Drive
down to Sofia at the weekend – escaping the last-minute frenzy of the
Presidential Election which, against all odds (not least the brazen corruption
of the so-called social democrats PSD) went to an
ethnic German who has ruled the city of Sibiu very competently for the past
decade.
Political
labels don’t mean anything in Romania – the entire system has been corrupt
until the judicial system started to work a couple of years ago and to jail
scores of politicians…
That
story deserves a wider hearing – but the Iohannis victory should be a further
boost to “normalising” forces in the country although, inevitably, there are
some unsavoury elements in the alliance which supported him.
The
PSD candidate was the present Prime Minister who commands a strong
parliamentary vote. Sadly, therefore, the scene seems set for yet more mutual
aggression – with Iohannis’ disarming personality being one possible saving
grace….
Over
the weekend I got caught up in a variety of reading material – initially the
2003 The
Scots’ Crisis of Confidence which I will comment on shortly.
The
author, Carol Craig, has been head of the Centre for Confidence in Glasgow for
some years and writes interestingly on her blog about
change issues as well as directing to interesting sites such as one called After Now which contains
thoughtful papers about modernity
and its sustainability
– as well as one on the hidden
power of paradigms
She
is also editor of a new series of short publications called Postcards from
Scotland – one of which (“Letting Go”) challenges the aggressive management
style which has become the norm in the past couple of decades and gives a
couple of great references – a long paper Performance
Management and workplace tyranny produced by a Strathclyde Professor for
the STUC – and a 2009 paper by a group
of American management gurus entitled Moonshots
for Management which takes strong issue with the direction of management.
Two
other important papers caught my eye - Democratic Wealth –
building a citizens economy – which seems to be one of the rare “alternative”
manifestoes we need these days.
And
something called the Life
After Europe project
I’ll
try to make sense of these for you…..
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