In the post-2012 International Year of Cooperatives era for the global cooperative movement, the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) has drafted the Blueprint for a Cooperative Decade (ICA, 2012), envisaging fast growth of the cooperative enterprise form in coming years. With evidence pointing to the importance of cooperatives for local economic development, how can the vision of the Blueprint be realized on the ground, and what shape would cooperative growth take in a local economy? This paper addresses the issue of cooperative development and growth in the context of the Croatian post-socialist transition economy marked by an unstable economic and institutional environment and exposed to a host of international programs providing support and direction to its institutional change. In particular, we examine the impact on cooperative development of policies and frameworks supporting civil society organizations and social enterprises. Connecting the country's cooperative development to the space of civil society organizations, we argue, may be the best chance Croatia's cooperatives have to materialize the kind of growth envisioned by the Blueprint. However, even if the local cooperative movement capitalizes on the growing reach of civil society and support for social enterprises, this does not automatically imply that cooperatives will be able to make a real transformational difference on the ground. There is a trap lurking on this path -- cooperatives and social enterprises may remain driven by other interests and dependent on external incentives, or ultimately give a new lease on life to the neoliberal institutional framework thriving on self-interest rather than enabling participatory community development.

The Economics of Agriculture (Ekonomika poljoprivrede) is an international scientific journal, published quarterly by BSAAE (Balkan Scientific Association of Agricultural Economists) in cooperation with Institute of Agricultural Economics (IAE) Belgrade and Academy of Economic Studies, in which are published original scientific papers, review articles, pre-announcements, book reviews, short communications and research reports.

Due to the nature of the offered services, responsible environmental attitude is of particular importance within the tourist sector, which both strongly depends on and influences the intact eco-systems by its development and areal pressure. Modeled according to the good European and world practice, the Program of Environmentally Responsible Management of Small Tourist Objects has been installed in Croatia. The key problem identified by the tourism workers and entrepreneurs is the lack of incentives and support of both state and the local community in implementation of socially responsible principles. It is estimated that only 10-15% of tourism entrepreneurs are quite familiar with the principles of sustainable and environmentally responsible tourism and aware of the importance of implementing ecological and social principles in daily practice. This leaves open the question of how to reach the majority of tourism entrepreneurs which do not consider the stated questions particularly important. Consequently, the possibilities offered by socially responsible management focused on ecology and energy will be researched within this paper, while at the same time satisfying the economic, ecological, and social effects on tourism. The offered solutions will satisfy both quality and quantity requirements of tourism needs, while preserving the environment. The suggested measures can vary from considerable investments i.e. into alternative energy sources, up to the smaller ones, i.e. choosing of energy efficient consumption bodies or consumption control bodies, with the overall common positive effect on the business subject's efficacy and its better performance both from the financial and sustainable development aspects.