Publications / Reports / 2004 / 2004:018 Forbrukersamvirket og medlemmene 1970-2004
Forbrukersamvirket og medlemmene 1970-2004
ISBN print: 82-7763-206-1
Pages: 77
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Has the historical transformation taking place in Norway around 1980, from a social democratic to a more new-liberal social order, changed how the Norwegian Consumer co-operative relates to and views its members? This report conceptualizes the membership-role in the Consumer co-operative as having both a political-democratic citizenship aspect and an economic consumer aspect. What happens with the balance between these two aspects as the Consumer co-operative enters the new-liberal order?
The report studies the period between 1970 and 2004. The findings in the report indicates that the 1970-s was a period when these two aspects were in balance, mainly due to the Co-operation’s strong interest in enlightening the consumers and in engaging their members in the organization’s democratic processes. In the 1980-s however, this changed. Faced with a much harder economic climate and more individualized consumers the Co-operative reduced the energy it spent on both enlightening consumers and democratic participation. In the 1990-s the Consumer co-operative consoled its position in the new-liberal order through «modernizing» the membership-role, which meant focusing more narrowly on economic utility.
The report concludes that this «modernization» of the membership has been a success in terms of number of members. It has weakened the political-democratic citizenship aspect of the member-role, though. In this way the Consumer co-operative’s adaptation to the new-liberal social order in Norway is a threat to the organization’s political-democratic aspect and therefore also to its identity as a social movement.