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Pluralism and Difference: A Genealogy of Multiplicity

David Schlosberg

in Environmental Justice and the New Pluralism: The Challenge of Difference for Environmentalism

An examination is made of a genealogy of pluralist approaches to multiplicity and difference in the twentieth century, starting with William James (1976 [1912], 1977 [1909]), who began his study of ... More

An examination is made of a genealogy of pluralist approaches to multiplicity and difference in the twentieth century, starting with William James (1976 [1912], 1977 [1909]), who began his study of pluralism with a ‘radical empiricism’ that is opposed to a more singular, monist position. James argued that our experiences of empirical events diverge, and one explanation could never encompass all of those experiences; other political pluralists (Arthur Bentley, Ernest Barker, Harold Laski, Mary Parker Follett) took James’s critique of absolutism and applied it to the state. Post-Second World War pluralists used the concept of heterogeneity in a much more constricted sense to defend and promote self-interested interest groups. However, more recently, there has been a return to multiplicities, and Donna Haraway’s (1988) description of ‘situated knowledges’ and ‘embodied objectivity’, in which she argues for ‘epistemologies of location’ where claims of knowledge can only be considered partial, resurrects James. The argument here is that a return to such original notions of pluralism helps validate the diversity of experiences and knowledges that grow out of the variety of ways we are all situated in any number of experiences, including environmental degradation.Less

Organizations

Christopher K. Ansell

in Pragmatist Democracy: Evolutionary Learning as Public Philosophy

This chapter builds on the work of Mary Parker Follett and Philip Selznick to anchor a tradition of Pragmatist organizational theory. In contrast with Max Weber’s image of bureaucracy, Follett and ... More

This chapter builds on the work of Mary Parker Follett and Philip Selznick to anchor a tradition of Pragmatist organizational theory. In contrast with Max Weber’s image of bureaucracy, Follett and Selznick reject the dualism of formal versus informal organization. Doing this allows them to imagine a different relationship between central control and decentralized discretion in organizations. Selznick’s perspective on “responsive organizations” supports a problem-solving perspective on organizations and an emphasis on developing the competency and character of organizational communities.Less

Components of a Critical Pluralism: Ethics and Processes

David Schlosberg

in Environmental Justice and the New Pluralism: The Challenge of Difference for Environmentalism

The acceptance of multiplicity as the precondition of political action is central to the new generation of theorists and activists that the author designates as ‘critical pluralists’. In political ... More

The acceptance of multiplicity as the precondition of political action is central to the new generation of theorists and activists that the author designates as ‘critical pluralists’. In political and social theory, a range of authors has finally begun to respond to a lament broached by Mary Parker Follett in 1918: pluralists early in the century had acknowledged difference, she noted, but they had not arrived at the heart of the question – what is to be done with this diversity? This chapter examines some of the contemporary responses to Follett’s question and constructs a list of practices necessary to build political relations across difference. These get at issues of justice beyond the material, concerning both recognition and participatory process, and it is argued that agonistic respect (William Connolly 1991), attempts at intersubjective understanding (Seyla Benhabib 1992; Jurgen Habermas 1970; Axel Honneth 1992), inclusive, open discourse free from domination and the possibility of reprisals (John Dryzek 1990; John Forester 1989; Habermas 1984, 1987), and the development of a particular form of solidarity are all crucial to the practices suggested by a new generation of pluralist theory. Solidarity (unity without uniformity) is complex in that it centres on the process of reconciling difference with the need for concerted political action. The author focuses on how the notion of unity suggested by Follett was discarded by the second generation of pluralism, but is now mirrored by numerous contemporary theorists, including Richard Rorty (1989), Donna Haraway (1991), and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1987).Less

Mary Parker Follett's Science of Reciprocal Relating and Creative Experience

in Creating New Knowledge in Management: Appropriating the Field's Lost Foundations

Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933) proposed a new science of relating called “dynamic,” “reciprocal,” and “circular,” terms which are used interchangeably. Drawing on Joan Tonn's book and other sources, ... More

Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933) proposed a new science of relating called “dynamic,” “reciprocal,” and “circular,” terms which are used interchangeably. Drawing on Joan Tonn's book and other sources, this chapter examines how Follett combined science and practice as a function of a new relationship to inquiry and action. It also challenges the notion that Follett worked with disconnected ideas such as “constructive conflict,” “power-with versus power-over,” and “the law of the situation.” It first provides an overview of reciprocal relations theory and then looks at the co-educational Thayer Academy founded by Sylvanus Thayer and attended by Follett. It also focuses on Follett's studies at the Harvard Annex, later called Radcliffe, and at Newnham, the women's school at Cambridge. Finally, the chapter focuses on the School Center Movement and self-governance as well as Follett's two books, The New State (1918) and Creative Experience (1924).Less

Power and Responsibility

Christopher K. Ansell

in Pragmatist Democracy: Evolutionary Learning as Public Philosophy

With the exception of Mary Parker Follett’s work, Pragmatists have not developed an explicit approach to managing power. This chapter argues that Pragmatism can broadly adopt a separation-of powers ... More

With the exception of Mary Parker Follett’s work, Pragmatists have not developed an explicit approach to managing power. This chapter argues that Pragmatism can broadly adopt a separation-of powers approach, but should supplement it with attention to how third parties can civilize power and how power can be shared. The chapter also argues that attempts to externally impose accountability through layers of rules and oversight are often counter-productive and can undercut an authentic sense of responsibility. The cultivation of shared responsibility in governance typically requires a significant degree of autonomy and the development of a supportive organizational ethos. To understand the possibilities for cultivating shared powers, the chapter explores the tradeoffs between “divided power” and “shared power” models of federalism, arguing that the later has strong affinities with Follett’s “power-with” perspective.Less

Conclusion and Solution: Integrating the Knowledge Traditions and Building a Science of Management

in Creating New Knowledge in Management: Appropriating the Field's Lost Foundations

Drawing on the ideas of Mary Parker Follett and Chester Barnard, this chapter assesses the prospects for a science of management that understands integration per se, and particularly the processes by ... More

Drawing on the ideas of Mary Parker Follett and Chester Barnard, this chapter assesses the prospects for a science of management that understands integration per se, and particularly the processes by which it creates new value(s) in dynamic conditions. What sets management science apart from all other sciences is its concept of a superstructure in which science itself is understood as one of many autonomy-seeking entities connected interdependently with other institutions. According to Follett, institutions pursue autonomy amid interdependence in dynamic conditions. Barnard supported this view by explaining that institutions create artificial boundaries and convenient fictions. The executive-scholar represents a new institution that has yet to be fully utilized for new knowledge creation. This chapter also considers the burden of personal responsibility as well as the elite heritage and legacy of paideia/humanitas.Less

Introduction and Problem: No Institution of Management Knowledge

in Creating New Knowledge in Management: Appropriating the Field's Lost Foundations

The business school and the management academy are institutions charged with the task of developing the science and profession of management, but do not do so and have not organized themselves to do ... More

The business school and the management academy are institutions charged with the task of developing the science and profession of management, but do not do so and have not organized themselves to do so. In the early twentieth century, Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933) and Chester Barnard (1886–1961) established foundations of a science of management and reformed the classical tradition of knowledge for governance, or paideia/humanitas. However, their work was never integrated by the institutions and remains largely unrecognized and unutilized. This book recaptures these lost foundations of management and explores how to use them. It reintroduces Follett and Barnard as the founders of management science and offers a prehistory of university-based business schools, including their mutual institutionalization with the professions and the research universities. It also analyzes the results of experiments in applying Follett's and Barnard's science in contemporary teaching and research. This book is the first to offer a history of institutionalized and uninstitutionalized management knowledge.Less

Integrating Research and Responsibility: Collaborating with an Executive with max périé

in Creating New Knowledge in Management: Appropriating the Field's Lost Foundations

This chapter, a collaboration with Max Périé, a senior executive for an international company, explores executive work by looking at the views of Mary Parker Follett and Chester Barnard. The ... More

This chapter, a collaboration with Max Périé, a senior executive for an international company, explores executive work by looking at the views of Mary Parker Follett and Chester Barnard. The executive builds a self-governing whole of which he is also an integral member by establishing a moral code for his organization, subordinating himself to it, and using himself to develop responsibility in others. The executive sees to it that organizational members take personal responsibility for the whole. The chapter thus offers an explanation of what Barnard described were practices “almost impossible” to observe and what Follett argued could not be done by anyone for anyone.Less

Integrating Education, Research, and Responsibility: Experimenting with Master's-Level Teaching

in Creating New Knowledge in Management: Appropriating the Field's Lost Foundations

This chapter, based on a personal experiment and the author's own experience in classroom teaching, examines the managerial level and the development of personal responsibility not only in oneself ... More

This chapter, based on a personal experiment and the author's own experience in classroom teaching, examines the managerial level and the development of personal responsibility not only in oneself but also in others. It looks at the student-teacher relation in formal education as the analogue of Chester Barnard's dynamically relating executive-leader in formal organization. In this way, the chapter formalizes the subjective and intersubjective microprocesses of dynamic relating. Both Barnard and Mary Parker Follett argued that the self-governing relation is the crux of all dynamic relating; the rest is simply a matter of scale.Less