Democratic Innovation

The Democratic Innovation project aims to develop a conceptual framework for cooperative governance based on the republican theory of liberty to address challenges such as organizational degeneration and member domination. The project thus contributes to filling a gap in republican theorizing, namely the lack of application of republican theory to cooperative governance. By applying the principle of liberty as non-domination, central to republican theory, the project’s findings will offer a new perspective on improving democratic processes within cooperatives.

The project explores the interaction between exit, voice, and loyalty as republican mechanisms for preventing domination and promoting liberty as non-domination and civic virtue. The project then explores the relevance and limitations of our republican approach in relation to four major types of cooperatives (worker, consumer, producer, and multi-stakeholder).