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Coopting Change toward Industrial Democracy: Professionals as Agents of Structural Constraint
Author(s) -
Darr Asaf,
Stern Robert N.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
sociological inquiry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.446
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1475-682X
pISSN - 0038-0245
DOI - 10.1111/1475-682x.00012
Subject(s) - democracy , institution , politics , ideology , context (archaeology) , sociology , corporate governance , factory (object oriented programming) , constraint (computer aided design) , order (exchange) , construct (python library) , political economy , public administration , political science , law , social science , management , economics , mechanical engineering , paleontology , finance , computer science , biology , programming language , engineering
This paper asks why the democratic election of leaders, which is so fundamental an institution in much of Western society, is held sacred in the political sector of social life but rejected in the economic one. We propose that democracy stops at the factory gates partly because of the practices and ideologies of practice of the professionals who construct and maintain the boundaries between the workplace and the larger political sphere. Specifically, we compare the role of lawyers, accountants, and academics in situations where workers attempt to implement or maintain a democratic governance structure in the workplace, within a socialist and a capitalist economic order. We conclude that professionals act as cooptation agents for democratic ideas in both the capitalist and the socialist context.