Power and deliberation inside the firm

On-line Workshop: Power and Deliberation inside the Firm

When: May 28, 2015
Where: Video-conference based at the Catholic University of Louvain
D011 Dupriez, Place Montesquieu 3, LLN

Contacts:
Andrea Felicetti
Thomas Ferretti

Abstract
In democratic societies, citizens should be politically equal and public power should be accountable to all. Whilst the realization of a just and democratic society calls for engagement on many fronts, power relationships in the workplace constitute a particularly important problem. Who holds power over the decisions inside firms has a strong influence not only on the lives of workers and other stakeholders but also on politics in general. Moreover, power inequalities in the workplace often give raise to abuse and political domination. States’ and unions’ declining power also have worrying effects on economic inequalities and workers’ capacity to defend their rights. Should we go further and extend democratic ideals to economic organizations like firms?

The workshop will discuss the desirability and the feasibility of workplace democracy: Is democracy in the workplace an appropriate solution to protect political equality and realize a just distribution of power? The workshop will also focus specifically on deliberative democracy, one of the most important developments in democratic theory in the last decades. To date deliberative scholars have paid only limited attention to the issue of democratic deliberation in the workplace and the role of firms in deliberative democracy. This issue is of particular interest given that the prospect of deliberative democracy is tied to the interaction of different organizations in society. Is deliberative democracy in the workplace desirable?