Co-opting the cooperative movement? Development, decolonization, and the power of expertise at the Co-operative College, 1920s–1960s

Abstract Cooperative departments and organizations were a ubiquitous but rarely studied aspect of British colonial governance in the twentieth century. The Co-operative College Britain provided specialized training cooperation to students from across Empire. cooperative movement was key part emergence regimes development decades between 1920s 1960s, reflecting their emphasis on modular solutions deployed by experts an increasingly homogenizing ‘developing world’. However, post-colonial at also critical colonialism capitalism, participating anti-colonial internationalist effort create more just post-imperial world. As governments retained structures, former used as counter-balance larger forces nationalism neo-colonialism.