A Theoretical Reconstruction

THE UNIVERSITY OF HULL SOCIAL AUDITING AS SOCIAL LEARNING: A theoretical reconstruction being a Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of Hull by Reginald John Walker, M.Sc. January, 2007 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To Mike Pedler and Richard Boot, who gave encouragement at the outset To the people at the Centre for Systems Studies at the University of Hull who gave this a home when one was needed, and those who helped to see the work through to completion To Gerald Midgley, for generous supervision throughout and friendly support at some crucial stages And to my partner, Jacinta Elliott, who tolerated this cookoo in the attic, and did more than her share of work to enable me to finish it, while caring for what I was trying to do at the level that matters most. CONTENTS Chapter 1: THE RESEARCH PROCESS, AIM AND OBJECTIVES 1.1. Origins 1 1.2. The Research Process 2 1.1.1 Initial plan and re-direction 2 1. 2.2. Revised strategy and process implications 5 1.3. The Frame Analysis Approach 8 1.3.1. The concept of framing 8 1.3.2. Framing and social movements 10 1.3.3. Cultural framing and ideological perspectives 12 1.3.4. Framing and ideology in the thesis 16 1.4. Research Aims 18 1.4.1. Overall aim and specific objectives 18 1.4.2. Scoping factors 19 1.5. Conclusion 19 Chapter 2: SOCIAL AUDITING 2.1. Introduction 20 2.1.1. Terminology 20 2.2. Origins and early approaches 21 2.2.1. Early approaches 23 2.3. Resurgence and development 26 2.3.1. Approaches to stakeholder engagement 27 2.4. Consolidation and challenge 32 2.4.1. The AccountAbility framework and process 34 2.4.2. The business case and the debate about regulation 37 2.4.3. NEF's change of heart 40 2.4.4. The mask of CSR 42 2.5. Conclusions 43 2.5.1. Social auditing and its problems 43 2.5.2. Development of the thesis 45 Chapter 3: THE 'NEW ECONOMY OF CORPORATE CITIZENSHIP' 3.1. Introduction 46 3.1.1. Synopsis of Zadek's theory 46 3.2. The new economy of corporate citizenship 47 3.2.1. Third generation corporate citizenship 49 3.2.2. Scenarios of take-up or set-back 49 3.3. Concepts of sustainability 52 3.3.1. Sustainability as the art of the possible 56 3.4. The civil corporation 59 3.4.1. Civil society 59 3.4.2. Civil learning and civil organization 62 3.4.3. Civil governance 65 3.4.4. Poachers and Gamekeepers 66 3.4.5. Governance frameworks 69 3.4.6. Civil navigation 71 3.5. A civil critique 72 3.5.1. The political trajectory of the New Economy 72 3.5.2. An inadequate concept of citizenship 75 3.6. Conclusions 77 3.6.1. Social auditing and corporate citizenship 77 3.6.2. Development of the thesis 77 Chapter 4: CRITICAL SYSTEMS THINKING AND SYSTEMIC INTERVENTION 4.1. Introduction 79 4.2. CST's emergence and overall development 80 4.3. Emergence and alignment 82 4.3.1. Hard systems thinking 82 4.3.2. The break into soft systems thinking 83 4.3.3. Towards critical systems thinking 87 4.3.4. Methodological pluralism 89 4.3.5. Critical systems heuristics 93 4.3.6. Habermas's theory of communicative action 97 4.3.7. Critical heuristics and coercion 100 4.4. CST's formulaic phase 103 4.4.1. Overview of developments 103 4.4.2. Core commitments 104 4.4.3. Total Systems Intervention 105 4.5. Revisioning CST, and developing 'Systemic Intervention' 107 4.5.1. Pluralism 107 4.5.1.1. Anchoring in complexity 108 4.5.1.2. Discordant pluralism 110 4.5.1.3. Creative design of methods 111 4.5.1.4. Toward Systemic Intervention 112 4.5.2. Boundary critique 115 4.6. Perspectives on power 116 4.6.1. Midgley's concept o f power 117 4.6.2. Foucaulvian perspectives 119 4.6.3. Oliga's perspective 122 4.6.4. CST for citizens 124 4.7. Conclusions 127 4.7.1. Overview 127 4.7.2. Abstraction in the theory of Systemic Intervention 128 4.7.3. Citizenship and philosophical pragmatism 130 4.7.4. Development of the thesis 131 Chapter 5: PRAGMATISM: THE PHILOSOPHY OF INQUIRY 5.1. Introduction 132 5.2. Origins and revival 133 5.3. Themes and variations 135 5.4. Peirce and James 136 5.4.1. The early Peirce 136 5.4.2. James's version of the Pragmatist concept of truth 138 5.4.3. The later Peirce 140 5.5. Haack's approach to evidence and inquiry 141 5.5.1. The issues 141 5.5.2. The crossword analogy 145 5.5.3. Ratification - justification and truth 146 5.5.4. Haack and Popper 149 5.6. Dewey: uncertainty and democratic engagement 151 5.6.1. Uncertainty as the antecedent of judgement 151 5.6.2. Democratic engagement 154 5.6.3. Democratic morality? 155 5.7. Sharpening the focus 157 5.8. Mead and the concept of social action 160 5.8.. 1. Significance of Mead's work 160 5.8.2. Mead's concept of action 162 5.9. Critique of Pragmatist socio-political theory 164 5.10. The Pragmatist legacy 167 5.10.1. CST and Pragmatism: a case of mistaken identity? 168 5.10.2. Opportunities missed, and imagined reconstruction 171 5.10.3. Four Pragmatist deficits 172 5.11 Conclusions 175 5.11.1. CST and Pragmatism 175 5.11.2. Development of the thesis 175 Chapter 6: CITIZENSHIP AND RIGHTS 6.1. Introduction 178 6.2. The bewildered notion of citizenship 179 6.2.1. Inherent complications 179 6.2.2. The quest for a theory of citizenship 181 6.2.3. A basis for proceeding 182 6.3. Freeden's theory of rights 185 6.3.1. Preliminary considerations, and approach 185 6.3.2. The concept of rights 186 6.3.3. The natural rights paradigm 189 6.3.3.1. Self-evident? 191 6.3.3.2. Inalienability and indefeasibility 192 6.3.3.3. The (pre)sociality of rights 193 6.3.3.4. Absoluteness and prima-facie rights 193 6.3.3.5. Universality and equality 195 6.3.3.6. Universality and diversity 196 6.3.4. Developmental perspectives 198 6.3.5. Human welfare 200 6.3.5.1. From negative rights to positive 200 6.3.5.2. Revisioning welfare 201 6.3.5.3. The false opposition of choice and welfare 203 6.3.5.4. Intervention 205 6.3.6. Reconstructing utility 206 6.3.6.1. Bentham and Mill 206 6.3.6.2. Critiques of utilitarianism 208 6.3.6.3. Reframing utilitarianism 209 6.3.6.4. Social utilitarianism 213 6.3.7. Rights in community, rights of community 214 6.4. A dynamic model of rights 217 6.4.1. Prime features 217 6.4.2. Comparison with Midgley's thinking 218 6.5. The issue of globalized rights and world citizenship 220 6.6 Conclusions, and thesis development 223 Chapter 7: CIVIL SOCIETY AND DISCOURSE ETHICS 7.1. Introduction 224 7.2. Walzer's assessment of the civil society argument 224 7.3. Seligman's critique of the civil society idea 230 7.3.1. Three uses of the idea 230 7.3.2. Reconstitution of the public and private spheres 233 7.4. Discourse ethics 237 7.4.1. Seligman's critique of Habermas 238 7.4.2. Habermas's conception of the public sphere 241 7.4.3. Habermas: a general appraisal 245 7.4.4. Dewey's perspective 252 7.5. Conclusions 254 7.5.1. Citizenship and the civil society argument 254 7.5.2. Thesis development 257 Chapter 8: ACTIVE BEING IN THE WORLD and AGENCY AMIDST COMPLEXITY 8.1. Introduction 258 8.2. Benhabib's perspective on situating the self 259 8.2.1. The contradictory potentials of the present 259 8.2.2. Reframing enlightenment 261 8.2.3. The need for enlarged thinking 264 8.3. The embodied domain 266 8.3.1. Gormley's Domain Field 266 8.3.2. Disembodied abstraction, real problems 268 8.3.3. False consciousness? 273 8.3.4. Untangling consciousness 275 8.3.5. Enacted cognition - the concrete mode of agency 281 8.4. Evolution and moral agency 283 8.4.1. Evolution and freedom 283 8.4.2. The significance of sociality 286 8.4.3. The evolutionary basis of morality 288 8.4.4. Differing views of emotion 292 8.4.5. The Cage of Freedom 296 8.4.6. Socialist freedom 299 8.5. Drawing the strands together 301 8.5.1. Active being in the world 302 8.5.2. Agency amidst complexity 303 8.5.3. Restoring the balance of reason and rationality 305 8.5.4. Pluralism, rights and citizenship 306 8.6. Conclusions 308 Chapter 9: SOCIAL LEARNING 9.1. Introduction 310 9.2. Concepts of social learning 311 9.2.1. Psychological social learning theory 311 9.2.2. Economics and social learning 313 9.2.3. Social learning and public policy-making 315 9.2.3.1. The impact of policy legacies 317 9.2.3.2. A model of political social learning 318 9.2.4. Vickers' concept of appreciative learning 321 9.2.5.

Load more