INT.RE.COOP · International Research Exchange on Cooperatives

Cooperative initiatives are flourishing in a variety of fields, both traditional and non traditional ones. The resilience of cooperatives has been widely acknowledged by policy and opinion makers, as well as international organizations -Year 2012 has been declared the International Year of Cooperatives by the UN- which are increasingly eager to understand if and how cooperatives can have a role in tackling the dramatic consequences of the global crisis and reforming the system that has contributed to generating it. However, in spite of their societal relevance, scarce attention has been paid so far to cooperatives by the social sciences. While isolated ""pieces"" of theory have been developed, a comprehensive theoretical framework explaining the upsurge of cooperatives