New work is used as a general term to summarize professional developments in contemporary work style, structure and modus of organizations and society—this means collaborative work and flexible working hours on individual levels, and flat hierarchies and participatory decision-making on organizational levels. Contemporary corporations strive to orient toward the concept of new work to keep up with stakeholder demands, for instance in their branding strategies as an employer. However, studies on organizational practices indicate that alongside explicit values and agendas, (...) organizations tend to slyly exert power to secure their interests. Constructive dismissal is one such instance where contractually protected employees are made to resign their positions because the work environment is altered to become increasingly unbearable. This research analyzes two case studies to explicate routine dismissal procedures at the managerial level in two internationally operating German corporations. Both corporations explicitly profile as new work environments and are structured according to democratic principles including flat hierarchies, feature institutionalized diversity management including control committees for equal opportunities, and emphasize values such as workplace dignity, employee agency, and equality. The data contain long-term participatory observation collected over a 6-month period from two managers of 5 and 8 years of experience in managerial duties. The content analysis of data reveals characteristics of everyday processes in these organizations especially in terminating managers. The findings are presented as the ‘model of the silent dismissal,’ containing seven types of managerial termination carried out by implicit power and symbolic conventions that circumvent subject participation and litigation in an effortless manner. After exposing the model’s mechanisms, we turn to discuss its meaning for both terminated and surviving subjects against a critical theoretical framework of neoliberalism, democracy, and power. (shrink)

Worker organizing outside the traditional union framework in the United States has lately focused on worker centers, which provide the benefits of collective action and participatory workplace democracy without the legal obstacles faced by unions. This Article offers thoughts on legal regulation of worker organizations’ internal governance to facilitate collective power with appropriate protection for the rights of individuals within the collective. Federal law extensively regulates the internal governance of unions so as to protect minorities in an organization that (...) is an exclusive representative. It does not apply to worker centers, which disclaim the desire to represent workers for bargaining. Worker centers are regulated only lightly, under state law of nonprofit organizations. But if they become powerful, they will be large and will need to be managed by a leadership that may or may not remain accountable to the membership and respectful of minority rights. This Article offers a reading of the literature on union democracy from the 1950s as notes toward thinking about governance of worker organizations that are not labor unions. Democracy was the political moment when the demos recognized that the power of the polis was their power, not an illegal seizure of something that belonged to the rich or well born. Sheldon Wolin, “Democracy: Electoral and Athenian”. (shrink)

Evaluating the role and opportunities of state correction of the functions of religious organizations, it must be recognized that the state is not able to administratively change those trends and forms of activity that express the social purpose of religious associations and organizations.

Political philosophers have long disagreed on the issue of whether churches should exercise restraint in the appeal to religious reasons in public discussion and political mobilization. Exclusivists defend the restraint, whereas inclusivists reject it. Both sides, however, assume the existence of a democratic government. In this essay, I discuss whether churches should exercise restraint in a non-democratic, authoritarian society. I defend inclusivism and believe that churches should not restrain themselves, especially when doing so can promote democracy and prevent severe injustices. (...) First, I argue that two exclusivist arguments which justify the restraint cannot be applied in an authoritarian society. Second, I defend inclusivism because religious reasons are effective in cultivating active citizens that strengthen the democratic movement. Finally, I use the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong as an example to show how inclusivism can enhance democratic movements under authoritarianism. (shrink)

Classical liberalism is skeptical about governmental organizations "doing good" for people. Instead governments should create the conditions so that people individually (Adam Smith) and in associations (Tocqueville) are empowered to do good for themselves. The market implications of classical liberalism are well-known, but the implications for organizations are controversial. We will take James Buchanan as our guide (with assists from Mill and Dewey). Unpacking the implications of classical liberalism for the "science of associations" (Tocqueville) requires a tour through (...) the intellectual history of the voluntary slavery contract and the voluntary non-democratic constitution. The argument concludes that the classical liberal endorsement of sovereign individuals acting in the marketplace generalizes to the joint action of individuals as the principals in their own organizations and associations. (shrink)

The latest book by the Slovenian critic Slavoj Zizek takes the work of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze as the beginning of a dazzling inquiry into the realms of radical politics, philosophy, film (Hitchcock, Fight Club ), and psychoanalysis. Of Organs without Bodies Joan Copjec ( Imagine There's No Woman ) has written: "With all his ususal humor and invention, Zizek -- the acknowledged master of the 180 degree turn -- here takes a trip into "enemy" territory to deliver Deleuze of (...) a marvelously rebellious child, one that seriously challenges Deleuze's other progeny with a surprising but convincing bid for succession. Those who thought Deleuze's forward march into the future would follow a straight path are forced to rethink their stance. From now on all readings of Deleuze will have to take a detour through this important -- even necessary -- book." Eric Santner ( On the Psychopathology of Everyday Life ) describes Organs without Bodies as offering "an entirely new degree of conceptual clarity and political urgency. Through his deep engagement with the logic of Deleuze's project, Zizek opens up new possibilities of thought beyond the terms of the current political debates on globalization, democratization, war on terror. Once again, Zizek has produced an utterly timely and radically untimely meditation." Recently profiled in The New Yorker , and hailed by the Village Voice as "the giant of Ljubljana," Zizek is one of the most provocative and entertaining thinkers at work today. (shrink)

ArgumentRaspail’s domestic medicine method, popularized in 1840s France, has similarities with the practices of nineteenth century non-academic healers. His mass marketing of camphor as a universal treatment echoes the practices of “charlatans” and their circles. But Raspail is also very original in this history of popular care. As a scientist, a popularizer of encyclopedic knowledge and a political activist, he managed to blur traditional distinctions between science and politics and between popular and learned medicine. Raspail was a constant thorn in (...) the side of academic institutions and professional organizations, which were struggling to gain legitimacy. His work took a political turn when he combined, within a single project, his approach to treatment and his call for democratizing medical care. Raspail’s method challenged institutional norms by acknowledging the importance of the patient’s contribution to the healing process, and recognizing the necessity of thwarting the occasionally deleterious effects of monopolistic medicalization. (shrink)

The emergence of the “4th Industrial Revolution,” i.e. the convergence of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, advanced materials, and bioengineering technologies, could accelerate socioeconomic insecurities and anxieties or provide beneficial alternatives to the status quo. In the post-Covid-19 era, the entities that are best positioned to capitalize on these innovations are large firms, which use digital platforms and big data to orchestrate vast ecosystems of users and extract market share across industry sectors. Nonetheless, these technologies also have the potential (...) to democratize ownership, broaden political-economic participation, and reduce environmental harms. We articulate the potential sociotechnical pathways in this high-stakes crossroads by analyzing cellular agriculture, an exemplary 4th Industrial Revolution technology that synergizes computer science, biopharma, tissue engineering, and food science to grow cultured meat, dairy, and egg products from cultured cells and/or genetically modified yeast. Our exploration of this space involved multi-sited ethnographic research in both the cellular agriculture community and alternative economic organizations devoted to open source licensing, member-owned cooperatives, social financing, and platform business models. Upon discussing how these latter approaches could potentially facilitate alternative sociotechnical pathways in cellular agriculture, we reflect upon the broader implications of this work with respect to the 4th Industrial Revolution and the enduring need for public policy reform. (shrink)

Democracy has become disentangled from our ordinary lives. Mere cooperation or ethical consumption now often stands in for a robust concept of solidarity that structures the entirety of sociality and forms the basis of democratic culture. How did democracy become something that is done only at ballot boxes and what role can solidarity play in reviving it? In Solidarity in Conflict, Rochelle DuFord presents a theory of solidarity fit for developing democratic life and a complementary theory of democracy that emerges (...) from a society typified by solidarity. DuFord argues that solidarity is best understood as a set of relations, one agonistic and one antagonistic: the solidarity groups' internal organization and its interactions with the broader world. Such a picture of solidarity develops through careful consideration of the conflicts endemic to social relations and solidarity organizations. Examining men's rights groups, labor organizing's role in recognitional protections for LGBTQ members of society, and the debate over trans inclusion in feminist praxis, DuFord explores how conflict, in these contexts, becomes the locus of solidarity's democratic functions and thereby critiques democratic theorizing for having become either overly idealized or overly focused on building and maintaining stability. Working in the tradition of the Frankfurt School, DuFord makes a provocative case that the conflict generated by solidarity organizations can address a variety of forms of domination, oppression, and exploitation while building a democratic society. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the rhetoric of democratic science within the field of synthetic biology. The still emerging field of synthetic biology claims to be a new kind of science based on the promises of affordable medicines, environmental bioremediation, and democratic, do-it-yourself science practices. I argue that the formation of a more democratic, DIY portion of this field represents an intervention into ethics debates by becoming “the proper informed public.” Through an analysis of twelve DIY and community-based synthetic biology (...) organizations’ websites, I found that democratic science was presented as a novel, progressive approach to science that addresses ethical concerns and at the same time produces better scientific results. In part, these claims were made possible through a reconfiguring of the boundaries between Science and the Public where scientists lay claim to solidarity with the public at large in opposition to traditional biosciences and Big Bio. My research suggests that the superficial use of the language of rights and democracy relegitimizes the primacy of scientific discovery to solve societal problems. I further suggest that by becoming the proper informed public, ethical challenges from publics critical of genetic sciences may become delegitimized. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the teacher’s role in Laclaudian democratic education in light of the notion of the organic intellectual as proposed by Antonio Gramsci. Unlike common readings of the figure of the organic intellectual, where it is understood as developing organically from within the ranks of the oppressed, I argue that the term “organic” also refers to organization, and that the role of the organic intellectual is to be a political organizer. In contrast to the figure of the (...) charismatic leader to which Laclau and Mouffe often appeal, a political organizer works dialogically, without altogether renouncing the position of active leadership. I argue, accordingly, that the democratic teacher should be an organizer who creates for the students the conditions for articulating their demands and identities and strives to stir the emerging political subjects in a democratic direction, namely against oppressive elites and mechanisms rather than other oppressed groups. (shrink)

Abstract. The Western conception of the individual as a rational, self-directing agent is a mythology that organizes and distorts religion, science, economics, and politics. It produces an abstracted and atomized form of engagement that is fatal to collective self-governance. And it turns democracy into the enemy of equality. Considering the meaning of democracy and autonomy from a perspective that takes the subject as truly social would refocus our attention on the constitutive contexts and practices necessary for the production of citizens (...) who are capable of meaningful self-governance. Under modern conditions, it is in the development of sexual autonomy that we learn how to take initiative with respect to our well-being and do so in concert with others. Where the view of rational agency as the defining characteristic of humanity yields a deracinated view of autonomy, a more realistic, humanistic view that we are, necessarily, social beings yields a view of freedom and self-governance as social phenomena that require empathy, negotiation, compromise, cooperation, and mutual recognition and respect. (shrink)

The distinctness of each person’s life and experience is an important consideration in dominant accounts of how democratic institutions should distribute basic rights and liberties. Drawing on recent social movements, philosophers like Iris Marion Young, Miranda Fricker, and Axel Honneth have nonetheless drawn attention to the distinctive claims and challenges that plurality and difference entrain in democratic societies by analysing how the dominant discourses on rights and justice tend to elide, obscure, or reify the lived experiences of individuals belonging to (...) disadvantaged and oppressed groups. In this essay, I offer an independent justification for why we should take such lived experiences seriously. I show how the lived experiences of disadvantaged and oppressed individuals can be a resource for deep and meaningful social change. I propose a distinctive kind of social change in which the disadvantaged and oppressed themselves drive the process of transformation whereby they change the oppressive frames of difference relating to their race, class, sex, or ability. I call this kind ‘organic social change’. I also show that organic social change is distinctively important in that the disadvantaged and oppressed get to enact an empowering mode of cooperation that harnesses their singularities when they are the ones driving the process of their own and one another’s transformations. (shrink)

How far is Thomas Aquinas available for current discussions in political philosophy? While there are certainly things to be learned from him about our political preoccupations, the pedagogy of his moral teaching typically resists our familiar questions. This holds even when the question is put in terms that Thomas should recognize—say, as a question about the virtues appropriate for a democracy. Thomas not only gives different meanings to these terms, he moves political topics away from the center of theological attention (...) and so organizes them very differently. A reader can notice these differences at many points but perhaps especially in the attention that Thomas gives in the Summa to the gifts of the Holy Spirit. His account of these gifts qualifies significantly what he says of virtue and suggests large limits on human agency, whether in ethics or in politics. (shrink)

The distinctness of each person’s life and experience is an important consideration in dominant accounts of how democratic institutions should distribute basic rights and liberties. Drawing on recent social movements, philosophers like Iris Marion Young, Miranda Fricker, and Axel Honneth have nonetheless drawn attention to the distinctive claims and challenges that plurality and difference entrain in democratic societies by analysing how the dominant discourses on rights and justice tend to elide, obscure, or reify the lived experiences of individuals belonging to (...) disadvantaged and oppressed groups. In this essay, I offer an independent justification for why we should take such lived experiences seriously. I show how the lived experiences of disadvantaged and oppressed individuals can be a resource for deep and meaningful social change. I propose a distinctive kind of social change in which the disadvantaged and oppressed themselves drive the process of transformation whereby they change the oppressive frames of difference relating to their race, class, sex, or ability. I call this kind ‘organic social change’. I also show that organic social change is distinctively important in that the disadvantaged and oppressed get to enact an empowering mode of cooperation that harnesses their singularities when they are the ones driving the process of their own and one another’s transformations. (shrink)

Using two contemporary cases of the global #MeToo movement and UK-based collective Sisters Uncut, this paper argues that a more in-depth and critical concern with gendered difference is necessary for understanding radical democratic ethics, one that advances and develops current understandings of business ethics. It draws on practices of social activism and dissent through the context of Irigaray’s later writing on democratic politics and Ziarek’s analysis of dissensus and democracy that proceeds from an emphasis on alterity as the capacity to (...) transform nonappropriative self-other relations. Therefore, the aims of the paper are: to develop a deeper understanding of a culture of difference and to consider sexual difference as central to the development of a practical democratic ethics and politics of organizations; to explore two key cases of contemporary feminist social movements that demonstrate connected yet contrasting examples of how feminist politics develops through an appreciation of embodied, intercorporeal differences; and to extend insights from Irigaray and Ziarek to examine ways in which a practical democratic politics proceeding from an embodied ethics of difference forms an important advancement to theorising the connection between ethics, dissent and democracy. (shrink)

What is the spirit that animates collective action? What is the ethos of democracy? _Worldly Ethics _offers a powerful and original response to these questions, arguing that associative democratic politics, in which citizens join together and struggle to shape shared conditions, requires a world-centered ethos. This distinctive ethos, Ella Myers shows, involves care for "worldly things," which are the common and contentious objects of concern around which democratic actors mobilize. In articulating the meaning of worldly ethics, she reveals the limits (...) of previous modes of ethics, including Michel Foucault's therapeutic model, based on a "care of the self," and Emmanuel Levinas's charitable model, based on care for the Other. Myers contends that these approaches occlude the worldly character of political life and are therefore unlikely to inspire and support collective democratic activity. The alternative ethics she proposes is informed by Hannah Arendt's notion of _amor mundi_, or love of the world, and it focuses on the ways democratic actors align around issues, goals, or things in the world, practicing collaborative care for them. Myers sees worldly ethics as a resource that can inspire and motivate ordinary citizens to participate in democratic politics, and the book highlights civic organizations that already embody its principles. (shrink)

Digital communications technology isreconfiguring democratic governance. Federalagencies increasingly rely on Internet-basedapplications to improve citizen-governmentinteraction. Early efforts in the area ofdigital government have created newparticipatory opportunities as well asformidable governance challenges. Federalagencies are working within and across theirboundaries to find an e-rulemaking format thatis cost-effective, legally appropriate,user-friendly, and well suited to diverse modesof rulemaking activities. One of the overridingissues emerging from this process is thedefinition of meaningful public participationin rulemaking. An examination of an early caseinvolving the USDA's National Organic Programproposed rule (...) summarizes comments related togenetic engineering, biosolids, irradiation,and the role of the National Organic StandardsBoard. The USDA's experience suggests a numberof complex challenges that must be met toeffectively integrate Web-based communicationsinto the federal rulemaking process. (shrink)

There are longstanding calls for international organizations to be more inclusive of the voices and interests of people whose lives they affect. There is nevertheless widespread disagreement among practitioners and political theorists over who ought to be included in IO decision-making and by what means. This paper focuses on the inclusion of IOs’ ‘intended beneficiaries,’ both in principle and practice. It argues that IOs’ intended beneficiaries have particularly strong normative claims for inclusion because IOs can affect their vital interests (...) and their political agency. It then examines how these claims to inclusion might be feasibly addressed. The paper proposes a model of inclusion via representation and communication, or ‘mediated inclusion.’ An examination of existing practices in global governance reveals significant opportunities for the mediated inclusion of IOs’ intended beneficiaries, as well as pervasive obstacles. The paper concludes that the inclusion of intended beneficiaries by IOs is both appropriate and feasible. (shrink)

Sociology, as conceived by Comte, was to put an end to the anarchy of opinions characteristic of liberal democracy by replacing opinion with the truths of sociology, imposed through indoctrination. Later sociologists backed away from this, making sociology acceptable to liberal democracy by being politically neutral. The critics of this solution asked 'whose side are we on?' Burawoy provides a novel justification for advocacy scholarship in sociology. Public sociology is intended to have political effects, but also to be funded by (...) the politically neutral state. He argues that public sociology is institutionally neutral, but that committing to an organic relation with a social movement is legitimate as a matter of the sociologist's personal value choice. Although this produces side-taking sociology, by improving the case for particular standpoints it serves to improve democratic discussion generally, which is an appropriately neutral public aim. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 35.4 (2002) 267-296 [Access article in PDF] Allegory and Democratic Public Culture in the Postmodern Era Robert Hariman The man lies on the hotel bed, clad only in his underwear, as he watches the TV screen just beyond his feet. His right hand holds the remote control, which he uses to scan through the cable channels. To his left sits Abraham Lincoln, clothed in long-sleeved white (...) shirt and black pants and reading a book. Lincoln's long, angular frame is just a bit stooped, and his brow is slightly furrowed, as if long accustomed to thinking on the edge of melancholy. Lincoln is mulling over a statement by Walter Benjamin: "Allegories are, in the realm of thoughts, what ruins are in the realm of things" (Benjamin 1977, 178). 1Seated to the man's right is a woman wearing the terry cloth bathrobe provided by the hotel. She leans slightly forward, legs crossed, as she reads the New York Times Magazine cover story about President Clinton. "Listen to this," she says with a bemused smile. "In the clutter around his desk in the Oval Office stands not a single bust of a favorite predecessor, but five: Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Truman and two of F.D.R., plus a statuette of Will Rogers for good measure. If governing is choosing, this collection is a metaphor for this President's trouble with choices, and he himself allows, 'That's the story of my Presidency, that desk'" (Purdum 1996, 36).The man says nothing as he continues to watch the succession of images on the screen: a lizard flicks its tongue in the desert heat; a child in a stroller laughs as she holds a strawberry ice cream cone; a congressman in blue suit, white shirt, and red tie jabs his finger into the air as he talks earnestly; cars plastered with automotive product logos curl around a race track; Fred and Ginger swirl around the dance floor; soldiers wade ashore at Omaha Beach; the Space Shuttle lifts off; Groucho lifts his eyebrows; Regis smiles; mushrooms and peppers simmer in a pan.The succession of images could go on indefinitely. The tableau remains static. The composition is an allegory: a figural presentation that organizes multiple interpretations regarding collective experience. It also contains and comments on other forms of itself: Clinton's desk is an example [End Page 267] of the figural anecdote that has been a staple of American public address. The manifold of televisual images exemplifies the allegorical encoding that operates within postmodern art forms, including fragmentary appropriation, paratactic association, encyclopedic range, and non-linear temporality. The statement by Benjamin illuminates the nature of allegory in a specific genre and historical period, and as it is a general mode of representation, and perhaps as it is a model for all textual interpretation.The composition also evokes a set of dialectical tensions that are characteristic of both allegory in general and fundamental anxieties in the contemporary period. Past and present sit side by side, but incongruously, as if by artifice alone. So it is also with the print and visual media, which are held together by mutual competencies but otherwise in figural isolation that perhaps represents different destinies. Likewise, one might wonder about the peculiar relationship between public affairs and private life: the succession of images on the screen adhere to no hierarchy of values, no principle of loyalty or sacrifice, no basis for discerning obligations or maintaining rights, yet they are replete with the paraphernalia of these concerns, and the arrangement of figures in the room likewise is at once suggestive yet inconclusive. If this tableau contains familiar features of the mass-mediated experience that now saturates American politics, one might wonder: Is the democratic tradition in ruins?Allegories give us dynamic juxtapositions in a static frame. This principle of composition seems particularly suited to periods of cultural change. To the extent that the genre of allegory has a history, it is one of eternal recurrence at periods of loss and fragmentation produced by the expansion of a new, somewhat... (shrink)

The argument put forward by this article is not that democratization does not benefit from the activity of a vibrant civil society, but rather that academic research should address this relationship in a critical way. This article maintains that one should take care to distinguish between 'civil society' as an ideal-type concept that embodies the qualities of separation, autonomy and civil association in its pure form, and the factual world of 'civil societies' composed of associations that embody these principles to (...) varying degrees. At the same time, one should avoid a kind of triumphalism about civil society as a necessary source of democratic energy with homogenous goals and principles; in a word, one should avoid a theory of civil society that privileges civil society (Fine 1997). A first problem seems to be mainly definitional: what is meant by civil society? By reviewing the most relevant literature on democratization, the first part of this article discusses the main assumptions regarding the role of civil society as a democratizing power, namely its apolitical nature, its deep 'civil' stand and its relationship with the state. In the second part, the article utilizes the case of South African civil society as a relevant example of how difficult and nuanced the relationship between civil society organizations and democratization can be, with special regard to the process of democratic deepening and social emancipation. (shrink)

This article presents Minobe Tatsukichi’s emperor organ theory as a novel understanding of the temporality of founding. In contrast to a conventional framework of founding which legitimizes the constitution by postulating the pre-constitutional power of “the people,” emperor organ theory invents “the people” out of the Meiji Constitution as a democratically empowered subject to-come. In so doing, emperor organ theory calls upon the transformation of shin-min (臣民), the presumed subject of the emperor, into koku-min (国民), the people of this constitutional (...) state. However, emperor organ theory also highlights the contingency of founding moments: though koku-min emerged through the Diet as a conceptually new political actor in Japan’s nascent constitutional state, it never solidified its sovereign status as “the people.”. (shrink)

This article argues that Kant's republicanism provides a foundation for democratic procedures. The conclusion is reached through an investigation of Critique of the Power of Judgment, which allows us to interpret Kant's notion of the state as a self-determining organic community, and not merely an aggregate of individuals. The article rejects Isaiah Berlin's interpretation of Kant as an authoritarian thinker, and reveals a republican theory centered on liberal freedom expressed within a self-organizing political community.

In Infotopia, citizens enjoy a wide range of information about the organizations upon which they rely for the satisfaction of their vital interests. The provision of that information is governed by principles of democratic transparency. Democratic transparency both extends and critiques current enthusiasms about transparency. It urges us to conceptualize information politically, as a resource to turn the behavior of large organizations in socially beneficial ways. Transparency efforts have targets, and we should think of those targets as large (...) organizations: public and civic, but especially private and corporate. Democratic transparency consists of four principles. First, information about the operations and actions of large organizations that affect citizens’ interests should be rich, deep, and readily available to the public. Second, the amount of available information should be proportionate to the extent to which those organizations jeopardize citizens’ interests. Third, information should be organized and provided in ways that are accessible to individuals and groups that use that information. Finally, the social, political, and economic structures of society should be organized in ways that allow individuals and groups to take action based on Infotopia’s public disclosures. (shrink)

In societies divided on ethnic and religious lines, problems of democracy are magnified – particularly where groups are mobilized into parties. With the principle of majority rule, minorities should be less willing to endorse democratic institutions where their parties persistently lose elections. While such problems should also hamper transitions to democracy, several diverse Eastern European states have formed democracies even under these conditions. In this book, Sherrill Stroschein argues that sustained protest and contention by ethnic Hungarians in Romania and Slovakia (...) brought concessions on policies that they could not achieve through the ballot box, in contrast to Transcarpathia, Ukraine. In Romania and Slovakia, contention during the 1990s made each group accustomed to each other's claims and aware of the degree to which each could push its own. Ethnic contention became a de facto deliberative process that fostered a moderation of group stances, allowing democratic consolidation to slowly and organically take root. (shrink)

This was one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns in The Wanderer in 2021. In it, he writes that the Democratic party has increasingly embraced the agenda of the left, been tolerant of violence by radical organizations, been willing to compromise the principle of the rule of law, and shown increasing intolerance of opposing perspectives and a tendency to political repression. This article is reprinted with permission.

Parties are central agents of democratic representation. The literature assumes that this function is an automatic consequence of social structure and/or a product of incentives derived from electoral competition. However, representation is contingent upon the organizational structure of parties. The connection between a party and an organized constituency is not limited to electoral strategy; it includes an organic connection through permanent formal or informal linkages that bind party programmatic positions to social groups’ preferences, regardless of the electoral returns. This article (...) analyzes how the Movimiento al Socialismo in Bolivia and the Frente Amplio in Uruguay developed two different forms of relationship with social organizations that result from the interplay of historical factors traceable to the parties’ formative phases and party organizational attributes. Party organizational features that grant voice to grassroots activists serve as crucial mechanisms for bottom-up incorporation of societal interests and demands. (shrink)

A widely touted approach to involving laypeople in science and technology policy-related decisions is the consensus conference. Virtually nothing written on the topic provides detailed discussion of the many steps from citizen recruitment to citizen report. Little attention is paid to how and why the mechanics of the consensus conference process might influence the diversity of the participants in theses fora, the quality of the deliberation in the citizen sessions, the experiences of the participants and organizers, and other outcomes that (...) affect democratic decision making within the conference and more broadly over the long term. As an aid to those interested in utilizing the consensus conference format, the authors outline in detail how they set about organizing their consensus conference on nanotechnology in the spring of 2005. They discuss what specific aspects of their consensus conference worked, and why, and also consider what they learned of relevance to future application. (shrink)

Lenin’s State and Revolution is not only a project for imminent revolutionary policy and not only a legitimization argument for a revolutionary dictatorship, but also a theory of state and theory of democracy. Lenin points at the reduplication of state organs that is inherent in a democratic state. While the Russian revolutionary thinks of this reduplication as something transitory, we today increasingly see it as a durable condition coterminous with the late-modern democratic state. I use Lenin’s treatise as a point (...) of inspiration to briefly characterize my dialectical theory of state. (shrink)

The way information and communication technology (ICT) develops can promote or hinder the democratic potential of this critical societal infrastructure. Concerns about the role standards development organizations (SDOs) play in this context predate the “digital age” but are reemerging amid substantial changes in the institutional landscape of standardization. This article explores the increasingly critical link between the institutional design of SDOs and the democratic design of ICT. We review some principles of democracy in terms of the design of technology, (...) apply these to standardization, and discuss the role public policy may play here, while distinguishing between input and output legitimacy. (shrink)

The way information and communication technology (ICT) develops can promote or hinder the democratic potential of this critical societal infrastructure. Concerns about the role standards development organizations (SDOs) play in this context predate the “digital age” but are reemerging amid substantial changes in the institutional landscape of standardization. This article explores the increasingly critical link between the institutional design of SDOs and the democratic design of ICT. We review some principles of democracy in terms of the design of technology, (...) apply these to standardization, and discuss the role public policy may play here, while distinguishing between input and output legitimacy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dewey, Implementation, and Creating a Democratic Civic UniversityIra HarkavyThinking begins in... a forked-road situation, a situation that is ambiguous, that presents a dilemma, that poses alternatives.—John Dewey (How We Think 122)The social philosopher, dwelling in the region of his concepts, “solves” problems by showing the relationship of ideas, instead of helping men solve problems in the concrete by supplying them hypotheses to be used and tested in projects of (...) reform.—John Dewey (Reconstruction in Philosophy 192)Democracy must begin at home, and its home is the neighborly community.—John Dewey (The Public and Its Problems 213)democracy, as we all know, is seriously threatened throughout the world (Fisher). In the United States, the chasm-like inequities laid bare by COVID-19, the ongoing killing of black Americans, the violent insurrection at the Capitol, and the continuing attempt to subvert the electoral process are powerful indicators of a system under severe strain (Guardian Staff; Rubin). These developments are also a sign of deep and chronic problems, including the following:1. Increasing economic, political, social, educational, and health inequalities2. Increasing racism, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia3. Increasing attacks on science, knowledge, and democracy itself4. Declining trust in nearly all major institutionsMany things, obviously, contribute to the present situation. Among them is the failure of universities to successfully do what they are supposed to do: educate students to be ethical, empathetic, engaged, democratic citizens, and [End Page 49] advance knowledge for the continuous betterment of the human condition (Benson et al., Knowledge). To use a Marxian framework, but to reject its economic determinism, universities, in my judgment, are not a part of society’s superstructure. They are, to the contrary, a core component of its base (Marx, “Preface”). What they do matters enormously, significantly determining the kind of society we have now and will have in the future.Universities, as former Harvard president Derek Bok and others have emphasized, have become the central societal institutions in the world (Bok, Universities and the Future 3). Research universities, in my judgment, are the most central. They develop new ideas and technologies, incubate businesses, serve as cultural and artistic centers, and are engines of local, national, and global economies. As anchor institutions, they often engage in partnerships with government, the private sector, and community-based organizations to revitalize local neighborhoods and schools (“Anchor Institutions Task Force”). It is the university’s role as an educational institution, however, that is most important.The schooling system increasingly functions as the core subsystem—the strategic subsystem—of modern information societies. Schooling, more than any other subsystem, as John Dewey claimed, influences the functioning of the societal system as a whole. Viewed systemically, it has on balance the greatest “multiplier” effects, direct and indirect, short-term and long-term. Restating these points somewhat differently, I strongly agree with the Chilean sociologist Eugenio Tironi that the answer to the question “What kind of education do we need?” is to be found in the answer to the question “What kind of society do we want?” (Tironi). Education and society are dynamically interactive and interdependent. If human beings hope to maintain and develop a particular type of society, they must develop and maintain the particular type of education system conducive to it. As Dewey in effect argued: No effective democratic schooling system, no democratic society.1For William Rainey Harper, who, as the first president of the University of Chicago, brought Dewey to Chicago, universities are the primary shapers of the American schooling system. In an 1899 speech at the University of California, he perceptively observed that “[t]he school system, the character of which, in spite of itself, the university determines and in a large measure controls.... [T]hrough the school system every family in this entire broad land of ours is brought into touch with the university; for from it proceed the teachers or the teachers’ teachers” (Harper 25). Agreeing with Harper, I contend that higher education institutions powerfully shape the learning, values, and aspirations of students from kindergarten through graduate school. [End Page 50]Given the university’s societal role and influence, creating and sustaining an inclusive, just democratic society requires a... (shrink)

Article 2: The Republic of Poland shall be a democratic state ruled by law and implementing the principles of social justice....Article 7: The organs of public authority shall function on the basis of, and within the limits of, the law. Constitution of the Republic of Poland, April 2, 1997Chapter 1, Article 1: The Slovak Republic is a democratic and sovereign state ruled by the law. It is bound neither to an ideology, or to a religion. Constitution of Slovakia, September 1, (...) 1991Chapter 1, Article 1: The Czech Republic is a sovereign, unified and democratic law-observing state, based on the respect for the rights and freedoms of the individual and citizen. Constitution of the Czech Republic, December 16, 1992Preamble: We, the members of the Seventh Grand National Assembly, guided by our desire to express the will of the people of Bulgaria...hereby promulgate our resolve to create a democratic, law-governed and social state, by establishing this CONSTITUTION. Constitution of Bulgaria, July 12, 1991. (shrink)

Since we have learned that human organs can be used to treat severe health problems, only donation has been considered for organ procurement. Among the other possibilities that can be used after a person’s death, purchase or systematic removal have been a priori rejected. However, we will show that the appeal to individual altruism have resulted in some of the aporias of the present situation. Subsequently, we will consider how systematic organ removal from deceased persons can be made acceptable in (...) liberal and democratic societies. Finally, we will suggest that individual choices with regard to systematic organ removal could well be registered in a way that allows proper implementation of present French legislation. (shrink)

The ways in which international non-governmental development organizations (INGDOs) engage with northern constituencies have important implications for their promotion of principles of global justice and equity, their legitimacy as global actors and their capacity to shape a democratic global civil society. This paper focuses on the diverse forms of engagement currently being sought by international development NGOs. Using development education as a case study the paper explores some of the processes of mediation and negotiation that shape NGOs' articulation of (...) global ethics. The paper argues that the diversity of approaches to engagement in the sector presents an opportunity for INGDOs to strengthen and deepen their relationships with Northern constituencies and to support the articulation and embedding of principles of global justice and equity. It argues that development education can play a central role in achieving this. (shrink)

Long presented as a universal policy-recipe for social prosperity and economic growth, the promise of innovation seems to be increasingly in question, giving way to a new vision of progress in which society is advanced as a central enabler of technoeconomic development. Frameworks such as “Responsible” or “Mission-oriented” Innovation, for example, have become commonplace parlance and practice in the governance of the innovation–society nexus. In this paper, we study the dynamics by which this “social fix” to technoscience has gained legitimacy (...) in institutions of global governance by investigating recent projects at two international organizations, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the European Commission, to mainstream “Responsible Innovation” frameworks and instruments across countries. Our analysis shows how the turn to societal participation in both organizations relies on a new deficit logic—a democratic deficit of innovation—that frames a lack of societal engagement in innovation governance as a major barrier to the uptake and dissemination of new technologies. These deficit politics enable global governance institutions to present “Responsible Innovation” frameworks as the solution and to claim authority over the coproduction of particular forms of democracy and innovation as intertwined pillars of a market-liberal international order. (shrink)

This reply to criticism of Questioning Technology by Gerald Doppeltaddresses differences between political philosophy and philosophy oftechnology. While political philosophers such as Doppelt emphasize procedural aspects of democracy and equal rights, many philosophers of technologyimplicitly assume a substantive criterion of the good centered on thedevelopment of human capacities. Questioning Technology alsoemphasizes the diminishing agency of individuals in technologically advanced societies dominated by large scale organizations and themass media. These themes of social critique complement the main focusof political philosophy. Political (...) philosophy must learn to addresstechnical issues as it has learned to address other social issuessuch as race and gender. (shrink)

In organizational psychology the positive effects of democratically structured enterprises on their employees are well documented. However, the longstanding viability as well as economic success of democratic enterprises in a capitalistic market environment has long been contested. For instance, this has given rise to widespread endorsement of the “degeneration thesis” and the so-called “iron law of oligarchy”. By reviewing 77 qualitative studies that examined 83 democratic enterprises within the last 50 years, the present systematic review provides evidence that such enterprises (...) are able to economically survive and prosper. The majority of studied enterprises either resisted pressures toward degeneration or subsequently regenerated after undergoing degenerative processes. Only 9.5% fully degenerated in accordance with the degeneration thesis and the “iron law of oligarchy”, while 27.0% of the democratic enterprises showed diverse and mixed forms of degeneration tendencies, indicating that the notion of an “iron law” needs to be revised. Within the nine investigated cases of Mondragon not one single enterprise or group fully degenerated. Three cases showed degenerative tendencies, another three one degeneration tendencies and simultaneously regeneration, one case fully resisted degeneration tendencies and two cases regenerated. Further, this systematic review provides an overview of organizational and external conditions, non-/democratic or non-/participative practices and psychological phenomena that contribute to the degeneration, regeneration, or resistance to degeneration. The described examples of such practices may help practitioners to implement and maintain democratic structures and processes in contemporary organizations. (shrink)

The Article discusses the democratic backsliding after 2010 in Hungary, and how it affected the state of human rights in the country, a Member State of the European Union. The main argument of the Article is that paradoxically the non-legitimate 1989 constitution provided full-fledged protection of fundamental rights, while the procedurally legitimate 2011 constitution-making resulted in curtailment of rights and their constitutional guarantees. The Article first describes the democratic transition that occurred in 1989–1990 as a rights revolution and the results (...) of the 2011 “illiberal” constitution, called Fundamental Law, as counter-revolution. The second part of the Article illustrates the constitutional and statutory regulation of human rights protection after this “rule of law revolution,” and the activist jurisprudence of the first Constitutional Court using the concept of an “invisible constitution” to protect human rights. The third part discusses the rights provisions of the new Fundamental Law and several statutes dismantling the guarantees of human rights, with special attention to the decreased possibilities of state institutions, such as the Constitutional Court, the ordinary judiciary and ombudsmen, as well as civil society organizations to effectively protect fundamental rights. The fourth part assesses the efforts of European institutions to force the Hungarian government to comply with the human rights standards laid down in the European Convention of Human Rights and in the Treaty of the European Union. The Article concludes that neither internal nor external challenges could prevent the development of a new authoritarian regime with no guaranteed human rights. (shrink)

This review of Madhav Kkhosla’s book, India’s Founding Moment, sees his approach as one of “best lights” understandings, that is, an effort to identify and explain the conceptual underpinnings of India’s founding constitution in their best lights. Khosla emphasizes as key the ways in which the constitution’s requirements of full adult suffrage, its intense specificity of language, and its strongly centralized government form, all contribute conceptually to the creation of the democratic citizen of India—a citizen whose rights across the country (...) were secured by a common constitution and central government, whose knowledge of and ability to exercise rights were enhanced by the constitution’s codified approach, and a citizen whose capacities to participate in democratic processes would be developed by the exercise of democratic rights. The review focuses attention on choices about suffrage, comparing India’s with the less inclusionary founding impulses of the United States constitution. It explores nuances of how codification would and would not promote exercises of citizenship rights, noting the importance of adjudication in the construction of the “common knowledge” to which the founders aspired. And the review argues that today, as more illiberal, authoritarian regimes are on the rise, the book’s emphasis on the importance of ideas, words, and common knowledge in constructing liberal, democratic politics is of urgent contemporary importance. (shrink)

Environmental releases of gene edited (GEdOs) and gene drive organisms (GDOs) will likely occur under conditions of high uncertainty and in complex socioecological systems. Therefore, public deliberation is especially important to account for diverse interpretations of safety, risks, and benefits; to draw on experiential and public wisdom in areas of proposed release; to ameliorate dangers of technological optimism; and to increase the public legitimacy of decisions. Yet there is a “democratic deficit” in the United States' oversight system for GEdOs and (...) GDOs, as unconflicted experts, publics, and skeptical stakeholders are most often excluded from decision‐making and unavailable to critically examine potential risks and benefits or raise broader concerns about socioeconomic or cultural impacts. This article argues for the need to open up decision‐making for GEdOs and GDOs, discusses the challenges for doing so within the current oversight framework, and finally, proposes institutional, policy, and attitudinal changes that are likely important for overcoming barriers to public deliberation. (shrink)

Governments are increasingly inviting patient organizations to participate in healthcare policymaking. By inviting POs that claim to represent patients, representation comes into being. However, little is known about the circumstances under which governments accept POs as patient representatives. Based on the analysis of relevant legislation, this article investigates the criteria that self-help organizations, a special type of PO, must fulfil in order to be accepted as patient representatives by governments in Austria and Germany. Thereby, it aims to contribute (...) to the discussion on the role of governments in steering SHOs. There are different degrees of regulation. Governments in both countries not only formulate explicit criteria for SHOs with respect to patient representation but also guide SHOs representing patients through implicit criteria for associations. We discuss the findings against concepts of responsiveness, authorization, and accountability. Our findings indicate that governmental steering is not negative per se as indicated by previous research but—depending on legislative criteria—can promote transparency and democratic quality in patient representation. (shrink)

Calls to expand temporary work programmes come from two directions. First, as global justice advocates observe, every year thousands of poor migrants cross borders in search of better opportunities, often in the form of improved employment opportunities. As a result, international organizations now lobby in favour of expanding ‘guest-work’ opportunities, that is, opportunities for citizens of poorer countries to migrate temporarily to wealthier countries to fill labour shortages. Second, temporary work programmes permit domestic governments to respond to two internal, (...) contradictory political pressures: (1) to fill labour shortages and (2) to do so without increasing rates of permanent migration. Temporary work programmes permit governments to appear ‘tough’ on migration, while responding to employer pressure to locate workers willing to work in low-skilled, poorly remunerated positions. The coincidence of national self-interest and global justice generates a strong case in favour of expanding guest-work. We evaluate the moral benefits and burdens of expanding guest-work opportunities, and conclude that although there are benefits to be gleaned from the perspective of global wealth redistribution, at present, temporary work programmes are generally unjust. We will argue that just temporary work programmes, in time, permit temporary workers to attain citizenship. This spells the end of traditional temporary work programmes, which require that workers return to their home country in time; instead, what is temporary is the employment obligation that must be fulfilled as a requirement to access citizenship. As long as this requirement is met, we endorse guest-work programmes as a tool to respond to global inequality. (shrink)

The concept of death and its relationship to organ transplantation continue to be sources of debate and confusion among academics, clinicians, and the public. Recently, an international group of scholars and clinicians, in collaboration with the World Health Organization, met in the first phase of an effort to develop international guidelines for determination of death. The goal of this first phase was to focus on the biology of death and the dying process while bracketing legal, ethical, cultural, and religious perspectives. (...) The next phase of the project will include a broader group of stakeholders in the development of clinical practice guidelines and will use expert consensus on biomedical criteria for death from the first phase as scientific input into normative deliberation about appropriate policies and practices. Surely, science alone cannot resolve the normative and philosophical questions intertwined in debates about moral status, legal and moral rights, the ethics of killing, and personhood and the nature of the self; however, scientific input is necessary for informed moral deliberation. An objective and unbiased investigation of the biology of death is independent of, and should be undertaken prior to, an analysis of the normative questions engendered by debate about determination of death. This strategy is explicitly endorsed by the International Guidelines for Determination of Death and reflects the prevailing view of these issues in the mainstream medical literature. However, this mainstream literature, exemplified by the IGDD group's recent report, does not exhibit any of the characteristics usually associated with a scientifically rigorous investigation, such as making empirically testable and falsifiable claims, a commitment to evidence and logic over authoritative assertion, or a willingness to revise hypotheses and theories in light of new evidence. Indeed, the core claims and methodologies of the mainstream medical literature on death, both of which are represented by the IGDD report, are not merely scientifically unjustified; they are not science at all. This situation creates a problem for the integrity of science and the academy, and it unjustly obscures and prevents legitimate democratic and moral deliberation about issues that, at bottom, are normative, not scientific. (shrink)