Concepts and Transformation - Volume 8, Issue 1, 2003

This article examines the arguments offered by Will Hutton (2002) in drawing out a whole set of crucial differences between American and European capitalism, and why we should prefer the European version. The essential difference, as he sees it, is that while there is an ultimate preference for liberty and individualism in America, there are still in Europe a whole set of interlinked, positive attitudes towards equality, social solidarity, and the importance of public discourse. Hutton argues for the importance of these differences because, as he sees it, under the influence of the individualist values implicit in American capitalism, “the idea of the public realm is in eclipse, and with it a conception of civilization.” Hutton hinges his argument around a contrast between with the ideas of two American social theorists: the conservativism of Robert Nozick (1974) with its fixation on individual freedom as a single, political value that trumps all others, and the liberalism of John Rawls (1972) and his arguments for egalitarianism. However, as I see it, more than a contest of ideas is at stake. An issue of a much deeper kind is involved, one that goes right to the very heart of how we should conduct our reasoning in social affairs from now on. Rather than arguments over ideas, the devising and implementing of new, dialogically-structured, participatory practices is required, practices which are constitutive of “public spheres in private places” (Pålshaugen 2002). Here is where we can find important new European leads.

Participation has become a widely used concept and covers a great range of political and social practices. This article describes and analyzes some aspects of the Participatory Budget in the State of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil) in the period 1999–2002, representing the first attempt to implement this process on a larger geographical scale. The paper is developed around three foci. First, the experience of direct popular participation is situated in the context of the grassroots social movement that has developed over recent decades in Brazil. Then there is a presentation of the basic contours of the discussion and preparation of the state budget in Rio Grande do Sul. Finally, some of its effects are pointed out in terms of the political structure, regional development and pedagogical construction.

Between 1974 and 2002 there were three state financed work life programmes at federal level in Germany, with a financial outlay of more than €1 billion. The author evaluates the programmes’ achievements, conflicts and deficits and pays special attention to the role of social science research in work design projects; he concludes by comparing the German experiences and the Norwegian tradition of work life programmes since the 1960s.The social partners participated at programme and project level from the very beginning. Many successes have been achieved: the easing of physical work load and unhealthy work; the development of flexible and decentralized work organization in industry and services; providing working people with opportunities to make better use of their qualifications.There were also lost opportunities: due to massive conflicts between trades unions, employers’ associations and the programme administration, the initial perspective of enhancing democratic participation and enlarging the scope of co-determination in industry was abandoned, after a series of successful experiments, as early as 1980. The implementation of modern forms of work organization, including semi-autonomous group work, largely failed; it was (and still is) restricted to less than 5% of enterprises in Germany. Recent tendencies in industry to return to Tayloristic forms of work organisation, to intensify work processes by introducing market-driven work organisation and flexible working time schemes, directly contradict the original intentions of the programmes.

This paper argues that processes of regional development have to be conceptualised in a novel way. The dominant approach displays a bias towards a macro-perspective, often reproduces a centre — periphery model, and favours an economism that aims at the production of instruments for policy makers and academics alike, both enjoying the convenience of (bureaucratic and analytical) distance. Instead we propose a constructionist approach. This is developed through a critical discussion of the received view, and builds upon the central concepts of ‘enacted collective identity’, ‘articulation/translation’, and an upgrading of the importance of time in the sense of timing. We limit this study, which includes two empirical cases, to the ‘opening phase’ of a regional development process. We identify a new role for the researcher in articulating the need for and opportunities of a regional development, and we stress a more decentralised form of public support.

In his article in Volume 7, No.2 of Concepts and Transformation, Greenwood lays the ground for a self-critical review of action research. This is very much called for but there is a need to avoid this review becoming a revival of yesterday’s “famous cases”. Major parts of today’s action research are oriented towards social movements, learning regions and other levels of organisation far beyond the small group.The associated research challenges can be met only by developing new research platforms and seeking new alliances with other branches of research.

After a few years of euphoria, in which all kinds of specialists proclaimed the invention of a socio-economic perpetual motion machine labelled “new economy”, the “real economy” of capitalism has seized control again. As a matter of fact, there has not been any kind of abolition of the laws and the rules of the capitalist economy, but there are new means and mechanisms for external evaluation of its functioning. This, in turn, has been prepared by organizational changes, which had taken place in the last two decades, in order to improve efficiency, but also in order to enable the globalization of the big corporations, which have become the “real winners” of the new economy. This can be shown by the example of General Electric.