ABSTRACT
Cooperatives are regarded as the world’s oldest form of mutual organisation, providing joint ownership and democratic control to those with shared cultural, economic, and social needs. Despite the survival advantages that cooperation confers among organisations, communities, and individuals, the growth of the cooperative sector in Australia has been notably modest. This examination aims to deepen our understanding of this phenomenon by scrutinizing economic, political, social, and technological impacts on institutional arrangements and power structures. Adopting a path-dependence framework allows for a temporal exploration spanning Australia’s Federation in 1901 to the introduction of Cooperatives National Law in 2012. Critical junctures, contingent and conjunctural events have contributed to lock-ins and self-reinforcing trajectories, revealing the impact of regulatory jurisdiction. For companies, the introduction of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) and a federal regulator resolved the ‘un-cooperative’ federalism that had developed from inconsistent State and Territory legislation. However, the introduction of Cooperatives National Law from 2012 to 2020 maintained the status quo with State and Territory legislation and regulators inadvertently hindering cooperative development. This chapter aims to provide valuable insight into utilising path dependence methodology for analysing the development trajectory of Australian cooperatives.
