Thesis (MA(Philosophy)--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

Bureaucracy is being seriously challenged today by other organizational designs because its rigidity is being viewed as a detriment to organizational survival in the hypercompetitive marketplace of global business. Standardization, homogeneity, and hierarchy are not conducive to meeting the changing demands of a turbulent business environment. As a result, new organization forms based on flexibility and adaptibility are gaining prominence in the business literature and in managerial practice. The purpose of this study was to provide an empirically-based examination of how employees are responding to these new organization forms. Three hypotheses were generated concerning the impact of the new organization forms on employee alienation, and the role of ideology as a moderating variable between the new organization forms and alienation. I predicted that employees working in new organization forms with an orientation toward communitarianism would be more alienated than employees who were more inclined toward the ideology of individualism. While my hypotheses were not supported, hindsight suggests an alternative hypothesis for further study: Employees with differing ideological dispositions can both prosper in the postindustrial workplace as long as elements of the traditional economic compact are in place. / Ph. D.

Thesis (M.A.)--Missouri State University, 2008. / "December 2008." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-107). Also available online.

The dissertation examines in detail the concept of neutrality in political theory literature and assesses the arguments of the defenders and critics of Turkey’s laicism in light of such an examination. After showing the weaknesses and problems in the arguments of various political actors in Turkey, the dissertation defends “modus vivendi liberalism” as a possible solution for the conflicts about Turkey’s laicism. In that regard, the dissertation argues that certain aspects of liberal political theory can be appropriated for Turkish politics for the sake of ensuring stability and peace even if there might be problems with the possibility and desirability of neutrality. The dissertation also discusses what can constitute Turkey’s modus vivendi and offer certain ideas about what may and may not ensure stability and peace in Turkey.

In this thesis I explore the possibility for a renewed communitarianism. Rather than present this as a rival to liberalism, however, I present it as a supplement. I start from the viewpoint that there are two basic facts with normative consequences the reconciliation of which is the central task of moral and political philosophy. One fact is the fact of individuality, which I believe produces a normative requirement that all and only obligations that respect a certain kind of individual autonomy are legitimate. This fact is well explained by liberalism, and so I am to that extent a liberal. Where I differ from contemporary liberalism, and where I think there is room for a renewed communitarianism, is in explaining the limits of autonomy. There are, I contend, a wide array of basic and legitimate obligations that cannot be adequately explained (i.e. the legitimacy of which cannot be explained) by autonomy alone. The role for communitarianism, then, is to explain the nature of a second legitimating principle and how these two principles – respect for autonomy and respect for (what I call) fraternity – can work together to explain when various maxims and policies are legitimate or illegitimate. In the first part I explain the importance of communitarianism. In the second, I try and determine the nature of the principle that should be seen as representing the normative requirements of the fact of sociality: the second inescapable fact of moral and political philosophy, that while we are individuals we are never alone. I will ultimately argue for a version of solidarity based on the role ethical obligations play in incorporating the interests of others in one‟s own set of interests. In the final part I explain how the ethical obligation at the heart of solidarity should work and then how to reconcile the normative requirements of the fact of sociality with autonomy.

'Community' has long proved an integral element in commonsense thinking about a range of social problems and experiences, and with respect to crime the general conclusion is that more community will mean less crime. This study comprises a critical exploration of the resonance of community to New Labour's youth justice policy and to the lives of young offenders. The concept of community is of particular interest, as since its election in 1997 New Labour has been committed to forge a new political ideology of the 'Third Way', wherein communitarian ideas have proved central to the government's ambitions to revive and emphasise individual's responsibilities and obligations to civil society. Thus evident in the array of civil and criminal orders, which constitute the youth justice system in England and Wales, are constructions of community as both a 'moral resource' and as a 4moral claimant'. The former assumes that communities have inherent capacities in preventing and controlling youth crime, while the latter prioritises the community's right to demand the punishment and exclusion of those young people who fail to live up to their communal responsibilities. Given that communitarian responses are but the latest manifestation of the constant search for solutions t o youth crime, consideration is initially accorded to the historical shifts and continuities in both youth justice and community safety policy and practices. It is argued that a movement towards increasingly punitive, exclusionary and defensive responses to crime and young offenders has prevailed in recent years, and it is within this context that New Labour's prioritisation of communitarian thought has occurred. Attention then turns to the specificities of the government's commitment to communitarianism,within youth justice. Not only do New Labour emphasise young people's responsibilities to the community - rather than the community's, or indeed, the state's responsibilities to the young person- but it has also demonstrated its willingness to define. legislate and sanction with respect to those responsibilities it considers essential to the membership rights of the 'law-abiding' community. As such it is contended that the government's vision of community is essentially narrow, defensive and divisive. The analysis then draws upon semi-structured qualitative interviews with a sample of young offenders and Youth Offending Team practitioners to explore the resonance of community to the lives of young offenders and to their experiences of youth justice supervision. It is argued that community is a salient feature of the lives of young offenders which often provides for inclusionary experiences. However, the government's faith in the community to act as a 'moral resource' in preventing and controlling crime does not adequately account for the complex, transitory and ambiguous nature of young offenders' experiences of communal life. Furthermore, the punitive repercussions of the government's commitment to honouring the community's role as a 'moral claimant' serve to undermine the practitioner's ability to exploit the resources the community may have to offer to with regard to encouraging and motivating young people to desist from offending. Additionally, the emphasis on intolerance is likely to promote the community's disapproval and hostility towards young offenders. It is concluded that New Labour's commitment to communitarianism, and its particular envisaging of community, conjures a powerful exclusionary potential which is unlikely to engender positive outcomes for either the young offender or the 'law abiding' community.

My dissertation titled Two Models of Consensus is based on five arguments. 1. Consensus is asymmetrical. 2. Consensus is partial or limited unanimity. 3. Consensus and democracy do have a concomitant relation. 4. Consensus is not organic to political systems. 5. Consensus depends upon civil society, subsidiarity, and the dominant cultural paradigm of society. In the first chapter titled "Historical Specificity of the Western Conception of Civil Society" I argue that concept of civil society evolved under certain conditions in a liberal democratic tradition such as shared social imaginaries. As an example of how diversity could lead to hypostatization of cultural differences, I exposit the concept of Indian caste system. In the second chapter, "Intersubjectivity and the Problem of Cultural Identities", I compare the ideas of Hans Georg Gadamer and George Herbert Mead about self- interested action and mutual cooperative action. Gadamer and Mead emphasize intersubjective communication, I Thou relationships. I explain the importance of the I Thou relationship for a consensual activity. The third chapter, "Consensus in the Realm of Science", discusses the impact of science as the context of justification in advanced liberal democracies and its effect on consensus. Charles Sanders Peirces attempt to apply his scientific method to arrive at a consensus in the social sphere is also discussed in this chapter. In the fourth chapter, "Kwasi Wiredu The Akan Conception of Communitarian Consensus", I discuss Kwasi Wiredus emphasis on achieving a consensus on the basis of what is and not what ought to be, in the social realm. Wiredu differentiates between a government by consent and a government by consensus. I elaborate Wiredu's abakysis of the process of consensus that was in vogue in the Akan community of Ghana. In the final chapter, "Political Consensus - Intra-cultural and Extra-cultural," I argue that consensus is asymmetrical. It is imperative to compromise in social, political, economic, and religious beliefs on the basis of weak deontological and weak consequential approaches. Consensus necessitates a synthesis of different kinds of social actions such as purposive-instrumental, traditional, value-laden, and communicative action into what I call the Cooperative Action. Only such an action can speak across cultures and facilitate genuine cross-cultural interaction.

The purpose of this thesis is to offer a comparative study of Michael Walzer and Will Kymlicka¡¦s theories on citizenship. By comparing their different perspectives on conception of person and political equality, I demonstrate that due to their differing views on the significance of culture, they, as a result, have divergent theories of citizenship. Looking from a liberal multiculturalist perspective, Kymlicka defends the centrality of personal autonomy and sees cultures as important references that allow persons to choose their respective ideal ways of life. Walzer, on the other hand, faults liberalism for its hyper-individualist assumptions and misunderstanding of the significance of culture to human agency. Walzer insists that culture is not a resource/object for humans to appropriate but a constitutive part of human self-understanding that cannot be disregarded in human actions. These two distinct ideals of citizenship, I maintain, can therefore be seen as a continuation of the liberal-communitarian debate in the 1980s.

This thesis is an attempt to understand the accomplishment and restrictions of present liberalism from the viewpoint of communitarianism. Liberalism (or constitutional democracy) is the representation of the long-term history of mutual influences among political, cultural and economic structures in western civil society. It is not an abstract noun; on the contrary, it represents the result of dialogues among numerous individuals and communities under specific contexts of time and space. Civil society emerges at the same time when individuals depart from the traditional community. Accordingly, there is a qualitative change in the citizenship from active republicanism to passive liberalism. In other words, citizens are no longer interested in political participation, and turn to self-realization in personal matters. On the one hand, it results in a diverse and prosperous society; on the other hand, the positive citizen participation gradually collapses during this process. The phenomenon mentioned above requires us to find an institution or procedure to balance the common goods and private interests. Meanwhile, certain virtues of the citizenry are requisite to maintain the system. If not, no matter how perfect the institution is, it will be threatened by failure. Therefore, in order to promote the virtues of the citizens and to respond to the vigorous individuality and a diverse and prosperous society, constitutional democracy should be taken as the core of our civil education.

Liberty as well as equality has been the objective of the trend of liberalism ever since it commenced. More common sense exists with respect to the issue of liberty which guarantess and carries out liberalism¡Fnevertheless¡Mopinions differ on fulfilling the idea of equality, particularly the economic issue. In present times,the consequence of the insistence of willfully diminishing liberalism on the market brings about some social problems, such as the widening gap between the rich and the poor. This makes a part of advocates of liberalism, for example, John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin redeem economic justice and allocation, persisting in the fact that nations should take regulatory measures or promote social welfare system to implement the idea of looking after the minor groups thereafter. However, the perspective maintained by them incurs the criticism from the core scholars of liberalism like Friedrich A.Hayek and Rober Nozick that opine the perspective will be a far cry from the core concept of classical liberalism, which regards a nation is interference with the economic allocation policy as an invasion of personal freedom. While John Rawls is theory of justice principle constitutes, causing the dispute within the internal lines of contemporary liberalism, the theory, to be blunt, gives rise to a new trend of thought as regards the balance for which liberalism searches to protect personal freedom and facilitate social economic justice. In addition, liberalism cherishes individual freedom, emphasizes personal uniqueness as well as development, and pursues individual value and the conception of the good to embody respecting of personal thoughts. This genre of concept influences the stance a nation holds on the conception of the good, and thinks that personal value should be respected and not be meddled to embody neutral attitude of a nation. Rawls theory ¡]Theory of Justice¡^takes aim at justice to be the primary morality. Furthermore, priority is placed on ego or righteous independence that value or the conception of the good. He also hangs on to chase after the outlook of obligatory theory of the conception of the good under the frame constructed by justice. Yet, the theory of right priority, Atomism , neutral attitude towards a country, and value subjectivity that insisted by liberalism are all denounced by communitarianism who are of the opinion that the consequences of the Atomism in liberalism will lead to the loss of personal meaning, whereas the neutral attitude towards a country will contribute to problems, such as difficulties in building up social correctness to accomplish public interests. As to the criticism made by communitarianism, liberalism has the opportunity of reconsidering and scrutinizing its theory aside from making counter attacks, which generates a positive meaning for the development of theory of modern liberalism.