State formation, ideological competition, and the ecology of Israeli workers' cooperatives, 1920-1992

We investigate the effect of community-wide political and ideological inter ests on the failure rate of Israeli workers' cooperatives. Political order may be provided by the stare or through membership in a federation. Indepen dently, both conditions should reduce organizational failure, but when they coexist, the influence of the state should dominate due to its comparative advantages as a supplier of order. Organizations that represent rival ideo logies cause ideological competition, which should increase failure, while organizations that represent shared ideologies cause ideological mutualism, which should decrease failure. The context of Israeli workers' cooperative s provides a natural laboratory for testing these ideas, as it spans the fo rmation of the Israeli state. It also includes a powerful federation, the H istadrut, to which many cooperatives belonged, as well as significant popul ations of organizations representing both capitalist and socialist ideologi es. The analysis supports all of the above arguments, indicating the releva nce of interdependence, broadly defined, for the evolution of organizationa l populations.(.)