Book Description

Cultural Theory argues that there are five ways of organizing (voices): the hierarchical (e.g. the Government), the egalitarian (e.g. Greenpeace), the individualistic (e.g. the markets), the fatalistic (nothing will make any difference) and the autonomous (deliberate avoidance of the coercive involvement in the other four). Each approach is a way of disorganising the other four, and without the other four it would have nothing to organize itself against. We may believe that one of these perspectives is the right one and that any interaction with opposing views is a messy and unwelcome contradiction. But, using a range of examples and analogies, the author shows that what is needed is to reach the best outcome is constructive and argumentative engagement between these approaches - the democratisation, in other words, of processes. And in order to actually do that democratising, we have to avoid silencing any of the voices. In this way each approach gets more of what it wants and less of what it doesn't want. The importance of Cultural Theory is brought into focus through case studies (UNEP, DfID, Shell, the World Bank, Nepal, Arsenal Football Club, to name a few) that illustrate the dynamics of this engagement and how it can enable responsible and enlightened action on challenging issues.