Deepening Democracy?

Henry Mintzberg is a Canadian management professor who, in many ways, can be regarded as having inherited the mantle of the most insightful management writer Peter Drucker. He has the same integrity and clarity that the Austrian emigre brought and, as he has aged, has become increasingly critical of the excesses of modern capitalism and has produced a little book about this - "Rebalancing Society – Radical Renewal; beyond Left, Right and Center" (2015) which argued that we had got it wrong when we imagined that capitalism had won at the end of the 80s

It was balance that triumphed in 1989. While those communist regimes were severely out of balance, with so much power concentrated in their public sectors, the successful countries of the West maintained sufficient balance across their public, private, and what can be called plural sectors. But a failure to understand this point has been throwing many countries out of balance ever since, in favor of their private sectors.

And it was deindustrialisation which destroyed that balance – more specifically the power which working class people had been able to exercise in that period through votes and unions - has been undermined. In its place a “thought system” developed - justifying corporate greed and the privileging (through tax breaks and favourable legislation) of the large international company which I have summarised thus -

• All political parties and most media have been captured by the “thought system” which now rules the world

• People have, as a result, become cynical and apathetic

• Privatisation is a disaster – inflicting costs on the public and transferring wealth to the few

• Two elements of the “balanced system” (Political and legal power) are now supine before the third (corporate and media power). The balance is broken and the dominant power ruthless in its exploitation of the excesses to which it can now give vent

• It is very difficult to see a “countervailing power” which would make these corporate elites pull back from the disasters they are inflicting on us

• Social protest is marginalized - not least by the combination of the media and an Orwellian “security state” ready to act against “dissidence”

• But the beliefs which lie at the dark heart of the neo-liberal project need more detailed exposure

• as well as its continued efforts to undermine what little is left of state power

• We need to be willing to express more vehemently the arguments against privatisation - existing and proposed

• to feel less ashamed about arguing for “the commons” and for things like cooperatives and social enterprise (inasmuch as such endeavours are allowed)

But the elite - and the media which services their interests - noticed something was wrong only when Brexit and Trump triumphed – in 2016. But that was simply the point at which the dam broke – the pressure had been building up for much longer.

If we really want to understand what is going on we have to go much further back – not just to the beginning of the new millennium when the first waves of populist anger started - but to the 1970s when the post-war consensus started to crumble – as Anthony Barnett, for one, most recently argued in his superb extended essay “Out of the Belly of Hell” (2020)

The demos have been giving the Elites a clear warning – “your social model sucks”. So far I don’t see a very credible Elite response. Indeed, the response so far reminds me of nothing less than that of the clever Romans who gave the world Bread and Circuses. Governments throughout the world have a common way of dealing with serious problems – it starts with denial, moves on to sacrificial lambs, official inquiries and bringing in the clowns - and finishes with “panem et circenses”. But my argument was too cynical. It failed to offer a way out.

For more than a decade, people in different parts of the world have been working on what is various called “deliberative democracy” or citizen juries which offer inspiring examples of that way out. Two shortish articles offer the best introduction to developments in this field - first this and then then the second part here

Some people would argue that this is just a fleeting fashion and that a more effective path would be to -

• increase local government power – ie giving a greater voice to the local public through their local representatives having a stronger legal and strategic role?

• Or does it require a more open and participative process – with deliberative democracy and citizen juries?

• Or does it perhaps mean a greater say by the workforce in the everyday management of public services?

• Or a combination of all the above?

Hilary Wainwright is amongst the very few who have taken such questions seriously – with her “Public Service Reform – but not as know it” (2009) although the Dutch, with the Buurtzog model, are now exploring the question. Cooperatives, social enterprise and worker-owned companies may employ only a tiny percentage of the global workforce but offer huge advantages to the increasing number of people looking for work which gives meaning to their lives.

Background Reading on the growing recognition of the need for greater citizen input

• https://howtosavetheworld.ca/2023/05/13/ready-for-civilizations-collapse/

• Response from Sottish Government to 2021 Report on Citizen Assemblies March 2023 – 14 page response hot off the press

• Metasurvey of deliberative democracy (American Pol Science Review 2023) a typical dry and academic article which may be of use to academics

• Citizen Assemblies in Scotland – report to Scottish Government (2021) The Scottish Government asked 100 Scots to act as a citizen jury on the future of their country. This 250 page report was the result – telling you everything you need to know about the operation of such a jury – lovely vignettes of both the participants and their advisers

• Catching the Deliberative Wave (OECD 2020) Executive summary of recent important book Innovate Citizen Participation and new democratic institutions - catching the Deliberative Wave which tries to help the global elite make sense of the latest challenge to their rule

• Macron’s Grand Debat; useful 2019 article about the French approach

• Citizen jury experience (2016) german; rather academic

• Creating Freedom – the lottery of birth, the illusion of consent, the fight for freedom Raoul Martinez (2016) Fascinating book which starts from the proposition that the current failure of our social systems must lead us to question our foundational beliefs

• Waves of Democracy – social movement and political change; John Markoff (2015 2^nd edition) looks a pretty definitive approach to recent developments – by a Pittsburgh political sociologist with a strong background in history and in other cultures – and a very good writing style

• Can Democracy be Saved? - participation, deliberation and social movements; Donatella Della Porta (2013)Too much of the discussion on democracy is conducted by anglo-saxon political scientists. Here an Italian sociologist makes the connection to the social movement literature, offering 4 models of democracy. The writing style is a bit too academic for me

• Democracy at Work – a cure for capitalism Richard Wolff (2012) a famous economist makes the case for increasing the power of workers

• Employee Ownership Dave Erdal (2012) short article by someone who transferred ownership of his company to his workers

• Power in movement – social movement and contentious politics; Sydney Tarrow (2011 edition – first in 1994) one of the key writers about social movements, he manages to cover a huge literature in a very clear manner.

• Democratic innovations – designing institutions for citizen participation Graham Smith (2009) who was the research direcctor of the famous UK Power inquiry of 2004.

Finally, for those who want to know more about the operation of citizen juries, here’s the site of The Deliberative Democracy Journal whose articles are free (eg this one about different German approaches) and The Citizen Convention for UK democracy

Change the World?

I haven’t forgotten my intention to address Henry Mintzberg’s point that the Reformation offers an example to give us hope in these difficult times - when fatalism and laisser-faire seem to have such a grip on our minds. It’s just that – before I try to do his argument justice – I felt I needed to explore my own confusions a bit more….. 

I’ve posted a couple of times about the difficulty I have in getting my head around systems thinking.

I’m never very sure whether to damn the systems thinkers in with the complexity theorists but continue, for the moment, to give the former the benefit of the doubt. It was the title of Systems Thinking for Social Change; David Peter Stroh (2015) which caught my eye - anyone interested in social change, I reasoned, must have an inclination to activism and therefore to resist the siren calls from the agents of laisser-faire. Stroh’s prose is too typically gushy American to attract me to his thought.

Systemic Thinking – building maps for a world of systems (2013) seems a better bet, written as it is by an Englishman (John Boardman) and American - Briand Sauser - with a more friendly presentation, short chapters and diagrams. And its concluding chapter has a nice, clear, summary of the book’s basic argument - 

This is a book about problem-solving, but with a difference. We recognized three vital characteristics, which for far too long have been overlooked or neglected in problem-solving books.

First, we identified that while solutions undoubtedly “deal with” the problems to which they relate, they also create a new wave of problems in their wake. In our complex world, this problem-generating characteristic of solutions cannot be ignored, and problem-solving itself must take care not to become problem spreading in nature. It has been widely recognized for some time that problems themselves can spread or cascade, as in the case of electricity supply networks (e.g., the New York City blackout) or the growth of cancer in the human body (e.g., prostate cancer in adult males). But the realization of problems elsewhere caused by the creation of a solution in some particular area of interest, removed from these affected other regions, is both alarming and unsettling. The way forward that we proposed in this book gives due recognition to this phenomenon.

Second, the emergence of a class of person known as problem solver, identified by skills in problem-solving, has reduced the burden on the class known as problem owner, to the extent that the latter has effectively transferred the problem and subsequently lost ownership, and in so doing has created a false picture for the former who cannot therefore avoid endowing the solution with the problem-spreading gene. This distinction of classes, one that effectively divorces the two, must be overcome, and problem solving in our complex world must restore the vitality of problem ownership among those who sense the problem in the first instance.

The third characteristic is something we can more easily recognize if we stand back from the first two. When a solution to a given problem also leads to a wave of new problems, then problem solving essentially becomes problem spreading. When problem solving attracts a new breed of people who become known as problem solvers, then responsibility for the problem is in effect transferred—from those it first affects or who sense it, with attendant diminution in problem ownership. We might say problem solving becomes problem dispossession. So standing back leads us to conclude that the originating problem is strongly connected to a host of “accompanying apparatus,” including owners, solvers, and problem-solving approaches. It is this connectedness that marks out this third characteristic that we believe has hitherto been sorely neglected and about which this book has much to say. Moreover, this book has much to offer by way of a responsive way forward. Our way forward is what we call systemic thinking. It is a way of thinking that emphasizes connectedness and enables people to see the bigger picture; one in which owners, solvers, solutions, problem solving methods, and problem descriptions are portrayed as a whole system.”

In a sense, however, I don’t need convincing. I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t believe in “human agency” – ie the possibility that -  as Margaret Mead famously put it – 

“never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has”.

 And so far no book has spoken to me on this theme louder than Robert Quinn’s “Change the World” which I summarised here

The Centre Cannot Hold.....

I’m delighted to report – however belatedly – that management guru Henry Mintzberg has duly published his long-awaited pamphlet Rebalancing Society – radical renewal beyond left, right and centre which mounts a strong critique of the direction the Western world has taken in the last 25 years and suggests (but all too briefly) an agenda for change. It is the key part of what is to be a series of pamphlets which he has been encouraged to embark by people like me talking to him as one of the knowledgeable and sane voices in a mad world.

I had contacted him last year after re-reading his 2000 “Management in Government” paper which started with the assertion that it was not capitalism which won in 1989 but "the balanced model” ie a system in which there was some sort of balance between the power of commerce, the state and the citizen. Patently things have got badly out of balance in the intervening 15 years!

The push to privatise everything will, he asserted, lead to the same disease of communist societies. His discussion is particularly helpful for the distinctions he draws - first the 4 different roles of customer, client, citizen and subject. Secondly the 4 types of organisations - privately owned, state-owned, “non-owned” (?) and cooperative. Then four models/metaphors of state management - government as machine, network, performance control and normative. In between he explodes 3 basic management myths. I had the full paper on my website but was forced to remove it when someone from Harvard complained…Oddly, however, some of my blogposts still have a link to the paper which must be buried somewhere inside the hidden intestines of the website. My E-mail to him said simply that

This concept of re-balance is crucial and you are one of the few people in a position to try to pull together all the disparate voices which have been searching over the past 5 years for a coherent programme which will attract a strong and active consensus. Few of those who write on this issue bother to deal with the other writing on the matter in the required detail. We need a proper typology; and critique of the literature to justify the specific steps in any ‘better way’ 

I was amazed to get a positive response and a request to allow him to include the comment in his pamphlet. For a sense of his writings see his article on managing quietly and his ten musings on management.

Mintzberg's analysis is one of the best reads on the global crisis - and will get pride of place in the update of the paper I was writing about earlier in the day whose title I am still disposed to make "Draft Guide for the Perplexed"  .

 He also has an interview about the pamphlet here

The heading is, of course, taken from the famous Yeats's poem which also contains these lines-

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

A Citizen's Bible?

I have to confess to some ennui – like my gout, an affliction of the privileged! Perhaps the absence of the edge the white wine brought to my pallet accounts for a certain reduction in zest. More likely, I have simply run out of „projects”. A daily blog no longer supplies the focus.

In March last year I suggested that, as both mainstream economics and psychology were undergoing major challenge, it was time that the scholastic discipline of public management had this sort of overhaul The only popular book on the subject I can think of was Reinventing Government (1991) by David Osbourne and Ted Gaebler – which did not, however, attempt an overview of the topic but was rather proselytise for neo-liberalism.
Economics and psychology, of course, are subjects dear to the heart of everyone – and economists and psychologists figures of both power and ridicule. Poor old public administration and its experts are hardly in the same league! But not only does noone listen to them – the scholars are embarrassed to be caught even writing for a bureaucratic or political audience.
And yet the last two decades have seen ministries and governments everywhere embark on major upheavals of administrative and policy systems – the very stuff of public administration. But the role of the scholars has (unlike the 2 other disciplines) been simply to observe, calibrate and comment. No theory has been developed by scholars equivalent to the power of the "market”, "competitive equilibrium” or "the unconscious” – unless, that is, you count Weber’s "rational-legal bureaucracy” or Robert Michels "iron law of oligarchy”. Somehow Lindblom's "disjointed incrementalism" never caught on as a public phrase!
Those behind the marketising prescriptions of New Public Management (NPM) were not from the public admin stable – but rather from Public Choice Economics and from the OECD – and the role of PA scholars has been map its rise and apparent fall and (occasionally) to deflate its pretensions. At its best, this type of commentary and analysis is very useful – few have surpassed Chris Hood’s masterly dissection of NPM 20 years ago. This set out for the first time the basic features of (and arguments for) the disparate elements which had characterised the apparently ad-hoc series of measures seen in the previous 15 years in the UK, New Zealand and Australia – and then suggests that the underlying values of NPM (what he calls the sigma value of efficiency) are simply one of three clusters of adminstrative values – the other two being concerned with rectitude (theta value) and resilience (lamda value). Table 2 of the paper sets this out in more detail.
The trick (as with life) is to get the appropriate balance between these three. Any attempt to favour one at the expense of the others (NPM) will lead inevitably to reaction and is therefore unstable.
This emphasis on the importance of balance was the focus of a very good (but neglected) paper which Henry Mintzberg published in 2000 (which I’ve mentioned before on the blog) about the Management of Government which starts with the assertion that it was not capitalism which won in 1989 but "the balanced model” ie a system in which there was some sort of balance between the power of commerce, the state and the citizen. Patently the balance has swung too far in the intervening 20 years!
Incidentally I see from Mintzbergs (rather disappointing) website that he is working on a book on this theme with the title Rebalancing Society; radical renewal beyond Smith and Marx. Mintzberg is a very sane voice in a mad world – ás is obvious from this article on managing quietly and his ten musings on management.
Hood elaborates on these three sets of values in the book he published at the same time with Michael Jackson - Administrative Argument (sadly out of print) - when he set out 99 (conflicting) proverbs used in organisational change.
In 2007, Russell Ackoff, the US strategic management guru, published a more folksy variant of this proverbs approach – The F Laws of management a short version of which can be read here. We desperately need this sort of approach applied to the "reformitis” which has afflicted bureaucrats and politicians in the past 20 years.

One of the few claims I feel able to make with confidence about myself is that I am well-read (see the (admittedly out-of-date annotated bibliography for change agents on my website). But I know of no book written for the concerned citizen which gives a realistic sense BOTH of the forces which constrain political action AND of the possibilities of creating a more decent society.
A book is needed which –
• Is written for the general public
* is not associated with discredited political parties (which, by definition, sell their souls)
• Sets out the thinking which has dominated government practices of the past 20 years; where it has come from; and what results it has had (already well done in academia see the Pal paper on the role of the OECD)
• Gives case studies – not of the academic sort but more fire in the belly stuff which comes, for example, from the pen of Kenneth Roy in the great crusading Emag he edits and eg the tale which should be shouted from the rooftops of the collusion of so many public figures with the activities of the cowboys who run privatised companies which are trying to muscle in on (and make profit from) public services.

Perhaps I should try to produce such a book? Various authors have already put in place some of the building blocks – eg Peter du Gay ("come back bureaucracy"); Chris Pollitt (in The Essential Public Manager); some of the work on public value by Mark Moore and others; even Geoff Mulgan's Good and Bad Power (which, sadly, I found impossible to finish.