Differentiated voting and membership composition – the case of a large Swedish dairy cooperative

Abstract

This study comprises theoretical and empirical analyses of differentiated voting rights in the governance of agricultural cooperatives with self-interest seeking members. A survey was conducted among representative samples of members and General Assembly delegates of a large Swedish dairy cooperative while two important decisions were under consideration. Because of the equal voting rights regime, the majority of small-scale farmers encouraged the General Assembly to reject both efficiency-raising measures. However, if the large-scale farmers had had more voting power, both proposals would have been accepted. Because of limited spatial competition, the large-scale members could not “voting by their feet”.

Keywords

Proportional voting; Board of Directors; General Assembly; member democracy; organizational costs

Published in

International Journal on Food System Dynamics
2024, volume: 15, number: 2, pages: 114-129

SLU Authors

• Nilsson, Jerker

  • Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalization Studies)

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.18461/ijfsd.v15i2.J1

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/129155