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The Social Quality of Participatory Democracy: Social Empowerment in the Workplace and Local Community

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The Social Quality of Participatory Democracy: Social Empowerment in the Workplace and Local Community The Social Quality of Participatory Democracy: Social Empowerment in the Workplace and Local Community Steven Corbett A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Department of Sociological Studies University of Sheffield October, 2013 Acknowledgements First and foremost all the love in the world and thanks must go to my wife, Jessica. Without your enduring belief in me and support I would not have been able to write this thesis. I owe you big time for all the late nights and weekends when the work had to come first. Thanks to Mum, Dad and Nana for your constant support and encouragement throughout the highs and the lows of these last three years. This thesis would not have been possible without the openness and co- operation of Suma and Tameside Council. Many thanks must go to all the research participants for kindly giving up their time for this project. Thank you to Alan Walker for being a constant source of encouragement and wisdom. It has been an honour to work with you on this thesis. You have been the best supervisor I could have wished for and an ideal role model. If I can emulate just some of your achievements then I will consider my academic career to be a worthwhile life’s work. Thanks to all staff and PhD researchers at the Department of Sociological Studies for the support, encouragement and fellowship over the years. Special mention must go also to David Phillips for the inspiration that set me off on this journey, and for imbuing me with the enthusiasm for academic research in my undergraduate studies. Abstract The social quality approach is proposed as a participatory democratic and social justice oriented alternative to the dominance of neo-liberal individualism in much contemporary policy, practice and theory (Therborn, 2001; Walker, 1998, 2005). This thesis develops the social quality concept of social empowerment (Herrmann, 2012) in relation to participatory democratic theory and practice. In empirically-driven but theory-laden case studies of a democratic workplace and a democratic local government initiative the thesis asserts the close relationship between social empowerment and democratic participation, along with the multi-dimensional nature of empowerment. The case studies are situated within the context of different typologies of possible democratic societies. They are both underpinned by the democratic dialectic (Bernard, 1999), which assesses the values of liberty, equality and solidarity as a normative grounding for the research. The critical realist and social quality theory philosophical foundations of this work are set out in Chapter 2. This chapter discusses the critical methodological approach that these foundations presuppose and the justification for the case study methods. Chapters 3 and 4 critically review power and empowerment theories and democratic theories, which develops the concepts of social empowerment and participatory democracy. The second part of Chapter 4 introduces three ideal typologies of liberal, social and participatory democracy that are used to frame the analysis, while Chapter 5 develops the democratic dialectic as the normative guide for assessing the democratic complexion of the case studies. The case studies are presented in Chapters 6 and 7, and analysed in Chapter 8. The findings suggest that social empowerment is present to different extents, and in different ways, in the two case studies. This is contingent on factors including historical development, the form of power relationships in economic, social and political relations in the context of wider liberal democratic values in the UK, and the extent to which the democratic dialectic values are realised in practice. The conclusion reviews the argument in this thesis and suggests implications for policy-makers, practitioners and future research. Contents Chapter 1 - Introduction: Democratic Society and Social Quality ... 1 Chapter 2 - Critical Realism and Social Quality: Philosophical Foundations, Methodology and Methods .............................. 15 Chapter 3 - From Power to Social Empowerment ................... 46 Chapter 4 - Representative and Participatory Democracy ......... 79 Chapter 5 - The Democratic Dialectic ................................ 114 Chapter 6 - Case Study: Suma Wholefoods .......................... 160 Chapter 7 - Case Study: You Choose .................................. 203 Chapter 8 - Optimising the Democratic Dialectic: Social Empowerment in the Workplace and Local Community ........... 244 Chapter 9 - Conclusion: the Social Quality of Participatory Democracy ............................................................... 272 References ............................................................... 288 Chapter 1 Introduction: Democratic Society and Social Quality In Britain today there is a generalised distrust in politicians (a projection – rightly or wrongly - of instrumental rationality and selfish interests onto political actors, Hay, 2007), an increasing disengagement from the political process (a decline in voter turnout and a prevalence of an anti-political culture, Stoker, 2006; Flinders, 2013), and disassociation between the everyday lives of ordinary people and the bubble of corporate politics in Westminster (Blond, 2010; Glasman, 2010). Recent scandals in major political and economic institutions such as the 2008 financial crisis (which has provided the impetus for a political retrenchment of the welfare state in Britain, with a disastrous impact on the poorest and less well off, Corbett & Walker, 2013), the public anger at the MPs’ expenses scandal, and the betrayal of public trust by major news organisations have increased the sense that British democracy is increasingly a discredited system of political organisation. Moreover, the UK is increasingly coming to be dominated by political and economic elites to the extent that we are now said to reside in a ‘post- democracy’, where the capacities of ordinary people to have an influence over the political process (and by extension their everyday lives) is severely constrained (Crouch, 2004). As a remedy to these problems there has been a growing interest in increasing citizen participation, engagement or involvement in a wide range of democratic processes, including new democratic innovations (Smith, 2005, 2009; Stoker, 2006; Zittel & Fuchs, 2007; John et al., 2011; Geisel & Newton, 2012). More radically, drawing on New Left participatory democratic theory (Pateman, 1970; Macpherson, 1977; Mansbridge, 1980; Barber, 1984; Gould, 1988), some proffer fundamental changes in the structure of social institutions in favour of a more participatory society that is less liberal 1 democratic and less capitalistic in its composition (Fung & Wright, 2003; Wright, 2010). Associated with this are arguments for a transformation in the nature of contemporary citizenship, from a consumerist orientation in the context of neo-liberal capitalism, towards a more participatory conception of citizenship by learning the values and skills of democratic citizenship through the process of democratic participation itself (Pateman, 1970, 2012; Pinnington & Schugurensky, 2010). This thesis engages with normative and empirical arguments for democratic innovations, citizen involvement, and participatory democracy as remedies to the current malaise of British democracy. The thesis focuses on power relations and democracy, assessing especially the concept of social empowerment (Herrmann, 2012) in participatory democratic settings, drawing on empirical case studies of a democratically owned and controlled worker co-operative (workplace democracy) and a local government participatory budgeting process (local community democracy). This necessitates an exploration of theories of power and empowerment, theories of democracy, and typologies of democracy in practice. Further, the thesis draws on a normative theoretical foundation for empirical research by adopting a critical social science approach (Sayer, 1992, 2009, 2011). It describes and critiques the values of liberty, equality and solidarity that make up the democratic dialectic (Bernard, 1999) as a means to assess social empowerment in participatory democratic settings. This introductory chapter firstly discusses contemporary problems with democratic politics and expands these concerns to a consideration of the social quality of democratic society. Secondly, a set of research questions which frame the theoretical and empirical analysis are highlighted. Thirdly, the contributions that this research makes to social scientific knowledge are discussed, and fourthly, a brief overview of the argument of this thesis describes the content of the chapters that follow. 2 Political Disenchantment, Neo-liberalism and Social Quality Dalton (2004, p.1) argues that contemporary democracies face a challenge posed not by an external competitor, but ‘from democracy’s own citizens, who have grown distrustful of politicians, sceptical about democratic institutions, and disillusioned about how the democratic process functions’. This is a problem for both mature and new democracies as Stoker (2006, pp.35-44) describes a rise in ‘political disenchantment’ in the USA, Canada, Western Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, and also in the newer democracies of central and eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, East Asia and India. Citizens appear to be disillusioned by democracy in practice, but not necessarily in principle, and there has been a marked increase in distrust in politicians since the late
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