negotiations with co-operatives. Arguments used are that it turns to be a slow and instable decision-making process This research has been built on two small towns, where there are known experiences of co-operative work. The starting case is the “Associação dos Pequenos Agricultores do Município de Valente (APAEB)”, in Valente, Bahia. To measure the changes on local political power, it is necessary to choose some indicators. It will be applied a questionnaire to local co-operatives, which is an adaptation of the one used by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE). Besides this questionnaire, exploratory interviews with cooperates will be carried on. This should allow comparations between the results of this study and the big cities of Brazil.

The theoretical frame of this work comprises literature on cooperativism and "solidary economy". The central question of the analysis is also enclosed within the "solidary economy" references. It is the idea of co-operatives as revolutionary reforms in capitalist system. Changes sparked off by cooperativism would be able to reform radically the politically and economically the hegemonic system.

The initial hypotheses will be that the co-operatives are able to bring important changes on the local political culture. Is hoped that this researches results verify the real possibilities of political changes by forming co-operative ways of work, or appoint to the real limits of those experiences.

Date received: October 10, 2003

Copyright © 2003 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # camp-51.