Building Commons Governance for a Greener Economy

Much recent work in ecological economics and political ecology, including calls for “de-growth” in the transition towards more sustainable economies, focuses on commons as a promising paradigm for sustainable governance institutions.  The vision involves people who depend on or have an interest in a resource or asset, working together co-operatively to use that asset for production, service provision, and exchange which creates value and well-being while integrating ecological care, justice, and long-term planning to the best of diverse communities’ abilities. This includes institutions such as co-ops, land trusts, and non-market or beyond-market collective ways of organizing production, distribution, consumption, and waste or materials management.Developing such collective institutions requires nurturing the skills and abilities needed to create and maintain them: empathy, communication and listening skills, a sense of shared purpose, creativity, dispute resolution across differences, long-term vision, environmental awareness and stewardship, among others. Transformative education praxis and transdisciplinarity facilitate the growth of these skills and abilities in children and adults, as Paulo Freire and other transformative learning practitioners have shown (Gadotti 2009; O’Sullivan 1999;Gutierrez & Prado 1998). Transformative pedagogy, including both eco-pedagogy and transdisciplinarity, is foundational as human society evolves institutions for sustainability such as commons.This research was supported by the International Development Research Centre, grant number IDRC GRANT NO. 106002-00

A needs theory of governance

New-institutional economics hypothesizes imperfect rationality, self-seeking preferences, monetary-related needs, and opportunism as fundamental features of human behavior. Consistently, new-institutionalist models of governance highlight the efficiency and transaction costs minimizing features of control rights and governance. Differently, needs theory of governance, as here presented, hypothesizes imperfect rationality, multiple needs, and reciprocity, in which case opportunism is reduced to an exception to individual behavior. Consistently, it presents a theory that links production governance with the wellbeing of those partaking in production. Building on Maslow’s human psychology, the governance model suggested in this paper is aimed at evidencing the self-actualization potential of control rights, organizational structures and practices. The application of Maslow’s theory to the institutional structure of organizations suggests that the deepest organizational layers (control rights and governance) broadly correspond to the most basic needs in Maslow’s theory (survival, security and belonging), while the outer layers (managerial models and employment relations) correspond to the fulfillment of the highest needs (self-esteem and self-actualization). Cooperative firms are used as an illustration of governance solutions consistent with needs theory in human psychology

Cooperatives as Social Policy Means for Creating Social Cohesion in Communities

The object of this paper is twofold: First, to demonstrate how the cooperative business structure, rooted in democratic principles, when analyzed within the framework of recent legal and critical theory, can be shown to have a transformative effect in alleviating the adverse effects of globalization. Second, to analyze the international legal environment, particularly trade arrangements, to examine the capacity for co-operatives to serve as social policy instruments for promoting social cohesion. This paper uses Habermasian legal and critical theory in illustrating the close linkages cooperative principles have with modern sources of legal legitimacy and democratic theory. It is argued that cooperatives contribute to a healthy public sphere and alleviate the “legitimation deficits†increasingly manifest by the anti-globalization movement. This movement opposes the increasing power of transnational capital and institutions vis-à-vis national governments, and the lack of democratic control over such institutions and organizations. In order for cooperatives to have an influence on social cohesion and social capital, they must fully engage their democratic potential. Cooperatives are one means of democratizing the market system, thereby alleviating the negative effects of globalization. Consequently, there is a policy interest in promoting cooperative development. Cooperation can offer a viable alternative to global capitalism and transnational corporatism. Policy recommendations will be offered for facilitating cooperative legislation and for the promotion of cooperative development under international trade arrangements. A number of United Nations sponsored international conventions, such as the Co-operatives (Developing Countries) Recommendation of 1966 (No. 127), already advocate cooperatives as an effective means of social policy. With the increasing opposition to transnational corporatism, opposition rooted in the democratic aspirations of citizens; there is an increasing role for co-operatives to assert a democratic market alternative for policymakers to facilitate this demand in the social economy.Agribusiness,

Ecofeminism, Commons, and Climate Justice

Much recent work in ecological economics, degrowth, climate justice, and political ecology focuses on ‘commons’ as an emergent paradigm for sustainable governance institutions to address or rectify ecological crisis. This paper summarizes definitions and typologies of commons, give some examples of commons which help to further climate justice, and discusses these ideas from an ecofeminist perspective.his research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, FRN IDRC and SSHRC File Agreement No. 2017-008

Developing a critical appreciative process to review frameworks for social enterprise education

The object of this paper is to design a process for the development of curricula to advance social enterprise education using the lens of critical management studies (CMS). It is motivated by ongoing work to develop a new award in Cooperative Business and Responsible Management as well as ongoing work to develop the use of Understanding Social Enterprise: Theory and Practice (Ridley-Duff & Bull, 2011; 2016)

Social Justice and Worker Cooperatives

Social Justice (SJ) is an organizing principle of contemporary community psychology (CP); however, the concept and understanding of social justice in community psychology is undertheorized and narrow. Specifically, the concept of distributive justice, which has been a popular notion of social justice in community psychology discourse, does not translate well into transformative action. In order to address this issue, the research uses a qualitative approach to explore the understanding of social justice from the perspectives of worker-members of 5 worker cooperatives in Ontario, with the aim to contribute to an understanding of SJ that has transformative implications. A worker cooperative is an autonomous businesses that is democratically owned and operated and developed with the intent to meet the social, economic and environmental needs of its members and community. Worker cooperatives were selected due to their engagement in practices of social justice as part of their pursuit for social change. The findings suggest that worker-members understand social justice as transformative action and they identified the capitalist labour market, as well as aspects of the worker cooperative model, as being a challenge that prevents them from living the value of SJ. Based on these findings, the research provides community psychologists with an exemplar of SJ practice that has transformative implications in the context of enterprise. Further, it may be beneficial for CP to incorporate people who are engaged in practices of social justice, such as members of worker cooperatives, in formulating a theory of SJ that has transformative implications

"If they come they will build it" : managing and building e-democracy from the ground up

The possibilities for using online media to promote deliberative democracy and enhance civic participation have been identified by many. At the same time, the ‘e-democracy score card’ is decidedly mixed, with the tendency of established institutions in both government and the mainstream media to promote a ‘push’ model of communication and information provision, which fails to adapt to the decentralized, networked, interactive and many-to-many forms of communication enabled by the Internet. This paper will discuss the experience of the National Forum, which is building an Australian e-Democracy site of which is the first stage. It aims to be a combination of town-square, shopping centre of ideas, and producers’ co-operative which will allow citizens, talkers, agitators, researchers and legislators to interact with each other individually and through their organisations. Its aim will be to facilitate conversations, and where required, action. This project can be understood from a myriad of angles. At one level it is an open source journalism project, at another it deals with knowledge management. It can also be approached as a forum, an archive, an internet arketing initiative and an eCommerce resource for civil society. Central to the project is the development of feedback mechanisms so that participants can better understand the debates and where they stand in them as well as gauging the mood, desires and interests of the nation on a continuous basis. This paper deals with the practice, theories and economic models underlying the project, and considers the contribution of such sites to community formation and the development of social capital

Adult education and the social economy : rethinking the communitarian pedagogy of Watson Thomson

The goal of this thesis is to analyze the philosophy and pedagogy of an almost forgotten figure in Saskatchewan history, whose work has had a lasting impact on the theory and practice of adult education. Watson Thomson, who was appointed as director of the Adult Education Division (AED) by the newly elected CCF government of Tommy Douglas in 1944, initiated an ambitious program designed to animate the citizenry of Saskatchewan, bring a variety of educational services to the common person, and develop co-operative and community enterprises throughout the province. Thomson’s work is significant for a number of reasons. First, I compare and contrast it with the pedagogy of Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire. Second, I show that it was influenced by the humanistic philosophy of Personalism, especially that of Emmanuel Mounier. Third, and perhaps most importantly, Watson’s philosophy embodies insights from the depth psychology of Alfred Adler enabling him to advocate a distinctive, dialogical pedagogy. Fourth, his influence as director of the AED was considerable as can be gauged from the fact that within one year of its formation, the division had organized over 500 study-action groups and more than 100 cooperative enterprises. Fifth, Watson’s educational achievements are important not only for historical reasons but as a model for the development of social economy enterprises today, as evidence from a recent UNESCO report shows. The thesis uses an interdisciplinary approach of intellectual biography, historical documentation, and philosophical and psychological analysis in order to establish a comprehensive account of the theory and practice of this important figure

Towards socially just and sustainable fisheries: ICSF workshop on implementing the FAO voluntary guidelines for securing sustainable small-scale fisheries in the context of food security and poverty eradication (SSF guidelines) report, 21 to 24 July 2014 , Puducherry, India

This publication is a report of the proceedings of the ICSF Pondy Workshop, which focused on the FAO’s Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines). The workshop brought together 71 participants from 20 countries representing civil society organizations, governments, FAO, academia and fishworker organizations from both the marine and inland fisheries sectors. This report will be found useful for fishworker organizations, researchers, policymakers, members of civil society and anyone interested in small-scale fisheries, food security and poverty eradication

Understanding Corporate Life-Cycles

This paper considers the nature of the dominant corporate paradigm, its change, failures or successes, and its relationship with the homeostatic organization. There is a popular way of understanding the dynamics of organizational change and that is through the pre-configured sequence of stages in a corporate life-cycle. Through there are a number of competing models for this kind of analysis. In all of them, the sequence of stages is defined by that which configures the life-cycle deterministically. However, there is little discussion given for how these models of organizations shift between stages, and none appear to dominate in the literature. A major criticism of these models is that they do not represent complex organizational processes of change. Therefore, this paper represents an alternative model, called “the paradigm life-cycleâ€, which is connected to the homeostatic processes that maintain an organization, and which is, in principle, capable of generating corporate life-cycles under conditions of complexity.&nbsp