Employee Participation in the Workplace and Political Participation in Civil Society

worth pondering

[We’re pleased to welcome authors John W. Budd of the University of Minnesota, Ryan Lamare of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Andrew R. Timming of the University of Western Australia. Dr. Lamare recently published an article in theILR Reviewentitled “Learning About Democracy at Work: Cross-National Evidence on the Effects of Employee Participation in Workplace Decision-Making on Political Participation in Civil Society,” which is currently free to read for a limited time. Below, Dr. Ryan Lamare reflects on the inspiration for conducting this research:]

Very early observers of modern work were very concerned that what happens at work doesn’t always stay at work. Adam Smith and Karl Marx, for example, feared that mind-numbing factory work would squash workers’ ability and drive to be active, deliberative members of their community. In recent years, the potential linkage between workplace conditions and political participation has been framed in more…