Stanley Deetz, Ph.D.

Liberal democratic conceptions and practices are based on particular answers to these four questions: 1) The autonomous individual is seen as the origin of perceptions, thoughts, and feelings. Communication study therefore focuses on the expression of these. 2) Freedom of speech and common speaking forums are considered both necessary and sufficient for equitable participation in decision-making. 3) Persuasion and advocacy are seen as the preferred mode of interaction when differences are present leading to decisions by voting when differences and conflict remain. 4) Representation is used to overcome problems of scale. Representation may be based in lottery selection as in juries, elections as in representatives, or distribution as done in representing interests in community planning.

 

The difficulty of liberal democracy and the embedded/enabling communication theory for our contemporary and projected future is that is does not take into account actual power relations, assuming power can somehow be overcome by the force of reason and does not provide an interaction processes that generates creativity.

 

The primary difficulty arises with the very first assumption that accepts a psychological rather than social/communication bases for experience production. If in contrast constructionism is accepted, democracy exists or does not in the systems of construction rather than expression.  Freedom of speech achieves little if the meanings one expresses were produced for them by powerful others. A critical interest in interaction has to focus on the interaction processes by which experiences came to be rather than simply on the manner of their expression and coordination. If experiences are socially constructed, they are always constructed within real historical conditions, hence relations of power are always embedded within constructions, as well as relations of power determine whose and how constructions can be used. All constructions benefit some more than others, but because they become a kind of commonsense, the disadvantaged come to unwittingly reproduce their disadvantage as they freely speak meanings produced by others. High degrees of mediation of experience and the absence of places for critical discussions accentuate this effect.

 

Deetz's work has spent considerable time discerning the complex processes of construction and the way it and its effects are rendered invisible in contemporary society. He shows that experience is a relational production. And to make the relation to power more precise, he has shown that six interrelated relational constructions are present—constructions of 1) the inner world of the person, 2) personal identities in relation to others, 3) appropriate social behavior, 4) understanding of the external world, 5) stories of how the social world works, and 6) systems of appropriate justice and fairness. With power considered each of these has a related politics—ones of authenticity, identity and recognition, social order, truth, the good and beautiful, and distribution.

 

To account for relations of power and to provide more creativity in human interactions, in contrast to liberal democracy Deetz proposes a generative democracy, a democracy based on the potential productivity of difference in interaction. Generative democracy 1) describes experience as a power laden relational construction, 2) uses a strong sense of reciprocity as a normative ideal for the distribution of expression turns, 3) prefers collaborative talk, and 4) overcomes scale by the preservation and presentation of meaningful differences.

 

Within this general perspective most of Deetz's specific studies have focused on workplaces and especially their corporate form. Corporations are very impactful in democracy. First they are powerful political actors in the traditional sense that can greatly distort the public decision-making process. This is why corporations were widely distrusted by the framers of the US constitution, and even Adam Smith treated them in a pejorative sense. Second, democracy to be meaningful needs to occur in the places most critical decisions are made. The corporate site is a key place decisions are being made regarding the use of natural and human resources, the distribution of income and wealth, identities production and family relations, and much more. From a moral standpoint, the public should be part of the processes that determine their future. Existing systems for getting social value into the decision chain such as leader stewardship, governmental regulation, and market pressures have tended to be only modestly effective, highly inefficient and often costly, and not productive of creative win-win choices. Finally, corporate organizations through internal training, media sponsorship and ownership, advertising, political messaging, and so on colonize the overall experience production process. The choices and activities of the corporate worksite are a central issue of democracy.

 

But even beyond that, dominant power relations have hurt work productivity and the economic health of work organizations. Ways of overcoming the various distortions in representation of social values positively rationalizes the largely narrow self-interested value laden choice making fostered by what is called managerialism. The myth of the “rational,” “economic” organization hides the value system embedded in the monetary code (e.g., accounting practices) and the multiple ways values enter into social productions and decision making. Values are already present, the question is: Whose and which values enter where within the decision chain? And, do we have interaction designs that enable productive gains from the tensions and differences?

 

Through Deetz's research and his direct involvement in organizational change he hoped to 1) provide a unified way of understanding the complex processes of organizational life through focusing on organizational constructions and embedded power relations; 2) direct the evaluation of existing organizational forms and activities through looking at distorting reproductive activities focusing on unwitting consent, systematically distorted communication and forms of discursive closure; and 3) provide guidance for the education of members and redesign of organizational structures and practices that allow earlier and deeper inclusion of diverse values in the decision chain thereby increasing organizational agility and innovation and the ability to increase economic, social and ecological goods.

 

This later concern has been of most significance recently. It doesn’t help much to know what organizations should do or even to identify what they do poorly. The critical issue is to develop design processes that lead to better meetings, more creative decisions, and better social impacts. Deficit guiding concepts of democracy and understanding of good practices has lead many to feel that collaborative forms of management or what Deetz calls co-generative management can be inefficient or even costly. Generative forms of democracy need both good theory and positive practices.  Deetz's job and joy is to remove structural and systemic features of life that are designed to advantage some and reduce the capacity of democracy to work, to get rid of systematically distorted communication and various discursive closures to enable creative mutually beneficial choices.

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Link to Deetz's work Disarticulation and Conflict Transformation in T.G. Matyok and P. Kellett (eds). Communication and conflict transformation through local, regional and global engagement. Lexington books.