A cooperative (also co-operative; often referred to as a co-op) is a business organization owned and operated by a group of individuals for their mutual benefit. Cooperatives are defined by the International Cooperative Alliance's Statement on the Cooperative Identity as autonomous associations of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprises. A cooperative may also be defined as a business owned and controlled equally by the people who use its services or by the people who work there. Various aspects regarding cooperative enterprise are the focus of study in the field of cooperative economics.

Origins

Cooperation dates back as far as human beings have been organizing for mutual benefit. Tribes were organised as cooperative structures, allocating jobs and resources among each other, only trading with the external communities. In alpine environments, trade could only be maintained in organized cooperatives to achieve a useful condition of artificial roads such as Viamala in 1473. Pre-industrial Europe is home to the first cooperatives from an industrial context.

In 1761, the Fenwick Weavers' Society was formed in Fenwick, East Ayrshire, Scotland to sell discounted oatmeal to local workers. Its services expanded to include assistance with savings and loans, emigration and education. In 1810, Welsh social reformer Robert Owen, from Newtown in mid-Wales, and his partners purchased New Lanark mill from Owen's father-in-law David Dale and proceeded to introduce better labour standards including discounted retail shops where profits were passed on to his employees. Owen left New Lanark to pursue other forms of cooperative organization and develop co-op ideas through writing and lecture. Cooperative communities were set up in Glasgow, Indiana and Hampshire, although ultimately unsuccessful. In 1828, William King set up a newspaper, ''The Cooperator'', to promote Owen's thinking, having already set up a co-operative store in Brighton.

The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, founded in 1844, is usually considered the first successful cooperative enterprise, used as a model for modern co-ops, following the 'Rochdale Principles'. A group of 28 weavers and other artisans in Rochdale, England set up the society to open their own store selling food items they could not otherwise afford. Within ten years there were over 1,000 cooperative societies in the United Kingdom.

Other events such as the founding of a friendly society by the Tolpuddle Martyrs in 1832 were key occasions in the creation of organized labor and consumer movements.

Social economy

In the final year of the 20th century, cooperatives banded together to establish a number of social enterprise agencies which have moved to adopt the multi-stakeholder cooperative model. In the last 15 years (1994–2009) the EU and its member nations, have gradually revised national accounting systems to "make visible" the increasing contribution of social economy organizations.

Organizational and ideological roots

The roots of the cooperative movement can be traced to multiple influences and extend worldwide. In the Anglosphere, post-feudal forms of cooperation between workers and owners, that are expressed today as "profit-sharing" and "surplus sharing" arrangements, existed as far back as 1795. The key ideological influence on the Anglosphere branch of the cooperative movement, however, was a ''rejection'' of the charity principles that underpinned welfare reforms when the British government radically revised its Poor Laws in 1834. As both state and church institutions began to routinely distinguish between the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor, a movement of friendly societies grew throughout the British Empire based on the principle of mutuality, committed to self-help in the welfare of working people.

Friendly Societies established forums through which one member, one vote was practiced in organisation decision-making. The principles challenged the idea that a person should be an owner of property before being granted a political voice. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century (and then repeatedly every 20 years or so) there has been a surge in the number of cooperative organisations, both in commercial practice and civil society, operating to advance democracy and universal suffrage as a political principle. Friendly Societies and consumer cooperatives became the dominant form of organization amongst working people in Anglosphere industrial societies prior to the rise of trade unions and industrial factories. Weinbren reports that by the end of the 19th century, over 80% of British working age men and 90% of Australian working age men were members of one or more Friendly Society.

From the mid-nineteenth century, mutual organisations embraced these ideas in economic enterprises, firstly amongst tradespeople, and later in cooperative stores, educational institutes, financial institutions and industrial enterprises. The common thread (enacted in different ways, and subject to the constraints of various systems of national law) is the principle that an enterprise or association should be owned and controlled by the people it serves, and share any surpluses on the basis of each members' cooperative contribution (as a producer, labourer or consumer) rather than their capacity to invest financial capital.

The cooperative movement has been fueled globally by ideas of economic democracy. Economic democracy is a socioeconomic philosophy that suggests an expansion of decision-making power from a small minority of corporate shareholders to a larger majority of public stakeholders. There are many different approaches to thinking about and building economic democracy. Both Marxism and anarchism, for example, have been influenced by utopian socialism, which was based on voluntary cooperation, ''without'' recognition of class conflict. Anarchists are committed to libertarian socialism and they have focused on local organization, including locally managed cooperatives, linked through confederations of unions, cooperatives and communities. Marxists, who as socialists have likewise held and worked for the goal of democratizing productive and reproductive relationships, often placed a greater strategic emphasis on confronting the larger scales of human organization. As they viewed the capitalist class to be prohibitively politically, militarily and culturally mobilized in order to maintain an exploitable working class, they fought in the early 20th century to appropriate from the capitalist class the society's collective political capacity in the form of the state, either through democratic socialism, or through what came to be known as Leninism. Though they regard the state as an unnecessarily oppressive institution, Marxists considered appropriating national and international-scale capitalist institutions and resources (such as the state) to be an important first pillar in creating conditions favorable to solidaristic economies. With the declining influence of the USSR after the 1960s, socialist strategies pluralized, though economic democratizers have not as yet established a fundamental challenge to the hegemony of global neoliberal capitalism.

Meaning

Cooperatives as legal entities

A cooperative is a legal entity owned and democratically controlled by its members. Members often have a close association with the enterprise as producers or consumers of its products or services, or as its employees.

In some countries, e.g. Finland and Sweden, there are specific forms of incorporation for cooperatives. Cooperatives may take the form of companies limited by shares or by guarantee, partnerships or unincorporated associations. In the USA, cooperatives are often organized as non-capital stock corporations under state-specific cooperative laws. However, they may also be unincorporated associations or business corporations such as limited liability companies or partnerships; such forms are useful when the members want to allow: #some members to have a greater share of the control, or #some investors to have a return on their capital that exceeds fixed interest, neither of which may be allowed under local laws for cooperatives. Cooperatives often share their earnings with the membership as dividends, which are divided among the members according to their participation in the enterprise, such as patronage, instead of according to the value of their capital shareholdings (as is done by a joint stock company).

Aspects of economic rationale

If cooperatives/mutuals succeed, that success may reflect not the characteristics of the cooperative/mutual form itself but the existence of a long term regulated competitive environment that created the space and margins which allowed them to adopt welfare objectives different from those of profit maximising competitors. Llewellyn and Holmes (1991) argue that, in the absence of a clear efficiency advantage, mutual building societies, for example, would need to behave in a manner substantially similar to banks and mutual life insurers similarly to Plc life insurers: "Only if mutuals have a substantial efficiency advantage compared with their Plc competitors are they able to set objectives significantly different from their Plc competitors. In the absence of this, competitive pressures force a convergence of behaviour and remove the major behavioural distinctions between mutuality and Plc's".

From this point of view, competition and narrow margins are inimical to the mutual form because they erode behavioural difference.

These issues are complicated in the case of UK building societies and mutual life insurers because they require judgement about whether they really have behaved differently in these two areas. If banks may be different from building societies, that may not be so in the case of, for example, the UK Plc 'Prudential' life insurer and its mutual competitors. But, what is clear is that building societies (like mutual life insurers) have operated in regulated areas where returns on capital are high, so that mutuals can choose different objectives. This discretion, of course, greatly complicates outcomes because mutuals can set objectives in terms of prices received or paid or in terms of market access to those who would be denied access or disadvantaged by other providers. There is also the complication that if (as in the case of building societies in the late-1980s), mutuals dominate the field, the behaviour of non-mutual competitors has to be conjectured.

Consumer attitudes and behaviour are also relevant when competition is weak. Consumers may prefer cooperatives/mutuals like building societies if they fear that surplus distributing banks might try to 'rip them off.' The point is made in the building society mutual context by Armitage (1991) in the following terms: "In theory, in a free market with well-informed participants, competition ensures competing services are priced according to their value to the consumer; if not they do not sell. Therefore, consumers are never 'ripped off'. However to the extent that a market is less than competitive in this sense, sellers have opportunities for exploiting customers., which their duty to shareholders should oblige them to take if they are companies, and their duty to members should oblige them not to take if they are mutuals. The mortgage and deposit markets are competitive, but not perfectly so. In particular, customers have incomplete information and face search costs. So there is scope for institutional policies to make a difference to customers' welfare without always paying or gaining in terms of loss or gain of custom".

The fact that most small depositors are ill-informed (as building society depositors certainly were) may also explain the importance of mutuals in the savings markets. The Uninformed Depositor Model of Rasmusen (1988) does appear to offer explanation for why small savers prefer mutuals. In banking markets, there is usually information asymmetry whereby managers are relatively informed as to risk, such as asset risk and maturity transformation/interest yield mismatch risk, and depositors are left relatively ignorant. In this case, the cost of virtually any monitoring by small savers is practically unsustainable. The 'free rider' effect in building societies is a manifestation of this kind of unsustainable monitoring cost where the cost of meaningful involvement in building society affairs (even attendance at the annual meeting) really quite outweighs benefits to be obtained through involvement, as Ingham and Thompson 4 point out. In earlier times, some building societies resorted to fining members for not attending annual meetings, in order to get the members to turn out. But once the roll was checked many promptly adjourned to the nearest pub ('bar'). Under these risk-monitoring circumstances, depositors will, according to Rasmusen,3 prefer a mutual where they perceive that what they understand to be moderate or no risk attaches, due to regulation, as compared to more risky less regulated banks. Also, they may understand that managers in mutuals are less motivated to take risk, as suggested by Rasmusen (1988) below and by Masulis (1987).

It could be claimed that part of the success of mutuals is due to simplified agency relationships resulting from the absence of external shareholders or to the ability to distribute surplus through product price (not 'Plc' dividend). These arguments are not conclusive, as the presence of external claimants may result in considerable pressure for cost economies, especially if there is a market for corporate control. It is doubtful that the operating cost leadership of UK building societies, which is so much a factor in the dominance of the mutual form in the savings banking and home mortgage financing market, has much to do with lower agency costs or efficiency. Before deregulation, the objective was not efficiency but growth through retained earnings which was in the management interest; and the finance directors attributed their funding cost advantage to the accident of mixed funding. Much of this detail may not matter to an uninformed depositor. As Rasmusen (1988) observes: "In the Uninformed Depositor Model the depositor does not have to distinguish motives: the advantage of the mutual is that the interests of depositors and managers roughly coincide, and whether managers are conservative to protect their perks or their depositors is a minor point".

Masulis (1987) also refers to the motivations of managers in relation to risk in the following terms with reference to American style mutual savings and loan banks where his references to 'owners' and boards of directors, in the MS&L [mutual savings and loan] context, are references to management: "Since MS&L owners (boards of directors) are only able to extract a portion of a S&L's current and accumulated earnings [through salary and perks], they have less incentive to take risks than the owners of stock companies [e.g. Plc banks] who can capture the entire stream of accumulated and expected future profits by selling their stock.

Identity

Cooperatives are based on the cooperative values of "self-help, self-responsibility, democracy and equality, equity and solidarity" and the seven cooperative principles: #Voluntary and Open Membership #Democratic Member Control #Member Economic Participation #Autonomy and Independence #Education, Training and Information #Cooperation among Cooperatives #Concern for Community

Cooperatives are dedicated to the values of openness, social responsibility and caring for others. Such legal entities have a range of social characteristics. Membership is open, meaning that anyone who satisfies certain non-discriminatory conditions may join. Economic benefits are distributed proportionally to each member's level of participation in the cooperative, for instance by a dividend on sales or purchases, rather than according to capital invested. Cooperatives may be classified as either ''worker'', ''consumer'', ''producer'', ''purchasing'' or ''housing'' cooperatives. They are distinguished from other forms of incorporation in that profit-making or economic stability are balanced by the interests of the community. Co-ops can sometimes be identified on the Internet through the use of the .coop gTLD. Organizations using .coop domain names must adhere to the basic co-op values.

Types of cooperative governance

Retailers' cooperative

A retailers' cooperative (known as a secondary or marketing cooperative in some countries) is an organization which employs economies of scale on behalf of its members to get discounts from manufacturers and to pool marketing. It is common for locally owned grocery stores, hardware stores and pharmacies. In this case the members of the cooperative are businesses rather than individuals.

The Best Western international hotel chain is actually a retailers' cooperative, whose members are hotel operators, although it now prefers to call itself a "nonprofit membership association." It gave up on the "cooperative" label after some courts insisted on enforcing regulatory requirements for franchisors despite its member-controlled status.

Worker cooperative

A worker cooperative or producer cooperative is a cooperative, that is owned and democratically controlled by its "worker-owners". There are no outside owners in a "pure" workers' cooperative, only the workers own shares of the business, though hybrid forms exist in which consumers, community members or capitalist investors also own some shares. In practice, control by worker-owners may be exercised through individual, collective or majority ownership by the workforce, or the retention of individual, collective or majority voting rights (exercised on a one-member one-vote basis). A worker cooperative, therefore, has the characteristic that the majority of its workforce owns shares, and the majority of shares are owned by the workforce. Membership is not always compulsory for employees, but generally only employees can become members either directly (as shareholders) or indirectly through membership of a trust that owns the company.

The impact of political ideology on practice constrains the development of cooperatives in different countries. In India, there is a form of workers' cooperative which insists on compulsory membership for all employees and compulsory employment for all members. That is the form of the Indian Coffee Houses. This system was advocated by the Indian communist leader A. K. Gopalan. In places like the UK, common ownership (indivisible collective ownership) was popular in the 1970s. Cooperative Societies only became legal in Britain after the passing of Slaney's Act in 1852. In 1865 there were 651 registered societies with a total membership of well over 200,000. There are now more than 400 worker cooperatives in the UK, Suma Wholefoods being the largest example with a turnover of £24 million.

Spanish law permits owner-members to register as self-employed enabling worker-owners to establish regulatory regimes that support cooperative working, but which differs considerably from cooperatives that are subject to Anglo-American systems of law that require the cooperative (employer) to view (and treat) its worker-members as salaried workers (employees). The implications of this are far-reaching, as this requires cooperatives to establish authority driven statutory disciplinary and grievance procedures (rather than democratic mediation schemes), impacting on the ability of leaders to enact democratic forms of management and counter the authority structures embedded in the dominant system of private enterprise centred around the entrepreneur.

Volunteer cooperative

A volunteer cooperative is a cooperative that is run by and for a network of volunteers, for the benefit of a defined membership or the general public, to achieve some goal. Depending on the structure, it may be a collective or mutual organization, which is operated according to the principles of cooperative governance. The most basic form of volunteer-run cooperative is a voluntary association. A lodge or social club may be organized on this basis. A volunteer-run co-op is distinguished from a worker cooperative in that the latter is by definition employee-owned, whereas the volunteer cooperative is typically a non-stock corporation, volunteer-run consumer co-op or service organization, in which workers and beneficiaries jointly participate in management decisions and receive discounts on the basis of sweat equity.

Social cooperative

A particularly successful form of multi-stakeholder cooperative is the Italian "social cooperative", of which some 7,000 exist. "Type A" social cooperatives bring together providers and beneficiaries of a social service as members. "Type B" social cooperatives bring together permanent workers and previously unemployed people who wish to integrate into the labour market.

Social cooperatives are legally defined as follows:

no more than 80% of profits may be distributed, interest is limited to the bond rate and dissolution is altruistic (assets may not be distributed)

the cooperative has legal personality and limited liability

the objective is the general benefit of the community and the social integration of citizens

those of type B integrate disadvantaged people into the labour market. The categories of disadvantage they target may include physical and mental disability, drug and alcohol addiction, developmental disorders and problems with the law. They do not include other factors of disadvantage such as unemployment, race, sexual orientation or abuse.

type A cooperatives provide health, social or educational services

various categories of stakeholder may become members, including paid employees, beneficiaries, volunteers (up to 50% of members), financial investors and public institutions. In type B cooperatives at least 30% of the members must be from the disadvantaged target groups

voting is one person one vote

A good estimate of the current size of the social cooperative sector in Italy is given by updating the official Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (Istat) figures from the end of 2001 by an annual growth rate of 10% (assumed by the ''Direzione Generale per gli Ente Cooperativi''). This gives totals of 7,100 social cooperatives, with 267,000 members, 223,000 paid employees, 31,000 volunteers and 24,000 disadvantaged people undergoing integration. Combined turnover is around 5 billion euro. The cooperatives break into three types: 59% type A (social and health services), 33% type B (work integration) and 8% mixed. The average size is 30 workers.

Consumers' cooperative

A consumers' cooperative is a business owned by its customers. Employees can also generally become members. Members vote on major decisions and elect the board of directors from amongst their own number. The first of these was set up in 1844 in the North-West of England by 28 weavers who wanted to sell food at a lower price than the local shops. A well known example in the United States is the REI (Recreational Equipment Incorporated) co-op, and in Canada: Mountain Equipment Co-op.

With its 414,383 employees, 7,736,210 members and a turnover of €50Bn per year growing at a steady rate of 4.41%, Legacoop of Italy is arguably the world's biggest cooperative.

The world's largest consumers' cooperative is the Co-operative Group in the United Kingdom, which offers a variety of retail and financial services. The UK also has a number of autonomous consumers' cooperative societies, such as the East of England Co-operative Society and Midcounties Co-operative. In fact, the Co-operative Group is something of a hybrid, having both corporate members (mostly other consumers' cooperatives, as a result of its origins as a wholesale society), and individual retail consumer members.

Japan has a very large and well-developed consumer cooperative movement with over 14 million members; retail co-ops alone had a combined turnover of 2.519 trillion Yen (21.184 billion US dollars [market exchange rates as of 15 November 2005]) in 2003/4.

Migros is the largest supermarket chain in Switzerland and keeps the cooperative society as its form of organization. Nowadays, a large part of the Swiss population are members of the Migros cooperative – around 2 million of Switzerland's total population of 7,2 million[1] [2], thus making Migros a supermarket chain that is owned by its customers.

Coop is another Swiss cooperative which operates the second largest supermarket chain in Switzerland after Migros. In 2001, Coop merged with 11 cooperative federations which had been its main suppliers for over 100 years.

As of 2005, Coop operates 1,437 shops and employs almost 45,000 people. According to Bio Suisse, the Swiss organic producers' association, Coop accounts for half of all the organic food sold in Switzerland.

EURO COOP is the European Community of Consumer Cooperatives.

Business and employment cooperative

Business and employment cooperatives (BECs) are a subset of worker cooperatives that represent a new approach to providing support to the creation of new businesses.

Like other business creation support schemes, BECs enable budding entrepreneurs to experiment with their business idea while benefiting from a secure income. The innovation BECs introduce is that once the business is established the entrepreneur is not forced to leave and set up independently, but can stay and become a full member of the cooperative. The micro-enterprises then combine to form one multi-activity enterprise whose members provide a mutually supportive environment for each other.

BECs thus provide budding business people with an easy transition from inactivity to self-employment, but in a collective framework. They open up new horizons for people who have ambition but who lack the skills or confidence needed to set off entirely on their own – or who simply want to carry on an independent economic activity but within a supportive group context.

New generation cooperative

New generation cooperatives (NGCs) are an adaptation of traditional cooperative structures to modern, capital intensive industries. They are sometimes described as a hybrid between traditional co-ops and limited liability companies. They were first developed in California and spread and flourished in the US Mid-West in the 1990s. They are now common in Canada where they operate primarily in agriculture and food services, where their primary purpose is to add value to primary products. For example producing ethanol from corn, pasta from durum wheat, or gourmet cheese from goat’s milk.

Types of cooperatives

Housing cooperative

A housing cooperative is a legal mechanism for ownership of housing where residents either own shares (share capital co-op) reflecting their equity in the cooperative's real estate, or have membership and occupancy rights in a not-for-profit cooperative (non-share capital co-op), and they underwrite their housing through paying subscriptions or rent.

Housing cooperatives come in three basic equity structures:

In Market-rate housing cooperatives, members may sell their shares in the cooperative whenever they like for whatever price the market will bear, much like any other residential property. Market-rate co-ops are very common in New York City.

Limited equity housing cooperatives, which are often used by affordable housing developers, allow members to own some equity in their home, but limit the sale price of their membership share to that which they paid.

Group equity or Zero equity housing cooperatives do not allow members to own equity in their residences and often have rental agreements well below market rates.

Members of a building cooperative (in Britain known as a self-build housing cooperative) pool resources to build housing, normally using a high proportion of their own labour. When the building is finished, each member is the sole owner of a homestead, and the cooperative may be dissolved.

This collective effort was at the origin of many of Britain's building societies, which however developed into "permanent" mutual savings and loan organisations, a term which persisted in some of their names (such as the former ''Leeds Permanent''). Nowadays such self-building may be financed using a step-by-step mortgage which is released in stages as the building is completed.

The term may also refer to worker cooperatives in the building trade.

Utility cooperative

A utility cooperative is a type of consumers' cooperative that is tasked with the delivery of a public utility such as electricity, water or telecommunications services to its members. Profits are either reinvested into infrastructure or distributed to members in the form of "patronage" or "capital credits", which are essentially dividends paid on a member's investment into the cooperative. In the United States, many cooperatives were formed to provide rural electrical and telephone service as part of the New Deal. ''See Rural Utilities Service''.

In the case of electricity, cooperatives are generally either generation and transmission (G&T) co-ops that create and send power via the transmission grid or local distribution co-ops that gather electricity from a variety of sources and send it along to homes and businesses.

In Tanzania, it has been proven that the cooperative method is helpful in water distribution. When the people are involved with their own water, they care more because the quality of their work has a direct effect on the quality of their water.

Agricultural cooperative

Agricultural cooperatives or farmers' cooperatives are cooperatives where farmers pool their resources for mutual economic benefit. Agricultural cooperatives are broadly divided into ''agricultural service cooperatives'', which provide various services to their individual farming members, and ''agricultural production cooperatives'', where production resources such as land or machinery are pooled and members farm jointly. Agricultural production cooperatives are relatively rare in the world, and known examples are limited to collective farms in former socialist countries and the kibbutzim in Israel.

Agricultural supply cooperatives aggregate purchases, storage, and distribution of farm inputs for their members. By taking advantage of volume discounts and utilizing other economies of scale, supply cooperatives bring down members' costs. Supply cooperatives may provide seeds, fertilizers, chemicals, fuel, and farm machinery. Some supply cooperatives also operate machinery pools that provide mechanical field services (e.g., plowing, harvesting) to their members.

Agricultural marketing cooperatives provide the services involved in moving a product from the point of production to the point of consumption. Agricultural marketing includes a series of inter-connected activities involving planning production, growing and harvesting, grading, packing, transport, storage, food processing, distribution and sale. Agricultural marketing cooperatives are often formed to promote specific commodities.

Credit unions and cooperative banking

Credit unions are cooperative financial institutions that are owned and controlled by their members. Credit unions provide the same financial services as banks but are considered not-for-profit organizations and adhere to cooperative principles.

Credit unions originated in mid-19th century Germany through the efforts of pioneers Franz Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch and Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen. The concept of financial cooperatives crossed the Atlantic at the turn of the 20th century, when the ''caisse populaire'' movement was started by Alphonse Desjardins in Quebec, Canada. In 1900, from his home in Lévis, he opened North America's first credit union, marking the beginning of the Mouvement Desjardins. Eight years later, Desjardins provided guidance for the first credit union in the United States, where there are now about 7,950 active status federally insured credit unions, with almost 90 million members and more than $679 billion on deposit.

While they have not taken root so deeply as in Ireland, credit unions are also established in the UK. The largest are work-based, but many are now offering services in the wider community. The Association of British Credit Unions Ltd (ABCUL) represents the majority of British Credit Unions. British Building Societies developed into general-purpose savings & banking institutions with "one member, one vote" ownership and can be seen as a form of financial cooperative (although nine 'de-mutualised' into conventionally owned banks in the 1980s & 1990s). The UK Co-operative Group includes both an insurance provider CIS and the Co-operative Bank, both noted for promoting ethical investment.

Other important European banking cooperatives include the Crédit Agricole in France, Migros and Coop Bank in Switzerland and the Raiffeisen system in many Central and Eastern European countries. The Netherlands, Spain, Italy and various European countries also have strong cooperative banks. They play an important part in mortgage credit and professional (i.e. farming) credit.

Cooperative banking networks, which were nationalized in Eastern Europe, work now as real cooperative institutions. A remarkable development has taken place in Poland, where the SKOK (''Spóldzielcze Kasy Oszczednosciowo-Kredytowe'') network has grown to serve over 1 million members via 13,000 branches, and is larger than the country’s largest conventional bank.

In Scandinavia, there is a clear distinction between mutual savings banks (Sparbank) and true credit unions (Andelsbank).

Federal or secondary cooperatives

In some cases, cooperative societies find it advantageous to form cooperative federations in which all of the members are themselves cooperatives. Historically, these have predominantly come in the form of cooperative wholesale societies, and cooperative unions. Cooperative federations are a means through which cooperative societies can fulfill the sixth Rochdale Principle, cooperation among cooperatives, with the ICA noting that "Cooperatives serve their members most effectively and strengthen the cooperative movement by working together through local, national, regional and international structures."

Cooperative wholesale society

According to cooperative economist Charles Gide, the aim of a cooperative wholesale society is to arrange “bulk purchases, and, if possible, organise production.” The best historical example of this were the English CWS and the Scottish CWS, which were the forerunners to the modern Co-operative Group.

Cooperative Union

A second common form of cooperative federation is a cooperative union, whose objective (according to Gide) is “to develop the spirit of solidarity among societies and... in a word, to exercise the functions of a government whose authority, it is needless to say, is purely moral.” Co-operatives UK and the International Cooperative Alliance are examples of such arrangements.

Cooperative party

In some countries with a strong cooperative sector, such as the UK, cooperatives may find it advantageous to form a parliamentary political party to represent their interests. The British Cooperative Party and the Canadian Cooperative Commonwealth Federation are prime examples of such arrangements.

The British cooperative movement formed the Cooperative Party in the early 20th century to represent members of consumers' cooperatives in Parliament. The Cooperative Party now has a permanent electoral pact with the Labour Party, and has 29 members of parliament who were elected at the 2005 general election as Labour Cooperative MPs. UK cooperatives retain a significant market share in food retail, insurance, banking, funeral services, and the travel industry in many parts of the country.

See also

Cooperative economics

Co-operative living arrangements

Collective

Common ownership

Commune (intentional community)

Cost the limit of price

Danish cooperative movement

Democratic socialism

Employee-owned corporation

Friendly Society

History of the cooperative movement

Industrial and provident society

List of Co-operative Federations

List of cooperatives

Microfinance / microcredit

Mondragón Cooperative Corporation

mutual aid

Mutual organization

Mutual Ownership Defense Housing Division

Mutualism (economic theory)

Neo-Capitalism

Participatory democracy

Participatory economics

Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen

Rochdale Principles

Social economy

Social enterprise

Syndicalism

Socialism

References

Notes

Bibliography

Further reading

Llewellyn, D. and Holmes, M. (1991) 'In Defence of Mutuality: A Redress to an Emerging Conventional Wisdom', Annals of Public and Co-operative Economics, Vol.62(3): pp. 319–354 (p. 327).

Armitage, S. (1991) 'Consequences of Mutual Ownership for Building Societies', The Service Industries Journal, October, Vol.11(4): pp. 458–480 (p. 471).

Rasmusen, E. (1988) 'Mutual banks and stock banks', Journal of Law and Economics, October, Vol.31: pp. 395–421 (p. 412).

Masulis, R. (1987) 'Changes in Ownership Structure: Conversions of Mutual Savings and Loans to Stock Charter', Journal of Financial economics, Vol.18: pp. 29–59 (p. 32).

"Consider the Collective: More than business as usual" by John Emerson, 2005. Article on graphic design and printing cooperatives.

"Consumer Co-operatives in a Changing World" edited by Johann Brazda and Robert Schediwy (ICA), 1989

''Consumers' Co-operative Societies'', by Charles Gide, 1922

''Co-operation 1921-1947'', published monthly by the Cooperative League of America

''Cooperative Peace'', by James Peter Warbasse, 1950

''Cooperatives: Principles and practices in the 21st century'', by Kimberly A. Zeuli and Robert Cropp, 2004

''Problems Of Cooperation'', by James Peter Warbasse, 1941

''The History of Co-operation'', by George Jacob Holyoake, 1908

"''For All The People: Uncovering the Hidden History of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements, and Communalism in America''," PM Press, by John Curl, 2009

"The International Co-operative Movement" by Johnston Birchall, 1997

''Cooperative Social Enterprises: Company Rules, Access to Finance and Management Practice'' in the ''Social Enterprise Journal'', Vol. 5., Issue, 1 by Rory Ridley-Duff, 2009.

''Developing Successful Worker Co-ops'', London: Sage Publications by Cornforth, C. J., Thomas, A., Spear, R. G. & Lewis, J. M., 1988.

''Reluctant Entrepreneurs'', Open University Press by Paton, R., 1989.

''Making Mondragon'', New York: ILR Press/Itchaca, by Whyte, W. F. & Whyte, K. K., 1991

''Understanding Cooperatives'', a curriculum on cooperative business for secondary school students.

''India: Re-inventing cooperatives by increasing youth involvement''

"The New Cooperativism" in ''Affinities: A Journal of Radical Theory, Culture, and Action'', Vol. 4, Issue 1 (2010)

External links

Canadian Co-operative Association

Co-operatives UK

DEBUuT, Business Cooperative of the Brussels Region

International Co-operative Alliance

International Confederation of Popular Banks

Venezuela's Cooperative Revolution from Dollars & Sense magazine

The National Co-operative Archive – holds records relating to all aspects of the co-operative movement.

The European Union Project “Credit Cooperatives – Russian Federation” official web site

Twin Oaks Communities Conference Conference focused on education about Cooperative Living

Category:Types of organization Category:Types of business entity Category:Business models Category:Mutualism (movement)

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name	Tom Clancy
birth date	May 12, 1947
birth place	Baltimore County, Maryland, United States
occupation	Novelist
nationality	American
period	1984–present
genre	Techno-thriller, Crime fiction, nonfiction
influences	H.P. Lovecraft, William Shakespeare, Eric Donovan, Robert A. Heinlein
influenced	Dale Brown, James Wesley Rawles
website	}}

Thomas Leo "Tom" Clancy, Jr. (born April 12, 1947) is an American author, best known for his technically detailed espionage, military science and techno thriller storylines set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War, along with video games on which he did not work, but which bear his name for licensing and promotional purposes. His name is also a brand for similar movie scripts written by ghost writers and many series of non-fiction books on military subjects and merged biographies of key leaders. He is Vice Chairman of Community Activities and Public Affairs, as well as also part-owner of the Baltimore Orioles of Major League Baseball.

Personal life

Thomas Leo Clancy, Jr. was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended Loyola Blakefield in Towson, Maryland, graduating with the class of 1965. He studied English Literature at Loyola College in Baltimore, graduating in 1969. Before making his literary debut, he spent some time running an independent insurance agency. This agency thrived for a few years before joining a group of investors.

Clancy and his first wife Wanda married in 1969, separated briefly in 1995, and permanently separated in December 1996. Wanda Clancy filed for divorce in November 1998, which became final in 1999.

In 1993, Tom Clancy joined a group of investors that included Peter Angelos and bought the Baltimore Orioles from Eli Jacobs. In 1998, he reached an agreement to purchase the Minnesota Vikings, but had to abandon the deal because of the divorce settlement cost.

On June 26, 1999, Clancy married freelance journalist Alexandra Marie Llewellyn, whom he had met in 1997. Llewellyn is the daughter of J. Bruce Llewellyn, and a family friend of Colin Powell, who originally introduced the couple to each other.

In 2008, the use of Clancy's name was purchased by French video game manufacturer Ubisoft for an undisclosed sum. It will be used in conjunction with video games and related products such as movies, and books.

Political views

A week after the September 11, 2001 attacks, on ''The O'Reilly Factor'', Clancy stated that left-wing politicians in the United States were partly responsible for September 11 due to their "gutting" of the Central Intelligence Agency. Clancy has also associated himself with General Anthony Zinni, a critic of the George W. Bush administration, and has been critical of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as well.

Some of his books bear dedications to Republican political figures, most notably Ronald Reagan. In his novels, countries portrayed as hostile to the United States include the former Soviet Union, Syria, China, Iran, India, and Japan while Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, South Korea, Taiwan, Israel, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom are shown as close allies of the United States.

On September 11, 2001, Clancy was interviewed by Judy Woodruff on CNN. During the interview, he observed that Islam does not condone suicide. Among other observations during this interview, Clancy cited discussions he had with military experts on the lack of planning to handle a hijacked plane being used in a suicide attack and criticized the news media's treatment of the United States Intelligence Community. Clancy appeared again on PBS's ''Charlie Rose'', where he debated Senator and future Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards.

Clancy has been a Life Member of the National Rifle Association since 1978. He is a Republican.

Bibliography

''The Hunt for Red October'', ''Patriot Games'', ''Clear and Present Danger'', and ''The Sum of All Fears'' have been turned into commercially successful films with actors Alec Baldwin, Ben Affleck, and Harrison Ford as Clancy's most famous fictional character Jack Ryan, while his second most famous character John Clark has been played by actors Willem Dafoe and Liev Schreiber. All but two of Clancy's solely-written novels feature Jack Ryan or John Clark.

The first NetForce novel was adapted as a television movie, starring Scott Bakula and Joanna Going. The first Op-Center novel was released to coincide with a 1995 NBC television mini-series of the same name (Tom Clancy's Op-Center) starring Harry Hamlin and a cast of stars. Though the mini-series did not continue, the book series did, but it had little in common with the first mini-series other than the title and the names of the main characters.

With the release of ''The Teeth of the Tiger'', Clancy introduced Jack Ryan's son and two nephews who were main characters; these characters continue in one of his latest novels, ''Dead Or Alive''.

Clancy has written several nonfiction books about various branches of the U.S. armed forces (see non-fiction listing, below). Clancy has also branded several lines of books and video games with his name that are written by other authors, following premises or storylines generally in keeping with Clancy's works. These are sometimes referred to by fans as "apostrophe" books; Clancy did not initially acknowledge that these series were being authored by others, only thanking the actual authors in the headnotes for their "invaluable contribution to the manuscript".

In 1997, Clancy signed a book deal with Penguin Putnam Inc. (both part of Pearson Education), that paid him US$50 million for the world-English rights to two new books. He then signed a second agreement for another US$25 million for a four-year book/multimedia deal. Clancy followed this up with an agreement with Berkley Books for 24 paperbacks to tie in with the ABC television miniseries ''Tom Clancy's Net Force'' aired in the fall/winter of 1998. The Op-Center universe has laid the ground for the series of books written by Jeff Rovin, which was in an agreement worth US$22 million bringing the total value of the package to US$97 million.

By publication date

; ''The Hunt for Red October'' (1984): Clancy's first published novel. CIA analyst Jack Ryan assists in the defection of a respected Soviet naval captain, along with the most advanced ballistic missile submarine of the Soviet fleet. The movie (1990) stars Alec Baldwin as Ryan and Sean Connery as Captain Ramius. Captain Mancuso is introduced here. Nearly every book after has Mancuso in ever increasing command of U.S. submarine forces. ; ''Red Storm Rising'' (1986): War between NATO and USSR. The basis of the combat game of the same name, this book is not a member of the Ryan story series (although the protagonist of the story has many similarities with Jack Ryan). He co-wrote it with Larry Bond. ; ''Patriot Games'' (1987): ''Patriot Games'' predates the first book that Clancy wrote, ''The Hunt for Red October'', chronologically. Jack Ryan foils an attack in London on the Prince and Princess of Wales by the "Ulster Liberation Army". The ULA then attacks Ryan's Maryland home while he is hosting the Prince and Princess for dinner. The movie stars Harrison Ford as Ryan and Samuel L. Jackson as Robby Jackson. ; ''The Cardinal of the Kremlin'' (1988): First appearance of John Clark and Sergey Golovko. Ryan leads a CIA operation which forces the head of the KGB to defect. Other elements include anti-satellite lasers and other SDI-type weapons, and the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Major Alan Gregory is introduced here. (He appears later, updating SAM software in ''The Bear and the Dragon''). Colonel Bondarenko also is introduced here. (He appears in later books offering advice to Golovko in "Executive Orders" and commanding the Russian Army defenses against China in its sequel "The Bear and the Dragon".) ; ''Clear and Present Danger'' (1989): The President authorizes the CIA to use American military forces in a covert war against cocaine producers in Colombia. The operation is betrayed. Ryan meets John Clark as they lead a mission to rescue abandoned soldiers. Domingo "Ding" Chavez (Clark's protege in later novels) is one of the rescued soldiers. The 1994 film stars Harrison Ford as Ryan, Willem Dafoe as Clark and Raymond Cruz as Chavez. ; ''The Sum of All Fears'' (1991): Arab terrorists find a nuclear weapon that had been lost by Israel, and use it to attack the United States. This nearly triggers a war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, due to the incompetence of the new President and his mistress with an anti-Ryan agenda. Ryan intervenes to avert the war. The 2002 film stars Ben Affleck as Ryan and Liev Schreiber as Clark, and changes the identity and motivation of the terrorists to neo-Nazis. ; ''Without Remorse'' (1993): ''Without Remorse'' takes place during the Vietnam War, when Jack Ryan was a teenager. Ex-SEAL John Clark (then John Kelly) fights a bloody one-man war against drug dealers in Baltimore, attracting the attention of Jack's father Emmett, a Baltimore police detective. He also helps plan and execute a raid on a prisoner-of-war camp in North Vietnam. Clark joins the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). ; ''Debt of Honor'' (1994): A secret cabal of extreme nationalists gains control of Japan (having acquired some nuclear weapons), and start a war with the U.S. Ryan, now National Security Advisor, and Clark and Chavez, agents in Japan, help win the war. The Vice President resigns in a scandal, and the President appoints Ryan to replace him. A vengeful, die-hard Japanese airline pilot then crashes a jetliner into the U.S. Capitol during a joint session of Congress attended by most senior U.S. government officials, including the President. Ryan thus becomes the new President through succession. ; ''Executive Orders'' (1996): This is the immediate sequel to ''Debt of Honor''. President Ryan survives press hazing, an assassination attempt, and a biological warfare attack on the United States. Clark and Chavez trace the virus to a Middle Eastern madman, and the U.S. military goes to work. ; ''SSN: Strategies for Submarine Warfare'' (1996): Follows the missions of USS ''Cheyenne'' in a future war with China precipitated by China's invasion of the disputed Spratly Islands. Also not a Ryan universe book, SSN is actually a loosely connected collection of "scenario" chapters in support of the eponymous computer game. ; ''Rainbow Six'' (1998): Released to coincide with the computer game of the same name. John Clark and Ding, who is now Clark's son-in-law, lead an elite multi-national anti-terrorist unit that combats a worldwide genocide attempt by eco-terrorists. (Jack Ryan is the U.S. President and only mentioned or referred to as either 'The President' or 'Jack'.) ; ''The Bear and the Dragon'' (2000): War between Russia and China. Ryan recognizes the independence of Taiwan, Chinese police officers kill a Roman Catholic Cardinal, and the American armed forces help Russia defeat a Chinese invasion of Siberia. ; ''Red Rabbit'' (2002): In the early 1980s, CIA analyst Ryan aids in the defection of a Soviet officer who knows of a plan to assassinate Pope John Paul II. ; ''The Teeth of the Tiger'' (2003): Jack Ryan's son, Jack Ryan, Jr., becomes an intelligence analyst, and then a field consultant, for The Campus, an off-the-books intelligence agency with the freedom to discreetly assassinate individuals "who threaten national security", following the end of the Jack Ryan Sr. presidential administration. This book of the Jack Ryan series by Tom Clancy introduces Ryan's son and two nephews as heirs to his spook-legacy. ; ''Dead or Alive'' (2010, with Grant Blackwood): Clancy's second newest novel, the story picks up where ''The Teeth of the Tiger'' left off with Jack Ryan, Jr. and The Campus trying to catch a terrorist known as "The Emir". ; ''Against All Enemies'' (2011, with Peter Telep): A terrorist bombing in Pakistan wipes out Max Moore’s entire CIA team. As the only survivor, the former Navy SEAL plunges deeper into the treacherous tribal lands to find the terrorist cell, but what he discovers there leads him to a much darker conspiracy in an unexpected part of the globe — the United States/Mexico border.

Novels not in the series

''Red Storm Rising'' (1986)

''SSN'' (1996)

''Against All Enemies'' (2011)

Jack Ryan/John Clark universe chronology

In the order in which they occur in the storyline (and when they occur):

''Without Remorse'' (1970)

''Patriot Games'' (1982, based on a reference to Ryan's age, which is 31 at the beginning of the novel. This roughly fits with a reference to the Princess of Wales first child being a baby and a few months old, Prince William was born in 1982)

''Red Rabbit'' (circa spring of 1982, based on references to living Leonid Brezhnev and Mikhail Suslov, both of whom died in 1982, as well as Jack Ryan, Jr.'s age in the novel, 6 months) Discrepancies with the estimate of 1982 include frequent references to "Transformers" which did not appear until 1984 and the fact that the Orioles played the Phillies in the World Series in 1983, not to mention that the World Series is played in the Fall, not the Spring.

''The Hunt for Red October'' (1984)

''The Cardinal of the Kremlin'' (1986) – "The first chapter is set in January and states that Ryan is 35 years old. It also has references to the other books set earlier. For example the Foley's have been in Moscow for almost four years. The book must begin (not including prologue which was set end of previous year) in January 1986.

Starting with the following novel, the series becomes distinctly different from real history as noted below.

''Clear and Present Danger'' (1988) The book refers to Jack's age at 40.

''The Sum of All Fears'' (1990–1991) — Israel partially cedes sovereignty over Jerusalem to the Vatican and Saudi Arabia, and the city becomes a United Nations protectorate policed by Swiss Guards. Residents of Jerusalem can choose between either Vatican, Israeli or Islamic judicial law. Denver is devastated by a terrorist nuclear explosion. The book occurs after the Persian Gulf War and before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It is implied that both events occur at the same time in the Ryan universe as in actual history (of the Soviet Union dissolution), 1991. In the earlier chapters it states that it had almost been two Novembers since President Fowler had been elected, making the beginning set in 1990.

''Debt of Honor'' (1995–1996) — The U.S. and Russia destroy all of their ballistic missiles. After crippling the U.S. economy and becoming a nuclear power, Japan invades and takes the Marianas Islands; the United States and Japan fight a brief war, which the Japanese lose (they are subsequently denuclearized); an embittered Japanese pilot and proponent of the war crashes a 747 into the United States Capitol Building immediately after Ryan's confirmation vote for the Vice President, killing most of the House and Senate, the President, all nine Supreme Court justices, the senior military establishment (including the JCS), and most of the Cabinet; Ryan is left in charge of a gutted government. The end of the book occurs shortly after the New Hampshire primary, which shows that the novel takes place during the 1996 election. Of interest, but not crucial to the plot of this or further books is that North and South Korea were said to be unified at some point between ''The Sum of All Fears'' and this book.

''Executive Orders'' (1996) — Saddam Hussein is assassinated; Iran and Iraq merge forming the United Islamic Republic; the UIR launches a biological attack on the U.S. using the Ebola virus; the United States launches the Second Persian Gulf War against the UIR and defeats them; the Ayatollah is killed in a smart-bomb attack by the U.S.

''Rainbow Six'' (Takes place between ''Executive Orders'' and ''The Bear and the Dragon'' most likely 1998-1999 from a statement saying that it had been a year and a half since Jack became president and the date of the video game) (although events seem to be based on the Sydney Olympics held in 2000) RAINBOW — an elite counter-terrorist force — is created and engages terrorists across Europe. Ecoterrorists plan to create a genetically-enhanced virus based on Ebola and cancer cells, which they plan to use to wipe out much of the world's population.

''The Bear and the Dragon'' (2000) — Russia is admitted to NATO; China and Russia fight a major war, in which the U.S. intervenes on its NATO ally's side. It implies that the British Prime Minister is Tony Blair.

''The Teeth of the Tiger'' (2005, based on the age of Jack Ryan, Jr.) The U.S. is now engaged in a global war on terrorism, in response to the September 11 attacks, which occurred in the Ryan universe as they did in the real world. It is mentioned that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq occurred in the Ryan universe continuity, and that the Jerusalem Treaty signed in ''The Sum of All Fears'' has failed as Israelis and Palestinians went back to fighting each other.

''Dead or Alive'' (2007, based on Jack Ryan's announcement that he would run against Ed Kealty for President "in the coming year") — The Umayyad Revolutionary Council (the Ryan universe version of Al-Qaeda) and its leader "The Emir" (based on Osama bin Laden) plan a string of major attacks on the U.S. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue, as in our timeline, and President Kealty is in the process of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, a process that began in our timeline in 2009. A character also explicitly refers to the date as May 2010, in the process of decoding encrypted messages.

Op-Center universe

# ''Op-Center'' # ''Mirror Image'' # ''Games of State'' # ''Acts of War'' # ''Balance of Power'' # ''State of Siege'' # ''Divide and Conquer'' # ''Line of Control'' # ''Mission of Honor'' # ''Sea of Fire'' # ''Call to Treason'' # ''War of Eagles''

NetForce universe

''NetForce'' (1998)

''Hidden Agendas''

''Night Moves''

''Breaking Point''

''Point of Impact''

''Cybernation''

''State of War''

''Springboard''

''Changing of the Guard''

''The Archimedes Effect''

NetForce Explorers universe

Virtual Vandals

The Deadliest Game

One is the Loneliest Number

The Ultimate Escape

End Game

Cyberspy

The Great Race

Shadow of Honor

Private Lives

Safe House

Power Plays series

''Politika'' (novel, 1997)

* ''Politika'' (computer game) by Red Storm Entertainment

** ''Politika'' (board game)

''ruthless.com'' (novel, 1998)

* ''ruthless.com'' (computer game, 1998) by Red Storm Entertainment

''Shadow Watch'' (novel, 1999) by Jerome Preisler

* ''Shadow Watch'' (computer game, 1999) by Red Storm Entertainment

''Bio-Strike'' (novel, 2000) by Jerome Preisler

''Cold War'' (novel, 2001) by Jerome Preisler

''Cutting Edge'' (novel, 2002) by Jerome Preisler

''Zero Hour'' (novel, 2003) by Jerome Preisler

''Wild Card'' (novel, 2004) by Jerome Preisler

Ghost Recon universe

''Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon'' by Grant Blackwood as David Michaels

''Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Combat Ops'' by David Michaels

EndWar universe

''Tom Clancy's EndWar'' by Grant Blackwood as David Michaels

''Tom Clancy's EndWar: The Hunted'' by Grant Blackwood as David Michaels

H.A.W.X universe

''Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X'' by Grant Blackwood as David Michaels

''Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X 2''

Non-fiction

Guided Tour

''Submarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship'' (1993)

''Armored Cav: A Guided Tour of an Armored Cavalry Regiment'' (1994)

''Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing'' (1995)

''Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit'' (1996)

''Airborne: A Guided Tour of an Airborne Task Force'' (1997, ISBN 0425157709)

''Carrier: A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier'' (1999)

''Special Forces: A Guided Tour of U.S. Army Special Forces'' (2001)

Study in Command

''Into the Storm — On the Ground in Iraq'' (with Fred Franks) (1997)

''Every Man a Tiger — the Gulf War Air Campaign'' (with Chuck Horner) (1999)

''Shadow Warriors — Inside the Special Forces'' (with Carl Stiner) (2002)

''Battle Ready'' (with Anthony Zinni) (2004)

Other

''The Tom Clancy Companion'' — Edited by Martin H. Greenberg — Writings by Clancy along with a concordance of all his fiction novels, detailing characters and military units or equipment.

Video games

In 1996, Clancy co-founded the computer game developer Red Storm Entertainment and ever since he has had his name on several of Red Storm's most successful games. Red Storm was later bought by publisher Ubisoft Entertainment, which continues to use the Clancy name. This game series includes:

''The Hunt for Red October'' (1987): Submarine simulation loosely based on the novel of the same name. Produced by Grandslam Entertainment for IBM PC, C64, and Amiga.

''Red Storm Rising'' (1988): Submarine sim loosely based on the novel of the same name. Produced by MicroProse for IBM PC, C64, and Amiga.

''The Hunt for Red October'' (1990): Submarine sim based on the movie of the same name. Produced by Grandslam Entertainment for Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, ZX Spectrum.

''The Hunt for Red October'' (1990): Submarine sim based on the movie of the same name. Produced for Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, and Super NES.

''SSN'' (1996): Submarine sim based on the novel of the same name. Produced by Simon & Schuster Interactive for IBM PC.

ruthless.com (1998) by Red Storm Entertainment: Strategy game based loosely on the book of the same name.

''Shadow Watch'' (2000): Turn-based strategy based on the Power Play novel of the same name.

''The Sum of All Fears'' (2002): Tactical first-person shooter similar in style to ''Rainbow Six'', but based on the Ghost Recon engine. The plot is based on the movie of the same name. Produced by Ubisoft for the IBM PC and Nintendo GameCube system.

''Rainbow Six series'': Squad-based first-person shooters, based on the novel of the same name, typically taking place in closed urban environments. Tom Clancy has made 18 Rainbow six games.

*''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six'' (1998)

*''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Eagle Watch'' (1999)

*''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear'' (1999)

*''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Urban Operations'' (2000)

*''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Covert Operations Essentials'' (2000)

*''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Take-Down — Missions in Korea'' (2001)

*''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Black Thorn'' (2001)

*''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Lone Wolf'' (2002)

*''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield'' (2003)

*''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow'' (2004)

*''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Athena Sword'' (2004)

*''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Iron Wrath'' (2005)

*''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Lockdown'' (2005)

*''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Critical Hour'' (2006)

*''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas'' (2006)

*''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2'' (2008)

*''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Shadow Vanguard'' (2011)

''Ghost Recon series'': Squad-based first-person shooters/third-person shooters. As opposed to the ''Rainbow Six'' games, Ghost Recon usually takes place in larger, outdoor environments.

*''Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon'' (2001)

*''Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Desert Siege'' (2003)

*''Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Island Thunder'' (2003)

*''Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Jungle Storm'' (2004)

*''Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2'' (2004)

*''Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2: Summit Strike'' (2005)

*''Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter'' (2006)

*''Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2'' (2007)

''Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier'' (2012)

*''Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Lead the Ghosts'' (TBA)

''Splinter Cell series'': Third person stealth games, lately spawned a line of books written by a series of different authors, all writing under the pseudonym David Michaels.

*''Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell'' (2002)

*''Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow'' (2004)

*''Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory'' (2005)

*''Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Essentials'' (2006)

*''Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent'' (2006)

*''Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction'' (2010)

''EndWar series'': Franchise set in a speculative World War III, taking place in 2020.

*''Tom Clancy's EndWar'' (2008)

*''Tom Clancy's EndWar 2'' (TBA)

''H.A.W.X series'': Air combat.

*''Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X'' (2009)

*''Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X 2'' (2010)

Many of the games bearing the Clancy name have been very successful, spawning several sequels and expansions. It is unknown how much input Clancy has into the games.

World news media is a fictional news network that had been featured in many Tom Clancy's video games.

It has been said that an attempt will be made to merge the various series into one coherent universe (~2:40-3:30)

Board games

''The Hunt for Red October'' (1988)

: Naval wargame published by TSR, Inc., based on the novel of the same name. It covered modern naval warfare between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

''Red Storm Rising'' (1989)

:Ground warfare wargame published by TSR, Inc., based on the novel of the same name. It covered an attack on NATO forces in western Europe by the Warsaw Pact. It included rules for integration with ''The Hunt for Red October'' game of the year before. The publisher reused the system for ''Europe Aflame'' (1989), a strategic World War II game, and ''A Line in the Sand'', a strategic game about the First Gulf War.

''Tom Clancy's Politika'' (1997)

Achievements and awards

Clancy is one of only three authors to have sold two million copies on a first printing in the 1990s (the other two being John Grisham and J.K. Rowling). Clancy's 1989 novel ''Clear and Present Danger'' sold 1,625,544 hardcover copies, making it the #1 bestselling novel of the 1980s.

Clancy received an honorary doctorate in humane letters and delivered the commencement address at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1992, and has since worked a reference to the school into many of his main works.

Clancy is an honorary Yeoman Warder of The Tower of London holding the title "Supernumerary Yeoman". On the television show Ace of Cakes his wife commissioned, for his 60th birthday, a special cake in the shape of the Tower of London in acknowledgment of his status. In the episode, Tom Clancy referred to the ''Beefeaters'' as, "Just a terrific bunch of guys".

Clancy received the Alfred Thayer Mahan Award for Literary Achievement from the Navy League of the United States in 1990.

In popular culture

The BBC Radio 4 sitcom ''Deep Trouble'', set on a nuclear submarine, features a humorous version of Clancy as a recurring character. He is portrayed by Ben Willbond, co-writer of the series.

See also

List of bestselling novels in the United States

List of other novelists

Stephen Coonts

John le Carré

Ian Fleming

James Clancy Phelan

Frederick Forsyth

Charles Cumming

Notes

References

External links

Official Tom Clancy Web Site

Transcript of interview with Deborah Norville on the War in Iraq — April 2004

Detailed Tom Clancy Book Reviews

Tom Clancy FAQ

The Page of Tom Clancy's Primary Publisher

Literary reviews and criticism

"Something for the Boys" by Christopher Hitchens, ''The New York Review of Books'', November 14, 1996. A review of Clancy's ''Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit.''

Category:1947 births Category:Living people Category:American military writers Category:American thriller writers Category:Baltimore Orioles owners Category:Loyola University Maryland alumni Category:Maryland Republicans Category:People from Calvert County, Maryland Category:Techno-thrillers Category:Writers from Maryland Category:Guggenheim Fellows Category:American spy fiction writers Category:National Rifle Association members

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