Intercooperation for Our Common Futures

International Cooperative Alliance - Committee on Cooperative Research (ICA CCR)

Montréal, Canada

July 8-11, 2025

Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to present at the ICA-CCR Global Research Conference, held from July 8–11, 2025 at HEC Montréal’s Hélène-Desmarais building in downtown Montréal. Organized by the International Cooperative Alliance Committee on Cooperative Research (ICA CCR), in partnership with the Canadian Association for Studies in Co-operation (CASC) and the Association of Cooperative Educators (ACE), this year's gathering explored the importance of intercooperation in creating transformative change for justice, sustainability, and prosperity.

This year’s theme, aligned with the United Nations International Year of Cooperatives, focused on panels exploring cooperative governance, solidarity economies, and civic innovation. I presented as part of a session titled Cooperatives and Democratizing: From Market-Failure Responses to Radical Democratic and Movement Organizing and my contribution extended this framework into the realm of transnational political organizing.

Full Program

My talk, "Reimagining Cooperative Movements: Global Greens Governance Within Jack Quarter’s Social Economy Framework", explored how the Global Greens confederation, a global network of Green political parties, behaves like a political or hybrid cooperative. Drawing on Jack Quarter’s definition, I argued that the confederation operates simultaneously as a social movement organization (SMO) and a member-governed mutual association for electoral support and global solidarity.

Through case studies of Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW), Die Grünen, and Green Party Taiwan (GPT), I demonstrated how parties with different genealogies, whether ideological, protest-based, and justice-oriented, participate in a cooperative structure that shares resources, amplifies values, and negotiates tension between grassroots advocacy and institutional engagement. I also addressed the tension between civil society independence and policy dependence, noting that while the Global Greens hold governments accountable, they also rely on electoral systems and legislative access to advance their goals.

With personal anecdotes, I also reintroduced Jack Quarter's reminder that “public benefit” is not synonymous with moral clarity or ethical consistency. Global Greens resolutions seek to uphold human rights and social justice for all, but negotiations become increasingly challenging when key members are governed by inequitable state laws. Advocacy is not equally safe; public benefit could mean the difference between activism and survival.

The confederation’s dependence on electoral systems and legislative access complicates the idea that cooperatives must remain separate from state power. But rather than disqualifying the Global Greens as cooperative actors, I argued that this was evidence of hybridity: a mode of organizing that blends social movement with mutual aid across borders, while operating across both civil society and formal politics. By applying cooperative theory to transnational political networks, we can begin to reimagine governance structures that prioritize solidarity, shared infrastructure, and democratic participation.