Co-Operative Enterprise in Comparative Perspective

A rigorous comparative-historical analysis of how co-operative enterprises in different national contexts, this book deploys two different variants of the new institutionalism. Spicer treats the US as a central case of comparative failure, as contrasted to three rich democracies where the co-operative business model has been more successful: Finland, France, and New Zealand.

Jason Spicer is an Assistant Professor in the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at CUNY Baruch College, where he focuses on social and community entrepreneurship. Prior to joining CUNY, he spent five years on the faculty of the University of Toronto (St. George), where he oversaw the economic development concentration in the graduate urban planning program. He holds a PhD in Political Economy from MIT. He has published many articles on co-operatives and related alternative enterprise forms in academic journals across the social sciences.

- Chapter 1 Introduction: Co-operative Enterprise, Exceptionally Un-American?
- American Co-operative Development Through a Comparative Lens
- The Argument in Brief
- Plan and Outline of the Book
- Chapter 2 Conceptualizing The Comparative Development of Co-operative Enterprise
- Co-operatives 101: A Primer
- Case Selection and Overviews
- Comparing Institutionalisms: Historical Institutionalism vs. Field Theory
- Chapter 3 Finland, the Co-operative Commonwealth?
- Co-operatives as an Offensive Strategy in Finnish Nation Building, 1800s - 1945
- Co-operatives as Defense: Finlandization, The Cold War and A Tale of Two Co-operative Movements, 1946 - 1995
- Co-operatives as Globalization Insurance: Liberalization, European Integration, and the Return of Russia, 1995 - Present
- Chapter 4 Co-operatives As the Heart of France's Social and Solidarity Economy
- The French Evolution? Co-operatives' Slow Emergence in Modern France, 1780s - 1860s
- A Field in Full: From "The Co-operative Republic" to Les Trente Glorieuses, 1870s - 1960s
- The Rise of the Social and Solidarity Economy (ESS), 1970s/80s - Present.
- Chapter 5 Liberalism and Co-operatives: New Zealand's Strange Bedfellows
- New Zealand as a "Utopian Capitalist" Experiment Gone Awry: 1840 -1870.
- Field Settlement: Alternative Ownership in The Making of Modern New Zealand, 1870 - 1970.
- Field Rupture: Co-operatives Adapt to the Liberalization of New Zealand, 1984 - Present.
- Chapter 6 American Co-operation in the Nineteenth Century: A Field Denied
- A Field in Formation? Four Strands of Antebellum American Co-operation, 1790 - 1860.
- The Role of Slavery In Constraining Antebellum Co-operation
- Post-Bellum American Co-operation: "Wage Slavery" and the Knights of Labor, 1865 - 1880s
- Chapter 7 American Co-operation Since 1900: An Incomplete and Partially Organized Field
- Partial Field Successes: Populist Farmers, Progressive Credit Unions, New Deal Utilities
- Co-operation Lost: Consumers' Retail Goods and Mutually Owned Financial Enterprises
- Worker and Multi-Stakeholder Co-operatives: A Dream Deferred?
- American Co-operation: An Incomplete Field
- Chapter 8 Conclusions Of A Chrononaut
- Co-operatives as Exceptionally Un-American
- From Factors to Fields: The Value of A Field Theory Approach
- From Theory to Practice: Conclusions for the American Co-operative Movement
- Appendix
- References