Resumen de Comparing Governance Systems in Cuban Cooperatives: A Study of Producer and Worker Cooperatives in Agriculture, Industry, and Services
Cuban producer and worker cooperatives’ governance systems have certain features that set them apart from their counterparts in other countries, such as the frequency and broader mandates of general assemblies, inclusion of managers and workers as members, and no clear division between boards of directors and management. While this research did not seek to identify factors that have led to these particularities, it focused on identifying main commonalities and differences among Cuban cooperatives’ governance systems. The findings shared in this chapter are based on the systematization of case studies of six Cuban cooperatives in agriculture, industry, and services, which are producer or worker cooperatives, and which have dissimilar membership sizes and ages. Common humanistic and participatory traits found in these cooperatives’ governance systems are consistent with the Cuban Revolution’s ethos, which is also analyzed in this article. The latter, coupled with evidence from other empirical investigations of cooperatives and ideology and culture in socialist Cuba, serves to infer humanist and participatory governance in these and other Cuban cooperatives.
