Hi Rolf,
just came across this discussion now so I'm not sure how far it has gone in the online classes. It's an interesting one, for sure.
It reminds me of the film "The Life of Brian". For those who don't know it, there are 3 separate partisan groups (named The People's Front of Judea, The Judean's People's front and The Popular Front of Judea) whose sole purpose is to rid Judea of Roman Imperialism. The problem is that there is only one thing they hate more than the Romans - each other.
Anyway, I'm curious to know what exactly you mean by organizations - humanitarian, NGOs, private enterprises, trade unions and employer organizations, political parties?
I guess the reasons why they don't understand or, sometimes, do understand that cooperation is mutually beneficial depend on the context. For instance, competing companies understand that it is better to cooperate, usually on price, but laws prevent them from doing so. IT companies typically set up agglomerations to create something like synergy of knowledge.
In Ireland the opposition parties do not want to work together with the government to create a budget which the IMF and the EU want to see before agreeing on a bail out figure which will save the country. In Sweden, on the other hand, an all party alliance was immediately established when the economic crisis came knocking. Why such contrasting reactions? Why did German employees accept pay cuts to get them through their recession without any fuss while French workers went up in arms over pension cuts, which too was an anti-recession measure?
So, just as the motives for cooperating or not vary greatly so too, do the ways of pointing out mutually benefit.
I would be interested in hearing your thoughts.
cheers
Sean