A Critical Theoretical perspective is used to analyse the underlying logic of globalization
(flexible capital accumulation) as problematic for social policy and programs. Conflicts
between economic accumulation and political legitimation emerged as contradictory
stagflation leading to delinking the gold standard and abandonment of the Keynesian
consensus and Bretton Woods system. The Macdonald Royal Commission on Economic
Union and Development Prospects for Canada abandoned its claim to public enlightenment
and social consensus in validating free trade. The economic constitution of free trade limits
social rights and future political intervention into the economic sphere. The social
orientation to emancipation and well-being are restrained to utilitarian discourse.
Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School is compared with positivism and interpretivism
within an analytic frame of ontology, epistemology and methodology. The historical
background of the Frankfurt School is discussed with contributions by Adorno, Foucault,
Freud, Habermas, Honneth, Horkheimer, and Marcuse. A meta-theoretical framework is
developed for use in social work theory and practice. Jiirgen Habermas' Theory of Social
Action is analysed within the frame as arguing the good life in the public sphere. Habermas'
interpretation of the crisis of the welfare state as the colonization of the lifeworld by strategic
communication is applied to the recent free trade and social policy debate. Universal
pragmatics and the criteria of universal validity claims is developed.
A communication assessment method is developed from Habermas' universal validity claims
criteria and theory of communicative action. The typological criteria is used to measure
public consensus on The Globe and Mail Newspaper coverage of Canadian public sphere
discourse on free trade and social policy from 1980 to 1995. A multi-stage sample of textual
arguments is deconstructed and analysed within an "ideal speech situation" of the
hermeneutic-dialectical computer program ATLAS/ti. Qualitative analysis and statistical
measures of Chi-Square Analysis and Dendrograms are adapted to the validity claim criteria
to describe the results. Methodological results are tentative, and presented as an exploration
of theory applied to method which is useful for social work theory and practice. The
importance of the Habermasian revision of Critical Theory to social work theory and practice
is discussed. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/5760 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Burns, Richard Dehler |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Format | 10379630 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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