Migration and demos in the democratic firm: an extension of the firm-state analogy

Cockburn, Patrick J. L. and Preminger, Jonathan ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0731-5737 2023. Migration and demos in the democratic firm: an extension of the firm-state analogy. Political Theory 51 (3) , pp. 557-580. 10.1177/00905917231154422

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Abstract

Debates around the state-firm analogy as a route to justifying workplace democracy tend towards a static view of both state and firm, and position workplace democracy as the objective. We contend, however, that states and firms are connected to one another in ways that should alter the terms of the debate, and that the achievement of workplace democracy raises a new set of political issues about the demos in the democratic firm and ‘worker migration’ at the boundaries of the firm. Our argument thus contains two key steps: First, drawing on an empirical case study of a worker-owned firm, we enrich the state-firm analogy by developing a more dynamic view of both, focussing on the creation of workplace democracies; worker movement in and out of them; the dynamic meanings of ‘citizenship’ within them; and the status of the unemployed in a world of democratic workplaces. We then argue that in moving to a more sociological view of the state, the things we were comparing begin to show their real-world connections to one another. By going beyond the idealised view of states that has distorted the state-firm analogy debates, we arrive at a more robust view of how widespread workplace democracy might reconfigure basic political relationships in society.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Business (Including Economics)
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management H Social Sciences > HM Sociology J Political Science > JC Political theory
Uncontrolled Keywords:	state-firm analogy, workplace democracy, employee ownership, citizenship, migration, borders
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
ISSN:	0090-5917
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	14 November 2022
Date of Acceptance:	18 October 2022
Last Modified:	20 Feb 2024 15:18
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/153498

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