Concepts and Transformation - Volume 5, Issue 1, 2000

The “Third Way” became a synonym for progressive politics between or beyond neoliberalism (the new right) and traditional social democracy (the old left). Third Way politics responds to the transformation of the traditional industrial society into a vaguely defined post-industrial society, characterized, inter alia, by economic globalization; the increasing importance of information as an economic input and output as well as a structuring principle of economic activities; the emergence of a new underclass of unemployed or working poor; the increasing emphasis on the shareholder value; a new consensus on economic policy, emphasizing financial and monetary stability rather than economic growth; and individualization. In the European context, Third Way politics tries to enhance economic efficiency and to strengthen employment. It emphasizes that redistributive policies, typical of the traditional industrial society, are no longer sustainable and thus accepts a higher level of economic inequality. Although it offers equality of opportunity, civic participation and a new emphasis on inclusion as a substitute for “equality of outcome”, it lacks a convincing concept of social justice.

The fight against unemployment has been declared a top priority of European Union (EU) policies. Indeed, if mass unemployment is the major political problem in Europe, then the legitimacy of the EU as a political union will crucially depend on how this problem is dealt with. In this article we follow precisely the question of how the problem is dealt with in EU policy-making processes. Two forms of political spaces, an advisory group working ‘behind closed doors’ and the European Parliament, are compared. A socio-linguistic analysis of texts produced in the respective bodies reveals the many tensions in the development of supranational employment policies. Particular emphasis is placed on the rhetoric of globalization and competitiveness as being constitutive of the neo-liberal discourse.

We examine the challenge of identifying a route towards a sustainable global Information Society: a society that adequately meets economic, social, cultural and environmental concerns of the world, with a long-term perspective. Clearly, a model of development which simply extends the current resource-intensive lifestyles of the OECD to the entire population of the world would threaten both global ecological stability and many local cultures, eventually posing a threat to social harmony in Europe. The present patterns of economic globalization are forcing ever more deregulation, increasingly short-term orientation and an ever faster rate of change, which makes sustainability increasingly hard to attain. However, European experience can make a valuable contribution to developing a global sustainable Information Society, and to the work of policy-making bodies around the world.

With regard to the exogenous changes and the endogenous impasses that Emilia-Romagna is now facing, this paper presents what appear to be the main issues in the present transformation era of one of the richest regions in Europe. In particular, we outline the dynamics of changes at regional level with regard to both the changes in the interrelationships among the major actors, and the emergence of new phenomena, such as the demographic trends. The main regional policy measures to foster local development are sketched by focusing on industrial policies, transport infrastructure plans and policy measures on learning processes, as they emerge in the changes undertaken at regional level in technical and vocational education.

This paper presents a description of and reflections about an action research process in a local authority. The focus of the project is on the introduction of a new approach to the rehabilitation of staff. The new approach requires collaboration between departments, which is a great stumbling block in the bureaucratic structure and culture of the organization. The project describes and discusses how, through a gradual joint focusing on the rehabilitation of individuals, the departments concerned became aware of the fact that they were also engaged in a process of rehabilitating the organization. Various aspects of the importance of the relationship between the researcher and the organization are brought to the fore.

Within the German state financed programs “Humanization of Work” and (since 1989) “Work and Technology” 1,500 research and development projects have been executed since 1974 with a total budget of about 1.3 billion DM. The program activities, more design orientated than the Scandinavian programs with their predominant process orientation, generated many successful results, especially in the field of health and safety, reduction of work load, robotics, design of software, work restructuring, qualification of the work force etc. Many innovative concepts were developed, not all of which were realized.In general, due to conflicts between the social partners in the 80s and also the erosion of work reform strategies and concepts during the 90s, the programs are characterized by decline, both in financial and conceptual terms. At present, on the threshold of the 21st century, there is no visible initiative for a new labor policy.

This paper presents the aims and main focus areas of the Finnish National Workplace Development Programme. The Government-initiated programme in which also the social partners are involved was launched in 1996, and it will continue until 2003. The author considers that, using wisely, the high legitimacy programme-based workplace development enjoys in Finland today may prove to be an important source of competitive advantage for the country.