[Dialogue] Campbell's paper

[Charles or Doris Hahn]

What a fine paper (Bibliography and all!) Jim Campbell
wrote. Thank you for posting it for us, Jim Wiegel.
Doris Hahn




> 
> Jim Wiegel here.  John's use of the term "form"
> touched a chord with me.  There was quite a bit of
> attention, among us on form in the early days --
> "creating structures in 5th city", the local church
> triangles and what form is the parish, congregation,
> etc., all the internal work on forms of the order .
> .
> .  Most of what I have been doing with ICA the last
> several decades has been facilitation related -- up
> front and also training people in methods.  These
> methods, branded about 10 years ago or even longer
> as
> "ToP", have seemed a durable "form" that came out of
> the EI, ICA, OE tradition and are much in use around
> the world, by old timers and new timers.  At the
> same
> time, the notion of effectiveness and participation
> and open decision making and collegiality and spirit
> which they convey has not found structural
> expression
> over the long term in very many places (I would
> welcome a list of examples from this group)
> including
> the internal operation of the various ICA's around
> the
> world.
> 
> 
> The article below, written by Jim Campbell, reviews
> a
> very important context when we are talking about the
> structural forms and organizational decisions of ICA
> or other organizations.
> 
> 
> Historical Perspectives on Participation
> Jim Campbell, IAF Europe Representative
> Modernism, which dates from the late 19th century,
> is
> associated with mass production, uniformity and
> predictability; post-modernism with flexibility,
> choice and personal responsibility.” Michael
> Prowse,
> “Post Modern Test for Government.” Financial
> Times, April 21, 1992.
> The sub-title of the book, The Age of Participation,
> is “New Governance for the Workplace and the
> World.”  Participation is about governance. 
> However, what is governance?
> Every human group has governance.  Whether it is a
> family, a community, a nation state, or just a group
> of friends trying to decide what to do on a Friday
> night—governance is happening.  Governance is
> about
> how people organise themselves to make decisions. 
> We
> organise ourselves because we want our decisions to
> enable the group’s security, to be fair and to
> provide for the common good in the community or
> nation
> state, we call this governance the “Political
> Dynamic.”  However every group, organisation, or
> family has a “political dynamic” we just do not
> usually think of it that way.
> Some thirty years ago, the Institute of Cultural
> Affairs conducted a research project to enable its
> concern for effective social change.  We asked our
> selves what is the social process.  What is the
> process that has to go on in every human community
> if
> that community is going to survive?  Not only that,
> we
> said that this should be a universal and history
> long
> process.  The product of that research we called
> simply, “The Social Process.”
> We discovered that every human community has three
> dimensions.  One is foundational (that without which
> the community will not survive.).  One is relational
> (how we organise ourselves and all our
> relationships.).  And one has to do with meaning
> (what
> is significant, what are our values and how do we
> communicate these.).  These are, of course, the
> Economic, Political and Cultural dimensions of
> society.
> Now I am not going to spend time on the details of
> these three dynamics but I do want to talk about
> them
> in terms of what has happened in the last several
> hundred years and the category of participation.  In
> the last few centuries, there has been a fundamental
> revolution in each of these areas.  The first was
> the
> political.  In the 18th century, the principle that
> “every human being had the right to participate in
> the decision-making processes that are determining
> the
> destiny of his or her community” was articulated
> and
> got into history.  Of course, we have been working
> on
> the practical implementation of this ever since and
> still have a long way to go.  But what is important
> is
> that the principle is there and is globally
> recognized.
> In the 19th century, we had the economic revolution.
> 
> Economics was invented in the 19th century—Marx,
> Engles, and others invented it and analyzed the
> economic dynamics in human society.  The principle
> was
> that, “every human being has the right to
> participate in and secure the well-being of his or
> her
> self and family.”  Again, we are still working out
> the practical implications but it has become a
> universally recognised principle.
> Finally, we have the cultural dimension in the 20th
> century.  I was born in 1940 into a world that is
> gone
> forever.  The last half of the 20th century saw a
> Cultural Revolution sweep the world.  Much of what
> has
> happened and is happening in the world today is the
> working out of this Cultural Revolution.  I do not
> think we are even sure what the fundamental
> principle
> of this revolution is.  However, I would want to
> suggest that it is something like “Every human
> being
> has the right to freely participate in and practice
> the cultural gifts and wisdom of all the world’s
> communities.” 
> Together these three revolutions have delivered us
> into a new world where participatory processes have
> assumed inordinate importance.  However, we have to
> look deep into our history to find the true roots of
> this reality.
> A good place to start in western history is with
> Plato’s The Republic where he articulated a system
> of governance based on carefully limited and defined
> participation—male citizens of property.  For
> centuries after that, you have little development or
> change.  In the Roman Republic you have a system of
> representational governance but also limited to male
> citizens of property.  The Magna Carta in the middle
> ages again articulated the right of participation
> for
> a limited group and put some restraints upon the
> authority of the monarch.  With the coming of the
> Renaissance, the Reformation and Counter
> Reformation,
> we see the emergence of a fundamental principle that
> would change the question of participation.  The
> Renaissance’s focus on the human in this world and
> the divine in the mundane forced a reconsideration
> of
> the significance of every human being. The
> Reformation’s focus on the individual as made in
> the
> image of God and in a personal relation with God and
> the Counter Reformation’s concern for the
> integrity
> of the individual again recognized the worth of
> EVERY
> individual.  This shift raised questions about the
> suppression of people and the superiority of the
> ruling class.  The Age of Reason was a secular form
> of
> the Reformation, which led directly to The Rights of
> Man and The Bill of Rights, the great political
> thinkers and revolutions of the late 18th Century
> and
> the 19th Century.  The American and French
> Revolutions
> invented liberal democracy.  They gave structural
> form
> to the radical concept that sovereignty resided in
> the
> governed rather than in the governing.  This was a
> participation revolution in that it placed
> participation at the centre of the governance
> challenge.  Much of what has happened since has been
> a
> working out of who can participate—from male
> property owners, to all males of a certain age, to
> including women, etc.  Today in Europe we are
> looking
> 
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