Abstract

Cooperatives: Social Economic Organizations and Instruments for Citizen Participation. Revista de Ciencias Sociales [online]. 2006, vol.12, n.2, pp.237-253. ISSN 1315-9518.

This paper offers an approximation towards the definition of social economy and one of its organizations, cooperatives, relating this to participation, since this is not only one of the principles that motivates cooperatives, but the very condition for the social economic existence of the same. This is descriptive and documentary research in which precisions are made as to cooperative movements and cooperatives, which are founded on a set of values and principles which constitute a very special duality, that of association and enterprise, which are definitive characteristics of cooperative specificity. In the same manner, we briefly study the evolution of the cooperative movement and its promotion as a public policy in Venezuela, in order to conclude that the efforts undertaken by the State are not enough, and that cooperatives must be born out of collective desire and interest in the resolution of common problems, and that if this does not occur, they become opportunist organizations the majority of the time and neither participative nor democratic, They quickly die, are reduced and/or government support disappears, and more important still, there can only be participation based on the formation and training of the participants.

Keywords : Social economy; cooperatives; citizen participation.