On democracy and the workplace: HRD's battle with DDD (democracy deficit disorder)

• Date: 01 June 2004
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.1093
• Author: Tim Hatcher
• Published date: 01 June 2004

EDITORIAL

On Democracy and the

Workplace: HRD’s Battle

with DDD (Democracy

Deficit Disorder)

Observing the U.S. government’s attempts to install democratic governments

in the Middle East, coupled with participating in and/or observing the electoral

process in the United States, we have been inundated with the proviso of

democracy. Democracy demands deliberative discourse, human rights, repre-

sentative government, religious tolerance, and mutual respect. Democracy

also requires a community with agents or citizens who relate to one another in

equal and autonomous and moral and politically equal ways. Without a

passionate consideration of justice, democracy is not possible.

The pace of political change during the past few decades has been truly

remarkable. From Costa Rica to India, from Taiwan to Namibia, from the Soviet

Union to Iraq, the demand for democracy has increased a hundredfold. A sur-

vey of global political change in the twentieth century by Freedom House

(www.freedomhouse.org), a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization, found that

120 of the 192 existing nations—some 62 percent of the world’s population—

are rated as liberal and electoral democracies. If democracy can exist in such

wildly dissimilar and culturally diverse environments, why can’t it exist in the

workplace or within a profession that espouses its values?

This editorial highlights the relationship among the state, the workplace,

democracy, and human resource development (HRD); we are suffering from a

malady termed DDD (Democracy Deficit Disorder). Treatment for this sickness

is suggested.

The State and the Workplace

Deetz (1992) claims the state, to which we turn for democratic accountability,

is being increasingly redefined as minimally involved in the social and politi-

cal lives of people and as a self-seeking promoter of commercialism to fulfill its

public obligations. And as organizations become more powerful by focusing

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HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY, vol. 15, no. 2, Summer 2004

Copyright © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

My sincere thanks go to Monica Lee for her intellectual inspiration for this editorial and

to Laura Bierema for her critically reflective contributions to HRD.