Full employment

The recent civic revival has been largely carried out in the register of contemporary political philosophy, with its characteristic division between liberal and communitarian visions of a transcendental moral subject. This article argues that such an approach, with its affiliations to Rousseau's pathbreaking recuperation of the classical civic tradition, tends to bypass the question of what concrete attributes have been required of citizens, and how citizens have historically acquired the attributes to function as responsible civic-minded individuals. As a result its demaraction of ‘progressive’ and ‘conservative’ models of historical citizenship is unworldly and unhelpful. I conclude by sketching in a tentative outline of a history of modern citizen self-discipline in the early modern period, when citizen status expanded from the city environment to the populations of the territorial states. And I suggest, following Foucault, that these techniques still form the foundations of modern citize-formation.     

Fairness in employment testing

Mary L. Tenopyr has directed AT&T’s selection and testing program for the past 17 years. She has been employed in various academic, governmental, and business settings. She was a member of the National Research Council’s Committee on Ability Testing, and has published widely in measurement and industrial psychology.     

Political-economic aspects of public employment

Abstract. An examination of public employment and expenditure data for 17 OECD countries for the period 1963–1983 reveals decelerating growth in public employment after 1970, whereas expenditure growth rates have been accelerating. Two contrary tendencies in public sector employment since the early 1970s are apparent: a general decline in goods and market services, and a significant increase in communal and social services. Comparative empirical analysis, using a pooled cross section-time series technique, confirms the important contribution of increasing wealth to public employment growth. Similarly, a strong societal position for organised labour and increasing unemployment rates contribute to public employment growth, thereby suggesting the presence of a discretionary stabilization policy. Contrary to expectations, however, increased trade dependence exerts a negative impact. With regard to the relationship between expenditure and employment, a general increase in the employment creation efficiency of spending can be discerned. Empirical estimates again suggest that the importance of labour in political-economic decision-making has intensified the employment creation effect of public spending.