Jane Addams and Mary Parker Follett’s Search for Cooperation

This chapter compares essentials in Jane Addams’s and Mary Parker Follett’s thinking on cooperation and the resolution of conflicts. The analysis shows that both scholars had much in common, including many theoretical and practical ideas, even though the domains of their activities differed. Their attempts to come to grips with the resolution of conflicts and the creation of cooperation turn out to be remarkably convergent, implying that their analyses strengthen each other. Both stressed the importance of actions accompanied by reflection, of rejecting the idea that conflicts necessarily have a zero-sum (win/lose) character, of being critical of vast disparities in income and wealth, of the belief that punishment is not the way to deal with difficult and “nasty” people, of striving for new things (i.e., social, political, and business innovations), of democratic action at the “grassroots” (i.e., community or neighborhood) level, and, last but not least, of women being part of all political, social, and business processes. Interestingly, these ideas stemming from about a century ago are validated in today’s research on cooperation that is based on computer simulations, game theoretical tests, and field experiments across countries.