Showing papers in "The Innovation Journal in 2014"

Neoliberalism's War on Higher Education

Abstract: Henry A. Giroux Neoliberalism's War on Higher Education Toronto: Between the Lines Press, 20143Reviewed by Howard A. DoughtyI was a little disappointed by Henry A. Giroux's most recent book, and I heartily recommend it.Let me explain.Henry A. Giroux is a working-class kid from the United States of America. He got into college on a basketball scholarship. He is probably the most prolific author among those educators that align themselves with what's called "critical pedagogy." He could justifiably claim the mantle of Paulo Freire. He holds the Global TV Network Chair Professorship in English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario and is currently Distinguished Visiting Professor at Ryerson University in Toronto. His curriculum vitae could pass for a small town's telephone book. He is 70-years-old. He looks more than half but not quite three-quarters of his age. He looks like he'd still make a formidable point guard. He still has the spirit of a working- class kid from the United States of America.Giroux has plenty of detractors. He has the air of a self-promoter. He can be admired for his stage presence in any of the many performances he gives as a certified "public intellectual," but his critics might label his performances no more than a few hyperbolic shorts of demagoguery. He can also be very, very funny.Education is not the objective pursuit and dissemination of value-free knowledge and it is certainly not or (rather ought not to be) an anaesthetizing and depoliticizing process in which marketable "skill sets" are dispensed to uncritical student "customers."Most obviously, Henry A. Giroux can be dismissed as an "ideologue." I know a number of educational administrators who would do and have done everything they could to squelch an invitation for him to speak on campus. They are afraid of him. Worse, I know an enormous number of educational administrators who have never even heard of him-a testament only to the vast gap between them and anything important going on in education and the academic world.I have been privileged to share some air with him at a number of public lectures and I have had the opportunity to speak with him briefly on occasion. He would not, I think, publicly or privately reject the labels that others attempt to stick on him. It's not worth the trouble. He is, by choice, a very busy man. He will talk to any audience worth his time-at professional conferences, faculty meetings, trade union gatherings or any others with a spark of life and a sense of outrage. When he does talk, they will leave well served and all the better for the experience. He is political and he is political for the very reason that he can't help it. None of us can.Giroux has no interest in creating a certified population of supine citizens, compliant consumers and efficient producers. He presses for critical education that is intended to emancipate people from the ideological constraints...From Henry Giroux's perspective, education from pre-school to post-graduate studies is under attack. It is being eviscerated by the same forces that dominate the toxic wasteland of popular entertainment, the "school-to-prison pipeline" that siphons off discontent in the racialized urban American centres, that conduct perpetual foreign wars and that ruthlessly exploit people regardless of age, gender and colour.It is one of Henry Giroux's mantras that education is not the objective pursuit and dissemination of value-free knowledge and it is certainly not or (rather ought not to be) an anaesthetizing and depoliticizing process in which marketable "skill sets" are dispensed to uncritical student "customers" who are desperate to find employment in postmodern economies where satisfying, secure and well-paying jobs are quickly disappearing where they have not already vanished.In the alternative, Giroux believes that the educational project is many things, but it is at least this: regardless of whether students are studying architecture or zoology, engineering, economics, ethics or English literature, there is always a moral and a political essence to the enterprise. …

Mixed Emotions: Beyond Fear and Hatred in International Conflict

Abstract: Andrew A. G. Ross Mixed Emotions: Beyond Fear and Hatred in International Conflict Chicago, IL: University of Chicago PressFor example, when this book came to my attention, I thought of the infamous date, "9/11."Fear, hatred and international conflict are all big issues. When combined not only in the abstract, but also in images searing what's left of our eye-patches through instantaneous and, incidentally, decontextualized locations, we need to be careful not to jump to conclusions.The conclusion to which many of you might already have jumped is that I was referring to the day when terrorists attacked America, bringing down the World Trade Center and killing thousands of people in an unconscionable act of willful slaughter which spilled blood in New York City, Washington, DC and a farm in Pennsylvania. If that was your conclusion, you were wrong. I meant instead an event almost three decades earlier when a democratically elected president (whether through murder or suicide remains uninteresting) was ousted with the connivance or the collusion of Richard M. Nixon, then President of the United States of America. The year was 1973. The victim was the President of Chile, Dr. Salvador Allende. The ultimate death toll in the murderous coup d'etat was about seven times the number of innocents killed by al-Qaeda in 2001 or who have died as US soldiers in the endless "war on terror" ever since ... (never mind the hundreds of thousands who have been rendered homeless, been maimed or have been killed in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere ... but who's counting?I was also reminded of some "cables" (remember them?), copies of which were published in the Canadian journal, Last Post (remember it? No, not the official publication of the Canadian Legion, but the non-sectarian leftist magazine that flourished for a time, mainly in the 1970s). The communications were sent from Santiago to the government offices of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. They were written by the Canadian Ambassador to Chile at the time (I am pretty sure that his name was also Andrew Ross-small world). Canada's emissary said that General Pinochet and his associates had accepted a "thankless but necessary task." I was disgusted. I don't think that the author of this book is the same Andrew Ross. I hope not. Anyway, call my disgust an emotional response. Call it "affect."IThe word became important, not merely among high school curriculum consultants, but also among legitimate anthropologists (Goldschmidt, 2005). It will pop up again here.Meanwhile, from the sharpening of the first spear through the mounting of the first chariot, and on to such medical advances as blood transfusions, vaccines and prostheses for severed limbs, and on further to the civilian applications of military inventions related to global positioning systems, microwave ovens and duct tape, it would be possible?if somewhat bizarre and not a little grotesque?to interpret warfare as an overall benefit to humanity owing to the stimulus it provides for clever new methods and technologies.If war promotes human understanding and encourages the development of sciences such as chemistry, physics and technological and commercial products from the Internet to Velcro, it challenges human understanding with regard to itself. No matter what half-baked theories of human nature are advanced by theologians, social scientists, geneticists and evolutionary psychologists to describe and explain our species' penchant, not merely for murder, but for increasingly indiscriminate killings on mass and sometimes genocidal scales, the fact remains that aspirant empirical scientists and methodical historians have failed rather miserably to explain why we do what we do to our fellow humans-never mind our fellow creatures who, we might one day appreciate, are also important parts of the biosphere we inhabit... I digress.IIAfter World War II, when the grisly toll was taken, an inventory of acts of indescribably senseless cruelty caused at least a few of our philosophical and social scientific predecessors to sit back, reflect and think as seriously as they could about the causes of war. …

This Changes Everything: Capitalism versus the Climate

Abstract: Naomi Klein This Changes Everything: Capitalism versus the Climate New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014Aside from eternal ethical and existential issues, our species is currently bedeviled by two main problems. One is of sufficient significance to constitute a foundational threat to what pass for contemporary human civilizations. The other is far greater, for it poses a manifest threat to our species. Neither one can be indefinitely ignored. Neither is apt to be solved if we maintain our current patterns of belief and behaviour.One is economic and the other is ecological. We have known something about economic problems at least since Adam Smith (1723-1790) told us how to account for the "wealth of nations" in 1776. We have had hints about ecological issues at least since 1798 when Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) warned us against unrestricted population growth. Seldom, however, have we systematically addressed the relationship between the two. In fact, we have been misled into thinking that these are separate problems or, worse, when we did discern a connection, we believed that potential solutions to one involve disregarding or discounting and thereby exacerbating the other.In good times, of course, we are downright sentimental about wildlife and wilderness conservation. We go out of our way to enjoy natural beauty, praise national parks and voluntarily pick up trash in public places. Even now, many of us dutifully separate our garbage in the hope that paper, bottles, plastic wrappers and organic waste will be properly recycled. These are not, however, especially good times and we are becoming willfully careless."Saving the planet" is now conventionally described as a threat to "Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!" and, since most people's social consciousness is determined by the size and the source of their paychecks, the invitation to trade steady employment for the safety of a polar bear, a spotted owl or a stand of ancient timber is most often politely declined; and, if that doesn't work, it is impolitely rejected. In extremis, as in Canada today, environmental activists-especially if they are or are too closely associated with the struggle of aboriginal peoples to assert their legitimate native land claims-are shouted down as the current federal government labels them as "terrorists". But let me deal with economics first.The Economic ProblemAs we lurch through the early decades of the twenty-first century, we can set aside various panics over such crises de jour as "illicit drugs," "viral pandemics" and even "terrorism" for a moment. They are symptoms, not diseases per se. There are fundamental causes of all three that are rarely recognized by perceptive observers and analysts. They lie largely in the domain of what Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) famously called the "dismal science"; namely, economics.Most people don't like to discuss economics except in the banal and mischievous terms that are bandied about in the "Business" sections of daily newspapers and current affairs programs on cable television.One reason for our reluctance is that people aren't doing as well as they think they should and talking about money exposes them to criticism and to self-criticism-stated or implied-about why they have so little of it or, worse, why they owe so much. Although they have heard a great deal about American and European bank failures and bail-outs, manufacturing collapses, government debt, toxic assets, various investment bubbles, criminally fixed interest rates and high-tech skimming and scamming, these abstractions don't readily translate into lapsed mortgage payments or the price of bananas and lettuce. In the process, we experience a sense of failure, betrayal and despair.Unemployment is well understood (especially by people who do not have jobs), but making the link between personal bank accounts and mainstream macroeconomics is difficult, especially when the noted "experts" in the field use arcane language and unfathomable statistics to explain the obvious in terms that make no sense to ordinary citizens or to recommend policies the only possible outcome of which is to make matters worse. …

Transforming regions into innovation ecosystems: A model for renewing local industrial structures

Abstract: This article elaborates on how to overcome regional structural crises by transforming regions into innovation ecosystems. The article uses a literature review and case study methods to examine the structural change that many regions and cities all over the world are going through, and it investigates how to manage this change and support innovation as efficiently as possible. The ecosystem approach emphasizes the position and roles of local and public actors in developing innovation activity. The case study concentrates on Jyvaskyla, a small industrial city in the region of Central Finland. In 2009, the region faced an economic crisis when the mobile device manufacturer Nokia closed its research center in Jyvaskyla.The case study resulted in a model for building innovation ecosystems. The model consists of authentic dialogue, Triple Helix cooperation, the core organization, and futures studies. The article clarifies the concepts of the innovation ecosystem and hub, and shows how innovations require a special ecosystem where innovations emerge when different actors collaborate and co-create.The research has implications for innovation practices and studies. The results are relevant for many small cities and regions, especially ones with a strong industrial history, whose real challenge is how to transform their economies into innovation economies. The research adds to the studies on innovation environments and supports the creation of world-class innovation ecosystems through deep cooperation among local, regional, and national actors.Keywords: innovation, change management, innovation hub, regional development, structural change, systemic changeIntroductionBoth national innovation systems and regional developers are struggling to meet the demands of the constantly changing global competitive environment. Countries, regions, and cities all over the world are undergoing major structural changes as the economy shifts from manufacturing to services and as waves of sociotechnical development shape the innovation landscape. To manage the structural change and to support innovations as efficiently as possible, local innovation environments need to be developed and strengthened.In this article we elaborate on the concepts of the innovation ecosystem and the innovation hub and present a model for managing regional structural change and development. We have attempted to answer two research questions: 1) How regions and cities be systematically transformed into innovation ecosystems? and 2) How can local industrial structures be renewed? To answer these questions we explored the building process and the special characteristics of innovation ecosystems, and analyzed the changes in innovation activities and policies. As a result we present a systemic model for building modem innovation ecosystems. The next section consists of a conceptual review of innovation ecosystems, hubs, and systemic development. The latter sections consist of the empirical case study and a description of the model for building innovation ecosystems.As our overall aim, we investigate creative hubs in the global economy. We argue that innovations require a special ecosystem that includes top-level universities and research institutions, sufficient financing and a local market, a skilled labor force, specialization as well as cooperation among companies, and global networking. This kind of ecosystem requires the creation of world class innovation hubs where a high quality of life and excellent business possibilities are combined. Such a hub can be built through deep cooperation among local, regional, and national actors. However, in reality relatively few regions have exhibited this kind of renewal capability (Etzkowitz & Klofsten, 2005). Innovation tends to cluster in certain sectors or areas which grow faster and imply stmctural changes (Fagerberg, 2006). Similarly, regional development is shifting towards large clusters, cities, and metropolitan areas, while most of the value creation, R&D activities, and patenting happen in the global-level innovation hubs. …

Crises of Imagination, Crises of Power

Abstract: Max Haiven Crises of Imagination, Crises of Power London, UK: Zed Books, 2014Reviewed by Howard A. DoughtyThere is no absence of innovation in modern liberal democracies. Novel means of voter suppression, prosecution of whistle-blowers and vast intrusive electronic surveillance of citizens are just some of the clever techniques being used to subvert the seemingly traditional rights and freedoms of citizens, especially in the Anglo-American and some Western but definitely not Northern European democracies. Citizens of many others countries, of course, have learned to take such matters for granted, at least within the technological limits of their governments.Thanks especially to the initiatives taken by the Obama administration, the USA has fallen to 46th place in the domain of "press freedom," an issue that many people regard as central to the functioning of a proper democracy. Canada, incidentally, occupies the 16th position after Jamaica; the United Kingdom is in 31st place behind countries such as Ghana and Belize; and the United States of America trails Botswana, Papua New Guinea and Romania. Nine of the top ten, however, are European countries with the only exception being New Zealand; Finland ranks # 1.What is going on?Haiven comes brazenly to grips with one of the greatest ideological shibboleths currently deployed ... The myth ...that capitalism ...harnesses human imagination and creativity ...successfully.In Crises of Imagination, Crises of Power, Max Haiven offers a disturbing analysis of the fate of imperial powers-present and past-such as the USA, the UK and France (39th on the press freedom scale) in terms of their own quality of political life. The blame for a democratic deficit is placed squarely on the economic system of capitalism.Haiven opens with a blast:You, dear reader, are on the front lines of a war. It is a war between money and the earth, between capital and people, between the blunt stupidity of greed and the resilient creativity of humanity.He goes on to highlight issues from alienated labour to marriage breakdown. He places the blame for everything from individual ennui to "Third World" starvation at the foot of capitalist economic arrangements in an era of technological ascendancy and global corporatism.I can almost hear former US president Ronald W. Reagan whispering from beyond the grave: "There they go again." It is no news that the leftist press is fond of publishing yet another tome castigating neoliberal ideology and practice for any and all real and perceived evils currently and seemingly forever burdening humanity. The aims of the European Enlightenment, including liberation from ignorance, disease, poverty, tyranny and war, have not been completely fulfilled; nonetheless, we are assured by internationally known political and economic leaders that the human standard of living has never been higher, many formerly impoverished countries are well on their way to apparent economic success. China and India are transforming themselves into modern economic powerhouses using (what else?) capitalist methods, regardless of the leaders of the People's Republic's continuing ruse that they are actually "communists."In fact, even the decline in freedom within the borders of the self-proclaimed and rarely disputed "leader of the free world" can be explained. George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama, for example, speak as one when they argue that the United States has been forced to trade off some of its precious liberties in order to secure the homeland and to continue to lead the worldwide "war on terror." So, the fact that a number of European countries-notably in Scandinavia-can not only boast a very free press, but also lead in public educational achievement and health care and, by many standards, enjoy the highest quality of life on the planet can be seen as a direct result of two factors: (a) they have mixed-capitalist economies, and (b) they have been and continue to be protected by the primacy of the United States as the unparalleled military power on Earth. …

Collaborative policy innovation: Problems and potential

Abstract: Governments all over the Western world currently face wicked problems that call for policy innovation. A new strand of research in public innovation points to collaboration between public authorities and relevant and affected stakeholders as an important driver of public innovation. A case study of collaborative policy innovation in the area of mental health care in Denmark indicates that collaboration can contribute to qualify the politicians' understanding of wicked policy problems, and to fostering new creative policy solutions. The study also shows, however, that the new problem understandings and policy ideas produced in collaborative governance arenas are not diffused to the formal political institutions of representative democracy because the participating politicians only to a limited extent function as boundary spanners between the collaborative governance arena and the decision making arenas in representative democracy.Keywords: Policy innovation, public sector innovation, collaboration, political boundary spanners, collaborative governance arenasIntroductionPublic sectors all over the Western world face new and emerging, as well as old and persistent, wicked problems that existing policies are unable to solve (Rittel and Webber, 1973). Global warming, life-style related illnesses and border crossing crime are examples of wicked problems that have recently risen to the top of the political agenda, while traffic congestion, unemployment and social inequality in education have been on the political agenda for decades. Governance researchers suggest that the public sector's inability to deal efficiently and effectively with these and other wicked problems stems from the facts that political decision makers and other public authorities know too little about the problems they set out to solve and the actual impact of different governance initiatives (Kooiman, 1993; Klijn and Koppenjan, 2004; Torfing et al, 2012). Collaboration between relevant public and private stakeholders is viewed as a key driver for developing new and innovative ways of coping with wicked problems (Borins, 2001; Mulgan and Albury, 2003; Dente et al, 2005; Feldman et al, 2006; Nambisan, 2008; Eggers and Singh, 2009; Bommert, 2010; Sorensen and Torfing, 2011). The main focus of attention in governance research, however, is on how collaboration can contribute to enhancing public service innovation, while little attention is given to the question of how collaborative forms of governance can contribute to promoting policy innovation. In order to fill this void in governance research, this article investigates to what extent and how collaboration between relevant public and private stakeholders can enhance policy innovation by promoting new and more nuanced understandings of wicked policy problems and creative ideas regarding how to solve them. The investigation builds on the assumption that if the new problem understandings and policy ideas developed in collaborative governance arenas are diffused to the institutions of representative democracy, it will enhance the capacity of elected politicians to innovate policies that result in desired outcomes.The paper starts out by defining the concept of policy innovation and discusses how collaborative forms of governance can spur policy innovation. Moreover, it points out a number of potential barriers to collaborative policy innovation. Then we present the results of a case study of a collaborative policy innovation process that addresses a persistent wicked problem in Danish mental health care: The use of force in psychiatric treatment. The article concludes with a discussion of how the findings inform our understanding of the drivers and barriers of collaborative policy innovation.Theorizing collaborative policy innovationInnovation researchers generally agree that innovation involves the formulation, realization and diffusion of new creative ideas (Fagerberg, Mowery and Nelson, 2005). …

Public Sector Innovation Theory Revisited 1

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to inquire into the state of public sector innovation (PSI) theory. Four authors, Rogers, Borins, Behn, and Glor and recent comparative governmental practices are chosen to represent a variety of approaches. This sample allows identification of both areas of consensus and of controversy in the field. Important disagreements remain about the defining parameters of PSI study and about the basic questions PSI studies should address.Keywords: public service innovation, theory, concepts, problems.IntroductionInnovation is a prime subject in our time. In business and government, it is held to be essential in the face of the massive and complex problems and the rapid pace of change in contemporary society. Innovation is thought to be the way to harness the creative potential of the human race in order to survive, to progress, and to prosper. A letter in the Montreal newspaper Le Devoir (26 April 2013) noted that the Latin and Greek words for stupidity referred to immobility, lethargy or inertia, so we might infer that the opposite of stupidity would be mobility, energy, adaptation.Public sector innovation (PSI) is a subset of all innovation. A Google search in July 2013, found references to 316 million publications, of which PSI constituted 4,4 million, or about 1.4 per cent of the whole, a small part, but a big absolute number. In the final edition of his masterwork on the diffusion of innovations, Rogers (2003: 45-46) identified nine disciplinary fields producing the greatest number of studies, of which "marketing and management" accounted for 16 per cent. This group did not appear to cover the public sector, but some of the others include subjects like city managers, public health and education. Publications on PSI thus appears rather marginal to the field of innovation studies.Having written a book on the diffusion of administrative innovations among Canadian governments twenty years ago (Gow, 1994), I was curious to learn how the field had evolved since then. I wanted to see how the subject itself had changed, what are the main theoretical approaches and what the outstanding unresolved issues. What follows is not a primer on all the contemporary theories of PSI. Instead, I have chosen five theorists and approaches in order to see what unites and what divides them. In part one, these authors and schools are presented briefly. In the second part, the contentious issues are examined with a view to exploring their potential for asking good questions.What to expect of a theoryThe very first step in considering this subject is to enquire what we mean by theory. The root meaning is not controversial: the Shorter Oxford Dictionary gives, among others, one that fits our case, "A scheme or system of ideas or statements held as an explanation of a group of facts or phenomena". The operative word is "explanation"; the familiar expression "descriptive theory" is an oxymoron.Theories use concepts to organize raw material into variables, abstract categories concerning causal variables (independent) and outcome variables (dependent). The common distinction is between deductive and inductive theories. In deductive theory, the hypotheses to be tested are drawn from postulates and principles that are held to be true while inductive theory builds up hypotheses from observation and adjusts them as experience dictates. Most social science is inductive, but there are important theoretical schools that are deductive. Both Marxism and Public Choice theories start from first principles and deduce their hypotheses. The theory of the class struggle, for example, made it very difficult for the leaders of the Communist countries to accept that working class protests against their governments could be genuine.Glor (2008: 3) recalls the advantages of inductive theory, since it is constantly adjusting itself to take account of new evidence. She also makes a distinction between substantive and formal theory. …

Building Resilience in Public Organizations: The Role of Waste and Bricolage

Abstract: This paper shows how organizational waste and processes of bricolage have an important role in the functioning of public organizations, and how this is essential to innovation, organisational resilience and survival. This paper largely builds on the work of organisation theorist Karl E. Weick and his work on bricolage and improvisation more specifically. The paper is conceptual in nature, and outlines the characteristics of the concept of bricolage, and the organisational requirements for bricolage to emerge and flourish. It shows how organisations that are over-proceduralised or over-organised leave little space for the emergence of solutions and actions. This has negative consequences for organisational learning and for innovation, and, ultimately, for organizations' capability to deal with crises. Organisational memory, a certain degree of discretion, waste and redundancy are crucial for organisations' long-term survival.Keywords: Improvisation; resilience; emergence; bricolage; organisational memory; crisis; innovationIntroductionPublic organizations rely to a great extent on standard operating procedures to guide their actions in daily operations and interventions. In this article we use the literature on organisational improvisation and bricolage to show how excess organisation in organisations may hinder their capability to cope with emerging trends and sudden unexpected events such as crises. This paper largely builds on the work of organisation theorist Karl E. Weick and his work on bricolage and improvisation more specifically. It is argued that a certain degree of redundancy and waste is required to safeguard organisations' resilience and survival. By allowing employees to become bricoleurs, innovative solutions may emerge in situations where standard operating procedures are not available. This requires organisations to allow a certain degree of discretion based on employees' professional skills who can tap into their own experience and a reservoir of organisational memory. The article outlines the characteristics of the concept of bricolage, and the organisational requirements for bricolage to emerge and flourish.This paper has four main parts. First, we show how traditional organisation studies have largely ignored the concept of improvisation and emergence. We highlight that they have dealt with emergence in an indirect way by devoting considerable attention to processes of formalisation in organisations and the related positive and negative effects of such formalisation. After introducing this literature, we show how improvisation and bricolage may make organisations more resilient. Finally, we discuss how a certain degree of waste in the organisation of public organisations contributes to their ability to cope with crises and unexpected events.Restricting Emergence: Curtailing Deviance in Formal OrganisationsCriticism of traditional bureaucratic organisation is not new, and the dangers of attributing too much value to formal organisation have been highlighted before (Thompson, 1965; Adler and Borys, 1996). Thompson's classic critique of traditional bureaucracy is very relevant here: 'the bureaucratic form of organization is characterised by high productive efficiency but low innovative capacity' (Thompson, 1965). It demonstrates the tension between the rigid, rule-based logic of bureaucracies, and the more messy reality of innovation (Bowden, 1979). Following rules and procedures is a key characteristic of the classic Weberian approach to bureaucracies. Not following the rule is deviant behaviour. Classic organisation theory has likewise treated deviance from organisational rules as exceptional and undesirable. At the same time the literature is full of examples where rule- breaking is associated with problem-solving, innovation, and success (Lipsky, 1980; Riccucci, 2005;0'Leary, 2005). Behaviours and actions out-of-the-normal may be more common to organisations - even highly formalised ones - than generally assumed. …

Studying the Impact of Innovation on Organizations, Organizational Populations and Organizational Communities: A Framework for Research

Abstract: This paper examines whether and how the impact of innovation on organizations can be determined. Following a discussion of four possible conceptual paradigms, it develops a framework for studying the impact of innovations on their organizations. The paper argues that there are four main aspects to the impact of innovation that require four different approaches:(1) Successful and unsuccessful cases of implementation of individual innovations that achieve/do not achieve their chosen objectives and the effects of innovations on (2) employees, (3) organizational functioning, and (4) Organizational structures. Accordingly, it frames the research within four possible research approaches (case studies, people, functions, structures), loosely based on Burrell and Morgan's (1979) and Gioia and Pitre's (1990) organizational paradigms. The first approach focuses research on the impact of individual innovations on individual issues and individual organizations, organizational populations, and organizational communities. The second approach studies impacts on people; the third emphasizes inputs and organizational adaptation; and the fourth the impact on structures and survival of organizations, populations and communities. The framework identifies definitions of innovation suitable for each approach, what each approach is most suited to studying, their levels of analysis, suitable methodologies and measures, and the types of impacts each is capable of revealing.Keywords: Impact of innovation, innovative organization, innovative organizational population, organizational community, organizational demography; research framework.IntroductionWhile private sector, non-profit sector and public sector innovation has been vigorously promoted for two generations, the impacts of innovation have not been determined. When the impacts of innovation have been addressed, the focus has tended to be the effect on economic performance at the firm (Evangelista and Vezzani, 2010) and country levels (Sapprasert and Clausen, 2012). During this period, the primary focus of public sector innovation has been strategies and methods to reduce use of public resources, create agencies and privatize government functions (the New Public Management), not the impact of the innovations. Several authors have noted the lack of attention to the impacts of the set of innovations known as the New Public Management (Christensen and Laegreid, 2006: 2; Pollitt, 2001: 480). Damanpour (1991: 584) recommended expanding the scope of innovation studies to include evaluation of the consequences of innovation.The innovation literature has tended to focus on the successful implementation of innovations and making appropriate tactical choices about when to innovate and when to delay/selectively adopt innovations (de Lancer Julnes and Holzer, 2001). There is much to be learned, however, from innovations that fail, but they are difficult to research. A clear distinction must be made between innovations that are not fully implemented or that fail and ones that are fully implemented and accomplish their objectives in determining the effect on organizational survival. As well, organizations have many other objectives that include supporting employees, achieving organizational objectives and assuring the organization survives. This paper's objectives are to identify ways to determine the impact of innovations on their organizations and to develop a research framework for doing so. The term "impact" is defined to include both the results of the innovation's intervention (outcomes) and the broader effects of the innovation. The paper builds a framework for research on the impact of innovation on organizations that addresses both the impact of individual innovations and innovations' impacts on organizational people, functioning and structures. Each approach is seated within a different conceptual paradigm. The paradigms are described, then the paper develops an approach and explores innovation within each paradigm, by discussing the different definitions of innovation used by each approach, what each is most suited to studying and the issues that can best be studied within them, levels of analysis implied, methodologies and measures that could be used, and the impacts that can best be studied within each approach. …

The Digital Economy Anniversary Edition: Rethinking Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence

Abstract: Don Tapscott The Digital Economy Anniversary Edition: Rethinking Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill, 2014Reviewed by Howard A. DoughtyThere are plenty of books that are sufficiently popular that they are reprinted many times. Some are published in 2nd, 3rd, 4th or even 20th editions. A number of them will be altered slightly or significantly and are therefore said to be "revised" editions. Very few books, however, merit and even fewer succeed in being reproduced in "anniversary" editions. To be thus honoured by one's publisher is to be given a tremendous stamp of approval. Even if the gesture is no more than a clever marketing trick, the claim is implicitly made that the book matters. It is advertised as being important. Its special reproduction implies that it may have offered fresh insights, changed people's minds, provided important new information or inspired readers in a uniquely memorable fashion.I have several such books on my shelf. One is the 40th anniversary edition of George Grant's Lament for a Nation: The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism (1965). Another is the 25th anniversary edition of Harry Braverman's Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (1998).Democracy is not a concept that is compatible with vast technological empires.The United States is such an empire, the largest to date."George Grant, 1965Grant's book offered an interpretation of Canadian history that was based on authentic conservative principles and modes of thinking. It offered a critique of American imperialism and Canadian elite complicity in what Grant elsewhere argued was the hideous and unconscionable conflict in Vietnam. It was mainly a reflection on the failure of what George Grant admitted was an absurd project; namely, the construction of a conservative society adjacent to the most powerful and dynamic liberal country in human history, the United States of America.Today, people may, I suppose, wonder how a "conservative" could reasonably argue against American influence and speak openly of "American imperialism"; that, however, merely reveals how words like "liberal" and "conservative" have been grotesquely distorted in the late 20th century. (Hint: alleged conservative icons like British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, political parties like the American Republicans, especially in its "Tea Party" mutation, politically engaged multi-billionaires like the (in)famous Koch brothers and current Canadian leader Stephen Harper are, in reality, strident liberals or, more accurately "neoliberals" passionately committed to some of the most up-to-date ideas of the 18th century. They are (or were) enabling instruments of global capitalism, there is almost nothing that is authentically conservative about them.All the difficulties in Marxism obviously stem from the fact that the capitalist system has persisted and restabilized itself repeatedly, over a much longer period than had been expected...- Harry Braverman, 1958Braverman's book, in the alternative, earned the distinction of starting a vigorous and crucial debate in Marxist circles. It reconceptualized the entire discourse of social class under capitalism and drew unprecedented attention to class dynamics and what has come to be known as the labour process. Agree with him or not, it cannot be denied that Harry Braverman shifted political discussion on the left as much or more than any single thinker and writer coming out of North America.Whether either man "will go down in history" as more than an intriguing and appealing 20th-century footnote is unknown. What each did, however, was to have an enormous effect on some of the most vital themes of our era: the nature of the American Empire and the Future of Marxism. More crucially, both caused people to take practical action as a result of the ways in which each, from profoundly dissimilar ideological positions, made a difference to a significant number of supporters and detractors alike. …

An integrated planning, learning and innovation system in the decentralized public sector; a Norwegian perspective

Abstract: Innovation is doing things in new ways. Innovation involves changes in thinking, products, processes and organization. Many innovations in the public sector occur randomly as a reaction to crises or scandals, or when new leaders desire to show that they are capable. The problem with these innovations is that the public sector does not increase capacity to engage in continuous innovation. Therefore, there is a need to develop a system of innovation in the public sector. In this paper we set out three hypotheses: (1) the public sector does not build capacity to engage in continuous innovation; (2) the main cause of this is lack of accountability for outcomes; (3) reforms inspired by New Public Management (NPM) make it possible and necessary to create an integrated planning, learning and innovation system. In literature about planning systems, planning, evaluation and learning are connected, and the design of functional systems that contribute to connect planning and evaluation are regarded as essential to stimulate learning and innovation in both organizations and societies. Municipalities in Norway have implemented a planning system with institutional, strategic, tactical and operational planning and learning that has a potential to stimulate learning and innovation. We find that this system can be innovative if the practice becomes more communicative and network-based. Communicative innovation demands focus on the outcome of public sector production, and public sector units need to collaborate in order to fulfill societal needs and public sector values and missions. However, the influence of New Public Management reforms in the public sector is still very strong and public sector units are very output focused and self-centered. Lack of outcome accountability is a system failure and an obstacle in the process of stimulating innovative capacity in the public sector.Keywords: Planning, innovation, learning, public sectorPublic sector innovationInventions are not innovation, but to exploit inventions in a successful way in practice is innovation. Innovation involves changes in thinking, products, processes and organization. Changes count as innovations when they are new for the implementer, but not necessarily new to other businesses (Nelson and Rosenberg, 1993). Innovation in the public sector has two purposes. The first is to contribute to changes in thinking, products, processes and organization in the public sector and the second purpose is to contribute to innovation in the private and voluntary sectors. Innovation in the public sector is, according to Teigen (2007: 15), about three main themes: (1) the production of goods and services, (2) the organization of the sector and (3) policy process and government. Thus, innovation in a municipality is about production of goods and services within their area of responsibility. The municipalities in Norway are strongly involved in the welfare state production. Their responsibility for schools, kindergartens, and health care consumes a large portion of their budgets and is in need of systematic innovation. In addition, a municipality is a member of a region and is expected to contribute, together with other organizations, to innovations in society in terms of production, organization and policy. Consequently, the concept of learning organizations and learning regions becomes important in understanding municipal innovation.Many innovations in the public sector occur randomly as a reaction to crises or scandals, or when new leaders desire to show that they are capable. The problem with these changes is that the public sector does not build up a capacity to engage in continuous innovation. There is therefore a need to develop a system for innovation in the public sector. This systematic innovation work needs a management and control system where one learns from one's own experience and thus can be better able to meet new challenges. Learning and innovation can thus be viewed as a process in which actors try to find new ways to better realize their values, fulfill their interests and satisfy their needs. …

Lifelong Learning in Europe: National Patterns and Challenges

Abstract: Ellu Saar, Odd Bjorn Ure and John Holdford, eds. Lifelong Learning in Europe: National Patterns and Challenges Northampton, MA, USA / Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013An opening word about the publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing is not for the penurious. This company produces first-rate books. They mine the talents of some of the world's most erudite and brilliantly analytical scholars. The books are skillfully written, carefully edited, attractively designed and expertly printed. So, if the old axiom remains accurate and "you get what you pay for" (and "pay for what you get"), then Edward Elgar's inventory assures excellence."EE" has been around for almost thirty years. It already has over 3000 high- quality academic and professional books on its list. It currently publishes about six new books every week. They include research monographs, reference books and upper-level university textbooks. Anyone with the resources to purchase them and the time to read them would soon become an astonishing repository of useful knowledge, ideas and opinion on the basis of its inventory alone.Knowledge is power ... once people learn to read, it becomes immensely difficult to control how they might choose to use their new skill._EE's preferred disciplines include about seventy fields ranging from economics, finance, business and management to law and public policy. Its books are highly focused and expertly composed. They are ideologically diverse and range from a technically sophisticated Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Empirical Macroeconomics to a refreshingly sympathetic Companion to Marxist Economics. For those with more esoteric interests, EE offers comprehensive assessments of Asian Monetary Integration; Intellectual Property ; Pharmaceuticals and Public Health; Social Capital and Rural Development in the Knowledge Society and more than 2995 others. EE is a self-consciously elitist, family-owned business. For that reason, although some of its paperbound volumes can be as cheap as $35.00, it is not uncommon to see its hardcover editions top $200. The book under review can be had for $134.32 (plus shipping and handling). If you like, you could probably cut a deal and purchase the entire catalogue for well under half a million dollars should you be so wealthy and so inclined. You are forewarned. Take a breath ...... and now that the shock and awe have been absorbed and at least a few readers might be consulting their departmental acquisitions budgets, let me say that this book in particular is worth the price for anyone who is genuinely interested in lifelong learning as a matter of philosophy, policy, programming and, yes, politics.Lifelong learning is a broad term that can cover anything in the fields of formal and informal adult education programs. Commonly understood, it refers to the learning we experience after our early schooling is complete and we have ventured into what passes for the real world. It may include regulated and required professional upgrading in law and medicine, industrial retraining for redundant factory workers or leisure-time recreational adventures in cookery, yoga or folk dancing. Lifelong learning can be accredited by professional and occupational licensing authorities or it might occur almost by happenstance in local public libraries and church basements. It has been around for a very long time within occupational settings-at least since the medieval artisanal guilds and certainly as long ago as the nineteenth-century Mechanics' Institutes in which self- motivated and self-directed working people sought self-improvement. At that time, working-class people banded together to organize their own educational projects and sometimes petitioned local authorities to make education available to them as well as to their wealthier, more fortunate compatriots. Unlike today, when colleges and universities are falling all over themselves seeking new markets for their products, few institutions of higher learning were responsive at the time. …

Democracy as an Essentially Contested Concept

Abstract: More than sixty years ago, T. D. Weldon (1953) published an influential book entitled The Vocabulary of Politics. In it he affirmed a common belief among philosophers of language that words which could not be connected to objective, measurable objects and rendered the legitimate study of scientific investigation deserved to be dismissed as merely emotive utterances unworthy of serious consideration. They, he said, were either "boo" words that registered displeasure or "hurrah" words that expressed pleasure. Whichever they were, however, they were meaningless, since there was no externally observable referent to which an unbiased observer could appeal. They might, of course, fulfill some emotional need or communicate a personal preference; but, they were philosophically useless beyond that. So, for example, my statement that I like chocolate ice cream and your statement that you like Tutti Frutti ice cream may describe our different tastes, but they are useless insofar as determining which flavour is somehow "better." What goes for ice cream goes equally well for justice, beauty and so on. Weldon argued that normative or evaluative concepts, in the absence of some basis for empirical falsification, were not worth a single philosopher's breath. This discussion paper invites readers to consider whether there is more to "just semantics" than that. Readers are invited to consider some of the philosophical underpinnings of what our words mean and, indeed, to ponder what meaning might be. In fact, it comes close to asking what "meaning" might be. It also implies that it is incumbent upon anyone from patricians, plutocrats, prime ministers and presidents, plebeians, peasants, proletarians and even lumpenproletarians to use care when discussing politics.Keywords: democracy, essentially contested concept, meaning, semantic differential, GallieIntroductionPolitical scientists and others whose job it is to study democracy have a number of questions that they must ask and answer before their hypothesizing, theorizing and philosophizing can begin in earnest. Among other things, they must get comfortable with their basic approach. For the empirically inclined, that means that they must decide what specific aspect of democracy they want to study, from which theoretical perspective and with what methodological techniques. There are ample options. Among the potentially fruitful domains of inquiry are the relationships between democratic governance and economic, geographic, psychological and sociological variables. Social scientists of all sorts are eager to determine how democratic governance is initiated and maintained. What are the prerequisites of a democratic order? How do democracies function? What can bring them down?Democracy as a Subject of "Scientific Inquiry"Researchers who like to putter about with the origins and evolution of democracy want to know how democratic innovations undermined and ultimately replaced authoritarian feudal regimes. This subject must be approached historically. It involves posing questions such as:* What gave rise to the English Civil War (1640-1649) and the subsequent Glorious Revolution (1688) that set the wheels of modern British constitutional government in motion?* What were the precursors of dramatic events including the American and the French revolutions?* What were the precursors of dramatic events including the American and the French revolutions?* What prompted the European revolts of 1848, and what caused them to fail?Others are more interested in the workings of contemporary democracies. Some of the many forms that their inquiries can take involve questions about how democratic governments can be institutionalized, especially in countries with no significant exposure to the far-famed "Westminster Model" and little indigenous experience with democratic controls on the state. Of special interest here are the socio-economic preconditions needed for formal democracies to develop. …

The Art of Happiness at Work

Abstract: Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler The Art of Happiness at Work London: Hodder& Stoughton, 2003Reviewed by Raymond A. LemayIn the public sector and in human services particularly, human resources - employees - are the means to the end. The old Defasco steel ad slogan told us "Our product is steel. Our strength is people" and, in the public sector where the product is the crafting of the public good, the adage about the people is likely more critical. So what about our people? Are they well enough to be the strength of the system that guarantees the public good? Recent surveys (AOL, 2011; Barrows & Wesson, 2001; Burch and Axworthy, 2010) suggest that not all public servants are satisfied with their roles, and these authors recommend systemic change, suggesting that the employer must reform its human resource practices. Organizational, employee and workplace "wellness" are strategies that put the onus on the employer to create work conditions that promote healthier and happier employees."If there is injustice, then I think inaction is the wrong response."- The Dalai LamaIt would seem, however, that the Buddhist tradition, without refuting the possibility of systemic reform, would view such problems from a different and more personal perspective. The Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler weigh in on the issue of employee happiness in a different and interesting way.The authors of this book had previously collaborated in 1998 on the book The art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living, the purpose of which was to convey to novices the basics of Tibetan Buddhist psychology:* The purpose of life is happiness.* Happiness is determined more by the state of one's mind than by one's external conditions, circumstances, or events - at least once one's basic survival needs are met.* Happiness can be achieved through the systematic training of our hearts and minds, through reshaping our attitudes and outlook.* The key to happiness is in our hands (p. 1).In this book they particularize the teaching to work; happiness at work is bound to have an impact on one's life more generally: we spend a lot of time at work, and Cutler quotes researchers (Harter, Schmidt and Corey Keyes, 2003) who report that "as much as a fifth to a quarter of the variance in adult life satisfaction can be accounted for by satisfaction with work" (p. 188: NB: all page references are to work under review).The book, however, focuses only on the individual worker, "happiness at work generally from the standpoint of the worker, the employee, and measures they can take to become more satisfied at work through their own efforts, by changing their outlook, increasing self-understanding...." (p. 206). The Dalai Lama adds that this "is only part of the picture. The employer also, the management, the organization, all plays a role in setting the tone of the workplace environment, and have an impact on the happiness of the employees, and of course if we are to discuss wider issues of ethics in business, the economy, and so on, that is another thing..." (p. 206)The book's nine chapters discuss various sources of (un)happiness at work and the Dalai Lama proposes ways to address and rectify sources of unhappiness.Transforming Dissatisfaction at WorkThere are many sources of dissatisfaction at work, but a good place to start is with oneself, and one's attitude. If one doesn't like a job, then one should change and get another job, or alternatively develop an attitude of contentment. There are undoubtedly worse jobs, and more trying situations. Indeed, one should come to the realization that there are a myriad of factors that make a job satisfying or not. Some of these factors (indeed many) are simply beyond our (or our boss') control. Cutler asserts that the Dalai Lama has an "unsentimental" (p. 33) view of life difficulties:There will always be problems in life. It is just not possible to go through life without encountering problems. …

Democracy Innovation and Public Authorities: Learning from the Danish Ministry of Taxation

Abstract: The aim of this article is to advance the concept of democracy innovation - a concept which has not previously been thoroughly specified in the existing literature on public sector innovation. Democracy innovation refers to innovation that leads to strengthened democracy, due process and legitimacy. As public authorities face claims to be innovative and efficient on the one hand, and accountable guardians of due process and citizen's rights on the other, innovation activities need to balance these claims. The article is based on a case study of seven innovation projects carried out in the Danish Ministry of Taxation. On the basis of the projects, their methods, aims and outcomes, the article discusses how to specify and understand democracy innovation. It develops suggestions for defining aspects of democracy innovation and thus offers a more specific concept of democracy innovation than has previously been developed. The aspects are: democratic involvement methods; increased citizen competence; a more equal relationship between public authorities and citizens (authority at eye-level); and legitimacy as enhanced by accountability and equity. Lastly, we reflect upon how this definition makes it possible to measure democracy innovation and consider whether the definition can be generalized to other types of public authorities such as for example social service authorities.Keywords: democracy innovation, user-driven innovation, public governance, rights, due processIntroductionPublic authorities face several claims from society, politicians and citizens. They are expected to be innovative, efficient and service oriented on the one hand, and to be accountable guardians of due process and democratic decision making processes on the other. To be both innovative and democratically accountable force organizations to work with different and sometimes conflicting logics and rationales; however, in order for public authorities to innovate in ways that support their legitimacy, it is important to think of ways in which the very different claims can be balanced in reasonable ways. The existing literature on public sector innovation says very little about how innovation practices support accountability and citizen rightsIn this article we discuss how innovation can lead to more democratic and rights-ensuring practices on the basis of examples from the Danish Ministry of Taxation. The challenges of facing different claims become particularly clear in the case of a public authority like the Ministry, which on the one hand must be efficient, service-oriented and obtain 'customer satisfaction', and on the other hand has as a core mission to enforce rules and laws, while ensuring citizens' rights and due process (Langergaard, 2011:136).The Ministry has worked with four different types of innovation: administrative innovation, service innovation, policy innovation, and democracy innovation. Democracy innovation refers to new practices that improve the legitimacy, due process and democratic functioning of society and public institutions (Bason, 2007:55; Carstensen, 2010). This particular kind of innovation is relevant to all public sector organizations and particularly to public authorities where rights to due process are central to their activities. Nevertheless, it has not been thoroughly theoretically developed, and more precise examples and definitions of democracy innovation are by and large absent in the existing literature. In cases of user involvement the focus tends rather to be on service innovation in a more generic sense. We wish to compensate for this by developing a concept of democracy innovation on the basis of a discussion of different innovation projects done by the Ministry.We shall distinguish among different conceptions of users and pinpoint ways in which more 'traditional' citizen characteristics, such as rights and deliberation can be integrated in userinvolvement activities in order to ensure more democratic ways of participation. …

Consulting No One: Is Democratic Administration the Answer for First Nations?

Abstract: In 1996, the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) of Canada released its report, Study of Accountability Practices from the Perspective of First Nations, which found that governments and First Nations have different understandings of what is meant by accountability. While the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) understood the department's mechanism of accountability to be concerned with the form of accountability for funding, First Nations believed accountability required increasingly open and transparent dialogue between the department and the people it affects; that is, accountability for performance which means that government action must achieve high results to cover citizens' expectations (Behn, 2001: 10). However, accountability for performance is not occurring in practice. Instead, the implementation of the New Public Management model in Canada since the 1980s has not fulfilled its mandate to be more effective and accountable because of the model's focus on treating citizens like consumers. This paper argues that accountability for performance can be achieved through greater consultation between First Nations and governments at the initial stages of policy making, as advanced in the democratic administration model. This model theorizes that greater public participation will lead to better policy outcomes. Furthermore, the paper argues that the lack of accountability for performance has created serious political, economic, and social implications that have denied First Nations groups rights and control over their communities (see Figure 1) (Shoucri, 2007: 04). This argument will be demonstrated through review of three recent Canadian Court cases: Mikisew Cree v. Canada(2005), Ermineskin v. Canada(2009) and Pikangikum v. Canada (2002).Keywords: a-priori policy-making, consultation, New Public Managament, democratic administration, accountability for performanceIntroductionIn 1996, the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) of Canada reported in the Study of Accountability Practices from the Perspective of First Nations that governments and First Nations have different understandings of what is meant by accountability. While the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) understood the department's mechanism of accountability to remain in the form of accountability for funding provided by the federal government, First Nations believed accountability required increasingly open and transparent dialogue between the department and the people it affects. That is, accountability for performance means that government action must achieve high results in terms of citizens' expectations (Behn, 2001: 10). In other words, First Nations expect to know how funds are being allocated and implemented, be part of the initial-stages of policy making and, more importantly, that program results meet First Nations' expectation. With this in mind, this paper has two focuses. First, this paper argues that accountability for performance can be achieved through greater consultation at the initial stages of policy making (a-priori policy). This type of engagement is advanced in the democratic administration model which ultimately stipulates that greater participation by citizens in government affairs will lead to greater citizen-centered policy outcomes.Second, this paper argues that the focus on accountability for funding rather than the focus on accountability for performance has created serious political, economic, and social implications that have denied First Nations groups rights and control over their communities (Figure 1) (Shoucri, 2007:04).Given that the rights of First Nations groups derives from the Indian Act, 1876 and Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution Act, 1982, and because the Canadian system entrusts the judiciary to be the guardians of the Constitution and mediator between state and society (Shoucri, 2007: 04), recent Canadian Court cases (Mikisew Cree v. …

Idées, intérêts, institutions, temps et innovations politiques en Afrique

Abstract: RESUMEPourquoi, comment et quand y a-t-il innovation en strategies de developpement en Afrique ? En examinant les strategies de developpement economique de l'Afrique postcoloniale et en s'interessant a l'evolution du role de l'Etat - Etat comme acteur central du developpement, tentative du retrait de l'Etat, interventionnisme limite au social, retour de l'Etat dans la sphere economique -, le present article se propose d'expliquer le changement sous l'angle original des innovations politiques et institutionnelles. En effet, derriere l'apparente continuite que la plupart des auteurs tant analytiques que normatifs fustigent, se trouvent des innovations que les variables ideationnelles, strategiques, temporelles et institutionnelles permettent de rendre compte de maniere heuristique. Cet article propose ainsi une analyse comparative inedite du role des acteurs internationaux, regionaux et nationauxdans l'emergence et les trajectoires des strategies de developpement en Afrique. Les contextes temporels favorables, les crises des modeles precedents, les configurations et heritages institutionnels structurants, les strategies instrumentales des acteurs interesses, l'apprentissage politique, les dimensions cognitives et normatives des idees permettent d'expliquer la diffusion, sedimentation et conversion institutionnelle comme processus privilegies d'innovation en Afrique. La critique de ces concepts permet de developper des outils mieux adaptes pour expliquer certaines innovations, soit l'inclusion et l'intrusion institutionnelle. En s'interessant a la question de l'innovation delaissee a tord par la plupart des analyses serieuses, le present article renouvelle la discussion sur le changement et l'innovation politique et institutionnelle en Afrique et en science politique.Mots cles : Innovation, strategies de developpement, changement, AfriqueABSTRACTWhy, how and when does institutional or political change occur in Africa? By examining the postcolonial African strategies for economic development, and focusing on the evolution of the role of the State, the present article proposes an explanation of institutional change with a special focus on political and institutional innovations. In fact, behind the apparent continuity that most analytical and normative authors critique, there are innovations that can be analysed in a heuristic manner, using ideational, strategic, temporal and institutional variables. This article thus proposes a new comparative analysis of the role of international, regional, and national actors in the emergence and the trajectories of development strategies in Africa. The favorable temporal contexts, the crises of the preceding models, the structuring configurations and institutional heritage, the instrumental strategies of the interested actors, the political learning, the cognitive and normative dimensions of the ideas contribute to explaining the diffusion and institutional sedimentation and conversion as privileged processes of innovation in Africa. The critique of these concepts makes it possible to develop tools better adapted to explaining change - institutional inclusion (semi-strategic and semi-ideational) and institutional intrusion (semi-strategic and semi- structural) - and renew the explanation of the complex relationship between national, regional, and international actors. The present article renews the discussion on change, especially political and institutional innovation in Africa and political science.Keywords: Innovation, development strategies, change, AfricaIntroduction'Pourquoi, comment et quand y a-t-il innovation en strategies de developpement en Afrique ? Depuis l'emergence des Etats africains independants, de nombreuses strategies de developpement ont ete appliquees en Afrique subsaharienne (Austin, 2000; Ndulu et al., 2008a, 2008b; Heilbrunn, 2008; Signe, 2010, 2011). Les pays africains sont passes de strategies axees sur l'Etat comme acteur principal du developpement a l'adoption d'une strategie d'integration economique regionale, le Plan d'action de Lagos de l'Organisation de l'unite africaine en 1980 (OUA, 1980). …

Social Capital and Local Governance Regimes: Early Childhood Development Roundtables in British Columbia

Abstract: The concept of social capital has received enormous attention in the social sciences and beyond. Researchers have shown a particular interest in "neighbourhood effects" - how neighbourhood social capital and local area environments might impact a variety of outcomes in positive and negative ways. However, insufficient attention has been given to issues of local governance in the social capital literature, despite much of the public policy, urban politics and multilevel governance literature associating local democracy with positive policy outcomes. Surprisingly, little such research has considered local governance in the area of early childhood development (ECD). Therefore, the paper will explore the relationship between "neighbourhood effects" and local democracy within the setting of policies for families and children. It will map and compare the community governance structures at work in the area of ECD in several communities in British Columbia (BC), Canada. Through the lens of feminist political economy, the paper canvasses the ECD roundtables across BC communities, and identifies at least three regimes: Traditional Public Administration (TPA), New Public Management (NPM), and Community Democracy (CD). While all three are strongly shaped by the dominant neoliberal context, community democracy seems to be the most successful in bringing together procedural and substantive democracy in the realm of ECD.Keywords: social capital; democracy; community engagementA Feminist Political Economy of Social Capital and Local GovernanceDespite the immense popularity of social capital as an analytical and conceptual tool, it has attracted much criticism. While social capital can be useful to social science, greater attention must be paid to the power relations in which it is embedded. This study locates both social capital and governance within a neoliberal gender order and an overarching political economy of residualism for ECD policy at both the provincial and federal scales in Canada.Social Capital and Local GovernanceA range of social capital components (network ties and diversity, neighbourhood attachment, resources, collective efficacy, personal safety, health) are relevant to the area of ECD. However, social capital tends to direct focus to the level of the individual or family (Warner, 1999), and not to the impact of local governance and political processes and institutions (such as local political economy, community partnerships, citizen engagement) on child outcomes. This is indicative of a significant gap in the social capital research, which largely sidesteps issues of democracy and the state. In the bulk of the literature, very little is said about the role of government in fostering or damaging social capital (Kumlin and Rothstein, 2005; OECD, 2001; Skocpol, 1996; Taylor, 2002 and 2003; Warner, 1999). Yet as Taylor indicates, "the state has an important role to play in creating the conditions in which social capital, and indeed civil society, can thrive and avoiding policies which destroy them" (2003: 230). Local government can support and complement social capital development in communities (Taylor 2003; OECD 2001). Governance is also needed to address inequalities in social capital.This project makes questions of governance central to the process of socialcapital development. It also contributes to the public policy, urban politics, and multilevel governance literature, which associates local democracy with positive policy outcomes (Bradford, 2003a, 2005 and 2007). In doing so, the study explores the relationship between two concepts that have thus far remained largely distinct: "neighbourhood effects" (Kershaw et al., 2007) and neighbourhood, local, or community democracy (Taylor 2003). "Neighbourhood effects" refers to "the impact on developmental outcomes of the area in which children live" (Beauvais and Jenson, 2003: v).Researchers have been canvassing the multiplicity of experiments in neighbourhood, local, or community democracy, but seldom in the area of ECD (Beauvais and Jenson 2003). …

The Algerian Chronicles

Abstract: Albert Camus The Algerian Chronicles Cambridge, UK: The Belknap Press, 2013Reviewed by Howard A. DoughtyI am sitting at a keyboard just a few miles north of Toronto. It is just a few months after the fiftieth anniversary of the execution of US President John F. Kennedy. Americans have recently celebrated "Thanksgiving," "Christmas" and the "New Year." Despit e howls of abuse from Republicans and dire warnings from Benjamin Netanyahu on the one side and cautious reassurances that President Obama has finally done something to justify his Nobel Peace Prize on the other, a tentative and temporary agreement involving Iran's nuclear policy has been signed. It seems like an auspicious moment to reflect on the state of politics in my own and other countries.The inventory of social insanity seems limitless. It's enough to turn sensitive or even mildly sentient people to cynicism, spirituality or some form of intellectual, emotional or physical suicide.In Canada, there are reasons for concern at all three levels of government. At Toronto City Hall, there is a bizarre situation as a result of its Mayor becoming the object of serious criminal investigations and self-inflicted ridicule around the world. At the provincial level, Ontario is enduring serial scandals involving the waste or worse of billions of dollars on a failing electronic health record system, the privatization of air ambulance services and the news that over a billion dollars was squandered to terminate the construction of locally unpopular electricity generation plants in order to save four government seats in the most recent election. Then, there is a federal government embroiled in multiple layers of disgrace, notably involving electoral malfeasance and voter suppression, possible criminal charges against government-appointed Senators, various cover-ups and the revelation of multiple abuses of power that may lead through the Prime Minister's Office to Stephen Harper himself. These headline-winning events capture public attention, but there are far deeper levels of democratic deficit to be plumbed. In combination, these events would merit the adjective "surreal," were it not for the fact that the overuse of that term has become ... well, surreal.Moving from the merely mendacious to the potentially catastrophic, it is possible to witness everything from Wall Street bankers still collecting enormous bonuses for having almost ruined the world's already fragile financial system to extraordinary weather patterns that betoken the consequences of climate change which some powerful political leaders still deny, though most have stopped calling it a "socialist plot" (at least in public).And, of course, there remain chronic international conflicts, ethno-religious slaughters, huge human rights abuses and utterly unnecessary levels of poverty, ignorance and disease throughout human society-all of which could be ameliorated if not extinguished by a modest 25% reduction of global military budgets. The inventory of social insanity seems limitless. It's enough to turn sensitive or even mildly sentient people to cynicism, spirituality or some form of intellectual, emotional or physical suicide. If anything should compel our attention and urge truly innovative thought and action, the catalogue of existing and impending calamities is surely it. Indeed, a case can be made that the time for transformation and not merely innovation within existing, ossified categories of policy development and implementation is at hand.As background for a review of a solitary writer's reflections on a single North Afri can war of independence that came to a close over half a century ago-before, even, the premeditated death of the 36th president of the United States-this might appear to be an odd and possibly hyperbolic construction. Indeed, the relevance of that writer's contemplation of events in Algeria and the entire Algerian conflict itself might seem remote at best. …

Health, Illness, and Disease: Philosophical Essays

Abstract: Havi Carel & Rachel Valerie Cooper, eds. Health, Illness, and Disease: Philosophical Essays Durham, UK: Acumen Publishing, 2013Reviewed by: Howard A. DoughtyFew fields of social and technological activity are immune to change. Indeed, the extent and pace of change are the criteria according to which many human enterprises are judged. So, computer designers, software manufacturers, automobile makers, pharmaceutical laboratories, military ordnance developers, biomedical researchers, agricultural gene manipulators and educational authorities bang their respective drums loudly in keeping with the call to offer innovative new products and services to a public eager to be seduced by the very next new big thing.First, do no harm. - HippocratesOpinions differ as to whether the quality of life is substantially improved by the latest iteration of the mobile phone or the newest genetically modified food product, but it is plain that the commercial market and government sourcing agencies impatiently await whatever is deemed to be a cutting-edge technology or ground-breaking methodology-even if the promised improvements are unproven or the costs of the assured benefits are unknown. Generally speaking, the trend seems to be toward giving well-hyped novelties the presumption of credibility and, in some cases, that presumption is rewarded with immensely salutary results.One field in which change has won widespread and well-deserved approval is medicine and health care. As a three-time cancer survivor who would have not lived long enough to be rescued from impending death by robotic surgery had it not been for modern diagnoses, interventions and treatments for a ruptured appendix at age 16 and a subdural hematoma at age 55,1 count myself among the people who are looking forward to at least a fragile sort of survival into my eighties and nineties thanks only to the diagnostic and therapeutic developments that have taken place in the last century or two.What's more, not only have we learned how to deal better with trauma and to conduct radical interventions with some success, but we have also made extraordinary advances in areas such as public health. Initiatives in illness prevention, early intervention, nutrition and hygiene currently compete with antibiotics and other medicines for the claim to have saved more lives, added more years to people's lives and made the quality of life for survivors immeasurably better. From the clever people who figured out that it would be a good idea for surgeons to wash their hands before removing bullets from wounded soldiers' abdomens to those who invented fMRI machines and devices in the slightly scary-sounding domain of nuclear medicine, it seems to me that, broadly speaking, medical progress has been an irrefutable human good to be questioned, if at all, only in terms of its contribution to ecologically hazardous levels of human population and the prospect of irredeemable environmental degradation owing to the Malthusian implications of our collective success in delaying death.Dr. Frankenstein is now a role model and we are more or less his monsters.Considering the enormous achievements and implications of modern medical miracles, it is somewhat disconcerting to realize just how recent health care advancements actually are. It is true that physicians have been around for a lot longer than particle physicists, biochemists and macroeconomists. It is also true that they have been worrying some about the morals of their vocation ever since Hippocrates set out their foundational ethical principle: "first, do no harm."Still, shortly after the Founders of the American republic had cobbled together their nation's (mostly) commendable Bill of Rights, their recently retired chief magistrate, George Washington, perished from a throat infection (epiglottitis) complicated by his physicians who bled him four times (removing 32 ounces at his last bleeding), a process that is said to have caused the hypovolemic shock that ultimately killed him (Grizzard, 2002: 105-107). …

"The Killing Fields" of innovation How to kill ideas

Abstract: This paper points to seemingly contradicted processes of framing innovation, idea generation and killing ideas. It reports from a yearlong innovation project, where health care professionals explored problems and tested ideas for solutions, regarding a future downsizing of the case hospital. Theories in various ways describe the opening and closing phases of innovation. Exploration and idea generation opens a field of interest, which is then closed by making choices of ideas to further explore in the next opening phase. These choices deliberately kill a lot of ideas. In the innovation project, however, substantial amounts of relevant ideas got killed during opening phases, where the purpose of activities was framed as idea generation. These ideas were either verbally or silently killed, and some in rather contradicted ways: The design and facilitation of brain storming processes lead to clustering of ideas, a design strategy which seemed to kill unique ideas. The reframing of innovation as a radical endeavor killed learning from others for being not innovative. The findings of this paper supplement theories of deliberate killing of ideas by suggesting framing, design and facilitation of innovation as more subtle ways of killing ideas during opening phases.Key words: Health care, innovation, framing, design, facilitationIntroductionThis paper takes its departure in a field study of an innovation project in a Danish hospital. The fieldwork demonstrated seemingly contradictions between the purpose of innovation, the design and facilitation of idea generation and the killing of ideas. The Cambodian journalist Dith Pran originally coined the title analogy "The Killing Fields" after his escape from the communist Khmer Rouge regime to describe a number of sites in Cambodia, where large numbers of people were killed and buried.1 2 With humble respect of this genocide, "The Killing Fields" in this paper refer to innovation processes, where different kinds of ideas are discarded for obvious or more subtle reasons. The processes of supporting or undermining innovation in public service organization are less studied aspect of innovation processes (Hartley, 2006: 34).The purpose of the innovation project was to adapt new and better practices from across professional and organizational boundaries in the health care sector, to experiment with ideas from other contexts than health care and to generate new ideas for solutions. The innovation project was designed and facilitated as continuing divergent and convergent phases. Divergent phases were designed to open a field of interest through exploration and idea generation. Convergent phases aimed at closing the field of interest by making choices of ideas to explore in the next opening phase and so forth. Why then were substantial amounts of ideas killed during opening phases?This empirical wondering was the spark to analyze contradictions between innovation theories and practices in this paper. This approach to research is described by other researchers as using empirical mysteries as dialogue partner with theories and models in order to question, doubt and problematizing existing or dominant expectations and frameworks (Alvesson and Karreman, 2007).Initially, theories of innovation phases are reviewed in order to enable discussion of what kills ideas. Deliberate exnovation and individual and group dynamic explanations for killing ideas are supplemented by the concept of framing in order to address the often-contradicted problems and solutions in health care. The theory section is followed by an outline of the context and case, the field study and the methods for data collection and analyses. The analyses suggest that framing and design of innovation affects the killing of different types of ideas. The conclusion summarizes the findings and suggests implications for innovation research and facilitation.Promoting or killing ideasThis section reviews theories on promoting and killing ideas throughout innovation research. …

Languages of the Unheard: Why Militant Protest Is Good for Democracy

Abstract: Stephen D'Arcy Languages of the Unheard: Why Militant Protest Is Good for Democracy Toronto: Between the Lines Press, 2013Reviewed by Howard A. DoughtyIt was, perhaps, hyperbole, but in the giddy atmosphere of a successful insurrection and not long before the world's first new nation had ratified its constitution, its most eloquent advocate wrote to William Stephens Smith, an American diplomat on November 13, 1787 as follows:The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.Times and opinions change. Now, the many liberal democracies are less willing to imagine the need for insurrection and eager instead to repress it. The fact that there are people who think of them as tyrants is barely comprehensible. They regard themselves as above reproach and dismiss those who argue against them as "tyrants" and "terrorists."It had been almost two hundred years since the American Revolution when social scientists pronounced the American experiment to be an unmitigated success. In one of the signature books of the era, William Kornhauser addressed the question of democracy in The Politics of Mass Society (1959). In it he safely concluded that poverty was no longer a problem. Prosperity, though inconsistent and occasionally unfairly distributed, was nonetheless growing and broadening. It would not take long for Michael Harrington (1962) to publish his ground-breaking book, The Other America: Poverty in the United States which, in turn, became an important prompt for Lyndon Johnson's much praised "War of Poverty"-a war that was lost in the jungles of Vietnam.Tyranny at home was also no longer deemed a problem, for Kornhauser and other "pluralists" confidently announced that any vestige of "ruling class" had been supplanted by a series of circulating elites, none of which held absolute power and all of which represented different sectoral interests. This illusion was soon shaken by people such as Henry S. Kariel's The Decline of American Pluralism (1961) and G. William Domhoff's Who Rules America? (1967), now in its seventh edition and newly subtitled The Triumph of the Corporate Rich, revealed something akin to the truth about power in the USA. For the pluralists, however, the belief remained firm that no one was permanently excluded in the continuing political game that authoritatively allocated values and in which government acted as an unbiased referee in sorting out the question of who gets what, why and how. Social class was effectively neutralized as a source of conflict as race and gender did not even merit a mention. "Marx," Kornhauser stated flatly, "was wrong" (p. 232).This was not to say that its boosters thought that the United States was, as Seymour Martin Lipset (1960: 403) would say just a year later, "the good society in operation"; there were indeed social problems, but they were social or, more often, psychological in nature-not political and certainly not economic. Oddly, Kornhauser focused on alienation, one of Marx's core concepts to build his case against Marx, but he defined it so narrowly that it lost its explanatory power. Instead, he relied on the idea that what really troubled America was the result of the dissolution of feudalism and the rise of the atomized individual. The security of identity so easily found in traditional society had to be replaced with a new sense of community. Apathy, alienation and anomie were important problems, but Kornhauser was convinced that "mass society" and the risk of "mass movements" was a by-product of the transition from feudalism to modernity. It would be overcome.The subjects of Languages of the Unheard ... include the Red Army Faction, the Los Angeles rioters, the Zapatistas, the Mohawk Warrior Society, the Black Bloc, the Quebec student strikers, the "Occupy" movement. ... Stephen D'Arcy takes political militancy ... seriously.In the intervening half century, the irrelevance of pluralist analysis has become clear. …

Public Colleges and Democracy

Abstract: Classical liberal democratic theorists stressed that, although formal democracy with a universal franchise was all but inevitable, the success of the democratic experiment depended upon the growth of an educated andinformed electorate. An essential element in the development of civic competence among voters is accessibility to public educational institutions. This article examines three innovative contributions made by Canadian colleges to practices of equity that bring gendered, racialized power relations into view. Based on recent visits to fifty campuses, we argue first that public colleges have a good record in opening access for those students previously excluded from postsecondary education and in tackling the challenging problem of literacy education which is basic for democratic participation; however, they face enduringdifficulties in providing liberal arts education for their students and in recruiting faculty from underserved groups. While college literacy teachers are devoted and skilled educators, they do not feel supported by their administrations in the difficult task of engaging and educating socially oppressed students. Finally, although enrolment statistics suggest that the liberal arts and civic education are alive and well in Canada, we raise a suspicion that education for the practice of democracy through exposure to the liberal arts-including critical analysis inhistoryand the social sciences-falls far short of itspotential.Keywords: equity, colleges, restructuring, literacy, faculty, marginalized groups, democracyIntroductionWe, in Canada, live in an undemocratic moment in our country's history when the son of an oil company executive from a province held captive by the industry has been voted into office as our prime minister (Engler, 2012). His disdain for public institutions such as parliament is palpable; and he has launched what has been called an 'assault on scientific knowledge' through reducing academic research funding for environmental scientists (Academic Matters, May 2013). His approach contrasts with President Obama's responsiveness to public outcries about the plans of the oil industry. Panitch and Gindin (2012) have argued that transnational corporations want to keep the public system in place for their benefit, and part of our concern is that public institutions are being hollowed out to serve corporate interests such as the oil industry. We are feminist anti-racist sociologists who know that power relations in the society are glossed in the problematic word 'democracy.' For one thing, 'equality' is a word associated with democracy, but we know that it is not a level playing field for women, racialized minorities or the poor. We call ourselves 'equity' theorists in recognition of broadening the definition of democracy to take these power relations into account.Classical democratic theory advocates a robust and active citizenry engaged in a process of self-governance in which the people are represented by elected politicians who are, in some fashion, responsible to the people who elected them. The Anglo-American democracies generally regard themselves as the originators and among the most mature examples of modern democratic governance. Their sentiments are expressed in the antique phrasing of the Magna Charta (1215), stirring words of the American Declaration of Independence (1776), Britain's Great Reform Bill of 1832 and the British North America Act of Canadian confederation (1867). Arguably with universal manhood suffrage in place from the outset, these countries with their diverse institutions but common political philosophies are exemplars of an approach to politics and government that wins widespread recognition.The flowery prose of these founding texts, however, hid reservations about whether these experiments in democracy would work, with English reformer John Stuart Mill urging that every effort be made to educate citizens to the responsibilities of the vote. …

Between Threat and Opportunity: The Impact of Drug Trafficking on Governance in the Frontier Region of Mexico and the United States

Abstract: The "war on drugs" along the U.S. - Mexico border is widely recognized as a threat to public security and border integrity in both countries. However, the demands imposed on public officials and institutions of both countries continue. How have these public institutions, officials and administrators responded to the continuing demands for public services in terms of:* Political-administrative relations: How have the "drug wars" affected the ways that public administrators work with elected and appointed officials in multiple levels of government and across national boundaries to provide public services?* The role of community institutions: How have community agencies along the border responded on the ongoing needs of public safety, security, legal trade facilitation and transport, economic development, water management, environmental protection and migration?* Performance and productivity: How has the "war on drugs" affected agency productivity? Perhaps more importantly, how have "drug wars" affected the ability of public managers to measure the performance of their agencies and to respond appropriately to changing conditions?* Communications, decision making and organizational learning: What innovations in information and communication technologies (ICTs) have made it easier for them to work with and learn from each other despite these risks?Keywords: Mexico-U.S. relations, drug trafficking, public administration, capacity-building, governanceIntroductionGlobalization describes the interacting conditions that make the world smaller and more interconnected (Keohane and Nye, 2000). These include faster and cheaper information, communication and transportation technologies (ICTs); the gamut of demographic, economic, political, social and environmental conditions around the world; and threats like poverty, war, terrorism, violence, ethnic conflict, environmental pollution, natural disasters, pandemics and global climate change.Whatever the specific pressures that define globalization in a given context, they generally increase demands for "good governance"- i.e., effective political responses to them by elected and appointed officials, public administrators, and international financial institutions (IFIs). Good governance means enhanced government capacity to marshal resources and coordinate authoritative national and international responses (Farazmand, 1999; Pollitt and Bouchaert, 2000; Jreisat, 2011). In developed countries, this typically means maintaining governments' abilities to coordinate policy, gather information, deliver services through multiple (often non-governmental) partners, replace hierarchical bureaucracies with more flexible mechanisms for managing indirect government (Dilulio, Garvey and Kettl, 1993; Brudney, O'Toole and Rainey, 2000; Kettl, 2002), and resolve issues of performance and accountability caused by interactions across sectors and levels of government (Klingner, Nalbandian and Romzek, 2002). In developing countries, good governance usually means establishing government's ability to deliver vital public services (through core management functions like budgeting, human resource management and program evaluation) while simultaneously focusing on more fundamental changes (e.g., citizen participation, decentralization, innovation and entrepreneurial leadership (Kettl, 1997) required for effective political systems.In this context, the "war on drugs" along the US - Mexico border is widely recognized as a threat to both public safety and border security. Nonetheless, public administrators and public agencies in both countries face continueddemands for public services, particularly those for which state and local governments have traditionally beenresponsible such as education, public health, public works and community development. So this threat also represents an unrecognized opportunity to examine how state and local governments throughout the border region between the US and Mexico have responded to this crisis, particularly with respect to the governance issues that have traditionally been considered important in comparative public administration:* Political-Administrative Relations. …

Workplace Democracy: From a Democratic Ideal to a Managerial Tool and Back

Abstract: In different political theories, democracy is not reduced to state institutions, but includes the democratization of the whole society, its organizations and enterprises. This idea goes back to the beginnings of modern democratic theory and to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Social Contract. It was adopted by different socialist thinkers, later on by trade unions and, in the 1960s and 70s, by political scientists such as Carole Pateman and other promoters of participatory democracy. According to this tradition, workplace democracy is considered to be necessary for the realization of democratic ideals like individual autonomy, freedom, voice and participation in all relevant questions influencing citizens' lives. Parts of this normative idea were realized by trade union movements and laws, especially in Western European countries. Nevertheless, workplace democracy in the sense of the above-mentioned theories remained far from becoming reality. In the 1990s, the idea was co-opted by organizational development and management studies and underwent a change: Workplace democracy, then mostly operationalized as limited participation, became a managerial tool that should help to increase employees' motivation and efficiency and thereby contribute to entrepreneurial success. In the last few years, however, the original democratic ideal of workplace democracy seems to have been revitalized under conditions of a worldwide economic crisis. This article shows the development and the latest revival of the concept of workplace democracy, and discusses its innovative potential for today's democratic societies.Keywords: democratic ideal, democratic theory, industrial democracy, quality circles, Total Quality Management, workers' self-management, workplace democracy, WorldBluIntroductionIn Western societies, the term "democracy" has become a kind of empty signifier in political and public discourse in recent decades (Brown, 2010). Politicians with very differing ideological backgrounds often refer to their own arbitrary concept of what a democracy should be. This conglomeration of meanings is one reason for a rising skepticism among citizens towards democracy as such. At the same time, convincing alternatives and innovative democratic concepts, though existent in academic circles, rarely enter the public sphere. The manifold and sometimes arbitrary interpretations of democracy are the result of a vast and controversial scientific and philosophical debate with highly differentiated theoretical approaches. It seems that almost everything has been said about democracy during the centuries-lasting debates among philosophers and political thinkers. While there might be a true core meaning, it must be admitted that a great deal of what has been said has been forgotten. The concept of Workplace Democracy is such a forgotten or, at least, neglected aspect of democratic theory that is nowadays experiencing a revival. In this article, I will try to bring it back to the readers' memories by tracing its historical development and by discussing it as a possible democratic innovation that could respond to latest skepticism towards representative democracy, supra-nationalization and globalization.In a very general way, workplace democracy is associated with the application of democratic practices to the workplace. Such practices include voting, discussions and deliberative or participatory decision-making. The roots and motivations to claim democratic rights and to establish workplacedemocracy arecomplex. One strand focuses on the realization of democracy as a value, a way of life and self-government, and a method to reach individual autonomy and freedom in a liberal sense. It can also be considered as a means of class struggle in a socialist tradition. According to its managerial strand, workplace democracy can be used as a method to raise workers' motivation in order to contribute to entrepreneurial efficiency.1. Workplace democracy as a democratic idealThe history of democracy is older than the history of industrial relations and alienated work. …

Political Communication in the Era of New Technologies

Abstract: Boguslawa Dobek-Ostrowska & Jan Garlicki (eds.) Political Communication in the Era of New Technologies Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Peter Lang, 2013I worked as a volunteer in a political election campaign for the first time in 1965. I had already had some experience using the silkscreen method to produce road signs in the Traffic Engineering Department in my local municipality where I painted fire hydrants on pleasant days but worked in the sign shop when the weather was especially inclement. In those days, aspirant elected officials were pretty much restricted to spreading their message by: placing colourful signs at traffic intersections, in store windows and on the lawns of willing supporters; appearing in person at staged community events and debates with other candidates; distributing brochures and knocking on people's doors hoping to encourage support in brief conversations; and currying favour with the local press. All those methods are still employed, but a multi-layered process has been added. We now see politicians engage citizens using the social media. From YouTube videos to Internet postings and from annoying and unsolicited emails to even more annoying and unsolicited "robocalls," potential leaders try everything from the dissemination of slogans and unflattering images of their opponents to capture our votes and to win our financial contributions to their campaigns.The methods used by politicians, of course, only amount to a portion of the wider influence of communications technology and the stealthy intrusion of data collection, analysis, storage and retrieval into our public lives. The thoughts and habits of voters are monitored in the "cloud" and political activities are crowdfunded. Barack Obama managed to finance two presidential campaigns by raising $1.4 billion from small donors using the Internet. Demonstrators from Tunis to Tehran to Tokyo to Toronto have brought tens of thousands to protest political tyranny and economic corruption by posting messages on social media. And, of course, elections themselves are increasingly being conducted electronically as people cast votes online.What this portends is anybody's guess. Some see the current trends as just one more step toward a kind of inverted totalitarianism in which nefarious agencies of the state will be able to collect data-often in freely posted opinions in the social media and blogs-on individual citizens as grounds for literally or figuratively deploying the "thought police." Others imagine that it opens up a whole new scenario for direct democracy as electronic plebiscites and recall petitions for errant representatives can be conducted with no more effort than a few strokes on a keyboard. Technology can therefore be seen as an instrument to degrade or to enhance democratic practices.It shouldn't come as a surprise in this most surprising of times that new technologies are profoundly affecting political communication. Politics, after all, is just one element in our complex lives and technology is insinuating itself into all of them.Not only are we relentlessly inundated with a spate of new consumer products which probably shouldn't be mentioned by brand name since they'll likely be obsolete before this is printed or, perhaps more accurately, "pixelized," but revolutionary technologies have already gone far beyond what was contemplated a scant decade or two ago when personal computers were introduced and soon afterward were accompanied and complemented by the invention of the "world-wide-web." The web, in turn, almost immediately spawned utopian/dystopian applications including online commerce, music and film downloading and an arresting array of surveillance options adequate to the (un)expressed needs and desires of espionage agents, secret police forces, tax collectors, insurance companies and dystopian fantasists of all kinds.We are now promised that soon we will have almost all the books in the world uploaded to virtual libraries where, we should understand, there will also be a tremendous temptation for the more pathological authorities to push the "delete" key and set civilization back more dramatically than the consumption by fire of all the scrolls in Alexandria. …

Rousseau and Representative Democracy Reconsidered: Rehabilitating the General Will

Abstract: The purpose of this discussion paper is to promote a reconsideration of the political theory of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He has long been out of favour among responsible political philosophers, theorists and the very select politicians who know or care anything at all about traditional political philosophy and political theory. He has been accused of being the fountainhead of every evil ideology and dastardly deed from the eighteenth-century regicide in France to twentieth-century totalitarianisms of the left (e.g., Maoism and Stalinism) and the right (e.g., Fascism and Nazism). His phrase, the "General Will," has come under special criticism as interpreted by scholars who see it as a kind of abstract Platonic idea which subsumes the individual in the state, eliminates personal liberty and choice, and sets the stage for imminent authoritarian dystopias. I hope that the comments set down here may lead to a more fruitful conversation among people who chose to see innovation as a process not about changes for the sake of efficiency and improved service quality (or, worse, merely for the sake of change), but as practical initiatives that are normatively infused with ideas of liberty, equality and solidarity among citizens and nations.Keywords: Rousseau, representative democracy, General Will, political participation, democratic theoryAn Introduction to Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)The story may be apocryphal; but it is said that, when Richard Nixon made his historic trip to China in 1972, he asked the venerable Chinese Foreign Minister Chou En - Lai about his thoughts on the lasting impact of the French Revolution on Western society. Allegedly, Chou ruminated for a few moments and solemnly replied: "It's too early to tell."Some say that either the question or the comment was misunderstood. Some say Chou had thought that Nixon was referring to the student uprising in Paris four years earlier, in which case the response was perhaps unduly cautious, but barely noteworthy. Many, however, took it to reflect an understanding of history that was not tethered to the daily newspaper headlines. It seemed to indicate an awareness of, and a concern for, the "big picture."Whatever the Chinese leader's intent, the question of the earlier and somewhat more memorable French Revolution of 1789 is still much debated by historians. For those with a large view of human events, it may well be "too early to tell"; for most of us, it is a matter of mainly antiquarian interest. It conjures up little more than the belief that Napoleon Bonaparte (whether deemed a hero or villain) was a "great man," that there was much blood at the guillotine, that Marie Antoinette made a fateful miscalculation when offering culinary advice to the poor, that it inspired one of the world's most recognized national anthems, and that Charles Dickens used the occasion to offer us one of the three most famous opening lines in English-speaking literary history: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" (the others, of course, are "Call me Ishmael" and "It was a dark and stormy night"). Otherwise, except presumably for the citizens of France, it is an antique event and largely irrelevant to current affairs. This is a pity, for little describes intellectual history today as much as the public's indifference to it. As Santayana warned, we do not remember our history and seem thus condemned to repeat it. Think Afghanistan. Think Sarajevo. Think SevastopolEqually distressing is our indifference to "thinkers" in general, and especially to those "dead white males" to whom prior generations turned for wisdom about the past, advice about the present and informed speculation about the future. Now, we not only neglect the lessons of history that might make the future salvageable, but, on those rare occasions when we do turn our attention to political and social philosophers of the past, we prefer those whose contributions to our civilization are, or are believed to be, positive or at least relatively unambiguous. …

Innovative Policymaking Resulting from Political Pressure from Three Non-Governmental Organizations: An Israeli Case Study

Abstract: This article presents innovative policymaking by the Israeli government regarding illegal immigration as an outcome of the activity of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Initially, government policy on this issue has been very conservative, yet poorly defined, aimed at preventing the entrance of illegal immigrants. By employing various sophisticated strategies, three NGOs exert pressure on the government to implement flexible, humanitarian policies more considerate of newcomers' needs. The article examines the influence and strategies of these NGOs, focusing on how this pressure is successfully exerted.A combination of power and network theories was used to interpret innovative government policy as an outcome of NGO pressure. This qualitative case study included documents from court records and 25 interviews. Their analysis shows that NGOs use direct hard power strategies to challenge the government directly in the High Court and indirect soft power strategies to focus public opinion on the plight of the immigrants. These strategies are effective in persuading the government to adopt more innovative policies toward the newcomers. We can apply the lesson from this case study to other government policymaking. Where policies are poorly defined and potentially embarrassing, NGOs can successfully assert pressure on the government to take innovative action. This is particularly true if a number of NGOs work collaboratively on the issue.Keywords: NGOs, innovative policymaking, immigration, legal arena, political strategyIntroductionRecently, Israel has had to deal with massive immigration problems. Since 2007, more than sixty thousand illegal immigrants, from undeveloped countries in the throes of civil war (mainly from the Sudan and Eritrea), have arrived in Israel. These illegal immigrants, have become a burning political issue in south Tel Aviv, where they tend to reside (Immigration and Population Authority, 2013).In Israel there are about seventy thousand legal foreign workers, employed in healthcare services, agriculture, construction, and other jobs; whose work contracts grant them legal, albeit temporary, status. The Ulegal immigrants want to be recognized as refugees, entitling them to work; because as illegal immigrants, they are granted temporary protection, but not the right to work. (Immigration and Population Authority, 2013).Immigration policy in IsraelThe history of immigration to Israel has been radically different from that of other countries. Until fairly recently, the State of Israel had no experience with illegal immigration as seen in Europe or the United States; its focus had been on absorbing Jewish newcomers, who had been encouraged to immigrate.1As a result, no clear policy had been formulated for foreign migrants, who were considered foreign workers. There still exists a lacuna in the immigration laws (Zabar, 2008). The first serious problem stemming from this lack of legal clarity occurred after the 1967 Six-Day War, when thousands of Palestinian workers started to come from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to work in Israel (Semyonov and Lerental, 2005).Analysis of subsequent governmental policy reveals embarrassing failures in policymaking and implementation. Contradictions among ministries, together with lack of coordination, lack of planning, or lack of foresight by the government, impeded the enforcement of regulations that do exist. Although the phenomenon of foreign migration has been growing, the country has not weighed the long-term implications of hiring massive numbers of migrants, nor has it considered the need to protect their rights as workers (Natan, 2009; Nissenkorn, 2002; Semyonov and Lerental, 2005). Israeli governmental policy is ambiguous. On the one hand, Israel needs inexpensive labor for construction, agriculture, and medical care, but on the other hand, the government tries to restrain the numbers of foreign workers in order to maintain Israel's character as a Jewish state. …

Rob Ford and the End of Honour

Abstract: Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has achieved a level of notoriety unique amongst Canadian politicians for his admissions of drug and alcohol use, and subsequent attempts to deflect media attention and public scrutiny. Due to these indiscretions and admissions, Toronto City Council voted to remove the mayor's emergency, executive and budgetary powers, and transfer official responsibility to Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly. These actions though were due to the lack of legal remedies to remove Ford formally from office.Conventional wisdom would suggest that Ford should not survive such revelations politically. Based upon police wiretap transcripts, even gang members believed that the threat of such exposure was sufficient to protect them from blowback. Yet Ford remained in office, for reasons unexplained by existing literature. We attempt to explain this lack of loss of legitimacy through the lens of Aristotle's notions of ethos, logos and pathos.Ultimately, the Ford conundrum has exposed the legal void created when politicians fail to abide by the moral dictates of the law. We suggest that legal remedies were not included within existing legislation, as its drafters never contemplated the possibility of such defiance. It was believed that such behaviour would either result in irreparable loss of political capital/support or that politicians would act honourably and resign. Whether due to naivete or ignorance, this demise of political honour now endangers the entire framework of public accountability. Accordingly, new and innovative measures are required to provide redress. We propose a process that combines traditional notions of moral responsibility, with the enactment of more formal legal remedies, to provide municipal governments with the power to remove individuals who threaten the integrity of our civic institutions, as a form of shared responsibility.Keywords: Rob Ford, Conflict of Interest Case, Ethics, Aristotle, Honour, Innovation.To the residents of Toronto, I know I have let you down. And I can't '/ do anything else but apologize and apologize and I'm so sorry...I ...I love my job. I love my job. I love this city, love saving taxpayers' money and I love being your mayor ...For the sake of the taxpayers of this great city -for the sake of the taxpayers -we must get back to work immediately...I ...I was elected to do a job and that's exactly what Fm going to continue doing (Rob Ford, as quoted in the Globe and Mail on November 5, 2013).Introduction and BackgroundToronto Mayor Rob Ford has achieved a level of notoriety unique amongst Canadian politicians. Elected as mayor in October 2010 on a platform of "Respect for Taxpayers" and "Stopping the gravy train," Rob Ford rode a wave of popular support against waste and inefficiency in municipal operations. Ford garnered 47.1% support from across the city (CBC News, 2010; Alcoba, 2010), but particularly in the suburbs, adopting the moniker of 'Ford Nation' (it should also be noted that the slate of candidates for Mayor was one of the least appealing in Toronto's history). However, once elected and aided by his brother Doug Ford, who now represented Rob's former ward, and building a coalition of right wing and centrist support on Council, Mayor Ford was initially able to deliver upon his campaign promises to freeze property taxes, find efficiencies, cancel the Transit City public transit plan, and, according to some, 'fix the mess' left by the previous Miller administration.Over time however, the Mayor slowly began to bleed support on Council over several contentious issues. The first major issue involved redevelopment of the Toronto Port lands waterfront area. Under the auspices of a tri-government agency (Waterfront Toronto), slow progress was being made on remediating the former industrial lands and developing flood control for the Don River to allow new residential and commercial development. The Waterfront plan had been underway for 10 years, and had achieved broad community, government and business support. …

La Mise En Oeuvre Des Mesures Agroenvironnementales Territorialisées En France : Un éLargissement De la Démocratie? L'exemple Des Régions Centre et Languedoc-Roussillon

Abstract: RESUMEA travers l'analyse de l'implantation des nouvelles mesures agroenvironnementales territorialisees (MAET) dans deux regions francaises, la Region Centre et le Languedoc- Roussillon, nous nous interrogeons sur la transformation des politiques agricoles. L'elargissement democratique au fondement des nouveaux processus permet-il l'integration et la prise en compte des interets environnementaux ou assiste-t-on a une instrumentalisation des dispositifs par les acteurs dominants dans le secteur, a savoir les groupes agricoles ? Notre reponse s'appuie sur la comparaison des deux instances cles des MAET, la commission regionale environnementale et le comite de pilotage local. Elle ouvre ainsi a une reflexion sur la pertinence des architectures institutionnelles et des outils utilises dans le contexte et sur les mecanismes de reappropriation deployes par les acteurs locaux. Mots cles : politiques agricoles, agroenvironnement, France, participation publique, corporatismeABSTRACTWe examine the change in agricultural policies through an analysis of the implementation of new territorialized environmental measures (MAET) in the Languedoc- Roussillon and the region Centre in France. Is the democratic enlargement of new processes effective? Does it enable the integration and inclusion of environmental concerns? Do dominant stakeholders (i.e. farmers groups) instrumentalize the design of these processes? This study compares two key MAET bodies - the regional environmental commission and the local steering committee - and challenges the relevance of structures and tools implemented in the social and political context and the mechanisms of empowerment deployed by the local stakeholders.Keywords: agricultural policies, agro-environment, France, participatory democracy, corporatismIntroductionL'integration croissante des enjeux environnementaux dans les politiques publiques agricoles, observee dans la plupart des pays occidentaux (Vojtech, 2010), pose des defis de gouvernance importants. En effet, l'action publique agricole, longtemps caracterisee par une gestion corporatiste, sectorielle et economique pilotee a l'echelle nationale (Halpin, 2005) doit desormais adopter une approche plus ouverte, intersectorielle et sensible aux particularites regionales. Invoquant a la fois une legitimite democratique et une efficacite decisionnelle accrues, les autorites publiques confient la formulation et la mise en oeuvre de certains instruments politiques agro-environnementaux a des structures regionales de gouvernance reunissant une diversite des parties prenantes (administrations infranationales, organisations professionnelles agricoles, elus locaux, associations environnementalistes, etc.). Cette ouverture des processus politiques agricoles reussit-elle a impulser une dynamique reelle de democratisation de la prise de decision dans le secteur de l'agriculture?C'est a travers l'analyse de la mise en oeuvre des mesures agroenvironnementales territorialisees (MAET) en France, entre les annees 2007 et 2013, que nous contribuons a repondre a cette question. Si les MAET ne sauraient resumer l'ensemble de la politique agricole en France, elles sont significatives des inflexions de la gouvernance agricole et des innovations en cours par :- La decentralisation de leur elaboration et de leur mise en oeuvre a l'echelle regionale et locale ;- Leur logique d'action ascendante et flexible selon les priorites territoriales et des communautes ;- La concertation entre les parties prenantes incluant des acteurs non agricoles et non gouvernementaux.A cet egard, les MAET sont un instrument de type substantiel et procedural puisqu'ils visent a modifier simultanement le contenu de l'action publique et les processus politiques eux-memes (Howlett, 2001). Du point de vue du contenu, les MAET offrent un soutien financier a des agriculteurs qui adoptent volontairement des pratiques respectueuses de l'environnement, pratiques qu'ils s'engagent a respecter pour une periode de cinq ans. …