Files
Abstract
Agricultural producer cooperatives, especially dairy cooperatives, have
been dominant in the agri-food sector, especially in Northern Europe. Recently
there has been significant concentration and internationalization
amongst dairy cooperatives as many have been transformed into large international
growth orientated organizations. In this article, the development
of dairy cooperatives in Ireland and Denmark is explored from a regulationist
perspective. In particular, the Mode of Social Regulation (MSR) is
explored using empirical evidence from the Irish and Danish processing industries.
Marden’s (1992) understanding of the MSR – based on five
interrelated elements (monetary and credit relationships, the type of competition,
the wage-labor relation, the mode of adhesion to the global regime,
and the form of state intervention) – is employed. The research has found
that the type of accumulation has a significant influence on national MSRs
and a distinction is drawn between producer-led accumulation and investorled
accumulation in the dairy processing industry. As the national MSRs
have evolved, hegemony has shifted from a group or coalition of national
organizations and dairy processing companies to globally-orientated and integrated
companies. There is evidence of increasing global adhesion in the
MSRs of both national industries, although the changing MSRs do not represent
a clean break with the past. Rather, contemporary MSRs build upon
and are contingent on past MSRs; indeed elements of past MSRs co-exist
alongside elements of new MSRs.