Worker Democracy and Worker Productivity

A major source of oppression in industrial and post-industrial society is the restrictive and highly authoritarian nature of the workplace. One response is to democratize the workplace by increasing the participation of workers in making decisions and in choosing and evaluating managers as well as sharing in the ownership of the firm. These are not new ideas, and there are many examples of organizations pursuing various forms of democratic practices. However, a major objection is that such participation would compromise economic and other types of organizational productivity. This article examines the empirical support for that argument over a wide range of types of organizations in which workers participate in important decisions affecting their welfare. The overall results of this survey across many different forms of work organization suggest that the evidence supports the opposite conclusion, that worker participation increases productivity, particularly when workers share the benefits of higher productivity. The challenge is to ascertain ways of spreading these practices more widely.     

Palestine Authorities: Trouble within

The Palestine Authorities (PA) is now plagued with an internal crisis ever seen over the past dozen years. A string of kidnappings, gun battles, cases of arson and demonstrations resorted to by some hotheads since mid-July has thrown Gaza Strip into utter chaos, triggering off a political crisis with many high-ranking officials including Prime Minister Kurile tendering their resignations to President Yasser Arafat.……     

Public Administrative Science in Germany: Problems and Prospects of a Composite Discipline

German administrative science is composed of different disciplines which combine to form a multi- rather than an interdisciplinary science. Its roots can be traced back to the integrated policy-science ( Policey-Wissenschaft ) of the eighteenth century, which went through a process of differentiation during the nineteenth century. In German universities today, teaching and research is divided into different departments, a main problem being the disproportionate nature of this multidisciplinary structure. In German administrative science, a legalistic approach still predominates, although, in the 1960s and 1970s, political scientists played an important role in empirical research and theoretical discussions. Looking ahead, however, there is now an excellent chance that with the rise of the governance approach this asymmetric multidisciplinarity can be turned into a more balanced administrative science, even if it will remain a composite discipline.     

Viewing U.S. in Comparison with the EU

To make an assessment of the changes in the trend of U. S. status in international politics and world economy, beside development and evolvement of the United States history, rise and fall of other nations should also be brought into consideration. At present and in the years to come, among the external powers that have the ability to compete with America, it seems the European Union (EU) is in the first place.……     

Adult Education Policy Formation and Implementation: A Global Perspective

Adult education policies around the world during the post-World War II period owe a debt to UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) both in their conception and implementation. Four UNESCO-sponsored world conferences on adult education (UNESCO, 1949; UNESCO, 1963; UNESCO, 1972; UNESCO, 1985) and several other conference reports and surveys (Bhola, 1989b; Lowe, 1982; UNESCO, 1976) have contributed to adult education as an area of study, as a progressive movement in its own right and in developing adult education throughout the Third World, an area of special, but not exclusive, interest in this paper.