Adoption/adaptation of universal principles and mutual influences of organizational models among ethno-nationally biased cooperative networks inside inter-war Romania

Abstract

This paper identifies those elements that were common in all cooperative networks around the world by presenting the process of adoption of universal cooperative principles inside the provinces that were reunited in interwar Romania, while observing the mutual adaptation of organizational models among different ethno-cultural entities defined as minorities and the actual ethnic national majority. We operate methodologically according to a methodic circle that helped us to distinguish the historical sources of nationalist/nation-building rhetoric and the pragmatically achieved goals (balances). In case of cooperatives, we observed that constructive/interactive community-building goals and routine overwhelmed negative, reactive or even destructive nationalist goals. The latter did not reach the cooperative sector effectively or only remained dead letter on political manifestos and propaganda (boycott or sabotage) both in the prewar constituent period and the interwar era. Nevertheless, there was a continuous mutual (incongruent) influence among the neighboring networks, both in strategies, technics, architecture and organizational forms. This study tries to contribute to the research of the economic institutionalization and mobilization phase of nation-building as theorized by Anthony D. Smith and Miroslav Hroch by identifying those modern institutions, including savings banks and cooperative networks that assembled ethno-national entities into modern economic and market economy framework, while verifying the legitimacy or anachronism of using national ‘bias’ in case of these modern financial-economic institutions and cooperative networks.