Towards renewal of the coop sector in South-East Europe? New cooperative types in Croatia and Serbia

Cooperative sector in South East Europe region is lagging far behind the leading European societies. Despite long tradition of cooperative sector, dating back in nineteenth century, nowadays still prevails strong animosity... [ view full abstract ]

Cooperative sector in South East Europe region is lagging far behind the leading European societies. Despite long tradition of cooperative sector, dating back in nineteenth century, nowadays still prevails strong animosity towards cooperatives, influenced by experiences of socialist regime. Recent study on social economy (Rakin, Vidovic, Bobic, 2015) showed that cooperative sector is most neglected area of social economy in each of seven countries in the region (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, FYR of Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia). In some of those countries, the total number of cooperatives does not exceed 15 to 20 entities, while agricultural cooperatives still dominates all societies. Moreover, the legal and institutional framework is hardly favourable. Study showed that cooperatives remain on the margins of supporting policies and institutional interest. This lack of political recognition and enabling legal and institutional environment is recognized as one of the crucial impediments for stronger development of cooperatives. In addition, socio-cultural climate does not put much value on solidarity and collective involvement in local community’s well-being, as basic principles of cooperatives. Overall environment may not be described as very stimulative for development of cooperative sector.
Despite those facts, one may witness rare but various new forms of cooperatives created and operational during last decade. They are greatly influenced by the external factors, mainly based on EU promotion of social economy, social entrepreneurship and cooperatives. The paper intends to identify specificities of those new types , the roles they have in local communities and/or society as a whole and to analyse in what ways they differ from traditional actors in cooperative sector.
The empirical part of the paper will focus on two countries - Croatia and Serbia. Methodological approach will be based on combination of few methods. Firstly, it will provide overview and analysis of current legal and institutional frameworks, as an effort to identify both enabling and limiting factors for development of cooperatives. Secondly, it will be based on comparative case studies of cooperatives representing new coops types from both countries with aim to provide insights into their specific features. In particularly our interest is to recognize and describe their embeddedness into local communities. The findings of the study will help in understanding of the evolution of the new coops types and their role, as well as will serve as an input for development of better suited legislative and more supportive public policies.