Democratizing Leadership : Counter-Hegemonic Democracy in Communities, Organizations and Institutions [1 ed.] 9781681233352, 9781681233338

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Democratizing Leadership

A volume in Counter-Hegemonic Democracy and Social Change Paul R. Carr and Gina Thesee, Series Editors

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Democratizing Leadership Counter-Hegemonic Democracy in Organizations, Institutions, and Communities

Mike Klein University of St. Thomas

INFORMATION AGE PUBLISHING, INC. Charlotte, NC • www.infoagepub.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data   A CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress   http://www.loc.gov ISBN:

978-1-68123-333-8 (Paperback) 978-1-68123-334-5 (Hardcover) 978-1-68123-335-2 (ebook)

Copyright © 2016 Information Age Publishing Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Acknowledgments.......................................................................... vii Introduction................................................................................... xi 1 Counter-Hegemonic Democratizing Leadership............................. 1 Describing Terms............................................................................... 2 Democracy......................................................................................... 2 Leadership......................................................................................... 6 Power.............................................................................................. 10 Counter-Hegemonic......................................................................... 15 Operationalizing Counter-Hegemonic Democracy...................... 19 The Art of Democratizing Leadership........................................... 26 Why Is This Necessary?.................................................................... 30 2 Theorizing Counter-Hegemonic Democratizing Leadership.........41 Voice.................................................................................................. 44 Finding Voice.................................................................................. 45 Using Voice...................................................................................... 62 Using Voice Together........................................................................ 68 Collective Voice as Political............................................................... 72 Decision-Making.............................................................................. 77 Deliberative Frame........................................................................... 81 Revolutionary Frame....................................................................... 86 Agonistic Frame............................................................................... 92 Deliberation, Revolution, or Agonism?............................................. 97

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Collective Action............................................................................ 105 Deliberative Collective Action......................................................... 112 Revolutionary Collective Action..................................................... 113 Agonistic Collective Action............................................................. 115 3 Case Studies of Democratizing Leadership.................................129 Visual Arts at First Bank System................................................... 133 Voicing Discontent......................................................................... 135 Evolution of Curatorial Decision-Making...................................... 138 Corporate Collective Action............................................................ 150 May Day in In the Heart of the Beast Theater............................. 156 Voicing Hopes and Concerns.......................................................... 159 Artistic Deliberations..................................................................... 164 Community Collective Action......................................................... 177 The May Day Parade..................................................................... 185 Counter-Hegemonic Red and Green Roots...................................... 189 4 Applications and Implications......................................................195 Application Case Study: Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers... 196 Implications: Funnel Diagrams of Democratizing Leadership.... 216 Implications: Metaphors for Democratizing Leadership............ 222 Leadership Jazz.............................................................................. 223 Social Fabric.................................................................................. 224 Challenging Hegemony Through Metaphor.................................... 226 Conclusion....................................................................................229 Appendix: MAP SWOT Analysis Report—August 2012 (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats).......................235 References....................................................................................243 Name Index..................................................................................251 Subject Index................................................................................253 About the Author..........................................................................255

Acknowledgments

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wo significant aspects of democratizing leadership begin this book: the significance of gratitude and the need for celebration following successful collective action. Though these aspects are not well articulated in the chapters of this text, they need to be enacted in these acknowledgements. Writing seems to be the solitary work of an individual, but it is, at heart, collective action, and I am grateful to all those who supported this work. My family has been extraordinarily patient and supportive when the words start flowing and I drop everything to write, or when the words don’t flow and they feel my frustration coming out sideways. Thank you Theresa and Mikayla for your loving support. I hope democratizing leadership contributes to a more just and peaceful world for you, and to our family, in generations to come. Paul R. Carr of Université du Québec en Outaouais, a co-editor for this series, has supported my scholarship in previous projects and has proven his enormous capacity for patience and trust in the development of this book. I also draw inspiration from his work in critical pedagogy and liberatory writing that is insightful and radical in the best sense of the word, and certain to satisfy the spirit of Paulo Freire, whose work Carr extends and deepens. Thanks to Gina Thésée, also of Université du Québec à Montréal, co-editor of the book series Counter-Hegemonic Democracy and Social Change. And thanks to Information Age Publishing for producing books and series with radical and profound implications for democracy and education.

Democratizing Leadership, pages vii–ix Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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viii    Acknowledgments

My academic colleagues and friends have nourished me, challenged me, and supported me in this project, including Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, Amy Finnegan, Gerald Schlabach, and Fr. David Smith in the Department of Justice and Peace Studies; and John Holst and Don LaMagdeleine in the Leadership, Policy, and Administration Program, at the University of St. Thomas. I extend heartfelt appreciation to colleagues Phil Sandro, Damon Shoholm, Dan Newman, and Sook Holdridge for their interest in this work and insightful feedback about this project. I received practical and essential support for research and writing from the Bush Foundation Leadership Fellowship in 2007 and the University of St. Thomas Grants and Research Office. I also appreciate the meaningful assistance provided by the Minnesota Historical Society, the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, and the MoMA Archive in Queens, New York. I am indebted and responsible to democratizing leadership that inspires this work, including those I know through their writing: Paulo Freire, Jane Addams, Myles Horton, Ella Baker, and liberation theologians Ellacuria, Guttierez, Boff, and Sobrino; and personal role models from whom I have learned through shared work: Fr. Greg Schaffer, Winona LaDuke, Frank Hardy, Lynne Sowder, and Sandy Spieler, Sook Holdridge, and Marie Braun. Thanks to the many people who are represented in these case studies and who have influenced these ideas. Where I can only briefly mention your contribution, I hope I have done justice to that part of your story. Perhaps this anecdote will explain what I mean. Out of necessity, I have developed a skill for writing and for reading academic texts at my daughter’s dance programs and workshops, amid thumping amplifiers and flashing lights. At a recent competition, a 12-year-old boy named Trevor slipped a book from my hands and asked what I was reading. When I explained it was a text on political theory, he asked me if it was boring. In the moment, putting myself in his shoes, I said, “Well, yes.” I explained that the ideas were exciting, but the way they were presented was boring. “Then why are you reading it?” he asked. “For a book that I’m writing” I answered. And with the forthrightness of his age he asked, “Is your book going to be boring too?” His question set me back a bit. When I told him some people might find it boring, he suggested I add a car chase. You will not find a car chase in these pages (I encountered none in my research) but Trevor’s question stays with me, and I certainly don’t want to bore you, reader. My experiences in the case studies represented here were often much more exciting, and more hopeful, than a car chase. The people, organizations, institutions, and communities described here are

Acknowledgments    ix

dynamic examples of counter-hegemonic democratic practice. If you find yourself bored and wishing for a car chase, it is my own fault, and I ask that you forgive my writing enough to persevere; to uncover the compelling stories of people enacting democratizing leadership and the meaningful lessons that emerged from these case studies. Finally, I extend my appreciation to you, reader, for the ways you might challenge, enliven, and extend this theory through argument and application. Please join with me in an engaged, if conflictual, consensus around the meaning and practice of democratizing leadership to counter the hegemony of domination and cultivate collaboration.

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Introduction

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emocratizing Leadership promotes the democratization of culture through organizations, institutions, and communities to counter hegemony marked by domination and cultivate an alternative hegemony of collaboration. It is premised on a framework for decision-making rooted in democratic voice and leading to collective action. It is a broad peacebuilding prescription for individual and collective agency that appreciates the constructive role of conflict in democratic pluralism and the need to develop practices and structures to prevent violent conflict in order to advance positive peace. Democratizing leadership promotes authentic voice; encourages decision-making with integrity in organizations, institutions, and communities; and advocates for responsible collective action. Democratizing leadership is oriented toward expansive participation and distribution of power contrasted with the constrained agency and centralized authority typical in hierarchical organizations. Leadership can be democratic when enacted in familiar ways through voting in elections and referenda, participating in workers unions, and belonging to business or housing cooperatives. Yet even these social structures can be corrupted and made undemocratic such that leadership exploits the name of democracy, leaving a bad taste in the mouths of citizens and participants while providing unscrupulous and antidemocratic leaders an opportunity to further sour the taste for an authentic democratic process in many aspects of our collective lives. Democratic spaces as social, political, and economic

Democratizing Leadership, pages xi–xvi Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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structures are treated in other texts and disciplines, so what distinguishes the notion of democratizing leadership from these examples? This approach to leadership is counter-hegemonic, intended to challenge and change authoritarian structures by opening up spaces for individual and collective agency. It is also an invitation to consider alternative structures in moments of development or transition, to promote more democratic practice while creating possibilities for growing collaborative leadership. “Participatory democracy” is a common phrase I once used to describe this concept, but it seems to me now a redundant figure of speech; can you imagine authentic democracy without participation? The term democratizing is intentionally reflexive, meaning to make leadership more democratic from the bottom up and to practice leadership that expands democratic participation from the top down. The term leadership, as it is used here, refers to the dynamics of power enacted between people, amongst groups, and amidst structures such as organizations, institutions, and communities. Rather than address leaders as individuals with certain traits in positions of power, this approach describes leadership through interactions and power relationships rather than focusing on individuals as the sites of enacted power. Leadership is further described and illustrated, if not precisely defined, in the pages that follow. Democracy too is described below. Although ideas about democracy are taught in classrooms and the rhetoric of democracy dominates political discourse, our practice of democracy is typically occasional, focused on government elections. Organic forms of democracy that develop in organizations and social movements often remain unacknowledged, or are disregarded as unimportant, because normative notions of democracy relegate such processes to the realm of politics. The daily life of businesses, schools, and communities is typically marked by domination and control, by hierarchical systems so customary they are seen as commonsense. Democracy in most settings is typically unexpected and often deemed unacceptable. This theory stands in the tensions between deliberative conceptions of deliberative democracy (Boyte, 2005, 2007, 2014a, 2014b; Habermas, 1994), agonistic democracy (Mouffe, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2013) and revolutionary democracy (Arendt, 1977; Hardt & Negri, 2000; 2005, 2009). As a qualification of leadership, democratizing work must engage in a range of democratic operations within organizations, institutions, and communities to be effective and ethical. Deliberation as a rational, discursive approach to leadership may be chosen when differences are few amongst leadership and consensus is the goal. In much counter-hegemonic leadership, however, conflict and tension will be the norm, suggesting an agonistic approach

Introduction    xiii

that maintains tensions in a conflictual consensus (Mouffe, 2005, 2013) of constructive struggle. And when bureaucracy and hierarchy narrow or close democratizing spaces, more revolutionary forms of resistance and liberation may be required. Choices between these options are highly contextual and require affirmative judgments by leadership. One inflexible frame will be insufficient for counter-hegemonic democratizing leadership. Decision-making structures or actions often define and proscribe democracy. The central premise of Democratizing Leadership is the need to expand this notion in order to broaden and deepen democratic practices in our political, economic, educational, and social lives. This book is an explicit acknowledgment of the absence of meaningful forms of democracy in most aspects of our lives and an urgent demand to enhance participatory democratic processes and structures. Our ideas of democracy must be extended to either side of decision-making functions to include voice as a prelude and collective action as an extension of democratic decision-making. It is not enough for leadership to say, “Have a voice, make a decision, and take action.” Leadership must broaden and deepen democratic spaces in organizations, institutions, and communities to create more structures for frequent practice, for greater skill development, and for effective integration of democratic practices in contexts now governed by autocratic control and hierarchical domination. This is not a demand for direct and absolute democracy in every aspect of all organizational processes but rather a call to cultivate democracy in different forms where it empowers participation in the decisions that most impact our lives, in the tension between the effective and the ethical functions of organizations. Democratizing leadership develops individual and collective voice prior to democratic decision-making. Democratic decision-making is inadequate at best and devious at worst, when participant voices are suppressed or silenced, misrepresented or coopted, lacking practice in democratic processes or lacking understanding of democratic values. To engage in democratic decision-making, participants must find their voice, use their voice to develop it, and practice using it in contexts both cooperative and conflictual. Finding voice (discovered primarily by participants), practicing voice (developed by participants and leadership), and using voice together (facilitated primarily by leadership) leads to enhanced political literacy (Carr & Lund, 2008) for democratic decision-making. Once a democratic decision has been made, democratizing leadership develops the capacity for collective action in response. Participants in decision-making act collectively to carry out the implementation of that decision while attending to implications and consequences anticipated and unforeseen. Enacting decisions through collective action is a combination

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of individual agency (enactment by participants) and social agency (enactment with each other and leadership). The cooperation of individual and social agency can lead to more effective and authentic counter-hegemonic democracy, grounded in voice, developed through decision-making, and enacted through collective action. These three factors—voice, decision-making, and collective action— form the primary framework for democratizing leadership. They are not, however, a formula or recipe to be applied in the same way in each situation. They inform each other in iterative fits and starts. Leadership may move from voice to decision-making only to recognize that voices remain restrained or unheard (leading back to voice). Or leadership may come to a powerful and transformative decision that invokes action with such immediacy that it feels less like a third component and more like the obvious outcome of a long decision-making process. In most cases, movement between these three components will be ongoing and without final resolution, only pausing to practice the most recent collective action before voices critique it anew and press for additional change. Collective action implies a new practice of voice that advances a cause or creates its own new problems, thus raising new leadership questions. Instead of viewing this process as problematic, democratizing leadership anticipates the ongoing nature of change and frames it as praxis, the interconnection of theory and action. Praxis orientation can energize and impel participation while questioning the assumptions of the status quo as always contingent, never absolutely settled, but practiced until voices rise together to prompt a next decision for change. Effective and ethical democratizing leadership can utilize the component’s voice, decision-making, and collective action to expand participation, to enhance political literacy, to develop agency, to structure processes, and to organize operations of power. But each context calls for unique applications of these framing components. The strategies and tactics of democratizing leadership will vary in implementation through innovation and evolving means, evidenced below in case studies of an institution, a community, and an organization. This mesolevel analysis is not intended to replace macrolevel social movement theory that addresses radical claims made on authorities, nor will it substitute for the microlevel development of individual leadership. It will, however, complement both and suggest implications for each by connecting them across traditional disciplinary divisions of political science or sociology, management or organizational development. Democratizing leadership does not replace comprehensive democratic governance

Introduction    xv

structures found in the substantial organizational models of economic cooperatives and social collectives. But it may inform the leadership of those structures. Democratizing leadership is a counter-hegemonic approach to insurgent change, altering undemocratic structures from within organizations, institutions, and communities, from the bottom up and from the top down. It is subversive yet transformational, reformist and reconstructive. While not primarily destructive, it is conflictual, suspended in the tension-filled democratic values of equity, diversity, and inclusivity. Democratizing leadership is often iterative and messy, but also creative and empowering. This text is structured to model a key aspect of democratizing leadership—praxis. As the interplay of theory and action, praxis implies that each move from theory to action to theory again informs the others in an iterative process. Chapter 1 describes and qualifies fundamental conceptualizations for this theory—democracy, leadership, hegemony, and related terms—and identifies why this theory is necessary for the articulation of counter-hegemonic democracy. Chapter 2 theorizes the primary components of democratizing leadership—voice, decision-making, and collective action—through an interdisciplinary theoretical analysis drawing on political science, sociology, education, peace studies, art criticism, and other fields. Brief scenarios introduce each primary concept, drawn from three case studies from which this theory emerged and through which it will be illustrated. These introductory scenarios occur in the mesolevel context of an institution, a community, and an organization; representing the cognitive dissonance experienced as hegemonic expectations are disrupted and countered by democratizing leadership. Chapter 3 utilizes qualitative case studies of democratizing leadership in rich detail to provide operational examples of the components and to deepen and complicate the theory. Chapter 4 draws out practical implications for applying this concept to leadership through an application case study and extensions of the theory through metaphor. Students of democratizing leadership will find meaning in the Introduction of the concept in Chapter 1. Academics might appreciate and critique the theory articulated in Chapter 2. Community and organizational leadership will find inspiration in stories of practice in Chapter 3. And activists will likely turn to Chapter 4 to explore implications for their own work and applications to their own leadership. But I encourage each reader to wrestle with the sections that might be less compelling to them, to understand the way this work is grounded in the praxis of experiences that are deepened in theory, strengthened through description, and applied through new manifestations of leadership.

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I do not presume that this text will completely or even sufficiently explain the implications of democratizing leadership. In fact, I hope this theory will be developed through your own research and practice. Please challenge these ideas where they contradict your own experience. I invite you to provide additional examples of counter-hegemonic democratizing leadership that will help promote movements for change that inform and inspire more democratic, less autocratic power relations in organizations, institutions, and communities. The concepts and components articulated in this text are rooted in qualitative research on case studies of democratizing leadership in an organization, an institution, and a community. They are grounded in experiences that are highly contextualized but also adaptable and generalizable to some extent. I have tried to strike a balance between a deep exploration of particular circumstances and the abstraction of conceptual development that might inform your circumstances. Research and writing as a model of praxis is limited by the brief interchange encapsulated by this book as it describes experiences, emerging ideas, theories grounded in those ideas, and implications for application. The next step in the praxis cycle relies on you, reader, to further develop these ideas through practice and through analysis and critique. I welcome all academic or experiential extension or challenge, hoping that extensions of this idea through praxis deepens its development and broadens its applications. I argue for this creative and tension-filled praxis as a significant epistemological and pedagogical basis for developing democracy as a cultural value, a personal skill, and a leadership process; to promote a more peaceful world connected by democratizing leadership in our organizations, institutions, and communities.

1 Counter-Hegemonic Democratizing Leadership

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emocracy is one of the core values of many contemporary human societies. Yet how do you, reader, actually practice or engage in democratic processes? You vote (hopefully you vote) in political elections, referenda, or ballot initiatives. But what democratic processes inform your professional, economic, social, or cultural life? If democracy is a central principle of contemporary society, why don’t we practice it beyond political elections and in more aspects of our lives? Theories about democracy tend to focus on the broad context of nation-states and systems of representative democracy. Yet organizations, institutions and communities are inventing new and alternative forms of democracy outside of traditional political systems. These democratic processes and structures exhibit a more authentic practice of democracy in contrast to the complex machinations of electoral and partisan politics that leave participants wondering if our voice is really heard or if we can actually influence the decisions that impact our lives.

Democratizing Leadership, pages 1–40 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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When the adjective “counter-hegemonic” qualifies democracy, it opens a broad and contested field for alternative democratic projects that challenge the status quo. Experiments with decision-making through consensus, deliberative democracy, and other highly participatory forms of direct democracy run counter to stratified systems of representation. For example, General Assemblies of the Occupy Movement practice anarchistic self-organization by rejecting the bureaucratization of decision-making structures, choosing instead to rely on a small set of guidelines and hand signals to regulate inclusive and participatory decision-making. Such counter-hegemonic democratic processes can be difficult to sustain outside of the mobilization phase of a social movement. So how is counter-hegemonic democracy sustained over time? Democratizing Leadership examines democratic practices in familiar structures of daily life. Alternative to election cycles, or the revolutionary democracy of manifestoes and movements, this text presents three case studies of counter-hegemonic democracy as insurgent developments within the mesolevel structures of organizations, institutions, and communities. Well-defined models of democratic governance exist in mesolevel economic and social cooperatives, but how might democratic practice emerge and grow in more conventional structures? Democratizing Leadership attempts to examine this question through case studies and grounded theory emerging from these studies. I argue that the more ubiquitous practice of democracy in our daily lives has potential to increase the depth and resilience of democratic values and structures in social, economic, and political institutions.

Describing Terms Initially I set out to define terms in this early section of Democratizing Leadership. But strict definitions are to praxis pedagogy like bureaucracy is to organizations; they calcify meaning through essentialist prescription that tends that limit flexibility, growth, and development. So instead I will reference academics and historical leaders to describe rather than define democracy, and other terms, so that meaning may be clarified while also remaining pliable enough for continual negotiation between theory and practice.

Democracy For example, Myles Horton, founder of the Highlander Folk School (now Highlander Research and Education Center) described democracy as a philosophical concept focused on a broad notion of decision-making:

Counter-Hegemonic Democratizing Leadership     3 Democracy needs to be not only part of the fabric of society as a whole. When I use the word “democracy,” it is not limited to political decision making, to voting. It is a philosophical concept meaning that people are free and empowered to make collectively the decisions that affect their lives. (Horton, Kohl, & Kohl, 1997, p. 169)

This last sentence describes democracy in terms of participatory or social justice, the power to participate in the decisions that most affect us, and is central to democratizing leadership. John Dewey described democracy in similar but more particular terminology. He said democracy, “consists in having a responsible share according to capacity in forming and directing the activities of the groups to which one belongs and in participating according to need in the values which the group sustains” (as cited in Dzur, 2013). There is a contingency about forming, directing, and participating in Dewey’s definition. He recognizes the immediate, participatory nature of popular democracy, while acknowledging the difficult notion that leadership must judge what a responsible share is “according to capacity.” And Dewey qualifies participation in the values of the group “according to need.” How that capacity and need are determined, who determines, and even the notion of belonging is, in Dewey, the responsibility of leadership. Dewey describes leadership that is rooted in populism, calling for responsibility from all participants and corresponding to a distributed and decentralized democratizing leadership. “The values which the group sustains” in Dewey’s description of democracy, tend to be commonly accepted in denotation, but divergent in connotation, emphasis, and practice. Democratic values are typically described as freedom, equality, popular sovereignty, pluralism, and a common good. Yet there are tensions between these values. Harry Boyte (2007) describes populism as a democratic movement and philosophy: It is a movement building popular power to break up unjust concentrations of wealth and power. It is a culture-making movement, sustaining and advancing values of community, liberty, and equality. And it is a civic learning movement, developing people’s civic identities, imaginations, and skills. (p. 1)

Given significant social and economic inequality in contemporary governments, organizations, institutions, and communities, how are unjust concentrations of wealth and power challenged? How do people create cultures of community, liberty, and equality? And what are the identities, imaginations, and skills of democratizing leadership? Boyte points to a “populist theory of culture and power” (p. 11) evident in social movements and growing out

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of the practices of communities and organizations. This emergent, populist orientation describes the mesolevel democratic practice analyzed in case studies below as responses to the questions above. Another description of democracy, adding dimension to Dewey and Boyte, is the notion of “thick democracy.” In this term, Paul R. Carr distinguishes between more and less substantial types of democracy, “from thin, disenfranchising measures, forms, and outcomes to a thicker, more inclusive, engaging, and fruitful manifestation of democracy” (Abdi & Carr, 2013, p. 41). His concept of thick democracy extends beyond decision-making through representation, to daily practice in the large and small decisions that shape our lives. To thicken democracy, he calls for the development of political literacy (Carr & Lund, 2008) to enhance individual agency in democratic processes. Democracy can be judged to be thick in relation to the layers of processes and practices in organizations, institutions, and communities made possible by democratizing leadership. In the same volume edited by Abdi and Carr (2013), Santos is identified with the concept of “high intensity democracy,” a democracy that is, “more inclusive and wants to make sure that historically marginalized groups actively participate in the policy decision-making process” (p. 78). This broad notion of inclusivity and the particular emphasis on disenfranchised groups at once highlights the conflicts inherent in democracy and transforms “conflict into positive energy that underlies new social contracts, making them more inclusive and fair, despite being more locally based” (p. 78). Santos concludes with a challenge for Brazil that I take up for leadership in general: “The hegemonic models of democracy and education for democracy need to be reinvented” (p. 79). Democratizing leadership, as one facet of this reinvention, seeks to “value the voices who were historically oppressed or silenced; it raises hope and opens paths for human freedom through political consciousness, dialogue, and capacity for intervention in the world” (p. 80). I redefine this assertion only slightly by claiming that democratizing leadership promotes authentic voice for all participants, inclusive decision-making with integrity, and responsible collective action that promotes social justice. Yet how is any form of equality assured without limiting freedom? How will the exercise of popular sovereignty acknowledge pluralism and respect minority rights while avoiding the tyranny of the majority? And how will any democratic body achieve a good that is truly common to all its members? The questions that arise from tensions between democratic values are not to be answered finally in a perfect democratic structure, but rather utilized by democratizing leadership to gauge the careful yet dynamic balance

Counter-Hegemonic Democratizing Leadership     5

required to achieve an always-changing, imperfect structure that advances democratic practice. I also want to promote an approach to democracy that is resilient, adaptable, and counter-hegemonic in that it advocates for voices unheard or unacknowledged in the dominant culture of uniformity characterized by the values of neoliberal capitalism that distort democracy, for example, when consumer choice substitutes for democratic decision-making, autonomy, and isolation in individualistic form substitute for freedom, and conformity to values espoused by mass-media marketing denigrate pluralism. In the course of human history, democracy is still in an experimental phase of development, and perhaps it always should be. “Democracy should not be perceived as a static structure but as a along historical–and probably endless–process shaped by the struggle of subordinated groups for freedom and equality” (Shugurensky, 2013, p. x). When subordinated groups achieve a significant level of freedom and equality, the current hegemony will have fallen to a new hegemony of democratic values, achieved through democratic practice. The term “democratizing” is used reflexively in this book to indicate leadership that affects, and is affected by, the democratic elements of voice, decision-making, and collective action. Democratizing in its verb form is an action that makes leadership more democratic and develops or reforms structures to support this change. Democratizing in its adjective form is a description of leadership that makes structures more democratic and less supportive of the current hegemony. (A colleague in the English Department tells me “If you want to get really technical, in the second case ‘democratizing’ is a participle—a verb that acts as a adjective, modifying the noun ‘leadership.’”) Although these are different orientations at initiation of a democratizing process, a sustained process of democratizing leadership will both affect and be affected by these orientations. Leadership that is reformed or transformed to become democratic should enact changes that democratize organizational, institutional, and community structures. Such democratized structures should influence leadership to sustain and develop democratic processes and practices. Neither of these dynamics is easy to achieve or sustain. A constant and critical praxis is necessary to ensure movement toward democratizing leadership and away from the default positions of current hegemonic concepts and practices. Such reflexivity in democratizing leadership maintains creative tensions between the individual and collective agency of direct democracy and the structural constraints of bureaucratization. These tensions sustain democratic free spaces (Evans & Boyte, 1986/1992), and flexible practices within those spaces, while also developing democratic structures in

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organization, institution, or community over time. The case studies below demonstrate top-down and bottom-up examples of democratizing leadership that maintain creative tensions.

Leadership The unit of analysis for this counter-hegemonic democratic work is leadership, but that requires some qualification. This analysis does not rely on positional or individual leadership necessarily, as is so often the presumption of leadership theory that focuses on traits or characteristics. Instead, leadership is described here (and in detail below) as the dynamics of power operating between individuals within the context of a more or less defined group, that is, an organization, an institution, or a community. This analysis does not ignore the role of individual leaders enacting power. Instead, the individual is decentered to refine the focus on how power operates in the relationships between individuals, groups, and systems. Democratizing leadership can indeed be manifested in a positional leader, that is, catalyzed by an individual with positional power from the top down. Counter-hegemonic leadership, however, will more typically operate outside of positional authority or as an insurgent force from within (rarely from atop) bureaucratic hierarchy. By definition, counter-hegemonic leadership is difficult to sustain or limited in scope if initiated and operated from a position of power that seeks to challenge the existing order from within the existing order. Democratizing leadership is typically cooperational amongst and within a group, contrasted with positional, individualistic leadership. Democratizing leadership takes the form of a culture of practice, a negotiation of evolving processes or transient rituals rather than institutionalized policies and procedures. Where it contests hegemonic order, it will often emerge and grow within the cracks of hierarchical, bureaucratic organizations; an insurgent culture undermining procedures that reflect the dominant order, or it may be constituted by transient and evolving rituals operating with minimal or informal procedures, as leadership that is negotiated amidst positional leaders who are credentialed or acculturated to the dominant order. Democratizing leadership is situational and contingent. Its general principles of voice, decision-making, and collective action require application and adaptation to organizational mission and values, developing leadership capacity amongst participants, and setting tangible goals and objectives that drive decision-making and action. Myles Horton, the founder of Highlander Folk School, describes such contingency:

Counter-Hegemonic Democratizing Leadership     7 Birds will take advantage of a tailwind, and when the wind is blowing the other way, they’ll hole up. They won’t exhaust their strength going against that wind for long when they’d only make a few miles a day or get blown backward . . . They change their course year after year on the basis of the particular situation. They never come back exactly the same way twice because the conditions are never the same, but they always get to their destination. They have a purpose, a goal. They know where they are going, but they zigzag and they change tactics according to the situation. (Horton et al., 1997, p. 199)

The general orientation of democratizing leadership is the promotion of democracy through maximization of voice channels, decision-making structures, and collective action opportunities. It may wax or wane according to the spaces made available to engage in overt counter-hegemonic leadership or when suppressed into primarily subversive resistance to promote covert cultural change. Sensitivities to the changing shape of free spaces means democratizing leadership needs to be made resilient through critical consciousness and practice. It must strategically anticipate opportune situations and times to enlarge free spaces, but also contract those spaces when necessary to sustain democratic elements that might otherwise be negated entirely. I argue that democratizing leadership extends beyond democratic decision-making to include voice and collective action. As a precursor to decision-making, which is usually conceived as the essence of democracy (i.e., deliberation, voting, etc.), democratizing leadership must include development of individual and collective voice to broaden and deepen participation in decision-making. And democratizing leadership must not rest on a democratically derived decision. Collective action, by those who made the decision and with those most impacted by the decision, must proceed from decision-making. Participation rooted in voice and decision-making is undermined and limited if others are invited or expected to implement the decision. Collective action encourages voices to be responsible for solutions and not content with critique alone. Collective action also connects the democratic process from one decision through action to the next opportunity for voice, completing a cycle of democratizing leadership and recognizing that the task does not end. Voice, decision-making, and collective action form a cyclical, dynamic, praxis-oriented relationship. Leadership is a most difficult term to describe, even though we are subject to it and practice it daily, in more and less obvious ways. As the field of leadership studies grows, there continues to be a lack of consensus around definition, and perhaps the addition of democratizing leadership is a further complication. Therefore, I feel compelled to describe it in the context

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of the interdisciplinary field of leadership studies. Analysis of individual leaders (versus leadership) tends to oscillate between nature-versus-nurture arguments. Do great leaders shape history? Or does history shape great leaders? Either approach emphasizes individual figures and the characteristics that mark a leader. Theorizing leadership around individuals tends to essentialize and abstract leadership to suggest any person with the right combination of traits can be a leader, or that only rare individuals emerge from history to lead, independent of context. Situational leadership places greater emphasis on the development of an individual by contextual social forces that form individuals into leaders. Functional models of leadership focus on actions rather than traits, a de-ontological approach that attends to contextualized behaviors. Transactional leadership recognizes the significance of followers in studying leaders through the exchanges that enact leadership. Transformational leadership focused further on followers as the primary measure of leadership, inspiring and challenging members of an organization to effectively accomplish goals. Distributed leadership comes out of the field of educational leadership. It examines how collaborative work happens between individuals who enact leadership, contingent upon their skills and the needs of the moment. It is about the leadership capacity of groups rather than individuals, structured by organizational forms, processes, and cultures. Although it is well documented in higher education, distributed leadership is less known in other organizations, institutions, and communities, and denotatively closer than other descriptions to the phenomena described by democratizing leadership. Acknowledging both characteristics and contexts as important to individual leaders, I use the term “leadership” here to describe a less individualistic, more dynamic process that occurs between individuals and within formal and informal structures. Democratizing leadership happens in particular contexts, and each context changes something of its operations. I reference three contextual forms throughout this work in terms of organizations, institutions, and communities. Each form describes associations between people with differential power relationships. Each form has a different level of formality related to its role in reinforcing or challenging hegemony. And it should be remembered that to each is ascribed monolithic characteristics seemingly independent of the individuals that make up the whole, yet each would cease to exist without the people who constitute the form. Organizations, institutions, and communities are not only composed of people, they are also composed of tangible resources (i.e., land, buildings, capital, products, etc.) and intangible structures (i.e., policies, organizational charts, culture, etc.). Each depends to a greater or lesser degree on nonhuman components, but each would cease to exist without the people

Counter-Hegemonic Democratizing Leadership     9

who sustain these forms through the operation of power enacted through them and toward a particular end or ends. There is hope in this. Organizations, institutions, and communities are not mutually exclusive forms. I lead this tripartite list with organizations because it is the most common term of reference for the largest range of articulated and defined forms of human relationship. Organizations are socially constructed with formal leadership that tends to be identifiable through particular mechanisms of power relations and control. Organizations tend to follow articulated missions for a particular purpose yet maintain relative flexibility to respond to changing circumstances. Institutions are also socially constructed but over longer periods of time, with accumulated power relations and emergent structures that tend to supersede control of any one person or leadership group. While the term here references more formalized organizations (i.e., banks, schools, museums, courts, etc.), institutions are related to societal institutions (i.e., money, education, art, justice) that add an abstract and theoretical depth to particular and tangible forms. While they may be mission-driven, societal expectations govern their operation too, and change comes slowly given their longevity, social consequence, and typically large structures. Communities are at the other end of the formal spectrum. They are also socially constructed, but by their participating members, and leadership tends to emerge situationally more than positionally. They are grounded in identity and tend toward fluidity, changing form to match membership and situational context and reflect primary identifying characteristics. In my research of the case studies in this text, I was ambivalent in my description of them as organizations, institutions, or communities because of overlapping and temporal boundaries to these terms. A bank is typically described as an institution, yet there are multiple organizational forms operating within the institution, and communities formed around identities, job titles, and affinity. I observed dynamics of power that were distributed within and between these forms, in web-like relationships, shifting due to internal and external circumstances. Organization is perhaps the most generic term, occupying the middle of the range between communities and institutions, and signifying intentional organizing by its leadership. Communities are by my definition less formal, more fluid in structure, and shaped more freely by membership. Institutions, then, are more formal, less fluid, even rigid in structure, and most hierarchical in leadership, and perhaps the most powerful tool for sustaining hegemony. Power is a term that appears in my description of leadership and organizations, communities, and institutions. As the phrase “democratizing

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leadership” took shape through my research, I identified it most often with ethical and effective action in pursuit of shared goals and outcomes. To my undergraduate students, I describe this as “good and good” power that is utilized ethically and effectively, ethically positive and effectively proficient action. But if the definition of democratizing leadership relies on power, then power must also be described in more detail.

Power In Three Faces of Power (1989), economist Kenneth Boulding defines power as, “potential for change” (p. 15) and “the ability to get what we want” (p. 17). To be more precise, he distinguishes between destructive, productive, and integrative forms of power, each with potentially positive or negative outcomes. Destructive power may be described by the use of military violence as negative and the removal of a tumor as positive. Productive power may be described in terms of manufactured goods as positive and manufacturing by-products and pollutants as negative. Integrative power may be described as community-building in a positive sense and formation of a dangerous cult as negative. Boulding addresses the distribution of power by examining the social structures of power. He argues that power in groups tends to be hierarchical. Due to human limitations on the ability to communicate, decision-making roles develop. Instructions flow down the hierarchy, while information flows up. Within a hierarchical structure, power is limited by available knowledge. (Conflict Research Consortium, 1989)

Boulding (1989) also distinguishes between personal power and organizational power. Just as destructive, economic, and integrative power can be manifest in interpersonal relations, it can also be manifest in organizations, including the institutions and communities explored here. He treats destructive organizational power primarily as physical force, using a national military as exemplar. Yet his concept also applies to destructive aspects of coercion in organizations, such as threats of demotion, barriers to advancement, and ultimately termination. Yet even in the most hierarchically ordered and coercively controlled organizations, there is hope for democratizing leadership. Emerging from the cracks and crevices of destructive power, integrative power remains necessary to legitimate leadership authority because, “hierarchical power cannot survive unless it can be legitimated. Authority in some sense is always granted from below” (Boulding, 1989, p. 44). Chantal Mouffe qualifies such legitimation in the context of what constitutes hegemony:

Counter-Hegemonic Democratizing Leadership     11 Social objectivity is constituted through acts of power. This implies that any social objectivity is ultimately political and that it has to show the traces of exclusion that governs its constitution. The point of convergence—or rather mutual collapse—between objectivity and power is precisely what we mean by “hegemony.” (Mouffe, 1999, p. 753)

This insight about the constitution of power in the framework of hegemony is reflected and elaborated for action in Gene Sharp’s concept of power in nonviolent struggle. Adapted from his landmark series The Politics of Nonviolent Action (Sharp, 1973), a section entitled, “The Role of Power in Nonviolent Struggle” defines power as “the totality of all influences and pressures, including sanctions, available to a group or society for use in maintaining itself, implementing its policies, and conducting internal and external conflicts” (1973, p. 2). Sharp defines power in the context of nonviolent struggles against the state, described as “rulers” (p. 3). He asserts that power is not intrinsic in the ruler, but that “the political power they wield as rulers comes from the society which they govern” (p. 3). Power depends on the cooperation and obedience of both individuals and institutions, “by their cooperation, the subjects contribute to the operation and perpetuation of the established system” (p. 4). Beyond the cooperation of individual subjects, cooperation of organizations and institutions also constitutes the hegemonic order. Therefore, in Sharp’s conception of power, counter-hegemonic action is primarily resistive, premised on noncooperation and withdrawal, in order to diminish power of the ruler. The availability of each of the sources of power is, then, related to or directly dependent upon, the degree of cooperation, submission, obedience, and assistance that the rulers are able to obtain from their subjects and the institutions of society. That dependence makes it possible, under certain circumstances, for the subjects to restrict or sever these sources of power, by reducing of withdrawing their necessary cooperation and obedience. (p. 6)

Undermining hegemony is in part rooted in the noncooperation of institutions, turning away from leadership and power structures deemed as normal or commonsense, that is, hierarchical command and control. Democratizing leadership works within institutional systems to subvert systems of domination through the practice of alternative forms in order to build new structures within the old. Without an alternative vision to the current order, participants may be apt to choose the known system of domination, over the unknown, and therefore feared, democratizing leadership.

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Sharp (1980) argues that the capacity of a society to control its rulers depends on structural condition meaning institutions that constitute society. He describes these as “loci of power” (p. 27) often composed of traditional, formal groups (social classes, cultural groups, political parties, religious organizations, etc.) and sometimes made up of less formal groups (coalitions, alliances, social movements, etc.). Sharp defines democracy in terms of the diffusion of power among these groups such that society is able to control its rulers and resist governmental control through such institutions, that is, political freedom. Sharp describes the opposite of this condition as tyranny. Because institutions constitute and maintain the power of the ruler over society, or society over the ruler, they are appropriate grounds for countering hegemony and promoting democratization. Furthermore, and beyond Sharp’s argument for noncooperation in and through institutions, the diffusion of power within these institutions and the diffusion of power amongst them is what I am arguing for in democratizing leadership. Sharp’s (1980) “loci of power” are comparable to Antonio Gramsci’s “switch points of power” (1992). Controlling these switch points is the goal of Gramsci’s war of position; countering cultural hegemony by subverting or co-opting switch points of power so as to remove legitimacy from the current hegemony. Rudi Dutschke of the 68er-Bewegung German Student Movement describes this strategy as the Long March through Institutions, an evolutionary process of using institutions to establish Marxism as the new hegemony in place of the Capitalist hegemony (Baker, 2002). Unlike Gramsci and Dutschke, I am arguing for the values and practices of democracy as the basis of the new hegemony such that novel forms of economic and political and social organization will evolve from that practice. And I am not suggesting the bipolar Capitalist/Marxist dichotomy as a simplistic dialectic that will produce a new synthesis. I argue for a democratic hegemony marked by plurality (beyond dichotomy) in economic, political, and social categories, with the potential to incubate new forms of human organization that will supplant the previous contestants. To create and sustain this democratic hegemony, conceptions of power must be considered in the relationship between identity and agency on the individual and collective level. The analysis of power ought to be centered on the praxis relationship between identity formation as a regular but inconsistent process of change, and power relations that emerge from, and in turn form, identity. The role of political practice in the formation of new personal and institutional identities is addressed in Chantal Mouffe’s description of power:

Counter-Hegemonic Democratizing Leadership     13 Power should not be conceived as an external relation taking place between two pre-constituted identities, but rather as constituting the identities themselves. Political practice in a democratic society does not consist in defending the rights of pre-constituted identities, but rather in constituting those identities themselves in a precarious and always vulnerable terrain. (Mouffe, 1999, p. 753)

So, too, Daniel Shugurensky claims that “the democratic project requires the development of a democratic consciousness, and this, in turn, requires experiences with democratic practices in a variety of institutional settings” (2013, p. xi). The transformative praxis relationship between identity and agency requires a more nuanced and dynamic conception of power that courses through democratic cultural hegemony. I suggest (in greater detail below) that voice, decision-making, and collective action are constitutive components that operationalize democratizing leadership to subvert the hegemony of domination while at the same time enacting the practice of a new democratic hegemony. Authors Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri assert (2000) that a true democratic evolution will occur only after an “exodus” from institutions that maintain and sustain the current hegemony. But I concur with Mouffe that institutions, especially cultural and educational institutions, are appropriate and essential sites of contestation. “To believe that existing institutions cannot become the terrain of contestation is to ignore the tensions that always exist within a given configuration of forces and the possibility of acting in a way that subverts their form of articulation” (Mouffe, 2013, p. 100). Berger and Luckman’s social construction of reality (1966) describes institutions as social structures founded on human interactions that become codified and regulated such that they are enacted in repeating patterns that reinforce and reproduce themselves. In tension with Michel’s fatalistic Iron Law of Oligarchy (1949), acknowledgement of their constructed nature implies that, rather than serving only to reproduce the status quo of stratified power relations, institutions can be deconstructed, reconstructed, and changed as sites of counter-hegemonic democratizing leadership. The tensions Mouffe (2013) identifies are reserves of potential power available to democratizing leadership. Contradictions within the institution identify tensions that can empower agents of change to reshape social structures by sustaining and adjusting tensions creatively such that they open and expand democratic spaces. Often through integrative power (Boulding, 1989), democratizing leadership can shape constructed institutional reality by questioning the integrity of internal processes that contradict

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institutional mission or by challenging the institutional mission to better align with democratic social values. Michel Foucault (2003) defined power as destructive or coercive. “Power is not primarily the perpetuation and renewal of economic relations, but that it is primarily, in itself, a relationship of force” (p. 15). His tightly focused frame considers power as a force for domination enacted in different forms. If power is indeed the implementation and deployment of a relationship of force, rather than analyzing it in terms of surrender, contract, and alienation, or rather than analyzing it in functional terms as the reproduction of the relations of production, shouldn’t we be analyzing it first and foremost in terms of conflict, confrontation and war? (p. 15)

His conflict-based analysis of power as dichotomous opposition defined a pessimistic if accurate view of the hegemony of domination. I would like to try to see the extent to which the binary schema of war and struggle, of the clash between forces, can really be identified as the basis of civil society, as both the principle and motor of the exercise of political power. (p. 18)

Foucault’s position of “hyper- and pessimistic activism” (1983, p. 231) invokes an approach to decision-making as “ethico-political choice” (p. 232) within the framework of a hegemony of domination. While he highlights power-as-force as a central theme, to be analyzed as conflict, confrontation and war, he leaves little room for substantial challenge to that hegemonic conception or hope for an alternative hegemony. The dominant neoliberal economic worldview that expresses the hegemony of domination and currently takes preeminence over other economic, political, and social values, will not suddenly and completely collapse of its own weight. Although it is not sustainable due to the externalities it supposes, and due to its internal contradictions between freedom and domination, the fall of this central component of the current hegemony of domination is not imminent. And perhaps its abrupt downfall is not to be wished. The sudden collapse of the neoliberal economic system that enmeshes much of the global political economy would breed chaos. Such an enormous sucking vacuum of power would likely draw us toward totalitarian control over the ensuing chaos rather than drawing us toward a new democratic hegemony. As we lurch toward the uneven and distant yet certain failure of the current hegemony of domination, of which neoliberal economics is a central but not sole component, we need to grow alternative

Counter-Hegemonic Democratizing Leadership     15

forms of economic, political, and social relations within its cracking foundations and amidst its crumbling structures. As viable alternatives take root and grow strong enough to bear the weight of organizational, institutional, and community governance, a transition from domination to democracy has a greater chance of success. Enacting democratizing leadership in organizations, institutions, and communities is an important component of cultivating a new democratic culture; sowing counter-hegemonic seeds of a new hegemony marked by collaboration, equity, and interdependence to supplant the current hegemony of domination.

Counter-Hegemonic Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness—and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling—their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing. Roy (2003)

Counter-hegemonic seems to connote an aggressive, confrontational leadership that reflects decisive, crisis-oriented decision-making and collective action typical of social movements and revolutions. But I want to shift that understanding to focus on leadership that is change-oriented yet persistent and sustained over the long term. Hegemony is constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed over great lengths of time and then suddenly in fits and starts. Nothing is instantaneous, however, about such work and never is it complete. Initiatives may languish for years, change aspect in a matter of days, move two steps backward, then three steps forward. And once changes are made, they need to be sustained through vigilance and persistence, lest they fall back into old patterns, to the next construction marked again by domination and control. Counter-hegemonic work is visualized in symbol, negotiated through discourse, implemented in processes, manifested in structures, affirmed in law and policy, enacted by individuals and communities. Although confronting the injustices of domination is urgent, practicing justice into being through multiple means is important for growing the new hegemony. For those living uncritically within neoliberal corporate cultures, the extreme autocracy of that culture is overlooked, or accepted, as a given.

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Few consider democratic processes an option for economic and social settings, while many decry their lack of voice in political processes that are outwardly democratic but inwardly corrupted by concentrated power aligned with inequalities of wealth and recognition. “This does not necessarily mean that the oppressed are unaware that they are downtrodden. But their perception of themselves as oppressed is impaired by their submersion in the reality of oppression” (Freire, 1973, p. 3). Accepting the current hegemony as unchangeable and unchanging is aptly described by the phrase “hegemonic leadership.” Building on Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, Henry Giroux (2005) describes hegemonic leadership as domination through more complex and less overtly coercive dynamics of power. “Hegemonic leadership refers to the struggle to win the consent of subordinated groups to the existing social order” (Giroux, 2005, p. 163). In addition to exercising direct domination through coercive political power, hegemonic leadership also exercises indirect subordination by shaping consent through formal and nonformal educational systems (i.e., formal school courses or nonformal corporate employee orientations) to informal education by acculturation into a particular organization, or lifelong assimilation into the socially accepted norms of business, capitalism, and the operation of power. When the values of subordinate groups are woven into ideological indoctrination by dominant groups, the exercise of control is pedagogical in addition to political. Power is maintained through formal, informal, and nonformal education that legitimizes domination by constructing “commonsense” hegemonic views (Giroux & Robbins, 2006, p. 20), such as not questioning or challenging authority. These commonsense views are internalized as natural or given by subordinated groups. How then does democratizing leadership emerge in the midst of hegemonic leadership to engage dominant and dominating organizational cultures? Although education can be used to oppress and dominate, it can also be the practice of freedom (hooks, 1994). Freire pointed to the potential for liberating education through praxis-oriented examination of contradictions (1973, p. 92). These are evident in the tensions between values and practices or between mission and operations. Such contradictions can serve as organizational and institutional cracks that allow room for critical questions about the status quo: What is at any given moment accepted as the “natural order,” jointly with the common sense that accompanies it, is the result of sedimented hegemonic practices. . . Every order is therefore susceptible to being challenged

Counter-Hegemonic Democratizing Leadership     17 by counter-hegemonic practices that attempt to disarticulate it in an effort to install another form of hegemony. (Mouffe, 2013, p. 2)

Contradictions are the fissures in sedimented hegemonic practices that allow the roots of critical consciousness to pry loose layers of domination and control, and by growing deep into the cracks, create fertile ground for change: The articulatory practices through which a certain order is established and the meaning of social institutions is fixed are “hegemonic practices.” Every hegemonic order is susceptible of being challenged by counter-hegemonic practices, i.e., practices which will attempt to disarticulate the existing order so as to install another form of hegemony. (Mouffe, 2007, p. 3)

Mouffe describes practices that establish, reinforce, and sustain hegemony in particular institutions and the larger hegemonic order in general. Challenging that order is grounded in practices that disarticulate the existing order, exploiting contradictions—as cracks between component parts of a dominating structure—in order to practice a new hegemony into being. Too often in the current political hegemony, freedom is equated with autonomy that denies solidarity and community as the practice of freedom. Or in the consumer orientation of the current economic hegemony, freedom is equated with a choice between predetermined and limited options that are cloaked in liberty but represent the benefit of the few at the cost of the many, privatizing profit while socializing risk and loss. Recognizing the danger of overt contradictions, hegemonic rhetoric frames domination in terms that sound like equality and democracy. In Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat (2007), economic globalization is described in terms of “free” trade, the power of individual self-determination through technology, and a more horizontal network of relations premised on globalized supply-chain management. This all sounds egalitarian, but it is in fact an expression of the equality of domination of the elite centers over popular peripheries that characterizes globalization. Individuals and whole classes of people might take a step up in income and find new personal choices to make in business and society. Yet the neoliberal economic system as a whole is more effective than ever at exploiting the natural and human resources of “new and emerging markets” while externalizing the global costs of environmental degradation and the social costs of inequality. In this global but not-so-new hegemony, the peoples of the world are exploited equally for the benefit of the few. Chela Sandoval provides an apt description for this reconfigured horizontal distribution of power. “Global postmodern power is increasingly

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figured as a force that circulates horizontally, on a lateral and flattened plane, even if many-sided, with deviations occurring at very turn” (2000, p. 72). She continues by comparing this new conception of power to former top-to-bottom understandings: As in the previous, sovereign, pyramidal model of power, the location of every citizen-subject can be distinctly mapped on this postmodern, flattened, horizontal power grid according to such attributes as race, class, gender, age or sexual orientation, but this reterritorialized circulation of power redifferentiates, groups, and sorts indifferently . . . Movement on this grid, therefore, can be viewed as equally circumscribed, or made possible, by the similarly delimited circumstances of every citizen and its social group(s), as all equivalently contend for power on the matrix, a process that is felt to be—particularly by the once centered first world subject—a new kind of democratization of oppression. (pp. 72–72)

This horizontal and globalized framing of the current hegemony can be reframed for counter-hegemonic leadership. Early in his career, John Paul Lederach, a peace studies professor studying conflict and theorizing peacebuilding, reflected the hegemonic topdown approaches to power in his work. Lederach used a pyramid to describe top-down leadership of the elite few, and bottom-up leadership of the grassroots many. Leadership from the center, he described as the “middle-out.” But the more he worked this model, engaging in praxis between theory and action, the more he realized there was no “out”—nothing truly outside the conflict—especially from a vantage point in the middle. Leadership from the center reached in many directions to integrate others across categories and boundaries, even adversaries or opponents in conflict. His key realization was based on a metaphor of the spider’s web: “How do we build a strategic structure of connections in an unpredictable environment, a structure that understands and adapts continuously to the contours of a dynamic social geography and can find attachment points that will make the process stick?” (2005, p. 84). Lederach describes such distributed power dynamics as a web of interaction in his book The Moral Imagination (2005). He points to the centrality of relationships and the significant skill of peacebuilders to “imagine themselves in a web of relationship even with their enemies” (p. 34). This web of interdependency captures what is often missing in leadership theory, the very relationships that enact leadership. It acknowledges the need for resiliency in the dynamism of relationships, contrasted with the stolid pyramid that is built to withstand rather than react to change. It is also premised on values of solidarity and equity that beg the

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contradictions of neoliberal globalization’s shallow freedom, the freedom to be equally exploited. Lederach’s insight is a revelation in praxis in the midst of contradictions, which may help to bring about a liberating new hegemony. Functionally, oppression is domesticating. To no longer be prey to its force, one must emerge from it and turn upon it. This can be done only by means of the praxis: reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it. (Freire, 1992, p. 5)

A key component of cultivating a new hegemony of collaboration, in place of domination, will be found in new conceptions of leadership. Such transformation through reflection and action can be enacted in part by operationalizing the principles of democratizing leadership.

Operationalizing Counter-Hegemonic Democracy I was proposing, along with my co-workers, to implement an administration that was fundamentally democratic, an administration open to the participation of workers and their families. Through this process, all would learn democracy through the democratic practice of participation, the experience of decision-making, critiquing, denunciating, and praising. (Freire, 1996, p. 88)

Democratizing leadership exploits cracks in the structures of hegemony to create free spaces (Evans & Boyte, 1986/1992) for democratic work. “In Free Spaces, Evans and I describe settings such as religious congregations, locally rooted unions and businesses, schools, fraternal and sisterly organizations, cultural groups, and other face-to-face settings. These, we argue, have been seedbeds of democratic movements in American history” (Boyte, 2014a). Free spaces function as public spaces, mediating spaces between “private lives and large-scale institutions” (Evans & Boyte 1986/1992, p. ix). Such settings, “combine strong communal ties with larger public relationships and aspects” (p. ix). They draw people together out of shared interests (or sheer curiosity) to find a more assertive group identity between the intimacy of private lives and the formality of institutional membership. Such groups, functioning between private lives and public institutions, are easily disposed toward democratic forms of leadership. But what about other organizations and institutions that might also serve as the site of democratic contestation, if hierarchically structured undemocratic leadership can be replaced by democratizing leadership? The adversary in these cases may be formal even more than political. Bureaucracy and technocracy

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represent an agonistic dimension of the formal, as distinct from but often intertwined with the political, easily presumed divisions of liberal and conservative political approaches to democracy. In the stifling morass of contemporary bureaucracies, democratizing leadership has potential to grow beyond the dichotomy of political left and right in the latent free spaces amidst rigid organizational structures. In a recent essay, Boyte looks for common democratic ground by shifting agonistic contention from the political to the formal. He connects the concept of free spaces to the progressive spaces of freedom described by Hannah Arendt (1963), and concept of intermediate spaces current in some conservative discourse. Boyte concurs with Yuval Levin who identifies the crux of debate between conservatives and progressives is, “about the nature of intermediate space and of the mediating institutions that occupy it: the family, civil society, and the private economy” (Boyte, 2014a). While the disagreement about the nature of these spaces is far reaching and divisive amongst political identities, most can identify positively with democracy and freedom, and at the same time decry the lack of both in bureaucratic and technocratic models of organization. For instance, on the left, the Marxist notion of a vanguard elite making leadership decisions for the proletariat has been widely discredited, though it is still a formative (if sometimes unexamined) predilection amongst leftist intellectuals. On the right, disdain for government as the solution to social problems has extended to a libertarian rejection of any institutional solution that might impinge upon individual liberties. Intermediate/free spaces in society provide common ground for advocates of democratic freedom, even if that ground is contested and poorly defined with divergent paths leading away into contradictory visions of society. The space remains ground for contestation and agonistic engagement of plural and diverse political projects. As much as the current hegemony is marked by control as a lack of freedom, domination as a lack of democracy, and homogeneity as a lack of pluralism, diverse political agents may find some common and contested ground in organizational free spaces enlarged by counterhegemonic democratizing leadership. Didactic descriptions sometimes fall short of complex and dynamic realities. I learned from artists in my case studies to provide metaphorical descriptions to complement and enrich the didactic. A metaphor that helps me make sense of the combination of the productive and destructive power of democratizing leadership is a plant, pushing up through a thick layer of new asphalt or emerging from cracks in old concrete. Like plants growing in a sidewalk crack, democratizing leadership can take root and slowly widen gaps in institutional bureaucracies and create new cracks in antidemocratic

Counter-Hegemonic Democratizing Leadership     21

structures to develop democratic free spaces. We tend to consider plants growing in unplanned places a weed, until the weed produces something beautiful or useful. Democratizing leadership grows in free spaces utilizing not only destructive power to widen the crack but also productive power to supplant antidemocratic structures with democratic ones. Democratic structures utilize legitimizing power, rooted in voice, decision-making, and collective action, to develop and regularize practices that reflect democratic values of pluralism, equity, and freedom in a new order. Such structures in turn encourage participants to develop democratic agency through the practice of voice, decision-making, and collective action. And democratic practice interrogates the remaining undemocratic structures that remain, making them a target for transformation. When the free spaces of democratizing leadership widen and meet, bureaucratic structures can crumble with greater speed. However such change requires urgent alternatives to the crumbling structure lest more repressive forms arise to control what might be perceived and feared as chaos. By practicing democracy, participants in institutions, organizations, and communities can recognize organizational cracks and crumbling structures as the beginnings of freedom—the same freedom they experienced in previous practice—rather than fearing them as chaos that needs to be controlled, often by patching up the old system or replacing it with one more rigid and solid in an effort to avoid future fissures. How then are we to practice democracy in the midst of undemocratic systems and structures? The Highlander Folk School (later Highlander Research and Education Center) is a model for educating democratizing leadership. Its founder and long-time director, Myles Horton, is an inspiration to me, and his insights run through my own practice and now through this book. Horton’s notion of praxis unites theory and practice with idealism and realism through what he calls “the ‘is’ and the ‘ought’” (Horton et al., 1997, p. 131). In his autobiography, The Long Haul, Horton addresses this in the context of program development at Highlander: You have to build a program that will deal with things as they are now, and as they ought to be at the same time. They go together, the “is” and the “ought.” Some people do all what “ought” to be, some do all what “is,” but what you’ve got to do to be effective is do the “is” and the “ought” at the same time, or you won’t be able to get practice and theory together. (Horton et al., 1997, p. 131)

Democracy is limited when taught only as an idealist theory that “ought” to be practiced fully or authentically someday, in the future. And when the

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practice of democracy is disconnected from theory, it will only be practiced in a realist contest, as it “is,” to the extent that each participant understands democratic values and forms: to practice democracy; to learn about its historical forms and to learn through political, social, and economic examples; to reflect on these and explore alternatives; and to experiment with new applications. This is to engage a praxis of is and ought. This theory of democratizing leadership addresses the challenge advanced by Myles Horton when he advocated for democratic participation in all aspects of society and at all levels. Horton expressed confidence in people’s ability to move from voice to decision-making to collective action: If we are to have a democratic society, people must find or invent new channels through which decisions can be made. Given genuine decision-making powers, people will not only learn rapidly to make socially useful decisions, but they will also assume responsibility for carrying out decisions based on their collective judgment. The problem is not that people will make irresponsible or wrong decisions. It is, rather, to convince people who have been ignored or excluded in the past that their involvement will have meaning and that their ideas will be respected. The danger is not too much, but too little participation. (Horton et al., 1997, p. 134)

Arguments against this broad-based democratic society typically take on an elitist overtone, suggesting that ordinary people or uneducated people or any category of “those” people are unable to adequately participate in the communal decisions. But exclusion does not protect an authentic democratic society; it stands in its way. At the core of democracy is the opportunity to participate in the decisions that most impact one’s life. Horton understood that the practice of democracy is a decentralizing process that allows participants in democracy to do more than decide who will represent them. People need to participate in decision-making: Decision-making must be de-centralized with all kinds of decisions being made on all kinds of levels, with varying degrees of intensity, some temporary and others long-ranged. In addition, if [democratic] participation is to be significantly increased, opportunities must be provided that will enable people with little or no experience in decision making to become involved. People can only learn to make decisions by making them. (Jacobs, 2003, p. 252)

But enhancing the abilities of individuals to participate in decision-making is not enough.

Counter-Hegemonic Democratizing Leadership     23

Albert Dzur wrote a column for the Boston Review under the title “Trench Democracy: Participatory Innovation in Unlikely Places.” He conceives of democratizing leadership in individualistic terms, addressing “democratic professionals” who engage in counter-hegemonic work by “changing routine, everyday practices where we live and work” (Dzur, 2013). Dzur contrasts these practitioners with social movement activists who leave their everyday life in periods of mobilization to make claims on authorities to enact policy change: Rather than mobilizing fellow travelers and putting pressure on government office holders to make new laws or rules, or convening temporary participatory processes such as citizens’ juries, deliberative polls, and citizens’ assemblies, democratic professionals are making real-world changes in their domains piece by piece, practice by practice. In the trenches all around us they are renovating and reconstructing schools, clinics, prisons, and other seemingly inert bodies. (Dzur, 2013)

He also contrasts them with the public work of Boyte’s (2014b) self-directing community groups that organize to address particular social issues. Dzur focuses on “the alterations democratic professionals are making to their organizations” (2013)—structural changes to everyday institutions. This approach is aligned with the democratizing leadership frame of this text with exceptions that illuminate both concepts. Dzur’s (2013) article series interviews educators, administrators, advocates, and organizers who practice trench democracy as democratic professionals. Leadership, in Dzur, tends to be located in an individual who creates space for democratic participation. In contrast, I posit the location of democratizing leadership as the relationships that occur between people as power is enacted and practiced in organizations, institutions, and communities. These dynamics are often initiated by individuals, but not necessarily. Democratizing leadership can be initiated in partnership, by a small team, or grounded in organizational culture. Though he addresses power distribution among participants, the underlying dichotomy of an individual leader identified separately from participants distinguishes the concept of Democratic Professionals from Democratizing Leadership. Dzur’s title, Trench Democracy, hints at the conflictual work inherent in such leadership but does not overtly describe Democratic Professionals as counter-hegemonic or agonistic. In Dzur’s analysis, Democratic Professionals tend to lack a specific ideology or defined theory, “they make it up as they go along, developing roles attitudes, habits, and practices that open calcified structures up to greater participation” (Dzur, 2013), remaking institutional life into something less bureaucratic and more democratic.

24    Democratizing Leadership

Again, this implies a theoretical commitment for democratization and against stifling bureaucracy, domination, and oppression, but focuses more on emerging processes than a particular goal or expansive mission. In line with Gramsci’s notion of the “organic intellectual” (1992), leaders do indeed theorize their situation, even if their theories are not consciously well defined or clearly articulated with practice. But individuated leadership posits powers in single individuals, likely positional leaders, who enact power on behalf of others to promote democracy. Although this is preferable to domination and oppression, such individualistic conceptions of leadership as representational democracy presume to speak, decide, and act for others. Democratizing leadership distributes power so that people can speak for themselves and with each other, decide together, and work in solidarity to practice a new collaborative hegemony. Democratic Professionals may have a place in the transition from domination to collaboration, but the transition cannot end in that representational conception of leadership. To operationalize democracy, leadership must distribute power such that anyone may participate in voice, decision-making, and collective action for disarticulating the current hegemony and constructing new power relations that articulate an alternative and democratized hegemony. The conflictual work of counter-hegemonic democratizing leadership is best described by Chantal Mouffe in Agonistics (2013). An agonistic orientation to reshaping leadership as counter-hegemonic acknowledges the pluralistic nature of democracy in order to normalize yet maintain tensions between members, citizens, participants, people. Adversarial, contested power relations are not to be avoided, but attended to as the raison d’être of democracy. On one hand, democracy is premised on the constitutive tradition of the rule of law—liberalism, individual liberty, and human rights. On the other hand, it is premised on the constitutive democratic tradition of popular sovereignty—democratic participation, citizen equality, and majority rule. This paradox, argues Mouffe, is democracy’s greatest strength. It is the creative tension in between freedom and equality that allows for a kind of dialectical structuring that holds open the free spaces of democracy. These tensions are not to be resolved, but rather, to be maintained and engaged to create a rich if turbulent environment that breeds participation and resiliency; a thick democracy (Carr & Lund, 2008). The liberal conception of consensus-based democracy tends to displace or minimize contention, leading parties who do not concede to abandon the political process. Lacking a voice in a politics of consensus, individuals and groups may despair that any change can come from democratic processes and may even turn to more militant forms of change-making.

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Agonistics articulates a more nuanced conflictual consensus (Mouffe, 2005, 2013) that allows for decision-making and policy rooted in consensus, but also acknowledging the contingency of those decisions and policy. Rather than ignoring or dismissing conflicting views, agonistics acknowledges their continuing presence (and influence) on democratic politics, and the potential for conflicting views to reemerge in the next round of discussion, debate, legislation, or referendum. Such an acknowledgement is not so much idealistic pluralism, as a realist analysis of the deeply held commitments retained throughout a political process. Rather than presuming that all dissent is forsaken in a liberal democratic model that seeks lasting consensus, agonistics recognizes their continuing influence on the political. Unanimity and permanence are the idealist’s delusions. As I have described it above, an agonistic democracy might bring to mind dialectical conceptions based on duality of thesis and antithesis leading to a synthesis: a consensus decision-making process or a policy that stands until challenged by an antithetical decision or policy, leading to a newly synthesized consensus. Pluralism, however, is key to agonistic democracy, rendering thesis/antithesis models too binary and limited in their conception. I suggest a multipolar praxis conception of democracy as an approach to agonistics in practice. Praxis, as the interaction of theory and application, might qualify dialectical processes by supposing that the theoretical synthesis is always grounded in the practice of thesis and antithesis, thus becoming a next thesis emerging from practice. But pluralism posits multiple contests between theses and antitheses or many alternative theses. Where the liberal orientation promotes resolution of tension through a synthesis of political consensus, agonistics promotes resolution that is always contingent—a synthesis that is expected to be influenced and acted upon by multiple contesting antitheses and perhaps by the now-surpassed original thesis. This is not a conception that promotes constant antagonism in politics, but rather regular agonism (Mouffe, 2005, 2013) that recognizes plural interests and theses, in a process that occurs in stages, over time, while binding us to each other as we move from one conflictual consensus to another. The temporality of democratic processes becomes significantly more important as contingency is measured between moments of conflictual consensus as synthesis and contingent resolution, and moments of renewed democratic process that engages new antitheses. At the practical level of policy formation and governance, synthesis and resolution may be sought at the end of a legislative or parliamentary session, knowing that after the recess of the decisional body, all is contingent again on challenges by multiple new political voices. Such cycles of contention are built into political

26    Democratizing Leadership

institutions, but need to be constructed as positive opportunities for democratic practice in organizations, institutions, and communities promoting agonistic democratizing leadership.

The Art of Democratizing Leadership I think that to apprehend their political potential, we should visualize forms of artistic resistance as agonistic interventions within the context of counter-hegemonic struggles. —Mouffe (2013, p. 88)

In addition to the critical analytical work of countering hegemony, democratizing leadership must also provide imaginative, visionary alternatives to domination in order to create a new hegemony. This is creative work that complements but also extends beyond traditional analysis of the social sciences or conflict resolution. Peacebuilding and conflict transformation (Lederach, 2005; Schirch, 2004) are positive frames for creative democratic work that complement the negative critique implied by counter-hegemonic. Both are essential. If we focus all our energy on defeating oppression, when we defeat the hegemony of domination, what will rise up in its place? Freire warned of the oppressed becoming the oppressor (1973) without the democratization of culture. Visual and performing arts are uniquely qualified instruments for creative counter-hegemonic work. Two of the three case studies from which this theory emerged utilize the arts as a tool for counter-hegemonic change and democratizing leadership because of their power to challenge and transform perception. Art can startle us into new and dramatic realizations. More often, art will prick our consciousness like a splinter, causing a minor annoyance that leads to subtle shifts in behavior and understanding. Its potential efficacy explains the harsh restrictions placed on art by most authoritarian leadership and explains the pervasiveness of artistic expression in protest campaigns and social movements. In a simple and profound phrase, art works. Art is most influential as an agent of change, however it can also be used to reinforce the dominant hegemony. It is regularly accused of this function in relation to art’s commercialization and commodification. But art is also subversive, even in its co-optation by contemporary culture. “By being subversive of perception and understanding, art can break through stereotyped social reality and produce a counter-consciousness that is a negation of the conformist mind” (Gablik, 1984, p. 37). Suzi Gablik’s book Has Modernism Failed had a significant influence on Lynne Sowder, the curator in the first case study of this text. Another book by Gablik, The

Counter-Hegemonic Democratizing Leadership     27

Reenchantment of Art (1992), influenced the artistic director of the May Day Parade. Both women gave me a copy of these books, in 1988 and 2007, respectively, pointing to their significance in their work. Gablik’s writing identified the disconnect between art and social change in the 1980s and the connective function of art that emerged in the 1990s and later resumed its social and political significance. For the purposes of this text, I am indebted to another theorist who brilliantly frames contemporary radical democratic politics and has recently developed a profound analysis of the place of art in counter-hegemonic work. Chantal Mouffe is a political theorist from Belgium who has taught in major universities across Europe, the UK, and the United States. Her description and analysis of agonistic pluralism heavily influences this book and locates a dynamic, contentious ground between deliberative democracy (Boyte) and revolutionary democracy (Hardt & Negri) approaches to the political. Mouffe also hones in on the counter-hegemonic work of art with critical implications for democratizing leadership: I agree that artistic practices could contribute to the struggle against capitalist domination, but this requires a proper understanding of the dynamics of democratic politics; an understanding which I contend can only be obtained by acknowledging the political in its antagonistic dimension as well as the contingent nature of any type of social order. It is only within such a perspective that one can grasp the hegemonic struggle which characterizes democratic politics, hegemonic struggle in which artistic practices can play a crucial role. (Mouffe, 2007, p. 1)

By acknowledging plurality and agonism in democratic politics, Mouffe articulates a space for art in counter-hegemonic work. Such work is “interactive and connective” (Gablik, 1992) between the multiple parties engaged in political struggle, yet art must also question the hegemonic yet contingent nature of any social order. This includes normative assumptions on an artistic order: about postmodern values (or lack thereof), distinctions or connections between art and activism, or newly fabricated labels adopted to define artistic trends such as “social practice” (Atkins, 2013; Miranda, 2014). Mouffe adopts the term “artivist” to describe recent interconnections between art and activism: We can better grasp the political character of these varieties of artistic activism if we see them as counter-hegemonic interventions whose objective is to disrupt the smooth image that corporate capitalism tries to spread, thereby bringing to the fore its repressive character. By putting artistic forms at the service of political activism, these “artivist” practices represent an important dimension of radical politics. They can be seen as counter-hegemonic

28    Democratizing Leadership moves against the capitalist appropriation of aesthetics and its goal of securing and expanding the valorization process. (Mouffe, 2013, pp. 98–99)

She argues that capitalism has not only commodified art as a consumable, but the capitalist hegemony has also co-opted art and the ideals of the artist, such as individualism, anti-authoritarianism, and autonomy, to service the post-Fordist capitalist economy. Art and artists are appropriated as agents of valorization that reinforce the hegemony of domination by atomizing and disconnecting individuals from groups, and groups from coalitions, that are central to radical democratic politics. “By intervening in a multiplicity of social spaces . . . [artists should] undermine the imaginary environment necessary for its reproduction” (2007, p. 1). Art has the potential to challenge and critique “the imaginary environment” of normative hegemonic assumptions insofar as it is democratically accessible in organizations, institutions, and community settings that include art museums and galleries, colleges and universities, public libraries and civic halls. Mouffe critiques the inclination of artists toward “absolute democracy” (2010, p. 326) that encourages the exodus or withdrawal from institutions, championed by Hardt and Negri (2000, 2005, 2009). The atomization of artists, and their exodus from art institutions, is a lost opportunity to engage in counter-hegemonic work from inside institutions of hegemonic reproduction. Writing about the current state of capitalism, Mouffe suggests, “the cultural terrain occupies a strategic position because the production of affects plays an increasingly important role. Being vital to the process of capitalist valorization, this terrain should constitute a crucial site of intervention for counter-hegemonic practices” (Mouffe, 2007, p. xiv). And speaking directly to the artist through the periodical Artforum International, Mouffe writes, “I am convinced that fostering a strategy of engagement with institutions is absolutely crucial for envisioning democratic politics today” (2010, p. 326). She is clear that artistic intervention alone will not transform the hegemony of domination. Yet art has a meaningful role in challenging hegemonic assumptions by bringing to the fore the existences of alternatives to the current post-political order . . . making visible what the dominant consensus tends to obscure and obliterate [and] giving voice to all those who are silenced within the framework of the existing hegemony. (Mouffe, 2013, p. 93)

She is not alone in her artistic prescriptions for counter-hegemonic work. Beyond Mouffe’s political framing, Doris Sommers is the Founder and Director of Cultural Agents: Arts and Humanities in Civil Engagement at Harvard University. She makes a similar case for the role of arts in

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democratizing work from within the artistic and cultural establishment. “Artists think critically to interpret existing materials into new forms. How else can one imagine and then realize a project—including social, political, or economic development?” (2014, p. 10). Given the complexity of contemporary social and institutional civic work, and the plurality of intersecting social norms, Sommers argues that, “Learning to think like an artist and interpreter is basic training for our volatile times” (p. 11). No longer can the arts be relegated to the sidelines as culturally elitist, brushed aside as a distraction of the privileged or commodified for consumption by the rich. The arts are, at their root, about critical thinking, imagination, and innovation; skills that are desperately needed to challenge hegemonic thinking, envision new alternatives, and create a new hegemony. Sommers contends that engaging in the creative work of art promotes the development of agency; the will and ability to make change. “Agency enabled [an artist] to engage with the existing culturally constructed world, instead of summarily discarding its value or despairing altogether” (2014, p. 84). When the cultural construction of the world is acknowledged, it implies that what has been constructed can be deconstructed and reconstructed. When despair over the possibility of meaningful social change might stifle new civic endeavors, or when apathy overwhelms change agents in bureaucratized political systems, “The pleasure of art-making can be the energy that animates a politically impossible project, for pushing impossibility past one and another checkpoint on a receding horizon, until the project achieves real political success” (p. 155). Her language recalls Paulo Freire’s notion of a “limit-situation” when describing such a horizon, noting as he did that these false horizons are potential fissures “that provoke interventions to derail current procedures,” or points of entry in “ambiguous or unfinished moments of narrative, available for a new twist” (p. 146). Artistic interventions, like demonstrations and protests, can challenge a mired narrative, questioning the presumptive story by calling out contradictions and problematizing assumptions. Democracy is described by Sommers as “the construction of a collective artwork” (p. 85), implying a need for counterhegemonic democratizing leadership to think and work like an artist. John Paul Lederach is a leading voice in the field of Peace Studies, who recognizes the role of art in his field. He advocates for the reconceptualization of conflict resolution as conflict transformation, recognizing that resolution of violence may only subsume causative injustices and acknowledging that conflict can instead be transformed from a violent to a political contest. In his book The Moral Imagination, he calls on peace-builders to examine an artistic approach to their work. He insists that the moral imagination requires

30    Democratizing Leadership the capacity to imagine ourselves in a web of relationships that includes our enemies; the ability to sustain a paradoxical curiosity that embraces complexity without reliance on dualistic polarity; the fundamental belief in and pursuit of the creative act; and the acceptance of the inherent risk of stepping into the unknown that lies beyond the all too familiar landscape of violence. (2005, p. 5; emphasis added).

Lederach presents these artistic qualities as essential to overcome the dominant hegemony that declares violence as familiar and necessary; a normative assumption that needs to be challenged and supplanted. He prescribes the artistic process for peacebuilders who rely far too much on one aspect of human capacity, intellectual rationality, “that most wishes to control the others” (p. 160). Lederach points to the transformational aspect of creativity as the most important and least attended to function of peacebuilding work. “The artistic process breaks beyond what can be rationally understood and then returns to a place of understanding that may analyze, think it through, and attach meaning to it” (p. 160). Focusing especially on healing and reconciliation, he identifies art as reconnecting the heart and the head. It is an aesthetic approach to the world that is at once critical, imaginative, and potentially transformative. Lederach concludes his reflections on artistic identity by stating, “I am not sure that I can answer the questions raised in this chapter about the connection of art to the pragmatics of political change in the world” (p. 162), but he is certain that politics as usual is not the answer. I hope this book is at least a partial response to his questions.

Why Is This Necessary? Garett Jones, associate economics professor at George Mason University, says that there should be less democracy in the United States. According to a talk he gave on February 24 [2015], Jones says that less democracy and more epistocracy could lead to better governance. Democracy leaves power to the majority while epistocracy allocates power to the knowledgeable. Jones did not imply that democracy should be eliminated, but lessened by 10% for the sake of long-term economic growth. According to Jones, less democracy would lead to better governance because politicians would be inclined to work on long-term growth rather than spending to impress constituents during election season. Politicians try to please the public at the expense of neglecting long-term policies because they are elected through a democratic process . . . Jones’s overall message was a proposition that less democracy would be better for the economy, but that democracy should not be totally removed. The problem with democracy is that politicians cater to the ignorance of voters to get reelected. But the elimination of democracy

Counter-Hegemonic Democratizing Leadership     31 could leave intelligent people with bad intentions in charge of the economy. (Natalie Schulhof, 2015)

What is the purpose of democracy? And whom does it serve? The human community faces unprecedented challenges in coming decades. Change quickens exponentially as technology, globalization, population, and climate change outpace national and international systems of law and governance. Global elites either struggle to develop institutional frameworks that address these multivalent and interconnected issues or exploit them for the gain of a few. Policymakers locked in the slow churning gears of parliaments and legislatures seem unable to rise above politics to meet the political challenges of our day. And all of these endeavors are dominated by the hegemony of Western liberal democracies and neoliberal economics that are assumed as normative: two presumptive boundaries for any rational, reasonable, feasible solutions. This book contends, with many other voices, that the current hegemony of domination projecting from Western liberal democracies and neoliberal economies is the problem. Rather than coming to its ultimate and final fruition in this hegemonic order, democracy has instead been subverted and undermined to serve political, economic, and social regimes of domination. The current dominant order, what Fukuyama called “end of history” (1992), is critiqued by Jacques Derrida who declares, At a time when some have the audacity to neo-evangelize in the name of the ideal of a liberal democracy that has finally realized itself as the ideal of human history: never have violence, inequality, exclusion, famine, and thus economic oppression affected as many human beings in the history of the earth and of humanity. Instead of singing the advent of the ideal of liberal democracy and of the capitalist market in the euphoria of the end of history, instead of celebrating the “end of ideologies” and the end of the great emancipatory discourses, let us never neglect this obvious macroscopic fact, made up of innumerable singular sites of suffering: no degree of progress allows one to ignore that never before, in absolute figures, have so many men, women and children been subjugated, starved or exterminated on the earth. (Derrida, 1994, p. 106)

How will democracy survive, let alone develop and thrive, in the midst of the current hegemony, in efforts to challenge and change this hegemonic order, and in whatever might replace it? Even now, and in transitions to come, democracy is known, enhanced, and sustained only through practice by the people most impacted by democratic decision-making and action. Dreams of democratic global governance

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cannot be made reality with a top-down approach and certainly not at the point of a gun. Elites in the current hegemony have little incentive or motivation to relinquish their current power to create this counter-hegemonic democratic system to which they would be subject. Progressive democratic change has historically come from the bottom up from social movements demanding change by making claims on elites. Yet theorists have recognized that movements based on such claims also have been co-opted by elites and silenced by repressive policies (Della Porta & Diani, 1999; Piven & Cloward, 1979; Tarrow, 1998; Tilly & Wood, 2013). In social movement theory, distinctions have been made between Old Social Movements (OSM) premised on redistribution and claims for guarantees under the rubrics of rights discourse or constitutional law. New Social Movements (NSM) focus on identity and recognition primarily or in combination with redistribution (Honneth & Fraser, 2003). Yet even this dichotomy is in question as movements become transnational and intersectional in leaderless networks that engage in diverse campaigns and sometimes divergent actions. Social movement theorists address organizations and institutions under the rubric of Social Movement Organizations (SMO) to describe organizational forms that emerge from movements as they coalesce into less ad hoc and more sustainable structures (Della Porta & Diani, 1999; McAdam, McCarthy, & Zald, 1996; Tilly & Wood, 2013). By contrast, democratizing leadership describes existing organizations, institutions, and communities with less democratic structures moving toward greater democracy, as topdown leaders benevolently adjust decision-making structures, and as participants in structures find and use their voice and take collective action to force changes in decision-making from the bottom up. Where SMOs tend to formalize and bureaucratize structures to sustain themselves past the heady days of social movement mobilization, democratizing leadership moves from more bureaucratic to more democratic structures; improvising and changing stultified decisional forms to become more democratically dynamic. In essence, democratizing leadership moves in the opposite vector as the SMO, resisting and reversing Michel’s Iron Law of Oligarchy (1949) to enliven social structures. If democracy is to flourish (or even survive), it will grow from the grassroots, in and through the cracks of the current hegemonic order, coalescing into social movements that will only be described accurately in hindsight. Like weeds pushing through asphalt and concrete, democratizing leadership has potential to pry open spaces for expanded growth and development, but only if democracy is practiced in the operations and governance of organizations, institutions, and communities of our daily life. If people are unskilled and unpracticed and unused to democratic practice,

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autocracy can crush tender democratic shoots, choking new growth wherever the fear of our own power patches over the cracks of potentiality. Totalitarianism, and other less absolute but just as subjugating forms of domination, are not just possible but likely wherever a grounded, operationalized democracy is not cultivated. As I write this section of the book in the autumn of 2014, cracks in the dominant hegemony open and spread. In September, the People’s Climate March takes place in New York City with solidarity marches around the world. Activists #FloodWallStreet to remind global capitalism of the sea level rise and the rising tide of grassroots calls for change. The people cry out to the United Nations to move beyond talking to take action that might avoid the worst consequences of climate chaos, that will disproportionately impact people on the margins of neoliberal economic life and therefore already most dominated by its exploitative. Bill McKibben of 350.org calls this time the beginning of the end for fossil fuels. As the most traded commodity in the global neoliberal market, fossil fuels are also one of the most obvious and unsustainable contradictions in our economic and ecological systems; a crack in the current hegemony. Even in precarious and contingent advances in democracy like #FloodWallStreet and the Occupy experiments, “there continue to be ripples of democratic experimentation extending into communities . . . These ripples provide important openings or educational spaces to host the change that is emerging” (Schultz, 2013, p. 103). More cracks appear and spread and we become producers of the commons rather than consumers of the commons (Boyte, 2005, p. 2). In November 2014, crowds of protestors gather for the 25th year in an ongoing campaign to close the School of the Americas (renamed Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation in 2001) outside of Fort Benning Military Base in Columbus, Georgia. At a conference connected to the vigil, a Colombian delegation introduced their presentation with a frank assessment: We have come to the United States to teach you how to resist neoliberal domination. We have been subject to it, and resisting it, for decades through Plan Colombia, through militarization, through the mechanism of debt, through growing economic inequality, through the privatization of public infrastructure like prisons and utilities; all for the profit of a few over the good of the people. But the ever-increasing hunger of neoliberal domination has expanded beyond the resources of the Global South and now turns to feed upon itself. Now you are beginning to feel the violence and know the pain of the dominating hegemony that has ravaged our country for decades. Over this time we have learned much about resistance and now we have

34    Democratizing Leadership come to teach you so that you may learn to resist and grow in solidarity with the vast majority of the world who suffer under this system. (Author’s notes)

Only weeks later, the people march in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City against police brutality and impunity. Solidarity marches across the United States and around the world decry increasing militarization of policing and violations of human and civil rights. In my own community, low-wage workers promoting a livable minimum wage find common cause with protestors chanting “Black Lives Matter! Don’t Shoot! I Can’t Breathe!” They march from the neighborhood streets in front of a bigbox retailer onto the highways where, on foot, they shut down the lanes of commerce and raise their voices to ask and demand, “Whose Streets? Our Streets!” The march ends in places meant to represent the people—City Hall and public universities—to declare, “This is What Democracy Looks Like!” asserting the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Cracks in the dominant hegemony have been predicted, and prepared for by elites, for some time. In 2005, the U.S. Department of Defense commissioned a RAND Corporation report entitled, “Alternative Futures and Army Force Planning: Implications for the Future Force Era” (Nichiporuk, 2005). The monograph identifies, “good, medium, and bad trends,” and names six alternative futures that ranger from, “democratic peace” to “chaos/anarchy.” Democratic Peace is described within the framework of neoliberal hegemonic political economy: Democratic Peace is clearly an idealistic vision of the future. Its premise is simple. Democratic Peace holds that liberal democracy and free, open markets have spread to such an extent that they are becoming institutionalized in all of the world’s great powers (Europe, India, China, Japan, Russia, Brazil) as well as most middle-ranking powers. Thus, in 2025, liberal democracy is excluded only from some scattered pockets of territory made up of the poorest developing nations. Large interstate wars are not a realistic possibility in this kind of international system. (p. 45)

The latter claim is ascribed to the “the liberal theory of international relations” (p. 45). In this scenario, the U.S. military’s role is to maintain the hegemonic order through “stabilization forces” (p. 51) that counter narco-trafficking militias and warlords operating outside the formal political economy. The RAND report’s fifth alternative future is described as a counterhegemonic social movement, a challenge that the U.S. military ought to address. Its prescient prognosis, if lax timeline, is notable for the way its predictions have materialized recently. And because its prescriptions are

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a disturbing promotion of militarism to defend neoliberal hegemony and counter democratic movements, I quote it here at length: Transnational Web is our medium-bad world and represents a more unorthodox view of the 2025 future in that it posits a situation in which the nationstate has lost a substantial amount of power to transnational actors, many of whom use the burgeoning Internet to coordinate their actions worldwide much more rapidly than could any national government bureaucracy. It is assumed here that a substantial amount of nation-state power has been usurped upward by transnational, globally distributed actors such as multinational corporations, transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), terrorist networks, special interest “peace and social justice” groups [sic], and perhaps even ethnic diasporas. Many, if not most, of these actors have benign intentions in this world and pose no threat to American security interests. However, we posit here that a handful of these newly empowered groups do come to be hostile to the United States and other Western nation-states, and that military strategies for countering them become necessary. In this hypothetical future, the period from 2020 to 2025 witnesses a dramatic growth in the threat to the United States presented by radical transnational “peace and social justice” groups. Using the goal of creating a just “global civil society” as their rallying cry, large militant transnational actors appear, promoting radical agendas for the environment, nuclear disarmament, and Third World land reform. Almost all of these groups come to identify the United States as an arch-villain that stands in the way of their drive to reshape the global order. By 2025, however, one group in particular stands out as a threat from the perspective of the U.S. intelligence community. It is the World Environmental League (WEL), which is spearheading a crusade to compel the UN General Assembly to approve a radical treaty for fossil fuel emissions reduction that would cripple many American and Western manufacturing industries and almost certainly spark a global recession. (p. 64–65)

Note that the goal of “peace and social justice” groups is to “reshape the global order” under the rallying cry of a “just global civil society’”. The global order in this militaristic prescription for an alternative future is to maintain the current, hegemonic global order against the environment, nuclear disarmament, land reform, treaties for fossil fuel reduction, and a just global civil society. The RAND report predicts Occupy and the Peoples’ Climate March but too late. Imagine the concern of military leadership who read this report in 2005 and are seeing it come true earlier than predicted, and before military forces and civil policy are ready to counter it. The narrative of this alternative future continues with dire predictions of attacks against “U.S. interests around the world”:

36    Democratizing Leadership Tension mounts about the plans of the WEL in the late summer of 2025, after a successful U.S. campaign to kill the proposed fossil fuels emission treaty at the UN. Following the treaty’s rejection by the General Assembly, an Internet news release by the WEL condemns “American imperialism” as the main force behind global environmental degradation and promises to strike back at U.S. interests around the world. Within a few hours of the issuance of this news release, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents swoop down on previously identified WEL safehouses in New York City and San Francisco, arresting all known American members of the organization. However, the U.S. government’s information on the WEL’s operations abroad is still too thin to make any similar raids in foreign countries. (p. 66)

The “World Environmental League” (WEL) is a fictionalized transnational network premised as militant and presumed to be violent, using terrorism to accomplish its goals of peace and social justice, a just global civil society, and environmental sustainability. The report grants that, “Many, if not most, of these actors have benign intentions in this world and pose no threat to American security interests” (p. 65), yet American security interests are premised on the hegemonic neoliberal political economy. The report details a violent terroristic campaign that includes plane hijacking and destruction, car bombs, cyberattacks, chemical weapons, and assassinations of transnational corporation leadership. The RAND report envisions counterattacks by the U.S. military that include cyberintelligence, cooperation with international law enforcement, public relations campaigns, and simultaneous strikes by special operations forces against WEL in 10 countries. The RAND report also predicts, “growing sympathy for the WEL cause among some of the more socialistic political parties in Western Europe, such as the German Greens” (p. 68) but does not specify the military response required. Finally, the RAND report also imagines WEL leadership as fluid, horizontal, and the networked structure and Internet communications capability of the hypothetical WEL would allow it to have more rapid decision cycles than most national militaries and law enforcement agencies. None of this is to say that the WEL or an actor like it would be invincible in 2025, only that such a group could indeed be quite formidable. (p. 69)

If this form of leadership and organization poses a formidable challenge to U.S. military planners, it also poses formidable possibilities for nonviolent initiatives that promote a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. But in a leaderless, transnational network of peace and social justice groups, how will civil authorities or the military distinguish between the democratizing leadership and violent terrorism predicted here? Or more crucially, has the RAND Corporation already distinguished between leadership that is

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aligned with U.S. interests (described as the current hegemonic neoliberal political economy), contrasted in this document with democratizing leadership for civil society, peace and justice, and environmental sustainability? New organizations utilizing a networked structure, Internet communications, and rapid decision-making cycles sound familiar, like the Occupy movement, Anonymous, and other manifestations of contemporary social movements and social movement organizations, which must be worrying to authorities in the shadow of this document. Perhaps more worrying is the rise of such groups, not in 2025 but far earlier, leading authorities to implement hasty plans and reactions. The concept of violent extremism in transnational peace and social justice groups seems to be a contradiction in terms, and yet, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable” (Kennedy, 1962). Democratizing leadership might prevent communities and organizations from moving toward violent extremism, but only if it is authentic, well understood, and effective and ethical in practice. Counterhegemonic democratizing leadership will lead to conflict with elites in the current hegemony, but that conflict has potential to proceed nonviolently unless and until authorities limit democracy such that they make peaceful revolution impossible. Mouffe argues that, “antagonistic conflicts are less likely to emerge as long as agonistic legitimate political channels for dissenting voices exist. Otherwise dissent tends to take violent forms” (2005, p. 21). Democratization is a positive and proactive approach to conflict that has more potential to succeed than the domination and control promoted through state violence and militarism. Democratizing leadership has potential, as one of many approaches to dealing with social crises, to create resiliency in our social fabric in order to avert the extremes of anarchy, as the libertarian reaction against all government, and totalitarianism, as the fascist reliance on government for totalizing order. If we are to pursue the ideals of government of, by, and for the people, we must practice those ideals in the public sector and beyond. I argue that the more we inculcate democratic values and processes into our social, cultural, and economic lives, the more resilient our political democracy will be. Conversely, our abdication from democratic participation in the political realm creates space, and perhaps even permission, for autocratic and authoritarian leadership to solidify the hegemony of domination. This is a call for long-term, difficult, and unglamorous social change, a nonviolent struggle waged on the neglected terrain of organizations, institutions, and communities. It is a call to personal responsibility for social justice in the settings that are so familiar as to be overlooked, and so stifled by accumulated bureaucracy and stultifying policy as to render hope doubtful.

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Yet in these imminent circles of daily life, we have the greatest opportunity of seeing tangible personal benefits through the changes we make together, liberating ourselves within newly reformed contexts of dynamic if unsettling and conflicted participation. This is not a call to greater comfort and stability, so much as an invitation to a more lively instability that promotes democratic spaces for authentic individual and collective voices, shared decision-making with integrity, and responsibility to each other through collective action that leads to new opportunities to raise voices again. There are many practical reasons why people do not participate in existing democratic processes, but I wonder if these reasons are undergirded by a lack of hope that anyone’s voice actually matters, that decisions will be made by others with more power, and that action is futile in the face of hegemonic systems. We may place our hope in the charismatic leadership of populist political or social movement leaders. But that reliance is in part a hope that someone else will make the changes we wish to see. And it is premised on individual leaders who can be assassinated, co-opted, or fail us, leading to a collapse of hope and perhaps a more repressive system than was challenged by that leader and movement. Some may argue that democracy is a Western concept, more or less compatible with social and cultural systems around the globe. Because we are becoming globally interconnected, Chantal Mouffe suggests the best approach to avoiding a “clash of civilizations” is, “establishment of a multipolar institutional framework that would create the conditions for those conflicts to manifest themselves as agonistic confrontations between adversaries, instead of taking the form of antagonistic struggles between enemies” (2013, p. 41). Democracy may be manifest to different extents in diverse governmental systems, social institutions, and public and private organizations, but a multipolar institutional framework premised on democratizing leadership may provide hope for agonistic relationships across difference rather than antagonistic conflicts that break relationships and lead to violence. “This agonistic encounter is a confrontation where the aim is neither the annihilation nor the assimilation of the other, and where the tensions between different approaches contribute to enhancing the pluralism that characterizes a multipolar world” (Mouffe, 2013, p. 41). The maintenance of creative tensions, rather than seeking resolution of tensions, is central to Mouffe’s agonism and to my conception of democratizing leadership. Democratizing leadership practices democracy into being in a variety of settings, replacing current hegemonic power relations of hierarchy and oligarchy by cultivating democratic processes of voice, decision-making, and collective action. Potential for this growth is most promising in the free spaces of social movements, and in the cracks that exist within and

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amongst organizations, institutions, and communities. This methodology contrasts with those of revolutionary Marxism that seeks to overturn the current order on the presumption that a vanguard proletariat will rise to fill the void. Many other forces may emerge in chaotic revolutionary spaces; indeed, many have throughout history. And while agonistic contestations are fraught with difficulties and characterized by an uncomfortable, conflictual consensus, they constitute a more feasible process for counter-hegemonic assertions of a new democratic hegemony, and less risk of raising fascist or militaristic regimes where revolutionary hopes for rule by the people and for the people are obliterated. But almost always, during the initial stage of the struggle, the oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors, or “sub-oppressors.” The very structure of their thought has been conditioned by the contradictions of the concrete, existential situation by which they were shaped. Their ideal is to be men; but for them, to be men is to be oppressors. This is their model of humanity. (Freire, 1973, p. 2)

Change cannot be expected solely in intensive revolutionary moments. These moments are prepared by consistent, dedicated, and persistent work to counter the current hegemonic order and develop new options that may take its place. And following the transformational moment, the new hegemony surges ahead, pauses, falls back, lurches hesitantly forward again, while striving to grow through more democratic practices. Like peace, democracy is both a process and a goal. We need to cultivate, citizenship in more significant relationships among people who share a community (in the broadest sense); share a future through positions and impacts of policy; and share those elements of society that impact, limit or enhance their (individual and collective) humanity through the kinds of encounters that range from the day-to-day and mundane, to the emergency. (Shultz, 2013, p. 96)

Our most significant relationships occur with the often mundane, daily experiences of organizations and institutions. Rather than imagine a vital democracy only in the context of overt political participation, Mouffe states, “I am convinced that fostering a strategy of ‘engagement with institutions’ is absolutely crucial for envisioning democratic politics today” (Mouffe, 2010, p. 326). To envision democracy, and then practice it into being, we must bring about a profound transformation of those institutions, so as to make them a vehicle for the expression of the manifold of democratic demands, which would extend the principle of equality to as many social

40    Democratizing Leadership relations as possible. This is how radical politics is envisioned by the agonistic approach, and such a project requires agonistic engagement with the institutions. (Mouffe, 2013, p. 75)

The ultimate purpose of democratizing leadership is to assist in the transition from what Freire described as the epochal theme of domination (1973, p. 93), to liberation. Here, however I want to argue with Freire, or at least extend his vision. Liberation, as he suggests, is the freedom from domination. Let us then move beyond liberation, as the freedom from or negation of domination, to a future where the positive epochal theme of collaboration becomes hegemonic through the mechanism and process of democracy. Every order is predicated on the exclusion of other possibilities, but as the temporary and precarious articulation of contingent practices, each order is always the expression of a particular structure of power relations. Things could have been otherwise. And so every hegemonic order is susceptible to being challenged. (Mouffe, 2010, p. 326)

The task remains: to envision how things could be otherwise. Democratizing leadership is a glimpse into that potential future and a framework for practicing that future into being. On a final introductory note, democratizing leadership is necessarily a question of procedure and process—how to practice and advance democracy. It is also evaluative, as it is oriented toward particular ends and premised on democratic values. In the largest frame, that of Freire’s “epochal theme” (1973), these values are summarized in an hegemony of collaboration replacing that of domination. Regarding the particular concepts of democratizing leadership, these values are summarized as the authenticity of voice, the integrity of decision-making, and the responsibility of collective action, within the context of common goods. However the definition of common goods is left open here as a task of the pluralist democratic project itself, negotiated among voices that reflect diverse normative frames and that come together in democratic space. This is will be unsatisfactorily relativistic to some readers, but I invite and challenge you to engage with the process of democratizing leadership in this text in order to advance the normative analysis that will benefit from your critique: “How will the process of democratizing leadership create effective practices and structures that promote common goods, engage normative concerns about the values of a new collaborative hegemony, and cultivate the democratization of culture?”

2 Theorizing Counter-Hegemonic Democratizing Leadership

If you’ve come to help me, then you’re wasting your time. If you’ve come because your liberation is bound with mine, then let us work together. —Australian Aboriginal Elder Lilla Watson

T

he constitutive components of democratizing leadership, from above and from below, are voice, decision-making, and collective action. Typical formulations of democratic process are founded on decision-making, but they neglect or assume the development of individual and communal voice. Collective action is also neglected, presuming that once a democratic decision has been made, action will proceed through established channels. By identifying and practicing these three elements, democratizing leadership can attend to democratic values like equality, plurality, and inclusion, while guarding against exclusion, addressing differential normative values and rebalancing asymmetric power relations to counter hegemony.

Democratizing Leadership, pages 41–128 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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This tripartite theory emerged from ethnographic case studies of democratizing leadership and from my own attempts to democratize the classroom. I often hear students bemoan their lack of decision-making power. It seemed a simple matter to ask students to help shape our class syllabus and make decisions together throughout the semester to develop a democratic learning community. Instead, I found students unpracticed at decisionmaking to such an extent that they struggled to define learning goals or participate with each other in decisions. The open spaces of the syllabus caused concern for some and outright panic for others. Negotiating deadlines for assignments or creating group projects from the ground up were perhaps more power than students were really interested in practicing. The more power I distributed, the more uncomfortable students became. They are so accustomed to unchanging course structures and the absolute authority of the professor that with few exceptions democratizing efforts produced anxiety, complaints or confusion, and corresponding comments on evaluations. My student evaluation forms include such comments as “far too lax guidelines—this could be solved by taking some of the democracy out.” In the same set of evaluations, students also wrote, “I like the idea of this class but the execution was frustrating—many students do not claim their education or [their] role in the class” and “I was annoyed by the lack of initiative among students.” Yet some students grasped the democratized elements of the curriculum as opportunities to take responsibility for their own education, as free spaces for tailoring the class to their own interests, and at best, attending to the common goals of their peers. For first-year students, I scaled backed democratizing efforts so that learning goals became a guided classroom writing assignment, and other course elements were narrowed to a choice between two prearranged projects, with clear deadlines and rubrics for grading. For upper-level students in a class entitled Leadership for Social Justice, I continue to experiment with democratization. I realize that students need to find their voice as agents of their own education, in contrast to the passivity that is cultivated in many classrooms. Once they find their voice, they need practice to use it with others while retaining their goals in the face of others’ priorities. Dealing with plurality takes practice, and working across difference is a slow-to-develop skill. Rather than deferring to others or searching for a lowest common denominator, students struggle to live in the tensions of a pluralistic communal voice. Democratic decision-making is not easier, even as students’ develop their individual and communal voice. Not all decisions in my classroom are open to students, and they cared about some decisions more than others. Majoritarian models of decision-making fit the quick decisions in which students were not deeply invested. Consensus models fit the high-stakes decisions that shaped learning

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experiences or impacted grades. But once decisions were made, collective action was also an unfamiliar next step. Sharing responsibility for the consequences of democratically derived decisions implied extra group work, further negotiations of scope and timeline, or a change in direction from that implied in the original plan. Even students’ conceptual understanding of the syllabus were challenged. No longer a static contract, it becomes more of an amendable constitution; at best it was the smart flexible platform promoted by Lederach (2005), and at worst it was a multiple and confusing revision of assignments, rubrics, and deadlines. Regular in-class evaluations (another form of voice) and ongoing but time-limited negotiations help us shape a democratic space for education that serves the most formal and the most improvisational students well enough. Iterations of each class help to refine the shape of the democratic space, yet new students come to class the first day unused to the process, making it a new endeavor each semester. I continue to learn lessons in democratizing leadership from my students, even as I try to teach the concept and the associated skills to make it work. The case studies that inform this theory are explored below through brief scenarios that introduce voice, decision-making, and collective action, and in detail through in-depth qualitative description and analysis of democratizing leadership. Examples from a corporate visual arts program, a community-building theater, and an alliance of peacemaking groups provide a variety of approaches and diverse application of this theory. I hope these articulations of democratizing leadership will be explanatory enough and compelling enough to inspire your extension, critique, and application of this theory.

INTERLUDE 2.1 VOICE SCENARIO: MALE AGGRESSION NOW PLAYING EVERYWHERE It is 1988. A mortgage banker sits in the fourth floor reception area of First Bank System. He (certainly a “he”) arrived at the Human Resources Department 10 minutes early for a job interview. When he checks in with the receptionist, she (yes, “she”) compliments his tie. He then settles into an overstuffed chair to collect his thoughts, but he is immediately distracted and surprised by the artwork displayed in the reception lounge. He expects to see framed prints of a duck stamp or a rural landscape in this conservative Midwest bank. Instead, he is confronted with a stark, red block print. It depicts the rough outline of a man waving two flags, and

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with multiple weapons projecting from his groin: club, arrow, knife, handgun, and a missile labeled “MX.” The visitor gets up from his chair and approaches the piece to read small didactic labels next to the frame. The first reads, “Jonathan Borofsky, Male Aggression Now Playing Everywhere, color silkscreen, 1986.” Below the first label are several others in the same format, with printed commentary about the art. One decries the subject matter as inappropriate for a bank. The next label begins with the phrase, “Damn right . . .” and continues with a description of an oppressive and misogynist corporate environment. The labels are ascribed to the very bank employees he is about to meet. The visitor pauses, uncertain for a moment and then self-conscious, wondering if anyone is watching him examine the art. Familiar with this oft-repeated scene, the receptionist says, “You should have seen the last piece. We banished it right away, but then this one showed up in its place.” She points to a plexiglas box on the wall labeled TALK BACK, and says, “Love it or hate it, you can write your reactions to the piece. They’ll print a label and mount it to the wall.” The visitor shifts uncomfortably. How should he react? What if this is part of the interview process? Perplexed, he smiles weakly and returns to his seat. Pulling out the job description, he reviews it carefully to avoid looking at the art.

Voice Speak your mind—even if your voice shakes. —Attributed to Maggie Kuhn Gray Panther Movement

Democratic voices—and democratic processes as a whole—are limited by participants’ existing experiences and skills. Even though decision-making is central to many conceptions of democracy, participants need opportunities to find their voice, use their voice, and practice using it with others to better engage in democratic decision-making. Democratizing leadership in a classroom, community, organization, or institution must develop opportunities for participants to find, practice, and use their voice with others. The more developed each participant’s voice, the more engaged they might be in the critical participatory processes of a thick democracy. Democratizing leadership can also shape spaces and create platforms for other people to find their voices. Too often formal or positional leaders

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presume to represent the voices of others and do so inadequately or inaccurately. Where power differentials and normative worldviews have typically excluded or silenced voices with alternative stories or disrespected identities, democratizing leaders must also conscientiously provide opportunities for those who have found and practiced their voice, to use it with others in harmonic unison or as counter-hegemonic challenge. Even as I write this section on finding and using voice, I struggle with the tension between articulating my own ideas, my own voice, and using the voice of other theorists and writers to articulate ideas with me. I continue to develop my voice in the praxis of intellectual conversation with these authors, but I also want to capture my own voice authentically while representing the voices of others with integrity. I was gratified to read Paulo Freire’s own struggle with the writer’s voice in the foreword to Letters to Cristina: I write because I feel politically committed, because I would like to convince other people, without lying to them, that what I dream about and what I speak about and what causes me to struggle are worth writing about. The political nature of the act of writing, in turn, requires ethical commitment . . . I cannot give the impression that I am knowledgeable about this or that subject if I am not. I cannot quote a single phrase that intimates to my readers that I have read the entire work of the quoted author . . . what is expected of those who teach by speaking or writing, by being a testimony, is that they be rigorously coherent so as not to lose themselves in the enormous distance between what they do and what they say. (1996, pp. 2–3)

I will endeavor to represent authentically the voices of my theoretical colleagues as I have understood them imperfectly from their writing. And I will struggle to write with integrity and to live with humility, the concepts and principles I voice here on the page.

Finding Voice How does democratizing leadership create opportunities for finding voice? This is a complex, iterative project fraught with ethical perils. Leadership must help individuals develop an authentic, personal, political voice while avoiding unintentional coercion or co-optation. Opportunities to use that voice must be equitable in relation to the voices of others, so that they may join in a democratic communal voice. Less common and even divergent individual voices must be held in tension with communal voice to advance shared goals. As much as individuals find, develop, and use their voice together with others, they will be better able to participate

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in authentically democratic decision-making, leading to collective action for common goods. Paulo Freire’s process of conscientization illustrates a process for finding and developing individual voice to use in concert with others as communal voice. Conscientization is a process in which individuals identify and question hegemony and thereby overcome self-censorship, self-marginalization, and hegemonic subordination to become a “subject” (as opposed to an “object” in Freire, 1973, 1992). Liberation from domination is the ultimate end of conscientization, however, liberation to what end is an open question. One running theme of this book will be the orientation of Freire’s pedagogy toward democratizing leadership so that liberation from a dominating hegemony may be extended into liberation through democratic participation with others in organizations, institutions, and communities toward a hegemony of collaboration. Voice is the praxis of self-concept in action; the theory of our own identity in relationship to the way we enact that identity in the world. The continuing formation and reformation of identity happens in comparison and contrast to difference. This is the praxis of identity and action in and through the practice of the political. We discover our voice as we distinguish it from the voice of others, especially as we come to understand the way other voices speak through us, compared to voices we have appropriated as our own or voice that is uniquely ours. We might recognize the voice of our parents in us, speaking words we once questioned or mocked, now coming out of our mouths as wisdom. Or we may speak something as common sense, only to realize it is rooted in unexamined privilege or hegemonic values in subtle or profound contradiction to our own deeply held beliefs. One of the tasks of finding authentic voice is identifying, problematizing, and critiquing hegemonic concepts implicit in our socially constructed language. Freire addressed the struggle of oppressed people finding their voice, but also noted that when it happened, “It was as if the ‘culture of silence’ was suddenly shattered, and they had discovered not only that they could speak but that their critical discourse on the world, their world, was a way of remaking the world” (1992, 1998, p. 38). Voice is a powerful tool for moving from critical analysis to social change, a critique of the current hegemony to the making of a new one. The power of voice is evident in most liberation struggles by the silencing of the people by the powerful. Champions of a seemingly static social order will not recognize the potential for absent voices to contribute vital and innovative perspectives that are otherwise lost when silenced by complacence or insistence on the status quo. Authorities often resort to violence in order to control voice that would otherwise critique and reconstruct our social reality and threaten their authority.

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In the hegemony of domination, violence is often understood to be an ultimate form of power and this is reflected in our language. Our daily vocabulary is replete with what I call “violent hyperbolic colloquialisms.” My students laugh at first when I read this list, perhaps because they are too familiar with these phrases and discomforted by the realization of implied violence: Are you trying to maim someone when you shoot off an email? Or is violence implied when you make a bulleted list? Do we seek to kill when we take a shot in the dark? And will there be blood when we take a stab at it? Do you start at the feet or the head when you cut someone down to size? I not sure what it means to cut off your nose to spite your face, but I’m sure I don’t want to try it. Who’s pointing it at you when you are under the gun? And if a teacher told me to cut it out, what exactly was the “it” she had in mind? What kind of twisted mind suggests there is more than one way to skin a cat? Perhaps the same brutal person who is always beating a dead horse. And is it because we are jealous of their ability to fly or because we have a shortage of rocks that we kill two birds with one stone?

These idioms are particular to geographic regions, generations, and languages, but after you read this list, I’m certain you will add to it from your own common speech. If violence is pervasive in our language, and language is instrumental to social construction, then finding voice involves identifying, problematizing, and critiquing the words that make up our language, and serve as tools to either reproduce or transform the prevailing hegemony. In addition to identifying the presence of hegemonic constructs that infect our voice, we must also overcome self-censorship, which limits our voice and leads to an absence of words and language that might challenge violence and domination in favor of democracy and collaboration. Entire cultures and classes of people have been silenced by misogyny, racism, heteronormativity, ableism, and colonialism. Democratizing leadership can identify absent narratives that need to be heard and integrated into discourse to amplify voice for people in dominated groups. Self-reflection on the omission of authentic voice due to the social pressures of dominant groups or cultural conceptualizations is another area of concern. Related to self-censorship is the habit of self-marginalization,

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when we too quickly presume that our voice, our group, our vision of the world is marginalized when in fact it may be of central significance. We take into ourselves the role of oppressor when we practice self-censorship and self-marginalization. In my academic field of peace studies, even my colleagues and I have stumbled into this pitfall assuming our voice and vision resided in the margins of an academe or institution that needed the very voice we subdued. Perhaps a more technical and categorical term to sum up the issue of problematizing hegemony and finding voice is hegemonic subordination, describing the process by which we allow our voice to be uncritically shaped by the current hegemonic order, or internalize unexamined hegemonic values into our voice. Hegemonic subordination is the reinforcement of the current hegemonic order through family upbringing, formal education, and cultural or religious institutions, as an unconscious (and unconscientious) reproduction of the status quo. The first aspect of finding voice is liberation from internalized commonsense understandings by problematizing them through a process of conscientization. The liberated subject (as opposed to the instrumentalized object of domination) can then begin to conscientiously transform the hegemony of domination. Paulo Freire and his seminal text, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1973) articulated an approach to liberatory learning with an updated scheme in Education for Critical Consciousness (1992), in a slightly different form. Freire’s pedagogical process assumes intervention by external educators (translated slightly in this work to be democratizing leaders) working for conscientization and empowerment of local communities by evaluating local contradictions; developing codifications from contradictions; decoding themes (political, economic, religious, gendered, etc.) through culture circles; systematic study; strategic action planning; and social intervention. In an article entitled Peace Education and Paulo Freire’s Method: Toward the Democratization of Teaching and Learning, I outlined Freire’s pedagogy using both sources named above (Striker, 2007, p. 189). A portion of that outline will guide this analysis. The outline in Figure 2.1 is appropriated from Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1973, pp. 102–118), with some attention paid to the articulation of his method in Educating for Critical Consciousness (1992, pp. 37–49). In merging the two descriptions, I have renumbered some of the steps that appear in Pedagogy of the Oppressed as “stages” and in Education for Critical Consciousness as “phases”: Steps one and two are focused on finding and using voice through liberatory pedagogy. Educators, or democratizing leaders, first uncover constructed codes. Codes in Freire (1973, 1998) indicate unacknowledged

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Step 1: Investigators: a. Make preliminary acquaintance through secondary sources b. Establish firsthand contact to uncover constructed codes c. Expect interviews to reveal longings, frustrations, disbeliefs, hopes, and desire to participate Step 2: Evaluation with local assistants a. Uncover principal and secondary contradictions i. epochal or national-level contradictions ii. local or particular contradictions b. Determine awareness of contradictions c. Articulating limit-situations d. Proposing untested feasibilities Step 3: Codification a. Development of codifications from contradictions b. Prepare didactic materials i. Utilize familiar situations and felt needs ii. Do not render them too overt or propagandistic iii. Organize as a thematic fan iv. Include other related or subsumed contradictions Step 4: Decoding a. Thematic investigation circles b. Represent to the people their own thematics in systematized and amplified form c. Begin with theme of “culture” (distinguish what is natural and constructed) d. Break down into other themes (thematic fan) i.e., politics, economy, religion, labor, gender, ethnicity, etc. Step 5: Systematic interdisciplinary study a. List implicit and explicit themes b. Classify according to the social sciences c. Break down the theme according to discipline with input from other disciplines d. Compose brief essays with bibliographic suggestions Step 6: Intervention a. Postliteracy stage b. Defending democracy c. Democratization of culture

Figure 2.1  Outline of Paulo Freire’s method.

linguistic or conceptual constructions that obscure the operations of power or reinforce status quo domination. These are situational and so vary with context. Where they are used by hegemonic leadership to consciously reproduce power relations, codes tend to be customized to maximize manipulation while remaining covert and nuanced. Codes can also be subconscious to both hegemonic leadership and those who have subordinated that hegemony, such that they govern behavior without conscious manipulation, yet retain their ability to reproduce power relations. Essentially, codes are social norms that are common sense to uncritical objects of domination,

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but that can be problematized by democratizing leadership to expose power relations and transform individuals into critical subjects. These codes are problematized through contradictions, explored below. But first, step one in Freire’s schema also cautions to expect that interviews with participants in a liberatory process will “reveal longings, frustrations, disbeliefs, hopes and an impetus to participate” (1992, p. 49). The voices of subordinated people will be revealed not in rational moments of intellectual awareness, but rather in emotional longings and hopes, sharp frustrations or baffled disbeliefs. Democratizing leadership employing a process of conscientization ought to expect difficult and conflicting emotions to mark the cognitive dissonance that comes from critical examination of long-accepted norms. Often this critical awakening leads to a pointed curiosity and desire to participate, as stated in the outline of Freire’s process, but it may also end with frustration and disbelief, leading some to reject critical analysis and choose the familiar over the startling, and the comfortable lie over the uncomfortable truth. I use a movie scene from The Matrix to dramatize this point to students (Klein, 2015), asking them to make a conscious choice to remain in our class and question everything. How does democratizing leadership uncover constructed codes? By looking for contradictions between theory and action or between values and practices. Contradictions are identified and used by democratizing leadership to illustrate dominating hegemonic constructions that do not fit the stated normative values of participants and expose the operations of power in hegemonic leadership. Contradictions also promote analysis normality, distinguishing between what is natural and what is cultural (or socially constructed). In Education for Critical Consciousness (1992), Freire includes 10 illustrated codifications, drawings of recognizable situations. Each drawing is the starting point for a discussion that helps participants in a cultural circle distinguish between the natural and the cultural. The first situation (p. 63) depicts a man with a hoe and a book under a tree on the edge of a field. Behind him, a woman and child stand between a well and a house. The situation describes, in part, the need for water (natural) and the construction of a well to meet that need (cultural). Participants can see themselves in the daily need for water and the diverse ways we have constructed to meet that need. Implicit in these constructions are discussions of concepts such as rights, power, and the common good, in addition to discussions about more practical issues such as public utilities, ownership, and access. In Freire’s situation of the well, the contradiction is the absolute daily need of every human being for water and the social constructions that allow some to derive profit or control from the well. Previously, ownership of the well might have seemed natural, a given or “coded” situation. But after

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analyzing the situation and recognizing the code through a contradiction, the given nature of the situation is called into question. As noted in the outline, this step may also raise emotions that spring from a sudden awakening to injustice or realization of oppression. The role of democratizing leadership is not to ignore or squelch these emotions, but rather to recognize them and turn them toward agency for positive change. Most significant about the distinction between the natural and the constructed, is the recognition that something constructed can be deconstructed, or differently constructed, offering hope for transformation of the contradiction; in essence, rewriting the code. Transformation was Freire’s hope for literacy, “I can see validity only in a literacy program in which men understand words in their true significance: as a force to transform the world” (1998, p. 81). In step three, Freire describes local-level or particular contradictions and national-level or epochal contradictions. The latter category signifies the hegemonic—situations that are globally accepted as normative even though they are fraught with contradictions between values or rights and actual practices or outcomes. Even though contradictions become stark once clearly seen, it is typically ineffective to simply point them out. And this is a grand mistake made so often by liberal and leftist activists, summed up to wonderful affect by Emily Dickinson: Tell all the Truth but tell it slant Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our inform Delight The Truth’s superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind (1997, p. 1263)

Hinting at the power dynamics and ethical considerations of voice in a paternalistic tone, Dickinson recognizes the efficacy of approaching a truth critically and with recognition that one new truth may upset a normative worldview of other truths. The cognitive dissonance between accepted normative values and contradictory social constructions can be a disturbing experience. It is important, perhaps necessary, that individuals speak such truths in their own voice rather than hearing them pronounced by someone else. Also in Step Three, Freire describes our internalized normative horizons as limit-situations. Freire quotes Professor Alvaro Vieira Pinto, who described limit-situations not as “the impassable boundaries where possibilities end, but the real boundaries where possibilities begin” (Freire 1973,

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p. 89). Limit-situations are an internalized form of hegemonic subordination, forming a boundary to critical thought that constrains us to the hegemonic order. Although Freire worked primarily with impoverished, undereducated peasants, he also noted that limit-situations can be particularly difficult to identify, challenge, and change for people in the economic and cultural middle class. The lower economic classes Freire educated had little to lose from deconstructing systems of domination and oppression. But the middle class, in Brazil, the United States, or elsewhere, is captured in the hegemonic system as both dominating and dominated. He states, “a dominated consciousness which has not yet perceived a limit-situation in its totality apprehends only its epiphenomena and transfers to the latter the inhibiting force which is the property of the limit-situation” (Freire, 1973, 1992). So middle class, “educated,” but uncritical individuals will see only imminent restrictions on their freedom and so react against particular limits (e.g., specific governmental policies) without seeing the totality of the limit-situation, such as domination of labor by capital that objectifies and imprisons individuals, limiting authentic freedom to a far greater extent. Such is the limit-situation of a political libertarian in the United States who votes for a Tea Party candidate who promises that freedom from government regulation will serve the interests of capital, but appeals to the limit-situation of the individual seeking freedom. Freedom from government regulation might be more accurately described as autonomy, whereas freedom in a democratic sense is the agency to participate in the decisions that impact one’s life. I frequently return to Freire’s critique of the middle class to reflect on my own limit-situations as the real boundaries where possibilities begin: Their fear of freedom leads them to erect defense mechanisms and rationalizations, which conceal the fundamental, emphasize the fortuitous, and deny concrete reality. In the face of a problem whose analysis would lead to the uncomfortable perception of a limit-situation, their tendency is to remain on the periphery of the discussion and resist any attempt to reach the heart of the question. They are even annoyed when someone points out a fundamental proposition, which explains the fortuitous or secondary matters to which they had been assigning primary importance. (Freire, 1973, p. 94)

While cynical about the critical capacity of the middle class, Freire names a meaningful tendency in individuals whose comfort and security is threatened by a transformed hegemony or who have no particular motivation to change their situation. If individuals and groups do not perceive any particular limit-situations in lives marked by relative comfort and complacency, they will not be easily disposed to a process of conscientization.

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As a function of voice, conscientization is a careful dance between leadership and participants in a process of critical pedagogy. Freire himself seems to neglect some of the ethical perils of working with leadership coming from the middle class. He states, “The fact that individuals in a certain area do not perceive a generative theme, or perceive it in a distorted way, may only reveal a limit-situation of oppression in which men are still submerged” (1990, p. 94). Freire seems to take for granted that the perceptions of a facilitator (i.e., democratizing leadership) are necessarily insightful and that of participants are necessarily distorted. Instead, it may be that leadership has constructed a codification that does not accurately reflect the situation or its connection to larger contradictions. Individuals who do not perceive the theme may be too oppressed to see it or may be insightful enough to recognize a mistake in leadership. In the same way, individuals who perceive a contradiction might be projecting their oppression onto the situation or might be correcting a distortion made by the facilitator. The more particular a theme, the more attention this distinction ought to receive. Yet even at the national or epochal level, democratizing leadership ought to remain open to participants’ critique. And so we return to the theme of voice. In a chapter of Education for Critical Consciousness (1992) written for university extension agents entitled, “Extension and Cultural Invasion—A Necessary Criticism,” Freire states, “human beings . . . that possess a thought-language, who act and are capable of reflection on themselves and on their own action, only they are beings of praxis” (p. 111; author’s emphasis). This internal voice is essential to the praxis that underlies democratizing leadership. It is a reflective and critical thoughtlanguage that theorizes the world and reflects on the relationship between theoretical democratic decision-making and the action of collective action. Freire then takes another step when he states, “Detaching themselves from their surroundings, they transform their environment. They do not merely adapt to it. Humans are consequently beings of decision” (1992, p. 111; author’s emphasis). Freire denotes the Latin root of decision, decidere, meaning “to cut.” To decide is an act of cutting oneself away from simply being in the world, to being with the world as both of the world and working on the world to transform it. The distinction between natural and cultural is one of decision, or recognizing what is constructed in order to know what might be transformed. In previous writing on this subject (Klein, 2007, pp. 196–197), I illustrate this through the example of Hurricane Katrina. Hurricanes are a natural or given situation (although the climate crisis adds a new layer of analysis to what is natural or cultural in a hurricane), whereas levees and policies, public spending and policing are cultural and constructed.

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Hurricane Katrina was both a natural disaster (storm) and a human disaster (inequality). Even though human intervention will do little to lessen the power of hurricanes, social constructions—physical and conceptual—need to change and can be transformed. Codifications, such as a hurricane, are visual depictions of contradictions and described by Freire as one way to “tell all the truth, but tell it slant” (Dickinson, 1997, p. 1263), allowing the thought-language or internal voice to literally come to terms with contradictions. In another approach to the way such visual representations shape understanding, John Paul Lederach writes, “Images . . . are powerful not just because they convey meaning, but more important because they create meaning” (2005, p. 44). Images as codifications create opportunities to describe, analyze, and shape reality: problematizing and critically examining commonsense dynamics of power and liberating participants from hegemonic subordination while promoting agency to deconstruct and reshape hegemonic systems. Democratizing leadership must paint a picture and tell a story to promote finding, then using voice, and then using voice together. Codifications as tools of democratizing leadership should represent, as Freire describes, “typical existential situations of the group . . . These representations function as challenges, as coded situation problems containing elements to be decoded by the group with the collaboration of the coordinator” (1992, p. 45). When choosing and preparing codification materials to mediate critical analysis, democratizing leadership should utilize familiar situations and felt needs to problematize hegemony and create opportunities for critical analysis. However, the codification should not be too overt or propagandistic in its representation to avoid something more like indoctrination than critical education. Decoding work that encourages critical analysis of hegemony should create opportunities for participants to use their voice together to imagine untested feasibilities that might transform autocratic domination. This work might also raise new possibilities in the process of collaboration that democratizing leadership may not have imagined or uncovered in isolation from participants and process. If the codifications are familiar enough and rich enough in their depiction, participants may raise contradictions and themes beyond the intention of leadership to further develop the group’s critical consciousness. Freire’s process of conscientization presumes outside intervention to help people find their voice. Intervention implies a relationship between interveners and the intervened—insiders and outsiders. It also implies the operation of power in this relationship to create change. Power is central to the very nature of democracy, and yet it tends to be associated with the negative abuse of power or to be absent from analysis of leadership dynamics.

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In contrast, equality is also a central concept of democracy. It, however, is viewed as necessarily positive; sometimes presumed as so essential that any power dynamics that do not confer complete equality but instead admit to asymmetry are deemed to be antidemocratic. Yet complete equality denies differential experience, knowledge, skills, and resources. Given these factors, how does democratizing leadership account for and address asymmetric power relations? Freire speaks to this at the level of grammar. Known for his work in literacy that promotes both language and political skill development, Freire identified the telling role of prepositions in the linguistic construction of power relations. He articulates the title of his seminal work, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, as, “a pedagogy that must be forged with, not for, the oppressed (whether individuals or peoples) in the incessant struggle to regain their humanity” (Freire, 1973, p. 33, emphasis in original). Prepositions signal the relationship between subject and object. Prepositional phrases are constructed in this pattern: a preposition followed by a determiner and an adjective or two, followed by a pronoun or noun, called the object of the preposition. In The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, pedagogy is the subject of the title, followed by the preposition “of,” a determiner (in this case “the” as definite article), the adjective “oppressed,” and implied noun “people.” Such concern for the construction of democratic language is evidenced in the phrase, “government of the people, by the people, for the people” in Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Such linguistic constructions will be a constant concern for democratizing leadership that recognizes the power of language to shape our reality; to either confirm or challenge the hegemony of out time. Acknowledging language as a primary tool of social construction, Freire carefully constructed his writing on pedagogy with attention to the power relations implied by prepositions. For example, Brazil in transition needed to urgently find rapid and sure solutions to its distressing problems—but solutions with the people and never for them or imposed upon them. What was needed was to go to the people and help them to enter the historical process critically. (Freire, 1992, p. 16, emphasis in original)

The practice of voice in Freire’s work included the nuances of language that shaped power relations and signaled the intentions of those who intervened to serve oppressed people. Doris Sommers identifies Freire’s rejection of traditional Marxist leadership in his linguistic formulation. “By a simple change of preposition, Freire rejected vanguard leadership style that works for the oppressed, and

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stays in the lead, for collaborations that work with the oppressed to interrupt systematic, recurrent unfairness” (Sommers, 2014, p. 147). A certain type of praxis happens when we attend to language and its place in the dynamics of power. Awareness of subtle social constructions in language promote critical consciousness about how we name power relations. As we more carefully construct language and transparently indicate these constructions to those we work with, we begin to see implicit power dynamics in the language of others. Linguistic constructions do not accurately represent power relations necessarily, but as much as perception shapes reality, perceived linguistic subtleties shape our relationships in democratizing leadership. Conscientiously using language to construct and reconstruct power relationships may seem to be tedious work, yet it is a core element of political literacy, summed up by Sommers when she writes, “Liberty lives in the rehearsals of these lateral relations” (2014, p. 147). People who are familiar with oppression will be familiar too with the paternalistic and patronizing interventions of those who seek to help, even with good intentions. In a classic speech, To Hell With Good Intentions (1968) (in Kendall, 1990), Monsignor Ivan Illich addressed U.S. volunteers about to engage in “missionary” work in Mexico. He calls their service hypocrisy, given the social needs in their own country and the social ills their country has brought to Mexico, especially guns and support for dictatorial regimes. Illich also calls out volunteers’ pretentious imposition, defining the problem in terms of voice as a representation of power: If you insist on working with the poor, if this is your vocation, then at least work among the poor who can tell you to go to hell. It is incredibly unfair for you to impose yourselves on a village where you are so linguistically deaf and dumb that you don’t even understand what you are doing, or what people think of you. And it is profoundly damaging to yourselves when you define something that you want to do as “good,” a “sacrifice” and “help.” (p. 4)

To conclude his speech, he calls on the organizers and volunteers alike to “voluntarily renounce exercising the power which being an American gives you. I am here to entreat you to freely, consciously and humbly give up the legal right you have to impose your benevolence on Mexico.” Illich instead encourages U.S. volunteers to give their money and status to travel or to learn, but not to try to help. He calls his audience to consider a relationship of mutuality (as much as that might be possible) or at least a relationship that will do little harm. Freire describes the international volunteer effort to relieve social ills, “Assistencialism: a term used in Latin America to describe policies of financial or social assistance which attack symptoms, but not causes, of social

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ills” (1973, p. 15, footnote 14). He claims that such assistance, “contradicts man’s natural vocation as Subject in that it treats the recipient as a passive object, incapable of participating in the process of his own recuperation” (p. 15, footnote 14). He also decries this work as a dangerous violation of fundamental or radical democratic ideals that focus on people developing abilities to solve their own problems, and enhancing their capacity to construct their own future, rather than relying on charitable and voluntary interventions. At its root, Freire claims, “the greatest danger of assistencialism is the violence of its anti-dialogue, which by imposing silence and passivity denies men conditions likely to develop or to ‘open’ their consciousness” (p. 15). Paternalistic and patronizing power relations are objectifying and silencing, denying voice to people who would benefit more from critical consciousness, political literacy, and increasing agency. He describes this dynamic as “anti-dialogue” because the lack of mutuality, the one-way asymmetric power imbalance, silences the very people who cry out for a voice. If paternalistic and patronizing leadership is problematic, how does Freire describe a more positive and democratic leadership in the development of voice? First, he identifies an oppressor as anyone who is not critically conscious of oppression and actively working to deconstruct it. Oppression can be, and is often, multifaceted, so a single individual is likely to embody both oppressive and oppressed identities, complicating any simple binary construction. A person’s identity is constructed of intersecting categories that span an oppressor/oppressed spectrum. Someone who is an ethnic minority in a country might also be part of an oppressive economic class, yet identify with an oppressed gender identity, in a dominant religious tradition. One of my college student’s of mixed racial identity (White and South American indigenous) talked about his identify as encompassing the oppressed and oppressor inside. To acknowledge dynamics of oppression, then, is the start of deconstructing oppression by finding solidarity with the oppressed. Individuals face widely differential degrees of oppression and yet perhaps find common ground in a relative lack of freedom. This is not to say anyone can fully understand another’s pain through our shared categorical oppression, but rather we might empathize with the pain of another person through an act of love: The oppressor is [in solidarity] with the oppressed only when he stops treating the oppressed as an abstract category and sees them as persons who have been unjustly dealt with, deprived of their voice, cheated in the sale of their labor—when he stops making pious, sentimental, and individualistic gestures and risks an act of love. (Freire, 1973, pp. 34–35, author’s emphasis)

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The interplay of reflection on our shared humanity, and action predicated on love for another person, is a core commitment for Freire’s pedagogy and for democratizing leadership. Voice is the primary channel for human relationships and thus central to liberation. Freire defines transformation of the world in the praxis of voice: Human existence cannot be silent, nor can it be nourished by false words, but only by true words, with which men and women transform the world. To exist, humanly, is to name the world, to change it. Once named, the world in its turn reappears to the namers as a problem and requires of them a new naming. Human brings are not built in silence, but in word, in work, in action-reflection. (Freire, 1973, p. 88)

To find your voice and use it is the beginning of conscientization, by problematizing oppression and giving voice to liberatory solutions. But it is not the role of democratizing leadership to presume or retain the privilege to speak for others, rather, it is, “the right of everyone. Consequently, no one can say a true word alone—nor can she say it for another, in a prescriptive act which robs others of their words” (Freire, 1973, p. 88). A more contemporary treatment of voice, silencing, and the presumption to speak for others is profoundly captured in the titular question to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” She describes as “epistemic violence” the project to “constitute the colonial subject as other” (1988, p. 35). This social construction through language marginalizes and silences the person in colonized settings as objects different from or lesser than human. She wonders, given this construction, how might the subaltern speak if by definition this other-than-human object is rendered mute by the constructs of colonialism? How might those of us, premised as subjects by the same construction, possibly hear the voice of the other, let alone speak for them? Rosalind Morris, in her introduction to an edited volume addressing Spivak’s essay and idea, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” problematizes interpretations of the phrase from Spivak, “white men are saving brown women from brown men” (Morris, 2010, p. 3). Morris describes the desire to give voice to the hysteric and the subaltern as coming from the same Freudian ideological formation. The “hysteric” names a pathology attributed to women in patriarchal ideology, requiring someone else to speak for a woman who cannot speak for herself. The desire to speak for the subaltern, then, is similarly rooted in “the ‘masculine-imperialist’ ideology [that] can be said to produce the need for a masculine-imperialist rescue mission” (Morris, 2010, p. 3). For democratizing leadership, intent on voice as a constitutive component of democratic work, this qualification is to be internalized and integrated conscientiously

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into processes and practices. Such self-reflective analysis of ideological assumptions and biases in space-making for voice will be practiced imperfectly, continually challenged by unacknowledged and subsumed hegemonic ideologies, even as we seek to counter the current hegemonic order. Self-understanding of our own ideological formations will remain subjective and subjected to the limitations of our intellectual and ethical development. However openness to continual development and learning from people who are finding, practicing, and using voice in the free spaces of democratizing leadership enhances the our ability to reflect more critically and concurrently become more effective in the kind of listening that makes room for voice. This developmental mutuality between increasingly literate voices and increasingly effective and ethical democratizing leadership distributes power and challenges “masculine-imperialist ideology” inasmuch as the two dynamics are held in creative and attentive tension. As Spivak and Morris argue, voice will remain an imperfect representation of the speaker, limited and distorted by internalized hegemonic ideologies. And any representation of that voice by democratizing leadership in decisionmaking and collective action will also remain imperfect, similarly affected by operative hegemonic ideologies. However, this is simply a precondition of the difficult but necessary work voice promotion (a limit-situation as the beginning of possibilities) to be identified and surpassed. The implications for democratizing processes need not be a detriment so much as an opportunity to enlighten, qualify, and deepen democratic voice. In the struggle to deconstruct the “masculine-imperialist ideology” of patriarchy, feminist pedagogy provides six basic principles for teaching that are also instructive for democratizing leadership. They are reformation of the relationship between professor and student [leadership and participants], empowerment, community building, privileging the individual voice, respecting personal experience in its diversity, and challenging traditional views of theory (Allen, Walker, & Webb, 2002). These principles are not only counter-hegemonic in orientation, they specifically problematize the hegemony of domination and control, especially through reforming relationships, by attending to and changing power dynamics. They privilege and complicate the nature of voice as individually situated and diverse even in its individuality. These principles of feminist pedagogy explicitly question and challenge commonsense assumptions about relationships, identity, and theory that are implicit in the dominant and dominating hegemony. Such principles are not only foundational for counter-hegemonic education but also for democratizing leadership. Feminist pedagogy also proposes that we take into consideration the various forms of power held by teachers based upon their race, gender, and

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historical and institutional settings in which they work (Weiler, 1991). The same consideration should be applied to and responsibility accepted by democratizing leadership. So, as I write these words, I must also qualify them as a White, male, middle class, middle aged, heterosexual, Christian, able, educated, and just about every other dominant and dominating category of identity. Problematizing my identity does not disqualify me from having anything to say about patriarchy or domination. Instead, it is an acknowledgement of my limit-situations, as the beginning of possibilities, which I have been exploring critically for many years. Yet I also acknowledge that these aspects of my identity may help you, reader, to see my biases and even blind spots in this theoretical approach to democratizing leadership. For the purposes of this book, I am pointing to critical work that continues to challenge me in my own practice of democratizing leadership, with recognition of a lifetime of work ahead. The hegemony of domination is inculcated in my very identity, self-concept, language, and worldview, such that it is normative and always at play in the midst of my critical scholarship, in my critical pedagogy as a professor of Justice and Peace Studies, in my work as an agent of change, and in my relationships as a husband, father, brother, son, and friend. I point carefully and cautiously to the work of a Brazilian educator and critical pedagogue, an Indian educator and postcolonial philosopher, or a feminist theorist and practitioner, knowing that as I wrestle with and try to authentically apply their concepts, I also appropriate and distort their voice through my own. Yet it is in the academic dialogue between our voices, and dissemination of that dialogue, that we come to know each other’s ideas and ideals for the advancement of this work, even if at times mistakes, ignorance, or hubris lead to misinterpretation or misappropriation. Reader, please forgive unintended distortions of the voices I seek to represent authentically and add your own critique and amendation to the dialogue that we might better counter the hegemony of domination together. Voice that is found, well-practiced, and politically literate through effective use will still retain hegemonic ideological influences. Counter-hegemonic democratizing leadership will strive to identify, challenge, and supplant destructive ideological notions for more positive normative concepts. Yet even as more compassionate ideologies become the new hegemony through the practice of democratizing leadership in organizations, institutions, or communities, individual and collective voice will continue to represent that reality only partially and with internal conflicts of meaning. Collective voice will necessarily diminish the diversity of collected individual voices, gloss over tensions that matter, and abstract concrete reality. Critical theory is a significant tool for identifying problematic ideological

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constructions, guarding against the worst consequences of collective voice, and suggesting alternatives for our continued and always imperfect practice. There is in this imperfection both liberation and responsibility in equal measures. Democratizing leadership can employ critical theoretical analysis for countering marginalization and oppression by identifying silenced voices and absent narratives. Silencing voices is accomplished actively and passively. While more obvious forms of silencing may be familiar, that is, censorship, repression, exclusion, and so on, passive silencing is less obvious and perhaps more effective. Hegemony is maintained by promoting the common sense of some voices while disparaging those critical of the current order. The dominated consciousness of the uncritical masses, meaning all of us prior to conscientization about any particular issues, are taught to regard as nonsensical the idealist (i.e., those espousing unrealistic ideas), those who are disrespectful of dominant voices or those who question, counter, or challenge the status quo. When I asked my first-year undergraduate class what they learned from the 2014 death of Michael Brown, an unarmed African American man, killed by a White police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, one of my students answered, “Respect authority” to the frustration and anger of others in class. This young, White, privileged male problematized this incident as a cautionary lesson about how to silence your voice in reaction to the coercive threat of authority. It was common sense to him that if you do what you are told, nobody gets hurt. His reaction maintained the dominant hegemony in part because he saw no cost to himself in doing so, and no pressure to problematize the situation otherwise, until he used his voice in class prompting others to problematize it differently. Our discussion that day led to a distinction between “safe spaces” where everyone is entitled to their opinion, and “brave spaces” where we learn from each other through the conflictual, challenging, yet constructive use of our voices together, critically examining our own ideas and ideals in the light of—and sometimes as they bump into or run over—the ideas and ideals of others. This is an example of Mouffe’s (2005) conflictual consensus in the context of education—plural and diverse voices in conflict yet under the larger collaborative project of critical education. In order to raise individual voices in meaningful and constructive conversations, critical theory provides analytical lenses shaped by the social sciences and the humanities to examine social constructions of gender, race and ethnicity, class, ability, age, and many other identity categories. As an individual finds their voice, practices using it, and then uses it with others, critical theoretical approaches will uncover social constructions rooted in hegemonic ideologies. However, spaces for differential and conflictual

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voices that are simply antagonistic may inhibit or diminish voice. The space needs to be understood as one that invites difference but avoids polarization; one that engages across difference for collaborative learning and growth rather than for argumentative winning or losing. Critical theory provides powerful tools for finding and using voices that are as efficacious when employed conscientiously as they are dangerous when used without regard in poorly constructed spaces. As democratizing leadership shapes spaces and processes for individual exploration of voice and use of voice, those enacting leadership also need to utilize critical theory to examine their normative assumptions and critique their use of power. Understanding colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalism is key to understanding current hegemonic forms of so-called democracy. Lynette Schultz says of the obedient neoliberal citizen, We learned that dominance is normal and to dominate required that “Others” were categorized as deficient and subhuman, putting into motion all manner of racialized, misogynist, and enslaving hierarchies that, when intersecting, create even more complex patterns of oppression and exclusion, making imperialism seem normal. (2013, p. 100)

These “normal” forms of domination are intermixed in our democratic institutions, even in our theoretical and practical conceptions of democracy, in subtle and insidious ways. For each moment of discomfort felt when confronted by an unsettling person or idea, we ought to become comfortable with discomfort as a sign of success. Discomfort may be the acknowledgment of a limit-situation that we now have the responsibility to examine and, if found to be oppressive or unjust, to overcome. Of course this is an indefinite process of discovery, challenge, reflection, assessment, and incorporation that only leads to a next cycle of the same. Like cultivating a garden, it is continual work: digging, turning, and preparing the ground, planting seeds, pulling weeds, adding compost, removing pests, growing in understanding of our own growth, and at times harvesting significant new insights in cycles and seasons that lead, one to another. While a comprehensive treatment of critical theory in relation to the development of identity, and therefore voice, is beyond the scope of this book, engaging with it is necessary as an essential process and regular habit of democratizing leadership.

Using Voice Once we find our voice, how do we use it and to what end? Finding our inner voice is difficult and ongoing work. Making that voice public is

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another step altogether. How do we raise our voice from inner dialogue or whispers to self, above the din of everyday noise, to speak effectively and ethically in democratizing leadership? Individual voice is closely tied to identity. Identity is ontological, a matter of being. Voice is a manifestation of that identity, a de-ontological, active expression of being, in agency. In the context of democratizing leadership, voice is a political enactment of being. Democratizing leadership operates in the tensions between identity and agency, and space and structure, so that individuals may find and use their own authentic voices with active support and conscientious influence from democratizing leadership. Hegemony of domination leads individuals to suppress their voice, as much as voice represents counter-hegemonic values or identities that are deemed unacceptable or that are discouraged in the current order. For example, in the United States, socialist political values or nonbinary gender identities are discouraged by the dominant hegemony. Inexperience using individual voice may lead to self-silencing through inability or discomfort with self-expression. The affliction of self-silencing and self-marginalizing behavior means that democratizing leadership should identify and challenge this behavior, and in turn, people enacting leadership roles must guard against it themselves to avoid minimizing their counter-hegemonic voice and power. Not all structures are negative ones that silence voice behind ideological doors, block voice with dominating walls, or distort voice in perverse echo chambers. Conscientization provides an opportunity to find our voice amidst social constructions that limit voice. Social structures can also provide windows for calling out to those beyond stages for practicing and dramatizing voice, and avenues or plazas for amplifying voice. Democratizing leadership must identify and problematize the negating structures while also constructing structures in organizations, institutions, and communities that are designed to promote voice. In a timeless passage, Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu captures the tension between structure and space for promoting agency: Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub; It is the center hole that makes it useful. Shape clay into a vessel; It is the space within that makes it useful. Cut doors and windows for a room; It is the holes which make it useful. Therefore profit comes from what is there; Usefulness from what is not there. (Tao Te Ching, Chapter 11)

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Lao Tzu makes a distinction in this description between use and profit differently than Marx. In contrast to Marx’s notion of use value found in physical commodities, “The utility of a thing makes it a use value. But this utility is not a thing of air” (Marx & Engels, 1959, p. 329), Lao Tzu describes the air itself as useful. In the wheel, vessel, and room, it is the air—the free spaces (Evans & Boyte, 1986/1992)—defined by the structures that are useful. And this is what I have in mind for democratizing leadership: shaping organizational, institutional, and community structures to create spaces for voice, decision-making, and collective action. Such spaces may recall Habermas’ public sphere (1989); where individuals come together to discuss social concerns, to problematize, explore alternatives, and influence politics. But I propose that Habermas’ public sphere is too limited a conceptual space to counter the current hegemony of domination and develop a democratic culture leading to a new hegemony of collaboration. Democracy cannot be limited to representative politics and the public sphere of civil society organizations or occasional referenda and elections. Instead, democracy must take root in organizations, institutions, and communities to promote the regular and growing practice of democracy such that it permeates our lives and becomes a foundational presumption for structures rather than an exceptional experiment. Only a thick democratic practice—imperfect, partial, and inefficient as it may often be—will create paths toward a new hegemony. This praxis orientation to the democratization of culture is stated eloquently in the title of Paulo Freire and Myles Horton’s talking book, We Make the Road By Walking (1990). Creating spaces for promoting voice, and using it, is highly contextualized, as the case studies that follow will illustrate. Even when leadership creates space for voice, how do participants in that space use their voice? Leadership promotes democracy when individuals use their own voice rather than being represented by the voices of others. Even in the best cases, representative democracy can only live up to the golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Yet voice is highly personal, complicated, and internally diverse, even selfcontradictory as times, and especially in the context of democracy, voice is political too. Representation can diminish diversity through the tyranny of the majority or by representing diversity in terms of the lowest common denominator among differences. The concept of voice in democratizing leadership does not presume representation-by-leadership as the highest or only standard for democratic participation. Attending to voice requires an ethical standard expressed as the platinum rule, “Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.” Hearing the voices of democratic participants

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requires active listening by leadership to amplify voice to promote agency and when necessary to represent voice with the goal of authenticity. Such attentive listening for voice is necessarily tolerant of ambiguity, critical of bias, critically reflective about worldview, and engaged in agonistics as a constituent element of democracy (more on this neologism of Chantal Mouffe to follow). Ambiguity may be found in the expression of that voice by an individual participant or in the meaning of that voice as interpreted by leadership so a careful and deliberate praxis ought to inform voice in democratizing leadership. Understanding in the midst of ambiguity is an iterative process of successes and failures, belying the limited political theater of a representative’s listening session or even recent manifestations of the town hall forum. An iterative process implies relationship over time and accountability for maintaining the integrity of each voice as they are brought together for democratic decision-making. Iterative voices in democratizing leadership articulate what Freire described as generative themes because, “they contain the possibility of unfolding into again as many themes, which in their turn call for new tasks to be fulfilled” (1999, p. 92). A typical representative political process is subject to bias in the unintended misunderstanding of voice filtered through the lens of leadership ideologies. An iterative process can promote understanding and retain complexity rather than reducing it to a position statement or slogan. It also implies suspension of decision-making long enough to sort through bias to understand each other authentically and in order to make a sound decision, then move toward collective action. Democratizing leadership must recognize the contesting ideologies that impinge on the exercise of voice and perception of meaning from that voice. Self-expression and collective voice in organizations, institutions, and communities are necessarily conflictual given diverse identities, values, interests, and needs. Complete agreement or reasonable consensus is a rare occurrence in the midst of the complexity and difference implicit in democratic spaces. By contrast, controlling or dominating spaces presume agreement or consensus through coercive conformity rather than offering spaces for authentic voices to be used. Democratizing leadership must listen attentively for nuance and difference in the use of voice to sustain its complexity even as it seeks an actionable way forward. Although democracy is necessarily messy and conflictual, it must remain this way to sustain voices authentically. The neat order of autocracy exists only due to denial of voice. Democratizing leadership is not an argument for the direct democracy of one person, one vote in every decision, at all times, and at every aspect of organizational, institutional, and communal structures.

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Rather, it is an argument for the growing presence of democratic spaces for more voice, more often, in more aspects of organizations, institutions, and communities. Using voice, like playing an instrument, requires practice. As participants discover their voice, they are unintentionally hesitant or discordant as they practice raising it publicly. As noted above in my anecdote about democratizing the classroom, an unpracticed voice can speak words that were not intended to be spoken aloud, or perhaps ill-considered, poorly phrased, and inadequately explained. This is not to deny the feelings and passions that prompt voice but to recognize the efficacy of a well-practiced voice and the unintended consequences of one rarely used and poorly spoken. Just as learning to read and write requires literacy, using voice in a democratic sense requires political literacy (Carr & Lund, 2008). With political literacy, voice becomes an effective tool wielded with skill and honed by reflective practice. Freire’s process of conscientization and the practice of cultural circles (1973, 1992) provides an example of the way individual voice changes over time. Initial consciousness raising is a discovery of voice, an awareness of self as subject with agency, in contrast to being an object of action by others. Often the first voice in conscientization is a complaint as awareness grows about contradictions and limit-situations. Democratizing leadership ought to anticipate and appreciate that using voice may begin with complaint and discord. This is problematizing rather than problematic, and an sign of early success. With practice and development, voice may be heard as analysis, decoding the problematized structures of domination. Then more discord as voice critiques those structures through interdisciplinary analysis and dissects the problematized history, sociology, economics, and politics of domination. As individual voices join together in this analysis, critique as isolation is overcome in the harmonies of voices raised together. Voices lift, gaining confidence and political literacy through practice and gaining hope through the alternatives proposed in untested feasibilities—imagined changes that harmonious voices speak aloud, then decide to pursue, then act on together. Voice is described above conceptually, yet given the pluralistic character of any democratic project, it must be acknowledged that voice is actual language, and distinct and different languages must also be considered in democratizing leadership. Pierre Orelus argues that, “Language is not simply about uttering words but is intrinsically linked to ideology, culture, and power relations (Abdi & Carr, 2013, p. 91). Orelus addresses the loss or exclusion of subordinate languages to hegemonic languages by concurring with “Darder (1991) who stated, ‘negating the native language and its

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potential benefits in the development of students’ voice constitutes a form of psychological violence and functions to perpetuate social control over subordinate language groups through various linguistic forms of cultural invasion’” (Abdi & Carr, 2013, p. 92). Cultural invasion is Freire’s term for the uncritical work of extension agents who intend to provide technical education, but uncritically subvert local culture with hegemonic ideas exported from their own culture (1973, p. 150). As much as language shapes reality, it also reflects reality in differential and enlightening ways. By countering cultural invasion, language reclamation projects in Native American communities are examples of hopeful counter-hegemonic movements toward reclaiming voice, one that can benefit an entire democratic community. The Artistic Director of the May Day parade (in a case study below) wrestles with the dichotomous English language that separates humanity from the rest of nature, and she searches for that one word that represents the totality. Languages indigenous to the North American continent can give voice to this idea in a way English cannot. In my own region, the Dakota People use the phrase Mitakuye oyasin, roughly translated as “all my relations,” and the Anishinabe People say Gakina-awiiya to mean “everyone” without distinction between humans, animals, plants, and earth. These languages reflect different ideologies that frame reality as interdependent rather than individualistic. And while it is damaging to appropriate such terms out the context of an entire language, culture, and people, diverse linguistic traditions may have the potential to transform democratic deliberation and agonistics when those voices are intentionally included in decision-making and allowed to speak for themselves. An indigenous concept attributed to translation of the Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace (Iroquois Constitution) is the notion of deciding with the seventh generation in mind; a counter-hegemonic principle to the neoliberal timetable of quarterly reports and annual profits. Voice in this example articulates an expansive temporal understanding of community with meaningful implications for democratizing leadership. However all voices, especially those that have been oppressed and subsumed under English as the hegemonic language of the United States, ought to be treated with care so that they are not appropriated, even by well-intended democratizing leadership, but instead space must be created for silenced or marginalized voices to speak for themselves. As Sherri Mitchell said at the 2015 Peace and Justice Studies Association Conference, “If you want to support Indigenous rights and indigenous people, create a platform for them to speak, to use their authentic voice, instead of speaking for them.”

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Critical theory analyzes the structures and processes that encourage or discourage voices from speaking, privilege some voices over others, and insist upon a single right way (orthopraxy). Diversity and pluralism are central to using voice in and for democracy, to promote a new hegemony of collaboration, one that replaces the dominant order characterized by homogeneity and marked by unrestricted capitalism, extreme inequality, White supremacy, xenophobia, and oligarchic control. The new hegemony looks and sounds different—a plurality of voices used to promote a culture of democracy supported by organizational, institutional, and community structures of democratic praxis where diverse voices collaborate together across differences.

Using Voice Together Finding and using voice are necessarily focused on individual transformation, yet social structures enhance and sustain individual voices used together. Using voice together is a political step toward democratic decisionmaking. Where Freireian conscientization moves individuals from object to subject in the development of voice, using voice together moves individuals from isolation to integration, from a sense of self to a sense of us, and from individual agency to collective action. A reminder here, that though presented for clarity as a linear process, voice, decision-making, and collective action in democratizing leadership is cyclical and iterative. Sudden discoveries and transformations are coupled with long pauses and reflection. We might step from one concept to the next following the order of this text, or leap over steps and later circle back. Like other aspects of voice, using voice together is a concept we will learn and relearn with different peoples, in new contexts, and with potential for increasing proficiency. Individual and collective voice will be cultivated concurrently. Rarely will we be afforded the neat luxury of a consecutive process nor can we completely separate voice from decision-making and collective action: “dialogue” and “action” show up not as two mandatory components of an ideal praxis but rather as in a conversation, in which on the one hand action is necessary to complete the thought, and in which on the other hand classroom dialogue finds itself drawn from itself into an irresistible preoccupation with conditions for material transformation. (De Lissovoy, 2013, p. 230)

One of the reasons democracy is described as “messy” is because we are always in the process of developing voice and practicing it with others, across our differences, in order to decide and act together. And none of

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these steps are given. Each must be conscientiously developed, sustained, and deepened over time lest we assume too much, rest comfortably on past decisions, or lose our vigilance for advancing collective action and democratizing processes. The practice of voice in the company of other voices empowers participation by developing political literacy. When a subject knows that her voice has been heard, acknowledged in the midst of others, it is an empowering feeling that likely promotes additional participation. This participation has the potential to become practice, even habit, leading to political literacy (Carr & Lund, 2008). Others define political literacy as basic concepts and facts for the comprehending of politics or an understanding of politics that enables active citizenship (Cassel & Lo, 1997). But Carr’s definition goes further and denotes agency in the political that extends beyond participation in formal civic political processes. Just as Freire’s conception of literacy in reading and writing was intended to reach beyond a mechanistic understanding of language, Carr points to political literacy as knowledge and understanding of the political that develops agency for the promotion of social justice. Democracy in this conception is not about people as political objects negotiating the power politics of the status quo. Instead, it is developing the active participation of political subjects to engage in decision-making that impacts their lives, in popular politics and economics, and in organizations, institutions, and communities. As political literacy develops, voice not only expresses identity but also poses analytical questions: Why is it this way? How did it come to be this way? Who benefits and who suffers? What must we do to change it? What will happen if we change it? And it poses these questions together with others, seeking dialogical conversation, not as a contest to determine a winner and loser but as a discussion of problems, conceptualizations, and solutions. A politically literate voice decries injustice and cries for justice, decides together with others, and acts together responsibly to create more just interpersonal relationships and social structures. Using voice together creates a vocabulary for complaint and affective responses to injustice, complemented by the problematizing of contradictions and identification of limit-situations. Together, voices prioritize problems and propose untested feasibilities as alternatives to the status quo that suit not only self-interest but also more common goods. Collective voice is a negotiated process, prior to yet moving toward decision-making. It questions whose voice is at the table and whose voice is missing? How do different voices hold and wield power? How can that power be equitably distributed? What is common about the good we are describing and for whom is it less good? It is expressing one’s own positions, interests, and needs while listening actively, attentively, and compassionately to the

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positions, interests, and needs of others. Marshall Rosenburg’s Nonviolent Communication (2003) is a remarkable example of this skill, leading to individual and collective agency and toward common and nonviolent goods. It is one example of choosing conflict transformation, as dynamic and conscientious work to address the deep roots of conflict and exploring potential solutions rather than conflict resolution as work that ends conflict without addressing root causes or proposing new ways forward. What does using voice together sound like in practice? Initially a choir might seem like an appropriate metaphor, however in messy democratic practice, groups rarely have the chance to rehearse and harmonize to such an extent. More often, collective voice is an improvisation in spontaneous moments of opportunity or in free spaces bounded by social structures. More likely, using voice together will begin in a cacophony, and with increasing proficiency move toward recognizable themes, but rarely will it reach the complete consensus of a practiced choral performance. By way of example, we can return to Freire’s decoding work in the context of cultural circles. In these settings, participants are encouraged to find their voice by reflecting on normative social assumptions, use their voice by problematizing social contradictions, and using voice together to propose untested feasibilities. Democratizing leadership in this context is primarily a facilitator of discussion, having framed the discussion through the preparatory steps outlined above. The facilitator uses codifications as didactic materials to re-present to participants their own themes from the earlier investigation, but in a systematized and amplified form. As the group discusses the contradiction, the facilitator must listen but also challenge the group, “posing as problems both the codified existential situation and their own answers” (Freire, 1990, p. 110). These discussions provide a “cathartic force,” allowing participants to “externalize a series of sentiments and opinions about themselves, the world, and others, that perhaps they would not express under different circumstances” (Freire, 1990, p. 111). This affective expression is complemented by a more analytical discussion, as the group breaks down distinct themes in the contradiction such as politics, economics, religion, race, gender, and class issues. In this step, Freire’s process begins to move beyond the original (and interventionist) thematic investigation circle to compose broader cultural circles. These circles use and adapt the themes from the original as a means to encourage conscientization and politicization. In cultural circles, themes raised in the thematic investigation circles are listed, classified, broken down, and reconstructed, leading to decision-making and action.

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The facilitator in democratizing leadership has a dialogical responsibility to identify the themes explicitly voiced by participants and to articulate implicit themes that might have been talked around without being addressed directly. This is another point of interpretation by the facilitator that should be treated carefully and with respect for participants lest the facilitator’s voice overwhelm the voice of the participants. Freire refers to the facilitator’s role as dialogical, contending that their identification of “hinged themes” may either “facilitate the connection between two themes . . . filling a possible gap between the two, or they may illustrate the relations between the general program content and the [hegemonic] view of the world held by the people” (Freire, 1990, p. 114). These themes, “classified according to the social sciences” (Freire, 1990, p. 113), are not to isolate and categorize participants’ experience by rendering them abstract but rather to elaborate on the themes, to draw interdisciplinary connections and implications, and to relate them to theoretical sources that may enrich and deepen their understanding of the themes. This rich understanding and systemic study of their own lived experience can form the basis for imagining alternatives and proposing untested feasibilities. When the group has decided on an alternative way forward, they can move to collective action (more on these steps below). The Citizenship Schools of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement provide another historical example of democratizing leadership promoting voice as linguistic literacy leading to political literacy. Citizenship Schools emerged from a collaboration between Myles Horton of the Highlander Folk School and the democratizing leadership of Esau Jenkins, Septima Clark, and Berniece Robinson of Johns Island, South Carolina. African Americans who were denied the right to vote under Jim Crow segregation laws gathered to learn how to read and write. But they didn’t study any arbitrary text. They learned to read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, developing linguistic literacy and political literacy concurrently. They problematized rights, guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, that were actively being denied. They also learned legal and political foundations on which to make complaints in order to counter and change the dominating and hegemonic status quo. Democratizing leadership is careful and collaborative in the creation of structures like cultural circles, or the Citizenship Schools. Freire and Horton are examples of top-down democratizing leadership, intervening with communities to help them shape participatory spaces for voice, decision-making, and collective action. Their writings are replete with lessons learned and cautionary tales of too much or not enough, too early or too late, of the right or wrong kinds of intervention. Freire described this in

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terms of authoritarianism or authority, also contrasted with permissiveness (1992), and extension versus cultural invasion (1992). Horton tells stories of a guest speaker who was enraged by his refusal to let him lecture to Folk School participants (Horton et al., 1997), and of participants threatening Horton’s life because he would not make a decision for them. Horton understood the significance of free spaces for voice: “Some of the best education at Highlander happened when the sessions were over: at meals, on walks, and when people went back to their dormitories and sat around drinking coffee or whatever else they brought” (Horton et al., 1997, p. 160). Jenkins, Clark, and Robinson are examples of bottom-up democratizing leadership who utilized the intervention of Horton’s training and guidance, but also knew their communities inside and out, understood the contradictions between segregation and the U.S. Constitution, and knew African Americans who had enough autonomy from White economic and political dominance to create and sustain collective action. These historical examples of using voice together occurred within the context of national institutions: Freireian cultural circles were hosted within the educational and political structures of mid-20th century Brazil, Chile, and Guinea-Bissau; and the Citizenship Schools occurred within a social movement that countered the political and cultural structures of the mid-20th century U.S. South. The case studies below explore similar examples of democratizing leadership within the social structures of contemporary, Midwestern U.S. organizations, institutions, and communities. Just as the aforementioned historical examples provide implications, with some qualifications and adaptations, for contemporary situations, so do these recent qualitative case studies provide implications for democratizing leadership elsewhere.

Collective Voice as Political If finding voice is primarily about identity distinct from hegemony, and using voice is about growing proficiency and decreasing fear of freedom, then using voice together is a political project of working together across differences to decide and act on common if contingent goods. But how is the integrity of individual identity and voice maintained in the political tensions of using voice together? How are individual voices used effectively across differences while maintaining the plurality central to democracy? How do we maintain the authenticity of individual voices while integrating one voice with others in democratic decision-making and collective action? These questions might recall the phrase from the Women’s Movement, “The personal is political,” taken from a short influential article by

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Carol Hanisch, published in Notes from the Second Year: Women’s Liberation. She states, “One of the first things we discover in these groups is that personal problems are political problems. There are no personal solutions at this time. There is only collective action for a collective solution” (1969). Hanisch identifies tensions between the personal and political while denying a distinction between the two, based on a problematizing approach. The problems faced by women are not personal failings but instead structural oppressions. They are social problems demanding political solutions. Blaming individuals for problems whose resolution would challenge the status quo and require structural change maintains the hegemony of domination. The personal does not equal the political such that they are inseparably the same, however the personal is political in that they are bound to each other. Using voice together is fraught with tensions between the personal and the political; individual and group, integrity of individual voice and integration of communal voice, consensus and dissent, majority and minority positions, all of these tensions moving toward a decisional point as the transition from voice to collective action. These tensions can be new and startling to someone who is only discovering the political nature of their personal identity and concerns. When these tensions become foregrounded as conflict, our socially constructed cultural identities influence the way we engage or disengage these tensions. Conflict evokes a primal fight-or-flight response, mediated by our personally developed or socially conditioned analysis and practice of dealing with conflict. If we allow the flight response to dominate, we will not use voice together at all, except perhaps as a parting shout or frightened cry. If we allow the fight response to dominate, using voice together will be a contentious zero-sum game leading the oppressed with the loudest voice to rise up as an oppressor of others. Democratizing leadership calls us to continual development of our personal response to conflict as a necessary skill of political literacy and a key component of creating culture. Using voice together can be more or less effective and ethical based on our political literacy regarding conflict. We become more effective as we anticipate conflict as an expected and meaningful part of using voice together, within boundaries marked off by personal attacks, intransigence, and willfully unexamined bias. Democratizing leadership will be more effective as it sees conflict as a constituent of democracy. In the absence of all conflict, there would be no reason for decision-making or democracy; authoritarian dictatorship would be an efficient approach to leadership. However, a plurality of voices rooted in differential and complex identities means conflict is not only likely but an essential element of democracy. Conflict is a sign of a healthy democracy, and minimal conflict is probably a sign of silenced

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or absent voices, one that ought to be attended to by democratizing leadership as a primary ethical concern for inclusion and integration. As in other democratic frameworks, such as formal political processes, the tyranny of the majority is of great concern for using voices together. Democratizing leadership must privilege formerly absent or silenced voices over the priority of achieving a facile majority consensus in order to avoid this tyranny. This may be perceived as an affront to majoritarian democracy that promotes equality through the maxim “one person, one vote.” Democratizing leadership will recognize that equity demands examining multiple forms of social inequality that are ignored by the simplistic formulation of majoritarian democracy. The question of how to raise absent or silenced voices in the multiple tensions of using voice together is highly contextualized and will be explored in the case studies below. Here, only broad framing principles will be addressed. Democratizing leadership will recognize the ongoing (unending) existence of tensions between the plural voices within groups who attempt to use voice together. To “re-cognize” is to think carefully again, to be mindful of the voices of others. Proactive recognition of marginalized and excluded voices is a practice of deconstructing the hegemonic consensus of neoliberalism in which alternative voices tend to (or are made to) subordinate their voices and political agenda to the majoritarian frame in order to achieve consensus or unity. Democratizing leadership recognizes and respects these same voices for the potential benefit of animating political debates and enriching democratic processes by providing alternative explanations and solutions that counter the hegemony of domination while also highlighting leadership blind spots and biases. None of these benefits are necessarily accrued from the presence of minority voices in the political tensions of using voice together. Any voice may be muted or distorted by hegemonic values and structures that remain unexamined by an individual or by dominating voices that silence or overwhelm them. However, such potential benefits are surely lost if democratizing leadership does not create space for these voices to be heard in the process of using voice together. Voicing alternative positions and solutions that challenge the current hegemony can contradict the majoritarian goal of achieving a rational consensus. But such majoritarian consensus is likely to favor those who benefit from the current hegemony or those who have been convinced it is meaningful to support the current hegemony even against their own interests. The predominance of individualism in the contemporary U.S. political milieu creates a barrier to using voice together, As Chantal Mouffe explains,

Theorizing Counter-Hegemonic Democratizing Leadership    75 Liberal thought is also blind to the political because of its individualism, which makes it unable to understand the formation of collective identities. Yet the political is from the outset concerned with collective forms of identification, since in this field we are always dealing with an “us” as opposed to “them”. . . there can only be an identity when it is constructed as difference . . . any form of social objectivity is ultimately political and it must bear the traces of the acts of exclusion that govern its constitution. (2013, p. 4)

Working across those differences to reframe “acts of exclusion” as differences-in-tension, and as the basis of identification, are another central task for democratizing leadership. Conflict can be creative when identity is constructed as difference within a plural whole. Once we understand that every identity is relational and that the affirmation of a difference is a precondition for the existence of any identity—i.e., the perception of something “‘other” which constitutes its “exterior”—we can understand why politics, which always deals with collective identities, is about the constitution of a “we” which requires as its very condition of possibility the demarcation of a “they.” (Mouffe, 2013, p. 5)

Differentiating between “we” and “they” are demarcations rather than existential exclusions. Acts of exclusion deny an overarching shared identity that encompasses difference; that is, membership excludes nonmembers, or citizenship excludes noncitizens. When “they” become defined not only as different, but as threatening to “us,” using voice together becomes impossible and democracy becomes broken. There is always the possibility that this “us/them” relation might become one of friend/enemy. This happens when the others, who up to now were considered as simply different, start to be perceived as putting into question our identity and threatening our existence. (Mouffe, 2013, p. 5, emphasis in original)

Conceiving the other as an existential threat presses difference past polarization to the potential for violence. So, while identity may “bear the traces of the acts of exclusion” (Mouffe, 2013, p.  4), democratizing leadership seeks an encompassing plurality that treats differences with integrity yet distinguishes identity based on the tension of differences rather than basing identity on the absolute standard of exclusion. Using voice together is one way to move along the scale from the personal toward the political. It is also a move from voice to decision-making in the context of democratizing leadership. As in other steps in this process, using voice together is praxis-oriented, testing our theories of identity, agency, and democracy. Using our voice with others may help us recognize

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aspects of voice we have not yet found or have not yet adequately practiced in order to use it effectively with others. Using our voice with others may help us recognize that our voice is still under the influence of the hegemony of domination, that it has not been adequately problematized or examined in order to counter hegemony. As this text moves in a linear fashion toward decision-making, let us recall the cyclical and iterative nature of voice, decision-making, and collective action in democratizing leadership. INTERLUDE 2.2 DECISION-MAKING SCENARIO LEADERSHIP CRISIS AS DEMOCRATIZING OPPORTUNITY It is 2013. A delegate from the Nonviolence Task Force finds herself in a familiar place, but an unfamiliar process. The Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers (MAP) bimonthly delegate meetings have always been a comfortable gathering of like-minded individuals from peace-making organizations in the Twin Cities. Previously, it had felt like an opportunity, and sometimes an obligation, to share information or hear about a new initiative or program that might interest her group. But after the typical business of budgets and approval of the minutes, this meeting feels different, uncomfortable yet exciting too. Instead of listening to a series of leaders and guest speakers at the podium, delegates step forward to propose topics and convene small group conversations. Energy rises in the room as people gather in conversations that inspire participation and suggest ways to take action. Initially she feels agitated about the change, the unfamiliar process sets her on edge. Her enthusiasm grows, however, as she finds herself in a small group speaking passionately about a topic of personal concern. As another delegate agrees with her point and adds their own, she looks around the room to see other small groups excitedly discussing their own topics, and some delegates moving from group to group to connect ideas between them. Then, with 5 minutes left, the facilitator reminds each group “Action depends on your decision right now. No one else is going to take on this work. If you want to see it happen, it’s up to you.” Apparently, with this new format comes new responsibility too as her small group decides on an initial action and the need for more discussion at the next meeting. Each small group reports to the whole delegate meeting. One group presents language for a resolution on military spending. The resolution is amended in discussion and approved through a consensus vote of the delegates. A delegate from the small group who proposed the resolution offers to draft it in the form of a press release and distribute it to local media outlets. The meeting adjourns with brief announcements and invitation to pick

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up event fliers on the way out. Some delegates leave while others stand in small clusters to continue a conversation or make a new connection. Our delegate returns to the Nonviolence Task Force with a proposal to engage with other MAP organizations to support an upcoming event, and marks the next delegate meeting on her calendar with new enthusiasm.

Decision-Making Democratizing leadership occurs in multiple and iterative cycles through voice, decision-making, and collective action. In the last section, I began theorizing decision-making by problematizing the development of voice as it supports the capacity to engage in decision-making. Now that the authenticity of voice has been explored, different frames of decision-making must also be examined that provide integrity to the democratic process while also anticipating the responsibility of collective action. I propose three general frames for decision-making that must be constantly negotiated by democratizing leadership in organizations, institutions, and communities: deliberative, revolutionary, and agonistic. No single frame will always serve in plural, diverse and contingent processes of decision-making, and choosing an effective and ethical frame is another task of democratizing leadership. The capacity to accomplish this task will develop by selecting and practicing apt decision-making methods to suit particular contexts. This is another example of praxis that engages abstract theories of decision-making with tangible application to reflect upon and refine each other. I use the term “framing” following Erving Goffman (1974) as the organization of experience around theories and concepts that draw attention to some aspects and exclude others from analysis. Like an artist deciding what to paint on her canvas and what to leave off, or a photographer deciding what belongs in the viewfinder and what is extraneous, democratizing leadership must learn to decide what democratic frame suits the particular decision to be made based on the voices speaking to the decision and the context for making that decision. Especially significant are power differentials between participants who are deciding, and the timing of the collective action to emerge from the decision. Democratic processes can be messy and long. In addition to valuing inclusion and promoting the integrity of the democratic decision, leadership must also press toward a timely outcome through collective action.

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The contingency of democratic framing should be obvious, but there is a propensity in leadership to operate out of one preferred frame and to retain that one frame when situations and contexts change, what Barbara Tuchman describes as “wooden headedness” in The March of Folly (1985). A much older text, The Art of War by Sun Tzu, (Sunzi & Griffith, 1963) provides a simple reflection to counter this tendency toward intransigent democratic framing. His approach to strategic decision-making included knowing ones’ self, knowing one’s adversary, and knowing the contested terrain. Each of these factors will change over the course of a military campaign, and also in the process of nonviolent social change. The changing terrain of society and social movements, and of the mesolevel organizations, institutions, and communities that constitute them, require adaptability. The changing nature and strategies of adversaries also require flexibility in any approach to conflict. And given the praxis-orientation of democratizing leadership, people enacting leadership will also change, through continual self-reflection based on critical theory and through development of leadership capacity. Changes in self, adversary, and terrain require changing democratic frames. What decision-making frames, then, are central to this theory of democratizing leadership? The problems inherent in the framing of simplistic, majoritarian democracy have been noted above. The tyranny of the majority may emerge from many frames for democratic decision-making, but it is guaranteed when slim-majority victories become the rule. When as few as 51% of the people win and as many as 49% lose, common goods may only be good for half the population. Democratizing leadership seeks collaboration over domination or even compromise, favoring a decision-making process that leads to non-zero sums to cite game theory, or at least win-win situations. Majoritarian democracy is too often the standard bearer for the status quo and too easily manipulated by those who hold power. For example, one vote to each person seems equal and fair in the abstract, until critical theory problematizes the endemic inequities of identity, class, gender, ability, age and the intersections amongst them. Critical theory shifts political analysis to equity rather than equality, problematizing inequities between one person and another or between one group and another to reveal the very real and unequal power relations behind the very abstract and sometimes illusory principle of one person, one vote. Now, add to that inequality the corruption in political campaigns, recently expanded in the United States by the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010. Simple majoritarian democracy will most often uphold the status quo to benefit elites and reinforce the hegemony of domination. Instead, democratizing leadership needs several strategic democratic frames to inform decision-making processes. Positional leadership, from

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the top down, should prefer deliberative processes to reach consensus when possible, and recognize agonistic processes as a more common approach to plural and contingent “conflictual consensus” (Mouffe, 2005). Democratizing leadership from the bottom up should employ deliberative consensus-building when power is distributed equitably, but should expect to operate in an agonistic context most often, and should be prepared to employ revolutionary direct democracy, resistance, or noncooperation when other frames are unachievable and when violence seems to be the only other choice. It should be stated here that the use of violence lies outside my definition of democratizing leadership. The problem of violence should be countered in its direct, physical forms, but also in cultural and structural violence (Galtung, 1996; Hathaway, 2013). Direct violence, the physical violence of assault, murder, war, and such, is antithetical to democratizing leadership that respects plurality of voice and promotes empathy in decision-making and collective action. Democratizing leadership cultivates political space for conflict resolution and transformation to purposefully avoid violence. And violence is more than just direct, physical attack. For example, structural violence is injustice and exploitation built into a social system that generates wealth for the few and poverty for the many, stunting everyone’s ability to develop their full humanity . . . it institutionalizes unequal opportunities for education, resources, and respect. Structural violence forms the very basis of capitalism, patriarchy, and any dominator system. (Hathaway, 2013)

Structural violence is the very raison d’etre for democratizing leadership, to undo structural injustice by promoting democratic structures of voice, decision-making, and collective action that counter the hegemony of domination and replace it with a new hegemony of collaboration. And cultural violence is the prevailing attitudes and beliefs that justify and legitimize structural violence, making it seem natural. Feelings of superiority/inferiority based on class, race, sex, religion, and nationality are inculcated in us as children and shape our assumptions about us and the world. They convince us this is the way things are and they have to be. (Hathaway, 2013)

Cultural violence is in essence the enforcement and reinforcement of hegemony. Such built-in values and beliefs are problematized by critical theory in order to identify it or avoid it, and replace it with authentic voice and equitable decision-making power. Conscientization is an encounter with

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cultural violence that helps us recognize the hegemony of domination and transform it through collaborative and democratic means. In order to avoid violence and maintain a commitment to political processes, democratizing leadership must also embrace conflict as central to democracy rather than treat it as an aberration to be resolved or removed. Because democracy is premised on working across differences to achieve common goods in diverse settings, conflict is to be expected. But beyond the broad premise of working across differences, how should the democratic project be framed in to anticipate and use conflict? Before addressing that question, it should also be noted that the arguments made throughout this book do not presume a uniform application of democratic decision-making throughout any organization, institution, or community. There are contexts and times that call for executive decisionmaking, especially in crisis situations. Promoted here is increasing the occurrences of democratic spaces that grow a culture of democratic practice in order to democratize the culture of organizations, institutions, and communities without presuming that total and all-pervasive democracy is possible or desirable. If my organization’s building is burning down around me, I don’t want to invest precious, life-saving time in a deliberative process of consensus building. I want an authoritative voice to direct our collective actions based on predetermined policies and decisions made in the urgent context of survival. The questions democratizing leadership should ask include How much democracy? When? In what contexts? How to develop authentic individual and collective voice. How to distribute decision-making power with integrity. How to promote collective action responsibly, on a range somewhere between totalitarian authority and absolute direct democracy. Another spectrum oft debated in counter-hegemonic change is defined by reform on one end and revolution on the other. But rather than treat this as a dichotomous choice, democratizing leadership needs to see reform and revolution over a range of continuous options and as parts of a continuum of change. Arguments over treating this range as binary typically sounds like reformists decrying the instability and militancy of revolution, and revolutionaries criticizing reform as too little, too slow, too late and too easily co-opted. Yet significant change rarely occurs instantaneously or in measured increments. Agents of change ought to expect tedious, even plodding reforms to occur unevenly, then not at all, interspersed by reversals, then suddenly leaping forward when least expected. Yet we argue over reform or revolution as if they were clear strategic categories to be determined a priori, and finally rather than contingently. Change strategies are contextual, dependent on the people and groups involved, influenced by a multiplicity of factors, and always decided with less than complete

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information. Democratizing leadership in organizations, institutions, and communities will consider reformist and revolutionary strategies, in addition to conserving positive elements of the status quo, as decision-making leads to collective action. Restated from above, deliberative consensus-building is a collaborative ideal, yet difficult to achieve in pluralistic organizations, institutions, and communities while avoiding the domination of a simple majoritarian democracy. Revolutionary direct democracy, including resistance to domination and noncooperation, is difficult to sustain equitably and over time, lending a rare but sometimes necessary character to this frame for decisionmaking. Agonistics are a much more common context for democratic decision-making that acknowledges the expected dynamic of conflict so that it can be approached creatively rather than destructively; so that decisions are contested within the context of contingent and functional agreements if not consensus. The rest of this chapter will explore these different democratic frames, some of the disagreements among their proponents, and the necessity of engaging these theorists and their democratic frames to develop capacity for democratizing leadership.

Deliberative Frame The deliberative democratic frame for decision-making comes from a long history of theorists, from John Stuart Mill and Alexis DeTocqueville, to more recent theorists like John Rawls and Jurgen Habermas. The latter proposes a discourse theory for deliberative democracy in contrast to liberal and republican understandings. He describes the liberal view of democracy as, “exclusively in the form of compromises between competing interests” (Habermas, 1994, p. 5), and the republican view of democracy as, “ethical-political discourse . . . [premised on] a culturally established background consensus shared by the citizenry” (Habermas, 1994, p. 5). He critiques these frames by pointing to the liberal view as too dependent on an institutionalized economic society administered to achieve a nonpolitical common good that serves aggregated self-interests. He points to the republican view as political self-organization of citizens struggling with the state to enact the freedom of self-governance. Taking elements from each conception, Habermas articulates his discursive theory as, “an ideal procedure for deliberation and decisionmaking” (1994, p. 5), institutionalizing procedures that promote communicative discourse amongst an active citizenry, blending normative constitutional commitments with what he describes as, “proceduralized popular sovereignty” (p. 7). Habermas argues for a democracy founded on ethical

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principles and bounded by procedures that govern discourse as the dialogue of equals in the public sphere, seeking rational debates that develop policy in support of the common good. Habermas conceives of the public sphere as the site for democratic deliberation distinct from the economic and administrative spheres. He relates three forms of power to these spheres: money, administration, and solidarity; the latter an integrative force operant in civil society. The public sphere is idealized: inclusive, coercion-free, and open to all. It is an abstraction meant to promote a space for democratic deliberation set aside from the partisan politics of the state. His deliberative democracy is premised on rational, discursive decision-making in a much more thorough process than registering a vote in favor or against a particular issue. It is heavily dependent on voice, used together amongst people with relatively equal power to decide. Power in this frame is dependent on knowledge and information, and the skill to use it in dialogue to sway the judgment of adversaries. It is also grounded on a kind of rational empathy, presuming that parties will attempt to see the perspective of others, to learn from them, and perhaps deepen or develop their own perspectives. Position statements are articulated and debated in a transparent process characterized by inquiry and dialogue among equals, rather than by domination and self-interest alone, to promote consensus. The goal of deliberative democracy is rational consensus determined by discourse. If no consensus can be achieved, the deliberative process typically defaults to majoritarian voting for resolution, although this might be qualified by a plurality among multiple positions, or a supermajority of two thirds or three fifths rather than a simple majority of 50% + 1. Yet any of these arrangements can lead to a tyranny of the majority that disadvantages minority groups and likely preserves the status quo in terms of power relationships. This is one of the primary critiques of Habermasian deliberative democracy: his assumption that participants with equal power use discursive procedures to reach a rational consensus. Politics is as much affective as intellectual, with enormous power differentials between peoples and groups of different and divergent normative worldviews and most often reaching political compromise short of rational consensus. Improving democracy for Habermas is a matter of, “communicative presuppositions that allow the better arguments to come into play in various forms of deliberation and from procedures that secure fair bargaining processes” (1994, p. 4). His ontological proceduralism is intended to produce de-ontological outcomes of equal justice, a just institutional process leading to just consensus. Ilan Kapoor describes the quality of this claim as “quasi-transcendent,” ascribing a kind of universalism to the process as “each participant begins with

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his or her interests, and through the course of deliberations, transcends these interests to seek the good of all” (2002, p. 463). Differences are transcended in Habermas’ deliberative democracy by striving toward universal principles of justice. How might this macrolevel view of democracy be applied in the mesolevel democratizing leadership of organizations, institutions, and communities? Deliberative democracy holds both promise and problem. Where participants have come together around common goals, assembled with common interests, and representing relatively homogeneous identities, the idealized public sphere might provide a model for deliberative procedures. Where democratizing leadership distributes power equitably, participants may be able to engage in deliberation from a position of self-interest toward common goods. Where there is space for solidarity to function alongside budgetary and administrative management, participants may find and use their voice together. Yet freedom to use that voice will be curtailed or selfcensored by employment status (at-will, contracted, unionized, tenured, etc.) or by perceived self-knowledge regarding the topic at hand. Such deliberative processes might be better received amidst the crowd-sourcing culture of the creative class in technology and the arts due to an emphasis on the generative nature of communal creative work. Deliberative democracy might be less well received in more technocratic settings where procedure and process do not create space for voice and decision-making so much as define linear steps toward predetermined outcomes amidst significant power differentials. Here, the term “counter-hegemonic” in the subtitle of this book should be recalled to further qualify the applicability of deliberative democracy to organizations, institutions, and communities. Deliberative democracy’s dependence on equality amongst participants and presumption of universal principles of justice leaves little room for problematizing the dynamics of power or critical engagement with presumed values. As a democratic frame, it will likely promote a reformist agenda to institutional change, working within the structure to make it more efficient, improve operations, and addressing contradictions by aligning mission and practice. Deliberative democracy is well suited where democratizing leadership is primarily focused on top-down preservation and advancement of positive features of the status quo. Habermas’ deliberative democracy provides a third way between liberal and republican conceptions of democracy, empowering citizens in the public sphere while shifting emphasis away from complete reliance on experts and positional leaders to govern. Small, homogenous teams working together to meet direct needs, manage programs, and sustain good work might use deliberative democratic concepts

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and processes to promote voice, decision-making, and collective action through democratic procedures. Preferable to majoritarian democracy marked by aggregated self-interest and minority exclusion, deliberative democracy has potential to create rational spaces for participant voices to advance win-win collaborations and promote participant decision-making that empowers collective action. Democratizing leadership must anticipate times of real consensus, when forces align to create an environment marked less by conflict and with potential for deliberative democracy. Habermas’ proceduralism is, at its core, discursive, reflecting the development of voice skills for democratic decision-making. In his ideal speech situation, participants are supposed to have the same capacity for discourse, to enjoy social equality, and to develop political literacy for rational deliberation. This is an ideal that resonates with finding and using voice in democratizing leadership. However it does not problematize power or inequality and will lack a critical approach to hegemony, ideology, or dominating power structures. What about the more conflictual counter-hegemonic work of democratizing leadership from within organizations, institutions, and communities? What would it mean to operationalize deliberative democracy in counter-hegemonic democratizing leadership? As a proponent of deliberative democracy, Harry Boyte has adapted Habermas’ ideas to a more grassroots and politically engaged conception of citizenship through his conception of public work (2005, 2007, 2014b). He sees great promise in deliberative democracy for the promotion of democratic governance in culture and politics by reinvigorating the notion of commonwealth. He is arguing in some regard for Freire’s democratization of culture. Boyte looks back to a more democratic time in the United States when engagement in politics was an expectation of citizenship, in partnership with government, through grassroots civil society organizations. He also revisits historical conceptions of public work in the context of professional life (2014b) as a reframing of the contemporary democratic project. He expands the notion of governance beyond government to address a democratized culture: Developments in public affairs that stress governance—not simply government—hold possibilities for reframing democracy. Governance intimates a paradigm shift in the meaning of democracy and civic agency—that is, who is to address public problems and promote the general welfare? The shift involves a move from citizens as simply voters, volunteers, and consumers to citizens as problem solvers and co-creators of public goods; from public leaders, such as public affairs professionals and politicians, as providers of services and solutions to partners, educators, and organizers of citizen action; and from democracy as elections to democratic society. Such a shift has

Theorizing Counter-Hegemonic Democratizing Leadership    85 the potential to address public problems that cannot be solved without governments, but that governments alone cannot solve, and to cultivate an appreciation for the commonwealth. Effecting this shift requires politicizing governance in nonpartisan, democratizing ways and deepening the civic, horizontal, pluralist, and productive dimensions of politics. (Boyte, 2005)

Even earlier, and together with Sara Evans, Harry Boyte articulated Habermas’ public sphere as “free spaces” (Evans & Boyte, 1986/1992) found in social movements and in deliberative spaces of civil society. Their definition of free spaces provides a partial framework counter-hegemonic analysis. Free spaces [are] public places in the community . . . in which people are able to learn a new self-respect, a deeper and more assertive group identity, public skills, and values of cooperation and civic virtue . . . settings between private lives and large-scale institutions . . . with a relatively open and participatory character. (p. ix)

I suggest it is a partial framework for this analysis because they limit the definition to the category of political or democratic spaces at the origins and bases of democratic movements. Their definition of free spaces focuses on community as the site for democratic practice. I want to extend the concept into organizations and institutions too, with a focus on counterhegemonic democracy. In this sense, free spaces are the cracks in hegemonic concepts and in autocratic leadership where democratizing leadership can take root and grow. One qualification that may not be evident in the Evans and Boyte definition alone is that a free space does not imply “emptiness.” Rather free spaces can be filled with conscienticized individuals raising their voices together to decide and act inside otherwise defined and confined structures. Free spaces also presume boundaries or perimeters that differentiate them from other spaces that are constrained or closed to democratizing leadership. The boundaries of free spaces might be proscribed by organizational, social, economic, and political forces. These forces define the perimeters of free spaces much as a blank canvas defines the limits of an artist’s creative work. Democratizing leadership must be able to articulate the boundaries of free spaces to provide participants clarity about where and when they might practice democratic voice, decision-making, and action. To continue the artistic metaphor, the free space of the canvas will not lead to art unless the artist engages that space with materials (brushes, palette, paints), and skills (training, vision, imagination). Democratizing leadership must supply some material in democratic structures or processes (which will likely change over time) and develop skills with participants, that is, voice and

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political literacy. And the edge of the canvas is like the limits of free spaces in organizations and institutions. At times, democratizing leadership will recognize alignment in a deliberative process of enough participants with political will to counter the current hegemony and promote positive change to a new hegemonic order. These times might be rare, but can be found in the midst of organizational crisis. Consensus born of democratic deliberations might occasionally lead to tipping points (Gladwell, 2002) that require democratizing leaders to shift from other democratic frames to deliberation and consensus building. This admission is not to align democratizing leadership with majoritarian deliberative democracy that presumes consensus and resolution as the primary frame for democratic work. However, this frame will at times provide the most effective change-oriented perspective to accomplish shared goals in rare moments of political alignment toward common goods.

Revolutionary Frame Revolutionary direct democracy is a second qualification of framing on another end of the democratic spectrum. Countering hegemony will sometimes mean appeals for overt resistance to domination and noncooperation or complete rejection of the structures of hegemony. In addition to Marxist and anarchist theories on the topic, Hannah Arendt’s On Revolution (1963) is a significant treatment of democracy in revolutionary contexts, defining revolution in terms of changing hegemony: “The modern concept of revolution, inextricably bound up with the notion that the course of history suddenly begins anew, that an entirely new story, a story never known or told before, is about to unfold” (p. 28). In her democratizing prescriptions, Arendt calls for democratic councils as a structure mediating between the popular vote and representative democracy. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri describe another revolutionary approach in their trilogy, Empire (2000), Multitude (2005), and Commonwealth (2009). Hardt and Negri problematize as “Empire” the universalizing order of neoliberal economic globalization and the political economy of this new imperial project. An account of the hegemony of domination from a neoMarxist perspective, Hardt and Negri also describe a democratic multitude rising in resistance to empire, emerging from the grassroots populace as a response to oppression. Theirs is an idealistic description of radical democracy rising, referencing particular contemporary situations as evidentiary support for their larger abstract theory.

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Hardt and Negri’s empire as hegemony draws from Foucault’s analysis of social forms moving from a disciplinary society to a society of control. This more subtle form of domination relies on power relations that are internalized in individual subjects rather than exercised through overt mechanisms. “In contrast to discipline, this control extends well outside the structured sites of social institutions through flexible and fluctuating networks” (2000, p. 23). Hardt and Negri further draw on Foucault by articulating his concept of biopower and the biopolitical as the technology of power in a society of control. Empire controls populations only occasionally through direct violence enacted by military and police forces. Instead, control enforced at an existential level through structures (schools, employment, hospitals, prisons) and policies (health insurance, mandatory sentencing, even international trade) that determine the physical lives of individuals and control decision-making. Individuals internalize these mechanisms of control and self-police behavior based on notions of “common sense” and “natural order” that are reinforced by and reinforce hegemony, even against their own interests. While their analysis is grounded in continental philosophy, they would appreciate conscientization articulated by Freire as liberation from uncritical biopolitical control of Empire. However, Hardt and Negri contend, “The first question of political philosophy today is not if or even why there will be resistance and rebellion, but rather how to determine the enemy against which to rebel” (2000, p. 211). If hegemony operates within us, and domination is enacted through complex and multiple social relations, not just in the overt use of physical force, how is this domination problematized in order to act against it? Hardt and Negri find hope in reactions to domination that lead people to desertion or exodus from Empire. They point toward social movements and radical resistance to neoliberal capitalism as evidence of contention and desertion from the society of control and the hegemony of Empire. It is in the confluence of these “new barbarians” (2000, p. 214) that they theorize a new and radical democratic reality they term “Multitude.” This direct democracy frame for resistance is anarchistic and antisystemic, composed of individual reactions against Empire that coalesce into its own amorphous movement. Multitude is networked, leaderless, unmediated plurality; collaborative relationships that extend transnationally in an interconnected democratic web. It is the very prediction of a radical “transnational web” made by the RAND Corporation in Alternative Futures and Army Force Planning (Nichiporuk, 2005), and perhaps evidenced in Occupy and Anonymous, among other manifestations of contemporary resistance to Empire. In this frame of pure democratic relations, the politicized masses reject current organizational, institutional, and community structures through

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exodus. Where no democratic spaces exist, the people flee as an act of liberation from oppression. Exodus as complete noncooperation is matched in Hardt and Negri with the development of new systems of political relations altogether, as self-organized networks enact direct democratic rule rather than carrying forward any existing organizational or institutional structure of the structures left behind. Such revolutionary occasions may be anticipated by democratizing leadership when the antagonism between multiple political actors does not lead to dynamic, creative democratic engagement, but instead to a constantly shrinking political space where effective change is minimized and oppression by hegemonic forces is replete. When revolutionary forces gain momentum but have no political course to follow, violence or disengagement (both antidemocratic courses) become the primary options. The notion of exodus in Hardt and Negri is not the disengagement of an apathetic or despairing population, but rather the rejection of domination in the journey toward a new reality. How might exodus and the amorphous composition of the multitude reject oppression without becoming the new oppressors? If exodus implies a search for the promised land, how might the multitude enact a new hegemony, not of domination but of collaboration? Revolutionary direct democracy, including resistance to domination and noncooperation, is difficult to sustain equitably and over time, lending a rare but sometimes necessary character to this frame for democratic decision-making. Hardt and Negri’s poststructural Marxist analysis posits an emergent democratization from the growing resistance to class-based neoliberal hegemony. But democracy is only one of many potential outcomes of resistance and exodus. Any resistance will be frustrated by a lack of sustainability if it does not also practice alternative democratic processes in the exercise of resistance itself; democracy through democratic means. It must develop alternative and democratic structures that supplant the systems of neoliberal hegemony and begin to build a new more democratic hegemony, lest it wander too long in the desert. Under what conditions will democratizing leadership choose resistance or noncooperation with existing structures? Most often as a bottom-up movement within organizations, institutions and communities, given that top-down positional leadership would likely have the power to make change rather than resist the status quo. Confrontational strategies such as strikes and sit-ins are common examples of noncooperation within an oppressive or dominating, undemocratic setting. Democratizing leadership must develop political literacy in this area by studying and practicing nonviolent strategies and applying them to organizations, institutions, and communities. One significant resource is Gene Sharp’s catalogue of 198 strategies

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for resistance and noncooperation in The Politics of Nonviolent Action (1973). Many more examples are found in the analyses of social movement strategies and in tactics collected and disseminated through online resources such as New Tactics in Human Rights (https://www.newtactics.org) and Global Nonviolent Action Database (http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu). Social movement strategies can be effective within organizations, institutions, and communities when tied to specific demands and tangible steps toward structural change. Used in isolation, they can subvert dominating organizations, institutions, and communities. Exodus from dominating hegemonic structures ought to be a last resort rather than first prescription, and such revolutionary resistance ought to also cultivate alternative structures. Resistance and subversion alone might be satisfying responses to domination and oppression in the moment, however democratizing leadership should be watchful for movement toward violence or hopelessness that is outside this concept of leadership. Hardt and Negri seem to defend the use of “democratic violence” in their second book in the trilogy, Multitude (2005, pp. 341–346), yet they end their short treatment with an exhortation, “We need to invent new weapons for democracy today” (p. 347), while pointing toward a diversity of nonviolent approaches to conflict. The concept of exodus seems to disavow reform in favor of revolution, or re-creating organizations, institutions, and communities anew and ex nihilo, from nothing. However as Hardt and Negri’s writing develops from Empire (2000) to Multitude (2005), and then to Commonwealth (2009), resistance and exodus is nuanced and made more tangible, if still primarily idealistic. On the question of reform or revolution, in Multitude, they state, Every such real institutional reform that expands the powers of the multitude is welcome and useful as long as it is not sacralized as a figure of superior authority and posed as a final solution. We have to construct a method of a set of general criteria for generating institutional reforms, and, more importantly, we have to construct on the basis of them constituent proposals for a new organization of society. (Hardt & Negri, 2005, p. 289)

I propose that democratizing leadership is one approach to constructing a method for institutional reform that respects constituent proposals for a new organization of society through voice, decision-making, and collective action. Hardt and Negri further develop their approach to direct democracy in the third book of the trilogy, Commonwealth, by asserting, “Democracy can be learned only by doing” (2009, p. 363). They continue, “The problem of transition must be given a positive, non-dialectical solution, leading toward democracy through democratic means” (p. 363), contrasted with previous

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failed hegemonic projects, such as vanguard political communism and promoting democratic reform through coercion and war. “The insurrectional event . . . must be consolidated in an institutional process of transformation that develops the multitude’s capacities for democratic decision-making” (p. 363). Resistance and exodus from systems in order to enact democracy is doomed to failure if participants have not already begun to develop political literacy through the practice of democracy, and this can only happen from within their current contexts. While democratic participation in nonformal and informal civil society groups can promote this practice, I argue the democratization of culture will be more successful if it is multivalent and infused throughout social structures in multiple settings. Hardt and Negri disavow the “boomerang effect of the dialectic, to thrust the process at the final moment toward the opposite end of the spectrum” (2009, p. 363). Instead, they propose a transition marked by a radical rupture with contemporary society rather than what they consider to be reformist illusions. This would seem to imply an absolute exodus from existing institutions when they summarize their point with an enigmatic statement, “the point is not to haggle over whether the glass is half empty or half full but to break the glass!” (p. 363). The conclusion of this process is to be an absolute break with the current hegemony and institution of a new hegemony based on the process of direct democracy enacted by the multitude: “Even though the movement never reaches a conclusion, the distance between transition and goal, between means and end become so infinitesimal that it ceases to matter” (p. 364). Like Habermas, Hardt and Negri seem to imply a universalizing consensus with a conclusion that implies finality. Hardt and Negri acknowledge an impasse based on a dichotomy of “ineffectiveness and disorder on the one side, and that of hierarchy and authority on the other” (2009, p. 364). Their hope exists not in the forms of historical social movements led by charismatic leaders, but in the positive aspects of the biopolitical grounded in democratic capacities that are developed through, production of ideas, images, codes, languages, knowledges, affects and the like, through horizontal networks of communication and cooperation, [that] tends toward the autonomous production of the common, which is to say, the production and reproduction of forms of life. (p. 364)

Even as hegemony is produced and reproduced through ever-more subtle forms of control sublimated in individual lives, so those lives can enact alternative forms of the biopolitical, identifying, and rejecting hegemony of domination through conscientization, creating and reproducing new forms

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of life to resist and leave behind structures of control. Radical democratic processes promote and grow the biopolitical commonwealth such that “the production and reproduction of forms of life is a very precise definition of political action” (p. 364). They acknowledge the necessary intersections between revolutionary breaks with oppressive structures with institutional structures for managing the biopolitical commonwealth. Such institutionalization requires democratic means. The commonwealth, according to Hardt and Negri, is not just the physical commons of land, water, minerals, and such. Their second notion of commonwealth “is not only the earth we share but also the languages we create, the social practices we establish, the modes of sociality that define our relationships, and so forth” (2009, p. 139). Unlike Boyte’s more historical emphasis on reinvigorating the commons as spaces for political deliberation, Hardt and Negri expand the notion of the commons in order to identify exploitation by neoliberal political economy and potential liberation. “The expropriation of this second form of the common—the artificial common or, really, the common that blurs the division between nature and culture—is the key to understanding the new forms of exploitation of biopolitical labor” (p. 139). Hardt and Negri explain that capital exploits the natural resources of the common by ownership of the means of production, but neoliberal capitalism expropriates culture to accumulate profit. No longer focused on the physical means of production controlled by capital, accumulation now derives from expropriating the biopolitical commonwealth that is external to capital itself. People more than products are now the locus of production for ideas, images, codes, languages, and such. And while these are expropriated for profit, they are also dynamic relations beyond the totalizing control of capital. This commonwealth may also serve as the locus for production of creative alternatives to the system from within the system, constrained but not confined by neoliberal capitalism. Democratizing leadership will at times choose a revolutionary course, resistance, noncooperation, or rupture from hegemonic structures. But instantaneous revolt led by charismatic leaders has led primarily to domination of another kind, separate but perhaps not entirely distinct from the oppression it challenged. Over the voluminous trilogy of Empire (2000), Multitude (2005), and Commonwealth (2009), Hardt and Negri provide an idealist vision of radical direct democracy, with real implications, but perhaps also untested feasibilities. Somewhere between the rationality of deliberative discourse and revolutionary direct democracy lies a democratic frame for leadership that is likely to govern most of our days.

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Agonistic Frame Counter-hegemonic democratizing leadership is likely to depend predominantly on a democratic frame like that articulated by political philosopher Chantal Mouffe. She describes radical democratic politics, including those within organizations and institutions, that exemplify postmodern democratic values of pluralism, contingency, and a mix of realist and idealist proposals. Mouffe coined the phrase “agonistic pluralism,” sometimes shortened to “agonistics,” or “agonism.” She defines agonism in contrast to antagonism, the latter conceived as a struggle between enemies, as an existential conflict. Other political philosophers and theorists have been described as agonistic in their approach to democracy, including Hannah Arendt (Arendt, 1963), although the term is more contemporary than her writing. Arendt describes the existential boundaries of democratic contestation in her defense of majoritarian democracy as a kind of agonism: We commonly equate and confound majority rule with majority decision. The latter, however, is a technical device, likely to be adopted almost automatically in all types of deliberative councils and assemblies, whether these are the whole electorate or a town-hall meeting or small councils of chosen advisers to the respective rulers. In other words, the principle of majority is inherent in the very process of decision-making and thus is present in all forms of government, including despotism, with the possible exception only of tyranny. Only where the majority, after the decision has been taken, proceeds to liquidate politically, and in extreme cases physically, the opposing minority does the technical device of majority decision degenerate into majority rule. (1963, pp. 164–165)

Arendt is advocating for a sort of agonism by differentiating it from antagonism, just as Mouffe describes the difference between adversaries versus enemies. However, Arendt, like Habermas, aims toward consensus through a majority decision, and does not, “acknowledge the hegemonic nature of every form of consensus and ineradicability of antagonism” (Mouffe, 2013, p. 11). Mouffe’s conception of agonism is also a struggle between adversaries, “an opponent with whom one shares common allegiance to the democratic principles of liberty and equality for all while disagreeing about their interpretation” (2013, p. 7). However, in Mouffe, agonism acknowledges difference within a shared framework for collaboration without trying to resolve those differences in a final consensus. She considers the struggle between sustained differences as the central component of a vibrant democracy rather than the closure of consensus as the measure of democracy.

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“To borrow a term from system theory, we could say that pluralist politics should be envisaged as a ‘mixed-game,’ i.e., in part collaborative and in part conflictual and not as a wholly cooperative game as most liberal pluralists would put it” (Mouffe, 1999, p. 756). Agonistic adversaries strive to make their interpretation of democratic principles hegemonic—as unquestioned common sense and normative assumptions—but they do not negate the identity of the other, nor do they deny the other’s right to strive to make their own interpretation of democratic values hegemonic. Tensions between conflicting voices are maintained, even at a point of decision against some voices, by the acknowledgement that any particular decision is contingent, of the moment, and not terminal. Instead, all democratic decisions are deemed precarious and subject to continued challenge, although a decision will hold, and be implemented in policy or practice, until a next decision prompts change. According to the accepted view, the public space is the terrain where one aims at creating consensus. For the agonistic approach, on the contrary, the public space is where conflicting points of view are confronted without any possibility of a final reconciliation. (Mouffe, 2013, p. 92)

Conflictual consensus is thus interminable, always under negotiation by voices, unsettled or unserved by the current order. Agonistic pluralism maintains a tension between consensus and dissent: consensus on the structures and values of democracy, but dissent about the particular lived meaning and application of those values. Mouffe refers to this as “conflictual consensus” (2013, p. 8) and argues for its centrality in pluralistic democracies. Otherwise, if one political identity is reified and others subverted entirely, such essentialist identities (nationalist, religious, ethnic) pose an existential threat to the other. “When the agonistic dynamic of the pluralist system is hindered because of a lack of democratic identities that one could identify, there is a risk that this will multiply confrontations over essentialist identities and non-negotiable moral values” (Mouffe, 1999, p. 756). Taken to an extreme, if political fervor and passions are not provided a democratic outlet, the only recourse may be perceived as violence in defense of existence. Habermasian consensus-based democracy presumes a common acceptance of existing power relations and primacy of rational discourse that moves toward consensus. Arendt argues for a more affective and persuasive exchange, but still premised on consensus. Mouffe argues,

94    Democratizing Leadership While consensus is no doubt necessary, it must be accompanied by dissent. Consensus is needed on the institutions that are constitutive of liberal democracy and on the ethico-political values that should inform political association. But there will always be disagreement on the meaning of those values and how they are to be implemented. (Mouffe, 2013, p. 8)

Mouffe also distinguishes adversarial agonism from liberal competition. She claims the latter does not question the hegemonic order, but only competes to displace the other from power within an unquestioned status quo. Agonistic adversaries struggle over the hegemonic project itself—the very meaning and of democratic principles and related application of that meaning—through agreed-upon yet conflictual democratic procedures (2013, pp. 8–9). Traditional partisan politics function as competition amongst interests, engaging in zero-sum games to achieve their best position in the compromises of politics. Mouffe describes this as the aggregative model [that] sees political actors as being moved by pursuit of their interests. The other model, the deliberative one, stresses the role of reason and moral considerations. What both of these models leave aside is the centrality of collective identities and the crucial role played by affects in their constitution. (2013, p. 6)

She acknowledges the untidy political relationship between rational discourse and affective persuasion that functions in the midst of complex and collective identities. She also critiques the Hardt and Negri revolutionary project of Multitude (2005) as overly idealized or utopian. Mouffe claims that a future founded on direct democracy and devoid of conflict is simply naïve. There will always be antagonism, struggles and divisions of the social, and the need for institutions to deal with them will never disappear . . . the political transformations that will eventually enable us to transcend capitalist society are founded on the plurality of social agents and their struggles. (2013, p. 84)

Short of a completely egalitarian society, with minimal inequities in economic, social, or political power, struggle and conflict will always be part of the human condition. Understanding the role of identity in political decision-making is crucial to maintaining agonistic pluralism and avoiding antagonism that may turn to violence. Identity is intersectional in that each individual may be categorized by multiple identities, and contextual in that each identity may

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be emphasized or ignored given political contexts. The first task of recognizing identity in agonism is to understand what might be perceived as an existential threat to a particular identity in the midst of political conflict. Many us/them relations are merely a question of recognizing differences. But it means that there is always the possibility that this “us/them” relation might become one of friend/enemy. This happens when the others, who up to now were considered as simply different, start to be perceived as putting into question our identity and threatening our existence” (Mouffe, 2013, p. 5)

The focus in agonism, however is not on the politics of identity, but on the role of identity in decision-making and action. “I do not believe the that the agonistic struggle should be exclusively centered on the ‘who-ness’ and the proliferation of identities at the cost of addressing the question of what we should do as citizens” (Mouffe, 2013, p. 12). What I describe as praxis orientation is aligned with Mouffe’s call for a political action rather than just identity politics. Agonism as a theory of political action is informed by the ongoing tensions of always-contingent conflictual consensus and the contestation of hegemonies enacted in practical terms. Decision-making leads to consensus that is not finally resolved, but always contingent; a decision sustained and enacted until the next decision supplants it. Decision-making in an agonistic frame is necessarily conflictual as a positive sign of healthy democratic pluralism maintaining difference even as a way forward is made. This conflictual consensus exists within unity premised on diversity and is summed up by Mouffe in the term “adversary”: For the agonistic perspective, the central category of democratic politics is the category of the “adversary”, the opponent with who one shares a common allegiance to the democratic principles of “liberty and equality for all”, while disagreeing about their interpretation. Adversaries fight against each other because they want their interpretation of the principles to become hegemonic, but they do not put into question the legitimacy of the of their opponent’s right to fight for the victory of their position. This confrontation between adversaries is what constitutes the “agonistic struggle” that is the very condition of a vibrant democracy. (2013, p. 7)

Realism regarding differences, conflict, and power intersects with idealistic contestation over hegemonic domination in favor of dynamic and democratic political participation. In order to prevent antagonism that may lead to violent conflict, institutions and practices must be developed and deepened to provide space

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for agonistic struggles that deepen democracy (Mouffe, 2005, p. 20–21). The core questions of politics is, according to Mouffe, “What are the limits of agonism and what are the institutions and forms of power that need to be established in order to allow for a process of radicalizing democracy?” (2013, p. 15). The first part of her question, addressing limits, is articulated in terms of boundaries when she asks, “Can all antagonisms be transformed into agonisms and all positions be accepted as legitimate and accommodated with the agonistic struggle?” (p. 13). Critics of pluralism often cite relativism as its failure, but Mouffe suggests in her question that limits to conflictual consensus must be considered. She responds to the question with another that implies its answer, wondering whether some demands must fall outside of an agonistic frame. “Are there demands that need to be excluded because they cannot be part of the conflictual consensus that provides the symbolic space in which opponents recognize themselves as legitimate adversaries?” (p. 13). If there is no political space provided for the other or no recognition of legitimacy for an adversary to share political space, this constitutes an existential threat on a political order if not a physical one. Her argument for exclusion beyond the boundaries of agonism is directed at demands, not at identities or persons. If demands that delegitimate others are dropped, then room opens again for that person to reengage amongst legitimate adversaries. For agonism to function, and to avoid antagonism, participants must recognize each other as legitimate political actors who can function and even live together in that shared if conflicted space. Agonistics is premised on a political contestation that challenges competing hegemonies and their implications in practice while avoiding direct and indirect violence. Conflict in democratic societies cannot and should not be eradicated, since the specificity of pluralist democracy is precisely the recognition and legitimation of conflict. What liberal democratic politics requires is that the others are not seen as enemies to be destroyed, but as adversaries whose ideas might be fought, even fiercely, but whose right to defend those ideas is not to be questioned. (Mouffe, 2013, p. 7)

Conflict is a given, but it does not include physical violence, and indirect forms such as structural and cultural violence that constitute existential threats must also be avoided and challenged: “The best way to avoid such a situation is the establishment of a multi-polar framework that would create the conditions for those conflicts to manifest themselves as agonistic confrontations between adversaries, instead of taking the form of antagonistic struggles between enemies” (Mouffe, 2013, p. 41). A multipolar framework creates the conditions for agonistic spaces that place existential antagonism

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outside the boundary while also addressing charges of absolute relativism. But the answer to her first question begs the next. What framework and conditions, what institutions and forms of power need to be established?

Deliberation, Revolution, or Agonism? An updated decision-making process is educational in its own right. It is a means of accelerating the kind of learning people need if they are to take control of their own lives and govern themselves. The majority of people have so long been accustomed to top-downism that they will have to be reeducated both in theory and in practice as to their rights, opportunities and responsibilities. The meaning of democratic involvement in decisionmaking methods presents a challenge and creative educational concept and should be incorporated into all education at all stages. Myles Horton (as citerd in Jacobs, 2003, p. 230)

At this mesolevel consideration of organizations, institutions, and communities, limiting leadership to only one of these frames is a false choice, or at least unnecessarily limiting. Multiple frames are already present in social structures, and democratizing leadership needs to identify, integrate, and utilize them in a more substantial and dynamic form of democratic governance. When coming together around shared goals and common purpose, tools of deliberative democracy allow for efficient and effective work while providing space for different voices. The more a context is unified in collaborative hegemonic values, the more applicable and useful deliberative processes will be. This is not to suggest that Habermas’ ideal situation will be enacted in deliberative democratic processes for voice, decision-making, and collective action. Participants will regularly face tensions between their own integrity and integration with the group; what Freire termed adaptation or integration. Frustrations with organizations, institutions, and communities that allow only adaptation to dominating and intransigent hegemonic values and structures will lead to revolutionary approaches: resistance and desertion or exodus. There are times when the only thing to do is leave, yet most people are unlikely to leave a sure situation for a new and uncertain creation of their own. To leave one organization or institution is to arrive at another or to build your own in the image of what you’ve known before. Instead, within existing nondemocratic structures there may be space for creating subversive democratic structures, democratizing leadership from the bottom up. These can be dynamic models of change that might transform the nondemocratic spaces around them. They might also

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be tolerated and then crushed in a conflict deemed unresolvable to the larger hegemonic structure. The Multitude in Hardt and Negri (2005) eschews reform from within institutions to emphasize revolution from without. Focused on the disruption of the current hegemonic order, they presume that the Multitude will replace current power relations with an “authentic” form of democracy that is participatory rather than representative, a form of direct democracy such that institutions are not necessary for governance in the new order. Mouffe contends, however, that “it is not enough to unsettle the dominant procedures and to disrupt the existing arrangements in order to radicalize democracy” (2013, p. 14), alternatives structures must also be created. She posits existing institutions as the sites of agonistic contestation and rejects the notion in Hardt and Negri of exodus or desertion from institutions as prerequisite for radicalizing democracy: The exodus approach denies the possibility of a counter-hegemonic struggle within institutions that disarticulates the constitutive elements of neo-liberal hegemony. It perceives all institutions as monolithic representatives of the forces to be destroyed, and every attempt to transform them is dismissed as a reformist illusion. The strategy advocated is one of “desertion” and of the creation of new social relations outside the existing institutional framework. What is foreclosed is an immanent critique of institutions, whose objective is to transform them into a terrain for contesting the hegemonic order. (Mouffe, 2013, p. 100)

Rather than storming off from existing institutions to shake one’s fist from a distance while striving to build an entirely new structure, Mouffe cautions for the need to engage with what stands already. Although institutions are not the only sites in which to contest hegemony, they are mediating structures between individuals and society, between ideas and social practice. To desert them is to give up the struggle without a fight. Boyte’s deliberative democracy looks back to earlier iterations of democratic free spaces in social movements and a reinvigoration of public work to infuse social and economic settings with more democratic processes. This is closer to Mouffe’s agonistic approach to institutions, yet countering hegemony in this frame is presumed as necessarily emerging from within procedural democratization. Where organizational and institutional identity aligns with or recognizes democratic values (i.e., civil society groups, public schools, and some nonprofit organizations), the rational and discursive deliberative approach may be suited for collaborative work on institutional transformation. In more pluralistic and conflicted organizational and institutional settings, however, deliberative democracy may be seen as

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either a tool for coercing consensus when enacted by top-down leadership or as a usurpation of power if enacted from the bottom up. Herein is located my most profound appreciation for Mouffe’s work in relation to democratizing leadership. Hope for revolutionary democratic societies cut new from whole cloth seems thin, given historical examples. Utopian democratic experiments removed from the rest of society abound, but rarely sustain themselves. A rational, discursive politics seems utopian too, given the contemporary vitriol of partisan politics. Idealistic appeals for less polemical, more civil dialogue appeal to portions of the population who believe they can achieve something in that context, but such appeals look for common interests between polarized sides on which to build procedural approaches without acknowledging underlying hegemonic dynamics. Agonistic framing for democratic experiments within existing structures have more potential to subvert or transform institutions from within: What is at stake is the struggle between opposing hegemonic projects which can never be reconciled rationally, one of them needing to be defeated. It is a real confrontation, but one that is played out under conditions regulated by a set of democratic procedures accepted by the adversaries. (Mouffe, 2013, p. 9)

Agonistic procedures and practices can weave democratic values throughout organizational culture and grow the democratic institutional spaces that enhance voice, decision-making, and collective action. Recalling Sun Tzu’s admonition in the Art of War (Sunzi & Griffith, 1963) to “know the terrain,” democratizing leadership can and must understand power and processes within organizations, institutions, and communities in order to transform them into more democratic frameworks and conditions. Radical politics consists in a diversity of moves in a multiplicity of institutional terrains, so as to construct a different hegemony. It is a “war of position” whose objective is not the creation of a society beyond hegemony, but a process of radicalizing democracy—the construction of more democratic, more egalitarian institutions. (Mouffe, 2007, p. xiv)

Drawing from Gramsci’s concept of the “war of position” (1992), Mouffe advocates for the development of a new story that finds resonance and grows in the midst of institutions and not outside of them. The story told in a multiplicity of terrains becomes amplified, as the alternative story resonates from one setting to another, reinforcing the new commonsense understanding of the world and supplanting the old story of domination and control.

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This may seem idealistic too, but it is an idealism that begins in real situations and lived experiences of democratizing leadership, moving outward toward an ideal that stretches between and then beyond these particulars. Examples of counter-hegemonic democratizing leadership exist already and have potential to shape a new democratic hegemony through grounded practice in organizations, institutions, and communities. What Evans and Boyte (1986/1992) call free spaces in social movements and civil society can also be seen in organizations and institutions. Free spaces open up in the contradictory fissures between organizational purpose and practice, institutional mission and common goods, community values and democratic citizenship. When an organization says one thing and does another, or when an institution fails to pursue its broader social purpose, hampered by bureaucracy and proceduralism, participants may be poised to enact democratizing leadership from the bottom up, and positional leaders may have little justification for ignoring these alternative arrangements. Key to agonism in institutional settings is the problematizing of hegemony, especially amongst participants who may be most affected by it, but least conscious of its function. Yet even positional leaders may reinforce hegemony through institutional policy and culture due to the bureaucratized hierarchical system they have inherited, or they may presume it as the best or only way to function. As cited previously from Mouffe, “What is at a given moment accepted as the ‘natural order’, jointly with the common sense that accompanies it, is the result of sedimented hegemonic practices” (2007, p. 2). These sedimented hegemonic practices are not typically the work of nefarious and evil positional leaders who relish their authoritarian control, so much as an uncritical approach to institutional leadership that explores no alternative or fears the costs of change. Most of us adapt to social, cultural, political, and professional environments so as not to create conflict, be seen as a troublemaker, or lose the limited power we might seek by fitting into a new situation. Deviance from organizational and institutional norms might lead to being accused of improper social behavior, of offending someone’s cultural identity, of bringing politics into a setting where it is not welcome, or of risking opportunities or even employment in professional settings. Democratizing leadership is not an exhortation to rashly impose new ideas on others. For instance, I have heard colleagues bemoan “millenials” who seem to think they should have some say over more experienced co-workers or feel entitled to power in a new situation. Promoting democratic changes when the hegemony of domination has not been problematized can be seen as entitlement or arrogance. Mouffe’s “agonistic” frame is necessarily conflictual, but also a meaningful and potentially positive environment for democratic work. If

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conflicts and tensions are approached as constituent elements of democracy, rather than a dynamic to avoid, then agonism can be potentially dynamic and creative. Changing frameworks and conditions to more democratic forms requires something more like integration than adaptation. Freire described the difference this way: “Integration . . . as distinguished from adaptation, is a distinctly human activity. Integration results from the capacity to adapt oneself to reality plus the critical capacity to make choices and to transform that reality” (Freire, 1992, p. 4, emphasis in the original). Democratizing leadership must recognize institutional politics, the relative conscientization of colleagues, potential for problematizing hegemonic domination, and their own level of adaptation or integration. Transformation cannot be the unilateral implementation on an abstract or ideological concept. It must account for a multiplicity of people, structures, and hegemonic ideas in order to make effective and ethical change. Angela Steinam and Carl James, academics interested in educational and community change, note, Social justice implies that all forms of domination, oppression, discrimination and exclusion are contested through political struggles aimed at transforming the hegemonic institutions and cultural patterns that perpetrate these forms. The more diverse society is, the greater the complexity of supremacy, discrimination, and exclusion since structurally discriminated groups in society can be both victims and perpetrators of those patterns . . . Educating for radical democracy, therefore, requires the construction and mobilization of a political culture of confrontation. (2013, p. 250)

This political culture of confrontation is central to Mouffe’s concept of agonism. But however ready we might be to enact this culture, it must be cultivated in the relationships and structures in which we are enmeshed. One contextual impact on democracy is that of scale. Direct democracy suits a small group where every decision of substance can be put to a vote. Communities, states, and nations rely on representative democracy to address problems of scale, except where matters are judged to be of such import that referenda are used to provide legitimacy through the practice of direct democracy. Layers of democratic practice continue to be adapted to suit contexts of scale. However the scale of globalization led Hardt and Negri to proclaim, Modern forms of representation . . . will not necessarily be able to be expanded to respond successfully to our new problems of scale. Rather, like the revolutionaries of the early modern period, we will once again have to

102    Democratizing Leadership reinvent the concept of democracy and create new institutional forms and practices appropriate to our global age. (2005, p. 38) .

Mouffe might agree with the challenges posed by scale, but not with the utopian dream of creating new institutional forms removed entirely from those that already exist. To abandon institutions is to imagine that the new hegemony of the multitude will spring from the total destruction of the neoliberal hegemony by regenerating organizations, institutions, and communities ex nihilo, or that the multitude will order itself en masse without the need for institutional forms of social ordering in the midst of change. Even the Occupy Wall Street encampment utilized a media team (organization), developed a library (cultural institution), and called general assemblies for communications and consensus building (community and governance). And while there were innovations in particular processes and procedures, they relied on practiced forms that resembled existing social institutions. “Without any institutional relays, they will not be able to bring about any significant changes in the structures of power” (Mouffe, 2013, p. 77). We might have glimpsed the direct democracy of the multitude in Zucotti Park, but sustaining and growing that form of popular governance is unlikely to survive hegemonic contestation. Institutional attachments are presented here (in Hardt and Negri) as obstacles to new, nonrepresentative forms of “absolute democracy” suitable for the self-organization of the multitude. Yet such an approach forecloses on any immanent critique of institutions—critique with the objective of transforming institutions into a terrain of contestation of the hegemonic order. (Mouffe, 2010, p. 326)

To ignore existing organizations and institutions is to imagine their eventual capitulation to the new hegemony and sudden dissolution or magical transformation into democratic forms. An agonistic approach to democratizing leadership in organizations and institutions seems fraught with peril, unlikely to succeed, and at best a long and laborious process. Yet when was democratic change safe, guaranteed, or quick and easy? Beyond the disruption of hegemonic power, democratizing leadership needs to construct a new hegemonic order to replace the old. Counterhegemonic democracy must not only disarticulate former power relations, but also construct new relations to avoid a vacuum that may be refilled by the old order, or worse, filled by a more oppressive system as people seek a known oppressive order over an unknown, and therefore feared, freedom from order. The new hegemony begins conceptually and is constructed agonistically in tension with the old order. It will grow in effect and tangible

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impact as it informs and is informed by the organizations, institutions, and communities that substantiate the new order. Practicing new power relations to replace the former arrangements serves to test the agonistic concept and to challenge the new normative values underlying the alternative hegemony. This praxis of concept and application also enriches the new hegemony as adversarial claims to proper interpretation of the new order are practiced and contested. Examples of counter-hegemonic democratizing leadership already exist and have potential to shape a new democratic hegemony through grounded practice in organizations, institutions, and communities. Hardt and Negri (2005) suggest that democratizing leadership must be learned by doing, through a democratic process, toward a democratic goal. Chantal Mouffe (2013) argues for agonistic pluralism that does not lead to an ideal or utopian society, but one that becomes more imbued with democratic values through ever more practiced democratic processes. The next section, Collective Action, will examine the move from the authenticity of democratic decision-making to the responsibility of collective action.

INTERLUDE 2.3 COLLECTIVE ACTION SCENARIO PUPPETS CAN BE DANGEROUS It is 2007. A citizen, hoping to have a voice in the democratic process at a U.S. national political convention, decides to make a statement at a designated “free speech zone.” But she arrives downtown to discover the stage is separated from the convention venue and from the delegates and candidates who are supposed to represent citizens by a perimeter of security fences and hundreds of heavily armed security forces. She finds her way through the nearly inaccessible maze of temporary, 12-foot high security fences to locate the “free speech zone.” When she finally arrives, she wonders how democratic values and citizen voice can possibly function in such a controlled space. An enormous news media tent stands in the sightline between the free speech zone and the convention hall, blocking each from view of the other. City Parks and Recreation employees are surprised to see her, explaining that no one has spoken from the portable stage yet today. Standing at the free speech zone, she is perplexed about whether to speak in the absence of an audience. She recalls that numerous threats had been reported on the local news that might justify such intensive security and explain the empty forum. Just days before the start of the political convention, local and federal authorities raided an anarchist convergence center run by the ironically

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named RNC Welcoming Committee. The news covered the raid without reporting the results, but the anarchists group posted the search warrant and affidavit via Twitter. The warrant listed items sought in the search, including one category that seemed incongruous and unlikely: ◾◾ Lockboxes and components including but not limited to chicken

wire, roofing tar, duct tape, PVC or metal piping ◾◾ Razorwire ◾◾ Hollowed out puppets ◾◾ Urine and feces ◾◾ Caltrops ◾◾ Police scanners, two-way radios

Most of the items on the list sound threatening or disgusting but, puppets? The accompanying affidavit justifies the raid and explains the authorities’ concern about “hollowed out puppets.” It describes infiltration by investigators of anarchist training camps and the threats posed by puppets: ◾◾ Also during this camp, according to this law enforcement

agency, an individual discussed the use of large street puppets to conceal and transport materials such as Molotov cocktails, bricks, caltrops, shields and lockboxes. This individual also stated long bamboo poles used for the puppets could be used as spears and utilized to drive back police ◾◾ Also on this same date, an unidentified female discussed with the group the use of large street puppets to move “materials” around. This individual stated the puppets could be stuffed with material needed on the streets. Several attendees discussed the need for Molotov cocktails, paint, caltrops, bricks and lockboxes. This female individual also stated that she would use long bamboo poles as the puppet poles as these poles could then be used as spears to drive the cops back. Finally, this individual stated that the larger puppets could be used to hide shields. In fact, no puppets were weaponized at this event. An Internet search and literature review provides no evidence that puppets have been used as weapons or to conceal weapons at any U.S. political convention. Yet puppetistas, protest puppeteers, at the 2000 IMF and World Bank protest in Washington, DC, were falsely accused by authorities of hiding Molotov cocktails and pepper spray in puppets (Graeber, 2007, p. 15). Prior to the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, authorities raided a puppet workshop based on false claims that puppets housed “C4

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explosives and water balloons full of hydrochloric acid” (Graeber, 2007, p. 15). And prior to the 2003 Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) Protests, “the Miami City Council actually attempted to pass a law making the display of puppets illegal, on the grounds that they could be used to conceal bombs or other weapons” (Graeber, 2007, p. 15). While puppets have not presented a violent threat in any of these cases, they have a long history of challenging authority and amplifying a collective voice that might otherwise be excluded from representative politics and elite political events. Puppets can be dangerous to hegemonic systems of domination that are threatened by the collective action of citizens promoting a more participatory democratic process.

Collective Action One subverts democracy (even though one does this in the name of democracy) by making it irrational; by making it rigid in order “to defend against totalitarian rigidity”; by making it hateful, when it can only develop in the context of love and respect for persons; by closing it, when it only lives in openness; by nourishing it with fear when it must be courageous; by making it an instrument of the powerful in the oppression of the weak; by militarizing it against the people; by alienating a nation in the name of democracy. One defends . . . democracy which does not fear the people, which suppresses privilege, which can plan without becoming rigid, which defends itself without hate, which is nourished by a critical spirit rather than irrationality. (Freire, 1992, p. 49)

Collective action is the third step in a cycle of democratizing leadership, moving from decision-making to action, and from individual to collective agency. In the midst of this move, democratizing leadership must maintain accountability to its roots in democratic voice and maintain responsibility to decision-making as it carries out collective action. And even as leadership looks back to maintain the integrity of the process, it must also look ahead to the consequences of its actions, anticipating the next cycle that will lead from collective action to further development of voice. Individuals participating in collective action, and reflecting on their experience, have potential to examine their voice for alignments and contradictions to that action. But in order to complete the cycle of democratizing leadership, collective action needs description and clarification. Collective action is a term familiar to social movement theorists. It is described in social movement literature as the mobilization of actors emerging from material inequalities or ideological contradictions (Fraser

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& Honneth, 2003). Collective action is particular in form, that is, protests, political campaigns, strikes, and such, whereas a social movement, as defined by Charles Tilly, is sustained collective action that also employs a common repertoire of contention and features WUNC displays—worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment (Tilly & Wood, 2013, pp. 4–5). Tilly and Wood also note that collective action is sometimes conflated beyond particular actions and framed as a social movement when supporters seek to burnish its image or add weight to a cause (2013, p. 7). Doug McAdam et al. (1996) describe social movements as determined by political opportunities, mobilizing structures, and framing processes (p. 2). Donatella della Porta and Mario Diani define social movements as “dense informal networks of collective actors involved in conflictual relations with clearly identified opponents, who share a distinct collective identity, using mainly protests as their modus operandi” (1999, p. 6). I am interested in collective action as the modus operandi of democratizing leadership within organizations, institutions, and communities while distinguishing it from the larger category of social movements. I am appropriating this term from the contexts of social movements and social movement organizations to consider what it means in the context of democratizing leadership that is not necessarily ordered toward social movements but instead focused on mesolevel institutional terrain for contesting hegemony. It might also be helpful to describe collective action as differentiated from Habermas’ (1984) communicative action, where the discursive approach in Habermas presumes rational and collaborative consensus in the public sphere followed by unified action informed by that consensus. Boyte complicates this approach in a helpful way by describing the expansion of civic agency in terms of public work that he defines as “self-organized efforts by a mix of people who create things, material or symbolic, whose value is determined by a continuing process of deliberation” (2014b). He imagines institutions as “enabling environments for agency” (2014b) rather than static and determinant. Boyte argues for work as a political activity oriented toward a civic commitment, whether enacted in profit, nonprofit, or public institutions. Like Boyte, I seek a deepening of democratic identification within institutions that either do not see themselves oriented toward a broader public purpose or do not imagine democratic practice as an option. Unlike Boyte, I think such cultural change requires insurgent practices of democracy that highlight contradictions between domination and collaboration and use conflict in addition to consensus as approaches to conscientization and politicization of institutional terrain. As Mouffe argues, “what is really at stake in the critique of ‘deliberative democracy’ that I am proposing here is the need to acknowledge the dimension of power and antagonism and their

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ineradicable character.” (1999, p. 752). Collective action in democratizing leadership acknowledges the likelihood of Mouffe’s conflictual consensus in democratizing institutions. Proceeding from decision-making to collective action requires acknowledgement of the dimensions of power and antagonism such that action proceeds collectively yet also encompasses ongoing tensions. Dissent must be recognized in the midst of collective action as a step between contingent decision-making and the raising of conflicted voices moving again toward a next, alternative decision. “ To be sure, pluralist democracy demands a certain amount of consensus . . . such a consensus is bound to be a “conflictual consensus.” This is why a pluralist democracy needs to make room for dissent and for the institutions through which it can be manifested. (Mouffe, 1999, p. 756)

Collective action will likely encompass groups of people working in active solidarity, bystanding passively even if in agreement with the action, remaining neutral out of apathy or ignorance, disagreeing passively perhaps through nonparticipation, and actively working against the decision that spurred action yet as part of the communal whole, without withdrawing from identifying with the organization, institution, or community, but working against a decision with subversive action. These tensions are powerfully articulated in Carol Hanisch’s (1969) description of challenges faced in the collective action of the Women’s Movement: One more thing: I think we must listen to what so-called apolitical women have to say—not so we can do a better job of organizing them but because together we are a mass movement. I think we who work full-time in the movement tend to become very narrow. What is happening now is that when non-movement women disagree with us, we assume it’s because they are “apolitical,” not because there might be something wrong with our thinking. Women have left the movement in droves. The obvious reasons are that we are tired of being sex slaves and doing shitwork for men whose hypocrisy is so blatant in their political stance of liberation for everybody (else). But there is really a lot more to it than that. I can’t quite articulate it yet. I think “apolitical” women are not in the movement for very good reasons, and as long as we say “you have to think like us and live like us to join the charmed circle,” we will fail. What I am trying to say is that there are things in the consciousness of “apolitical” women (I find them very political) that are as valid as any political consciousness we think we have. We should figure out why many women don’t want to do action. Maybe there is something wrong with the action or something wrong with why we are doing the action or maybe the analysis of why the action is necessary is not clear enough in our minds.

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This description of collective action is less unified than in the typical description in social movement theory or in the conception of multitude in Hardt and Negri (2005) due to acknowledgment of continual political tensions within collective action. The summative whole of active and passive support, and passive or active resistance, will determine the measure of progression or regression in counter-hegemonic collective action. Yet more is required than a knowledgeable critique of the current dominant hegemony and mobilization of resistance: Protests, however widespread, do not necessarily represent the acceptance by the population of a counter ideology. Dominant ideologies are powerful precisely because any counterideology must be extremely well articulated and, importantly, come to be accepted by a growing number of people before it can become a part of mainstream political discourse. (O’Sullivan, as cited in Abdi & Carr, 2013, p. 176)

Providing a meaningful alternative requires collective action beyond protest to engage in collective action for the social construction of structures to support the new democratic hegemony. Collective action amongst individuals following a particular decision in an organization, institution, or community is perhaps more complex than in social movements because of the hierarchical power dynamics in such mesolevel settings and the more structured relationships that define these settings. Any particular collective action that emerges from decision-making in these contexts competes with a multiplicity of decisions made over time overlapping with each other. Whereas social movements tend to operate via focused, strategic campaigns, democratizing leadership for counterhegemonic institutional change functions in the midst of status quo institutional operations as a mix of deliberative collaboration, agonistic political work, or revolutionary resistance, subversion, or desertion. Deliberative democracy presumes and pursues unity through discourse and decision-making that is intended to lead toward unity of action. Democratizing leadership acknowledges the conflictual consensus that will usually pervade the entire process, rarely coming to complete consensus nor complete solidarity of action. This is not a hopeless vision but one that recognizes intersecting idealism and realism to promote enough unity for collective action to coalesce into a contested yet progressive agenda. Three steps forward, two steps back might sum up this approach, and frustrating though it might be, it is an admission that democratic freedom and organizational efficacy are in dynamic tension with each other. Most organizations that seek unanimity of discourse and monolithic collective action use coercive, nondemocratic

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decision-making processes to achieve that end or restrict decision-making to a few elites amongst whom little dissension is tolerated. Nuancing this overall schema is the practical application of democratizing leadership in some but not all aspects of organizational life. Short of the anarchic utopia of direct democracy in all ways and at all times, democratizing leadership promotes the democratization of culture through growth of individual and collective agency in the democratic praxis of daily life. There exists a broad spectrum of democratic practice between the extremes of absolute autocracy and direct democracy. Leadership at the top can democratize functions or structures within an organization to democratize it in part without risking the efficiency or mission of the organization. Similarly, bottom-up democratization needs to be strategic as it exploits political opportunities to democratize aspects of the organization that create positive outcomes for the whole, taking root where democracy can be nourished and cultivated, and then growing into new spaces that might be more challenged or challenging. And drawing from social movement theory, these political opportunities require proper framing and mobilizing structures to sustain and grow democratization. Democratic forms of leadership are complex and conflicted, yet also creative and productive, producing more than just objects or commodities but also human subjects who find dignity and worth in the struggle of democratizing leadership. Paulo Freire’s distinction between antidialogical and dialogical action helps describe collective action that reinforces or challenges dominating hegemony, respectively. Freire describes components of antidialogical actions as conquest, divide and rule, manipulation, and cultural invasion. The first three actions are familiar to anyone who has read Machiavellian management manuals and guides to autocratic and hierarchic organizational leadership. Cultural invasion is Freire’s term for imposition of cultural norms by both dominating and collaborative but uncritical leadership. From an example of promoting democracy in Sierra Leone, The first step for interventionists is to establish local perceptions of legitimacy and understand how people identify genuine participatory projects themselves. Outsiders must stop looking for stylistic forms of representation, which means little in the locale, and must refrain from being duped by proposals that mean little more than business deals for the middle classes. They must commit to creating an enabling environment for local empowerment . . . and to help remove encumbrances to democracy. (Cubitt, 2013, p. 108)

Freire also describes antidialogical cultural invasion for extension educators as “mythicizing” the world with ideas like “the industriousness of the oppressors and the laziness and dishonesty of the oppressed” (Freire, 1973,

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p. 136). Inequities and power differentials are reified as natural and inherent through hegemonic myths that tell the story of the status quo and thereby reinforce it. People enacting leadership will tend to operate under such hegemonic stories—and perpetuate the dominant hegemony—until antidialogical action is problematized and dailogical action is practiced. For example, a leadership text called Contented Cows Give Better Milk (Catlette & Hadden, 2001) proclaims “treating people right is the best thing for your bottom line.” Yet the title itself and the book cover of a massive bull in a suit with a tiny contented cow foraging in the background reifies the status quo of domination and patriarchy. Dialogical actions involve subjects (Freire’s term for a conscienticized political actor with agency) who collaborate with each other to transform the world. These collective actions are perceptible in the forms of cooperation, unity, organization, and cultural synthesis. Liberation in Freire is conceived not in terms of autonomy from oppressive structures, but as unity, where Frerian praxis of reflection and action leads oppressed individuals to the conclusion that they are unified as an oppressed group. From this unity as collective identity, organization may proceed, as “a highly educational process in which leaders and people together experience true authority and freedom” (Freire, 2014, pp. 178– 179). Distinct from the individualistic conception of freedom as autonomy, Freire refers to the freedom to act collectively in cooperation. His final dialogical action, cultural synthesis, reflects his earlier notion of individual integration versus adaptation. Cultural synthesis is the maintenance of individual integrity in the midst of a pluralistic and collective synthesis. It must be stressed that Freire does not articulate these as ideas alone, but as actions to be implemented through pedagogical processes or, in this context, collective action in democratizing leadership. John Paul Lederach provides four capacities for what he calls The Moral Imagination (2005), and I offer these as complementary and requisite capacities to Freire’s dialogical actions, to be cultivated as habits of democratizing leadership. Lederach asserts that the moral imagination “requires the capacity to imagine ourselves in a web of relationships, one that includes even our enemies” (p. 5). This is a particularly helpful image to extend Mouffe’s agonism between adversaries. Beyond a recognition of seeing adversaries as included in pluralistic democracy and useful in identifying “us” in contrast to “them,” the notion of a web of relationships speaks to multiplicity and constancy. Relationship to an adversary is neither a simple one-to-one dynamic nor is it momentary. Adversarial relationships are bound through interdependence to those of allies and neutrals too, in any particular contest of practice, policy, or hegemony. Relations with adversaries tug and pull on

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relations with others acting on an interdependent web with secondary and tertiary consequences. One practical consequence of thinking spatially in the image of a web is the idea that the adversary of my adversary might be a friend. Or that influencing an adversary might be more effective through secondary and tertiary relationships than done directly. Lederach’s web of relationships is also a reminder of the conflictual consensus to which all are bound in Mouffe’s agonistic pluralism, an image of complex power relations. He says a second capacity for moral imagination, “requires the ability to embrace complexity without getting caught up in social schism” (2005). Lederach embraces ambiguity not in terms of complete relativism but in acknowledgement of our always-incomplete understanding of any situation and our tendency to look for clear, binary choices that favor one position and deny another. He terms as “paradoxical curiosity” (2005) the capacity to see beyond hegemonic commonsense solutions, imagining third ways between dichotomous choices, and looking for creative collective action that eschews violence as a failure of moral imagination. This capacity is related to Freireian concepts of surpassing limit-situations and proposing untested feasibilities. Moral imagination is also committed to the creative act, not as a desperate last resort when all else has failed but as a proactive approach to collective action and leadership. Counter-hegemonic work requires creative alternative hegemonic work, supplanting the values, structures, and practices of domination. Creativity is typically subsumed or co-opted in the hegemony of domination. Mouffe argues vehemently for creative conflict transformation when she cites art institutions as crucial sites for the contestation of hegemony: Instead of deserting public institutions, we must find ways to use them to foster political forms of identification and make existing conflicts productive. By staging a confrontation between conflicting positions, museums and art institutions could make a decisive contribution to the proliferation of new public spaces open to agonistic forms of participation where radical democratic alternatives to neoliberalism could, once again, be imagined and cultivated. (Mouffe, 2010, p. 384)

Lederach concurs when he ends The Moral Imagination by asking, “What would it mean if peacebuilders saw themselves as artists?” (2005, p. 161). The case studies below provide significant evidence for the role of artists and creativity in counter-hegemonic democratizing leadership. Leaderach’s final capacity for moral imagination is the willingness to risk. The oppressed becomes the oppressor when leadership is enacted as it is already known. Questioning and transforming hegemonic commonsense

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values of domination and violence in favor of collaboration and democracy is risking a practice leadership that may be seen as ineffective, soft, or otherwise inappropriate for a given setting. Democratizing leadership might risk profits, productivity, or benchmarks in favor of developing authenticity of voice, integrity in decision-making, and responsibility for collective action. Freire’s dialogical action—cooperation, unity, organization, and cultural synthesis—and Lederach’s capacities for moral imagination—the centrality of relationships, practicing paradoxical curiosity, providing space for the creative act, and the willingness to risk—are key capacities for effective and ethical collective action for counter-hegemonic democratizing leadership. Now, what does collective action look like in democratizing leadership? Or, as Mouffe asks, “What are the institutions and the forms of power that need to be established in order to allow for a process of radicalizing democracy?” (2013, p. 15). This will vary depending on contextual structures of organizations, institutions, and community settings. It will also vary in relation to top-down or bottom-up change, and a focus on overt challenge versus covert subversion of dominating structures.

Deliberative Collective Action Social democratic politics is a losing proposition for those concerned about economic, racial, and social justice, the erosion of public goods, and the grave dangers of dismantling government in a world of growing economic concentrations and marketplace triumphalism. We need a different kind of politics, which takes back “work” from those who would dismantle government, is oriented toward the centralization of power, and develops civic capacities in the process. Its seedbed is found in broad-based organizing. Boyte (2011)

Harry Boyte grounds his analysis in his activist experience in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and his long tenure as a thought leader on democracy and, especially, the role of education. Boyte is a champion of deliberative democracy framed more by community organizing than Habermas’ idealized public sphere. He has theorized and practiced deliberative democracy through public school programs as the Director of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at Augsburg College, through higher education initiatives as Senior Fellow at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and most recently through a national campaign as Coordinator for the American Commonwealth Partnership. Through this lifetime of work, Boyte has developed profound examples of deliberative democracy in action through contexts that engage willingly in a rational, discursive approach to democratizing culture.

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From early days in democratic social movements, Boyte has grown to developing democratizing leadership by creating structures that develop capacity while questioning domination and coercion. Through formal educational programs, Boyte develops theoretical and conceptual structures for deliberative democracy and programs and projects that provide more tangible structures for practical applications and experiments in institutionalizing deliberative democracy. The rational, discursive nature of deliberative democracy suits educational institutions, governmental programs, and intellectuals in civil society. While deliberative democracy is in itself a challenge to autocratic governance and domination, in practice it tends to presume equality of participation such that critical power differentials are minimized or glossed over in the context of decision-making and resultant collective action. Boyte’s focus on broad-based organizing may be the antidote to the lack of critical analysis of difference in deliberative democracy. For organizations and institutions that overtly strive to enact more democratic practices and collective action, discursive deliberative democracy holds promise for consensusbased decision-making that leads to unified collective action campaigns. Responsibility for collective action is likely to be significant given a rational process leading to consensus that should inspire loyalty and accountability. Democratizing leadership ought to be well-versed in this approach to voice, decision-making, and collective action for contexts and situations within those contexts when consensus is reasonable and countering hegemonic domination through democratization is a shared value.

Revolutionary Collective Action Collective action in any revolutionary effort is dramatic, influencing perceptions and discourse to counter hegemony. For instance, income and wealth inequality was discussed prior to the Occupy Movement, but discourse on the one percent and the ninety-nine percent has shaped social constructions of our economic reality since then. Revolutionary collective action is perhaps most powerful in the way it challenges and changes our commonsense views and our acceptance of cultural norms that maintain hegemony. Institutionalized collective action is more difficult to sustain in this democratic frame. The Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zucotti Park was echoed around the US and other countries of the world to protest inequality and impunity. These are powerful demonstrations of resistance and desertion form the status quo, and so authorities organized to displace and dismantle these encampments in an acknowledgement of the threat that protest and social movements represent. This form of democratic collective

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action, however, is difficult to sustain. Perhaps the first emergence of Occupy will be recognized by history as an early manifestation of an as yet unnamed social movement, like the Montgomery Bus Boycott and school desegregation campaigns prefigured the U.S Civil Rights Movement. A generation further removed may see many of these events as a unitary movement for human freedom. In a revolutionary movement like Occupy, however, which employs direct democracy for decision-making and collective action, unity tends to lose in a contest with a postmodern and pluralistic preference for diversity, and collective identity suffers from an insistence on personal integrity rather than movement integration and solidarity. In this direct democracy model, collective action follows lengthy consensus-oriented debates conducted via mediated yet direct decision-making. While upholding the authenticity of voice by providing space for everyone to participate directly, debates can be dominated by one voice haranguing the crowd. But like deliberative democracy, the emphasis on equality of voice can minimize power differentials. Here too, knowledge is power and perceptions about knowledge can still be distorted by identity prejudice and stereotypes, restricting agency in deliberation. When the rich but cumbersome direct democratic process moves to collective action, the repertoires of contention (Tilly & Wood, 2013) tend to be based on mass direct-action techniques of protest and resistance, leading to dramatic events but struggling to institutionalize change and build counter-hegemonic structures. Even so, powerful examples of collective action have emerged from Occupy and from outgrowths of the movement. A 2014 Rolling Stone article by Rebecca Nathanson entitled, “Five Ways Occupy Wall Street Is Still Fighting” catalogues ongoing efforts 3 years after initial Occupy events: Occupy Homes, student debt reform, Occupy Sandy, alternative labor organizing, and prison reform. Given the mortgage crisis, housing shortages, and finance institution impunity that spawned the movement, Occupy Homes exists as independent groups around the United States to counter hegemonic neoliberalism through revolutionary collective actions that include interdictions to prevent evictions, policy reform, and homeowner education and advocacy. Literature on social movement organizations (SMOs) addresses collective action in structures that grow from and align with democratic social movements (Della Porta & Diani, 1999; Lofland, 1996; McAdam et al., 1996; Zald & McCarthy, 1987; Zald & Ash, 1966). This frame for collective action should also be familiar to democratizing leadership for times when organizations, institutions, and communities provide no hope for counterhegemonic change and resistance, noncooperation, and desertion are the only effective and ethical options.

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Agonistic Collective Action Instead of celebrating the destruction of all institutions as a move toward liberation, the task for radical democratic politics is to engage with them, developing their progressive potential and converting them into sites of opposition to the neoliberal market hegemony. —Mouffe (2010, p. 384)

In the last chapter, I argued that deliberative, revolutionary, and agonistic democracy ought to inform decision-making in democratizing leadership. The same is true for collective action. Just as I privileged agonism in decision-making, it is even more central to collective action. “Far from jeopardizing democracy, agonistic confrontation is in fact its very existence” (Mouffe, 1999, p. 756). The democratic pluralism of agonistics recognizes the need for collaborative work within, and coalition-building amongst, organizations, multivalent approaches to change within institutions, and solidarity within and between communities. Marshall Ganz recognizes that collective action happens when the “story of us” shifts to the “story of now,” and the fierce urgency of now that propels action (2009). Organizations I knew that people as individuals would remain powerless, but if they could get together in organizations, they could have power, provided they used their organizations instead of being used by them. —Horton et al., (1997, p. 49)

The conflictual consensus of agonistics must be followed by collective action that is responsible to those democratic dynamics. How might organizations work toward collaborative collective action while recognizing the agonistic nature of organizational membership? Organizations can be tools for democratic collective action, and they can just as easily devolve into bureaucratic nets that capture any hoped-for change in the snare of the status quo. Mouffe warns of hegemony through neutralization, suggesting that “demands which challenge the hegemonic order are appropriated by the existing system to satisfy and thereby neutralize their subversive potential” (2013, p. 73). This critique echoes the long-standing caution by Piven and Cloward (1979) regarding the co-optation of social movements and social movement organizations; especially the co-optation of marginalized and oppressed voices constitutive of or represented by social movements. For democratizing leadership in organizations, these are cautions for bottom-up leadership who must anticipate regular attempts at co-optation

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from above. For top-down leadership, these are admonitions to be critically reflective about decisions to democratize (or not) how much and to what extent. Top-down leadership becomes complicit with the hegemony of domination when dissenting voices are silenced or democratizing processes are minimized for efficiency and when collective action is co-opted in support of control through autocratic means. Organizations must attend to internal collective action in addition to external collective action to promote democratizing leadership. The primary task for democratizing leadership in organizations is developing structures that sustain tensions between unity and diversity in organizations. People organize for a purpose and organizations are the structures that serve that purpose. Of course most organizations develop bureaucratic structures that become as much self-sustaining as purpose serving. Michel’s Iron Law of Oligarchy (1949) addresses democratic organizations that become less democratized as bureaucratic structures prioritize maintenance over innovation and concentrate power at the top of initially representative but increasingly hierarchical structures. One task of democratizing leadership is to problematize this tendency and actively resist it by developing organizational structures that mitigate and militate against organizational ossification. How might top-down and bottom-up democratizing leadership in organizations promote collective action in response to consensus decision-making? Collective action in organizations is most often sustained and successful when guided by broad organizing principles that are easily understood, adapted, and applied by democratizing leadership in a variety of contexts. Leadership seeks authoritarian control because it does not trust the collective agency, the will and ability, of people in the organization to act together and responsibly toward shared goals. They utilize mechanisms of control (e.g., bureaucracy) to ensure pursuit of a predetermined goal that leads to disempowerment of organizational members. It is not enough, however, for democratizing leadership to simply promote shared goals, trust people in the organization to pursue those goals, and hope they have the will and ability to succeed. A democratic culture built on voice and decision-making still requires structure to support spaces for responsible democratic collective action. One of the structures essential to democratizing organizations is a coherent and clearly articulated mission that is developed and supported by organizational membership. A substantial and democratically derived mission statement can serve as a foundation for other democratizing structures. Such a mission should be rooted in authentic voice and the integrity of decision-making that framed earlier sections of this theory. Collective action can then be responsible to the broad collective vision of the whole organization and foundational to innovative and change-oriented practice.

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John Paul Lederach’ phrase “smart flexible platforms” (2005) describes the essential characteristics. Like the U.S. Constitution, the organizational mission must be broad enough to provide direction, expansive enough to encapsulate the scope of organizational work and definitive enough to know what is not the work of the organization. A democratic mission serves as a smart flexible platform, a solid foundational structure, for more fluid and nimble collaborative organizational work. I appreciate the early work of Margaret Wheatley, who described this sort of mission in Leadership and the New Science (2006). In a chapter entitled, “Chaos and the Strange Attractor of Meaning,” she describes fractals as a metaphor for mission (p. 127). Referencing scientific analysis of complex designs in nature that are derived from simple forms, Wheatley describes fractals through the example of a fern. This beautiful and complex organism can be modeled by a computer using four straight, connected lines repeated in alignment with simple rules: When this pattern repeats and repeats, free to change size but not shape, the complexity and beauty of the fern emerges. The pattern must always connect with what is already on the page, and in this example, it must appear in an upright position. All fractal patterns are created as individuals exercise both freedom and responsibility to a few simple rules. Complex structures emerge over time from simple elements and rules and autonomous interactions. (p. 127)

Organizational mission is a simple pattern that repeats with different scope and scale to guide coherent and yet democratic design. Collective action must connect with what already exists but not mimic the status quo exactly. It must follow a few simple rules that create space for action—both boundaries that keep action responsible to the mission and therefore to the voice and decision-making that formed it, and space within those boundaries to create and grow within a shared organizational understanding. Action planning tied to mission can maintain organizational coherence while also allowing for freedom. Michels was convinced that democratic organizations could not be sustained over time and grow in scale, because he conceived of organizational democracy as representative. When agonistic pluralism is the frame for organizational democracy, it recognizes dynamic tensions within an agreed-upon set of boundaries and simple rules for action. It provides for layers of democratic work that might be collaborative and consensus based in small work teams, representative in middle layers among groups and divisions of the organization, and bureaucratic amongst the larger structures of governance. Core structural functions of the organization will likely rely on bureaucratic means to sustain the organization,

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but these must be matched by democratic governance structures that give explicit power to the more dynamic components of the organization to maintain the tension between bureaucratization and democratization. Once again, the consistent analysis of power dynamics becomes essential to democratizing leadership. To avoid the concentration of power in oligarchy vis-à-vis Michels (1949), collaborative democratic structures must be clearly established, with rules to guide such work with boundaries that are formed by bureaucratic structures to sustain function while promoting freedom of collective action. Both of these are governed by representative democratic structures that must maintain these tensions through policy formation and dispute resolution. What Mouffe (2013) ascribes to macrolevel politics is also true in a more constrained way in organizations: While consensus is no doubt necessary, it must be accompanied by dissent. Consensus is needed on the institutions [e.g., organizational structures] that are constitutive of liberal democracy and on the ethico-political values that should inform political association. But there will always be disagreement on the meaning of those values and how they are to be implemented. (p. 8)

To belong to the organization, by membership or employment, requires a level of consensus about structures and values, but tensions should also be expected in democratizing leadership. These tensions will be most obvious in times of change when innovative democratic experiments bump into previously established bureaucratic boundaries. At this moment, top-down democratizing leadership will have in place (or will establish) democratic processes for conflict transformation that recognizes tension as both a problem to resolve and an opportunity to guide change toward growth. Bottom-up democratizing leadership will see tensions as moments of truth when the foundational platform of mission and the structures of bureaucracy create space and resources for change and growth or barriers to democratizing culture through collective action. Such organizations will regularly become contested ground for conflicting interpretations of a collaborative, democratic hegemony, and this form of conflict should be normalized through organizational structures of contestation. Democratizing leadership must regularly make a distinction between conflicts occurring within the frame of mission and conflicts that occur between mission-oriented collective action and those that extend beyond the foundational platform of mission, or conflicts that shift from agonistic to antagonistic, moving past the identification of “us” to “them” to an extent that makes organizational adversaries into enemies. This is not a dream of utopian organizational harmony so much as a vision for

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the dynamic conflictual consensus of agonism in mesolevel organizational form. Democratizing leadership diffuses the mission throughout the organization along with the power to carry out collective action responsibly in pursuit of that mission. A well-crafted democratically developed mission defines the core values and identity of an organization, while at least implying what it is not, and leaves room for interpretation between that periphery and core for agonistic collective action. If unity is founded on mission and diversity in the agonistic pluralism that shapes collective action, the power to act collectively must be problematized so that it is not only effective but also ethical. As mission and power is diffused throughout an organization by democratizing leadership, both privilege and identity-based discrimination must be problematized and actively addressed. A shallow diversity that is little more than a celebration of differences maintains power inequities that distort voice and derange decision-making. Organizations that actively deconstruct internalized racist, patriarchal, heteronormative, and ableist discrimination will enact democratizing leadership that is more authentic and integrated, leading to more responsible collective action supported by mission. The Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers’ application below is a meaningful example of these dynamics. Institutions To maintain its hegemony, the neo-liberal system needs to permanently mobilize people’s desires and shape their identities, and the cultural terrain, with its various institutions, occupies a strategic place in this absolutely vital process of commodification and subjectification [“subject” to authority in Mouffe, should be contrasted with becoming a conscienticized “subject” in Freire]. To challenge this system, a counterhegemonic politics must engage this terrain. (Mouffe, 2010, p. 237)

Agonistics, as articulated by Chantal Mouffe, addresses pluralistic democracy broadly to include organizations as I have said above, yet her analysis often focuses on institutions in particular. She contends that counterhegemonic work must engage institutions as primary sites for contestation, in part because they are powerful structures and societal patterns for sustaining hegemony, and in part because to abandon them is to relinquish the hilltops of contested terrain. The power of institutions to sustain and reinforce hegemony is so formidable that even change agents in positional leadership often struggle to affect the inertia that drives them forward. So I propose to infect them instead with democratizing leadership. Multivalent strategies for change are important to counter-hegemonic work in organizations and communities, and potentially more so in the

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tighter and more formalized control of institutions. The primary task of collective action by democratizing leadership in institutions is to develop new democratic structures to supplant coercive ones, or resist those that refuse to be supplanted. A single strategy for change may have potential, yet multiple strategies may promise greater impact, and coordinated multiple strategies may promote even greater success. This is, of course, an assessment required of democratizing leadership in each new situation and over the course of campaigns for change. In order to promote political literacy for collective action in counter-hegemonic democratizing leadership, I have appropriated from service-learning in higher education a broad strategic tool for collective action called the social change wheel. The earliest social change wheel model seems to have been developed by Langseth and Troppe in an unpublished conference paper in 1996 and then published by the same authors a year later (Langseth & Troppe, 1997). Social change wheel adaptations may be found in geographic proximity to its origins at Minnesota Campus Compact, including the University of Minnesota, College of St. Benedict, and the University of St. Thomas. These adaptations typically reference Langseth and Troppe, or Minnesota Campus Compact, which Langseth directed at the time. A similar model is found at the Media Research Hub of the Social Science Research Council. The social change wheel promotes seven categories of change strategies that are distinct yet interrelated. The Langseth and Troppe model was originally composed of six categories around an empty hub: Charitable Volunteerism, Community/Economic Development, Voting/Formal Political Activities, Confrontational Strategies, Grassroots Political Activity/Public Policy Work, and Community Building (Minnesota Campus Compact, 1997). For the purposes of this text, I will illustrate my own adaptation of their model, one that adds the category of Education in the hub or center of the wheel (Figure 2.2). The other strategic categories of the social change wheel rely on knowledge and skills in order to be effective, therefore education, in the form of teaching, learning, training, or awareness, is a significant foundation for the other six categories and an important node of connection between them. Before proceeding with application of this model to agonistic collective action, its limitations ought to be acknowledged. First, these abstract categories may overlap conceptually or sequentially when applied to real situations, complicating articulation of social change strategies. For example, Public Policy is sometimes formulated within the context of Grassroots Organizing and shaped by lawmakers within Formal Political Activities. Second, social change wheel categories could be further defined and elaborated. For example, the single category Confrontational Strategies could be articulated by Gene Sharpe’s 198 methods of nonviolent direct action (1973). And

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Confrontational strategies

Grassroots organizing/ Public policy

Charitable volunteerism

Education

Voting/ Formal political activities

Community building

Economic development/ Capacity building

Figure 2.2  Social change wheel categories.

third, the categories are somewhat arbitrarily ordered on the wheel. The model does not imply movement from one category to the next in ordered rotation so much as it signifies a web of relationships between categories, often (but not necessarily) intersecting through education. In classroom and community service-learning, I use my adaptation of the social change wheel model in different modes to help contextualize direct service in more expansive strategies for social change. First, I explain social change through story (education mode) to engage students and educators in a hypothetical and simplified scenario addressing a social problem. Second, I use the model to examine a historical campaign that addresses a social problem (analysis mode). Third, I ask students to use it as a strategic tool to strategize effective and ethical ways to address a social problem (planning mode). In the remainder of this chapter, I illustrate application of the social change wheel for collective action in democratizing leadership through examples that move from theory to practice: analyzing a past event with the model and planning institutional change through strategic application of the model. Many events and social movements would make suitable subjects for the analytical dimensions of this model. I typically use the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. This 11-month, multivalent, and successful campaign employed diverse social change strategies concurrently and sequentially. The campaign is well documented yet also includes elements that are commonly misunderstood and even surprising

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to students and educators alike. These factors make it particularly accessible and appropriate for social change wheel analysis and model the counter-hegemonic potential for analyzing successful change initiatives of the past to strategize for the future. Through story and video, students have no trouble filling out each category on the wheel with examples from the Montgomery Bus Boycott (see Figure 2.3). This activity provides several opportunities for critical analysis. Most significantly for the focus of democratizing leadership, it emphasizes the counter-hegemonic power of strategically combining multiple methods of social change. As an analytical activity, the social change wheel helps identify relationships between different methods of change, for example, providing alternative strategies when one is blocked, complementary or supportive strategies, and concurrent or sequential strategies. Thus Charitable Volunteerism can be appreciated not just for its own sake but also for supporting other social change strategies by extending immediate support for direct needs in the midst of long-term change. For example, giving rides during the bus boycott (Charitable Volunteerism) enabled the eventual development of an alternative transportation system (Capacity Building). And some acts of Charitable Volunteerism made other social change strategies possible, such as Joann Robinson copying 30,000 notices to enable the Confrontational Joann Robinson copying notices

Sitting down on the bus Standing up to the KKK Bus boycott Womens’ Political Council Organizing carpools

Confrontational strategies

Grassroots organizing/ Public policy

Montgomery Improvement Association Using the courts

Sharing rides

Highlander newspaper Education

Nonviolence training

Voting/ Formal political activities

Negotiating with City Council

Charitable volunteerism

White women giving rides

Black churches Community building

Mass meetings Walking together

Economic development/ Capacity building

Black-owned taxis Leadership development

Majority of bus ridership

Figure 2.3  Social change wheel applied to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

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Strategy of the boycott. Analysis of historical cases with a social change wheel model can contextualize and deepen a critical understanding of collective action moving beyond single strategies for social change. Social change wheel analysis can also suggest the limitations of any one strategy if it is not connected to other methods of social change. For example, social change wheel analysis of the Montgomery Bus Boycott can deepen understanding of Rosa Park’s iconic action of refusing to give up her seat. In the contexts of other methods of social change, her action can be understood as more than the spontaneous act of a tired seamstress, as suggested by popular accounts and perpetuated by some history sources. By connecting her voluntary individual action to other methods of social change, it can be critically examined as a Confrontational Strategy to provoke a court case, rooted in her Education at Highlander Folk School, and in her Grassroots Organizing work through the NAACP. In this light, refusing to give up her seat is profoundly more complex than a spontaneous individual act of exhaustion or defiance. Critical theory applied to the social change wheel can also deepen strategic analysis for collective action as participants consider why Rosa Park’s strategic arrest became an efficacious spark to the movement. Her arrest prefigured a strategic court case, as Formal Political Activity, which tested the legitimacy of the segregation ordinance in particular and the contradiction of equality under the law and segregation more broadly. In comparison, Claudette Colvin and Mary Louise Smith had been arrested for the same action, but due to “less than sterling character” (Olson, 2002, p. 94), local leadership strategically declined to connect their defiant actions as Confrontational Strategies to other strategies for social change, like the Formal Political Process. Deciding when to avoid linking strategies for change may be as important as deciding to connect them together through collective action. Once familiar with the model from historical application, planning with a social change wheel model can promote strategic collective action. When a student club I advise wanted to bring fair trade coffee to campus, they used the social change wheel to plan a sequence of actions. During a previous effort, students had presumed that a little volunteer time spent on educational events would quickly convince the student body and institutional decision-makers that fair trade coffee just made sense. They expected change would be made from the top down; however, that result failed to materialize. I suggested to student organizers that they use a social change wheel model to promote more strategic and collaborative planning rather than putting energy into moral outrage and single strategy campaigns that led to confrontation or simply frustration.

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By planning with the social change wheel, students realized that Education was appropriate as one of many strategies, one of several means to an end. Community Building in the midst of educational events increased the number of students interested in fair trade coffee, and educated decisionmakers too. By utilizing Economic Development/Capacity Building, students collected data on the costs and benefits of providing fair trade coffee over conventional coffee, and they conducted research on financial obstacles and equipment-related infrastructure issues. Grassroots Organizing matched the interests of many individuals and groups on campus so that they could engage in Formal Political Activities to make requests of campus decisionmakers, or promote Voting in student government for a resolution or policy change. And if these approaches failed, Confrontational Strategies might garner more attention and promote a return to strategic work in other categories on the wheel. Engaging in one-to-one meetings with anyone and everyone connected to coffee on campus, students developed a mapping project to determine who actually had the power to make decisions about coffee. They soon realized that several managers for food service outlets were making those decisions and not the director of food service as they had imagined. Some of these midlevel managers had agency; were willing and able to make decisions for a fair trade vendor. Eventually the director took notice and moved the campus to a single source in the interest of “efficiency and cost savings”; a common rationale for neoliberal economic decisions now writ small in the institution. However the director retired prior to a new contract period for coffee providers and students were well prepared to influence the outcome. The new director was more student-focused, students tied fair trade principles to institutional mission, in addition to moral arguments, and their collective action achieved its goal. Having imagined several tactics in each strategic category of the social change wheel, students chose realistic and complementary actions to drive a coordinated, collaborative and persistent campaign. This example illustrates the planning potential of the social change wheel for collective action in an institutional context. The potential for education, analysis, and planning through a social change wheel model goes far beyond the example highlighted above. Collective action can be much more than mere mobilizing of like interests to achieve a goal. The social change wheel not only identifies strategies for collective action on a particular issue or campaign, but also points to the power of uniting strategies in ways that promote sustained work across differences, depth of engagement with the dynamics of power, and highlights the web of relationships democratizing leadership must identify and employ to promote responsible and successful collective action. The qualitative case study

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on the First Bank System Visual Arts Program below will illustrate dynamic tensions, powerful change, and hegemonic co-optation in institutional democratizing leadership. Communities The democratization of culture . . . has to start from what we are and what we do as people, not from what some people think and want for us. —Freire (2000, p. 75)

If institutions are more formalized than organizations, then communities lack the formality of both and make up for that lack in dynamism. Collective action in a community context is less constrained by formal structures yet potentially more difficult to sustain. The work of democratizing leadership in communities falls into a range between community organizing and broad participation in social movements. Because communities are rooted in identity, solidarity tends to run deeper than organizational membership or institutional identification. Community (more accurately communities, plural) is an ontological concept, based on who I am, more than grounded in what I do. It’s where I’m from. It’s where I choose to live. It is the people I choose as my own and who choose me too. Communities produce and practice culture, whereas organizations maintain or challenge culture, and institutions represent and reproduce culture. As such, communities may be democratizing or dominating forces and democratizing leadership is needed here too. In communities more than institutions or even organizations, we return to Freire’s methodology and his final step—intervention. Freire describes intervention as collective action in three elements: postliteracy stage, defending democracy, and the democratization of culture. These three elements occur in communities, often facilitated through organizations, to counter domination and promote democracy. The phrase “political literacy” (Carr, 2011; Carr & Lund, 2008) is a more contemporary concept that reflects Freire’s conscientization applied beyond his typically rural and revolutionary audience. Political literacy can be developed in formal settings like educational institutions, nonformal settings like adult/community education, and informal contexts such as social movements. Political literacy is usually connected to notions of thick versus thin democracy (Carr & Lund, 2008). Thick connotes participation in democratic processes “focusing on critical engagement and social justice” (Carr & Lund, 2008, p. 148) and contrasted with representational and electoral forms as thin democracy.

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Cultural circles are Freire’s programmatic vision for promoting political literacy, defending democracy, and democratizing culture in communities. They are intended to develop conscientization leading to collective action as described in the following quotation from Freire’s Education for Critical Consciousness: As an active educational method helps a person to become consciously aware of his context and his condition as a human being as Subject, it will become an instrument of choice. At that point he will become politicized. When an ex-illiterate of Angicos, speaking before [Brazilian] President Jodo Goulart and the presidential staff, declared he was no longer part of the mass, but one of the people, he had done more than utter a mere phrase; he had made a conscious option. He had chosen decisional participation, which belongs to the people, and had renounced the emotional resignation of the masses. He had become political. (1992, p. 47)

Politicization encourages democratic participation as collective action in a citizenry of subjects rather than objects; of people filled with hope and empowered to act beyond the thin democracy of electing elites to decide for them. Cultural circles as politicized communities marked by critical, dialogical discussion, might address government and corporate propaganda; stereotypes presented by the media; legislated privilege and discrimination; or even national, state, and district educational standards and assessments. And they are premised on turning discussion (as political literacy) into postliteracy (as collective action). Defending democracy is both an act of resistance to domination and the promotion of democracy through individual agency as the practice of democracy and collective agency as social participation in and development of democratic structures. To Freire, defending democracy in communities is to create structure that “does not fear the people, which suppresses privilege, which can plan without becoming rigid, which defends itself without hate, which is nourished by a critical spirit rather than irrationality (2000, p. 49). Resistance to domination includes noncooperation and social protest, reactions against coercion and control. Defending democracy is also proactive. In the quote above, Freire points to positive characteristics that shape democratic structures, although phrased as a negation of forces that distort democracy. To rearticulate his list in positive terms, defending democracy occurs when communities respect participants, promote equity, create smart flexible platforms, function out of an ethic of care, and cultivate critical inquiry to promote democratic collective action. The democratization of culture is the recognition that culture is a human construction that is changeable, that we may adapt it toward the

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service of humanity rather than adapting humanity to culture. The democratization of culture is rooted in our identities as individual subjects with agency and leading toward participation in collective action. Freire’s list and my rearticulation encompasses categorical actions for defending democracy and promoting the democratization of culture, but what does this look like in practice? Freire operationalized his pedagogy in a clearly formatted literacy program, grounded in his Brazilian context and adapted for different contexts in Chile and Guinea-Bissau. I have been researching contemporary manifestations of cultural circles in the United States that reflect his pedagogy but do not reference Freire directly. Cultural circles form a common thread between my case studies and an application of this theory and represent a final component of theorizing democratizing leadership as this text moves from theory to practice. Cultural circles are more than just small group gatherings premised on cultural aspects like a book club or knitting circle. These examples could function as cultural circles, but conscientization and politicization are qualifying requirements. Cultural circles help communities establish practices of voice, decision-making, and collective action that create culture rather than simply exploring culture. This is more evident in art-based circles that produce a tangible cultural object, but cultural circles create culture in its broad definition as patterns of discourse (deliberative), approaches to conflict (agonistic), and repertoires of protest (revolutionary) that shape both democratic identity and agency. The qualitative case studies and the application case study, Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers, employ cultural circles in very different forms. The First Bank System Visual Arts Program began as an autocratic reflection of the bank as institution but evolved into multiple cultural circles for democratic collective action in the narrow free spaces opened by neoliberal deregulation of the industry. Small communities formed within these spaces and around contemporary art as a space for voice, decision-making, and focused collective action. The May Day Parade begins with two large circles to articulate the hopes and concerns of a community. Then, with artists as cultural workers facilitating the process, culture circles function around artist workshops creating one of several sections of a parade that tells a story of us, the parade in total narrating community hopes and concerns. The Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers uses a modified version of a democratic facilitation technique called Open Space Technology (Owen, 2008) to facilitate bimonthly cultural circles. These gatherings facilitate communication but also collective action on shared goals in a community of delegates representing 74 activist organizations.

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It should be noted that this text treats primarily the dynamics of democratizing leadership internal to organizations, institutions, and communities. This is capacity-building work that was evident in my research and important to operationalizing democracy at the mesolevel of human interaction. The next step, which I hoped to address more fully in this text but will have to wait for another, is for organizations, institutions, and communities to lift their eyes from within to without, for meta-organizing work that joins these structures in broader social movements for counter-hegemonic work, defending and advancing democracy and a new hegemony of collaboration. Democratizing leadership has potential to advance pluralistic, agonistic, networked, and collaborative collective action that works across differences to sustain greater commonalities. It develops processes at a macrolevel to produce and sustain a culture of democracy between the supportive structures of mesolevel organizations, institutions, and communities. This is my hope for democratizing leadership, not only as a defense against domination but also as a vision for the democratization of culture. The case studies that follow are examples of dynamic and profoundly life-giving human associations that create space for the best of human interaction, even in the agonism of struggle toward a truly common good. If the preceding work has been informative, I hope you will find the following work inspiring.

3 Case Studies of Democratizing Leadership

T

hree counter-hegemonic scenarios above are drawn from case studies of democratizing leadership. The First Bank System Visual Arts Program, introduced as “Male Aggression Now Playing Everywhere,” exemplifies democratic institutional change. In the Heart of the Beast Theater, introduced as “Puppets Can Be Dangerous,” illustrates democratic community change. And the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers, introduced as “Leadership Crisis as Democratic Opportunity,” demonstrates democratic organizational change. These case studies provide contextualizing stories with detailed qualitative data to illustrate particular concepts in democratizing leadership. In the interest of full disclosure and respecting democratic values of transparency, I must state that I am intimately connected to each of these stories, but through different and sometimes multiple roles. I was an undergraduate intern with the First Bank System Visual Arts Program from 1987 to 1989, a period marking the fullest expression of the program and just prior to its demise. As a university faculty member in Justice and Peace Studies, I received a grant in 2012 to conduct documentary research on the First Bank System Visual Arts Program at the Minnesota Democratizing Leadership, pages 129–193 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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Historical Society (MHS) and at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). At the program’s demise, the Visual Arts Program staff had the foresight to turn the final exhibition catalog from Winnipeg Art Gallery (Sowder, Braulick, Ferguson et al., 1990) into a chronicle of the program. This remarkable publication, and a collection of other documents from a decade of programming, was sent in a folio to art museums around the United States. MoMA secured the folio and other primary sources in the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building and in the museum archives in its Queens location, MoMA QNS. Research in these primary and secondary sources both confirmed and challenged my own recollections and understanding of the Visual Arts Program. Some of the documents I accessed in research included my name and identified me as a program intern. Other documents I recall photocopying myself 23 years earlier. My recollections color this documentary research, perhaps with an appreciative bias, but also with direct experience that I hope brings more depth and life to the data than bias and distortion. My relationship to In the Heart of the Beast Theater began in 2004 when the Artistic Director and I first worked together as co-instructors of an undergraduate course. Joni had contacted my university with an expressed interest in theorizing the May Day Celebration. Our first seminar on art and social change in 2004, and a second in 2006, explored some of the historical roots of May Day celebrations, but only produced tangential theoretical conclusions. When I approached her about my doctoral dissertation in August 2007, we agreed to theorize the event and to articulate a process that can be difficult to understand for artists and participants alike. I began my research by presenting my agenda and conceptual scheme to Joni before the process began and to staff artists at an early 2008 meeting. Initially I had suggested a formal, cyclical process of planning, researching, evaluating, critiquing, and reflecting on my research. But like many other aspects of the theater’s work, my research became a more spontaneous and ad hoc addition to the May Day process. Rather than formal and cyclical, this action research occurred through very participatory observation, framed by an institutional ethnographic approach (Smith, 2005, 2006). Regular interactions and conversations with artists and participants, and occasional check-ins with theater leadership, were my primary approaches to data collection. Formal interviews complemented my observations. Fortunately, I realized early that my proposed research process was analogous to the praxis orientation of the May Day process, and I was able to insert elements of participatory action research throughout the artists’ deliberations and workshops. Following the completion of my dissertation, I presented

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my findings to the staff and board in order to continue the action research aspect of evaluating, critiquing, and reflecting. I asked several artists how my research affected the parade process. Masa responded by suggesting there was impact, but it came in the form of deepening the artists’ consideration and commitment to the democratic nature of their work. He did not see changes in the process itself, but only a more significant fulfillment of its participatory ideals. Other artists responded similarly, noting that more attention was afforded to the process as a whole and that participatory ideals were lived with increased integrity. If anything, my presence seemed to provoke leadership to be more reflective about their roles and intentional about their public, collaborative work. During my final interview with Joni in mid-May, we spoke about the difficulties inherent in capturing such a dynamic event in words, especially as an analytical and academic pursuit rather than an aesthetic and artistic pursuit. I struggle with the way writing can both represent a subject’s voice and diminish it too. Writing about May Day, however, did not lessen my experience. I was able to relive my experiences and the accounts of so many others through the analysis and representation of this data. Yet writing to the best of my ability, I certainly failed to capture the whole spirit of each moment in the process, the sense of relationship and community amongst so many people working toward a common if seemingly ridiculous goal, and the visual splendor of art workshops, the parade, and ceremony. That perhaps is both a measure of my ability and the nature of formal academic writing. What follows is a description and analysis of my experience during a particular year of the May Day parade, through theoretical lenses, in my own relationship to this theater, and through the hospitality and communal gifts I found in In the Heart of the Beast Theater. My relationship to the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers is also multifaceted. I represented my academic department as a delegate to the MAP Council from 2006 to 2014, participating in bimonthly meetings. In 2010, I stepped forward in the midst of a leadership crisis to serve on a team of seven interim leaders to imagine a way forward for the coalition. That role soon transformed into one of consultant with a focus on strategic planning for leadership and organizational development, aligning mission and structure. As meetings became more frequent (every 2 weeks or more rather than bi-monthly), I added the role of researcher, gathering and annotating extensive organizational documentation, conducting surveys, and soliciting data through formal interviews and informal conversations. In this case study of application rather than qualitative research per se, I was directly involved in leadership decisions and therefore perhaps

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most biased in my understanding of leadership dynamics. However, significant data collection, the forthright opinions of others in leadership, and the continuing practices of new leadership structures and organizational processes support the conclusions drawn from this case and align with the theory that emerges from other cases. I did not approach these case studies with an agenda to make data fit nicely into existing theories. Rather, I attempted to construct a constant dialogue between the actual data and diverse, cross-disciplinary theoretical frames. This approach identifies tensions between theories and poses questions that emerge from the context of these organizations. In other words, I pursued grounded theory in the tradition described by Glaser and Strauss (1999) so that theoretical constructs could be generated by the research data and evolve with my analysis in the light of other theoretical traditions. Grounded theory emerging from this research has potential to reflect the complex realities of power relationships, democratic processes, and leadership without artificially limiting conclusions to preconceived theoretical constructs. The dynamism of these organizations, institutions, and communities required a grounded theoretical approach to avoid excessive filtering or abstraction through preselected theories so that counter-hegemonic voice, decision-making, and collective action could describe and model democratizing leadership. Democratizing leadership is described in the text above in the light of other theories and concepts that precede and inform it. Yet the very praxisorientation of this theory requires that the qualitative research from which it emerged, inform and enliven the explication of the theory. Democratizing leadership is rendered (in the sense of melted down to its essence) in abstraction above. It will be rendered (in the sense of artistic representation) in the case studies below. This theory of democratizing leadership is grounded in particular examples (case studies) that are themselves rooted in particular times and places. All three case studies come from a single metropolitan area of the United States, although in different decades; the late 1980s, mid-2000s, and early 2010s. From these particular cases emerged general categorical principles of voice, decision-making, and collective action. Each case study provides examples for how these general principles developed and shaped democratizing leadership in their particular setting. I hope this framing language of voice, decision-making, and collective action will inspire other case studies in new and diverse settings on the tangible operations of democratizing leadership and address the limitations and biases of this theory. I hope it will inspire practitioners to operationalize democratizing leadership and, in order to develop the practice, continue to engage theory through practice, in turn informing theory. And I hope such democratizing

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leadership praxis will lead to resilient organizations, institutions, and communities as alternatives to the hegemony of domination, seeds of the new hegemony to come.

Visual Arts at First Bank System If political democracy implies participation, can cultural democracy be otherwise? —Sowder et al. (1990, p. 82)

Institutions are by definition structures that govern social life. The term encompasses organizing structures that emerge from patterns of human interaction and then ossify to govern those interactions. Banks are typically referred to as financial institutions with the connotation of monolithic, autocratic, and hierarchical organization of power. They seem unlikely places for the emergence of democratic spaces and counter-hegemonic leadership. Yet cross-disciplinary intersections of economic liberalization and banking deregulation with postmodernism in art and culture provided fertile ground for the emergence of democratizing leadership in First Bank System. The decade of the 1980s witnessed tectonic shifts in the global political economy. Cold War strategies of détente and even “mutually assured destruction” were discarded in favor of more aggressive policies like first-strike capabilities and the “strategic defense initiative.” The politics of oil led to greater instability, conflict, and shifting alliances in the Middle East and around the globe. The boom in technology, computers especially, revolutionized business. And economic liberalization and globalization displaced traditional business practices, leading to dynamic changes in all industries. The U.S. banking industry of the 1980s was at the forefront of these changes. At the vanguard of neoliberal globalization, the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 deregulated banking in the United States and led to a flurry of mergers and acquisitions as banks were granted new freedom to transact business and even consolidate across state lines. In addition, diversification of financial products led to risky new ventures and these, coupled with economic and legislative change, led to tremendous gain for some and failure for others. “Between 1980 and 1994 more than 1,600 banks insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) were closed or received FDIC financial assistance far more than in any other period since the advent of federal deposit insurance in the 1930s” (FDIC, 1997, p. 3). And the deregulation of this decade would have repercussions in the global recession of 2007 and beyond.

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In the 1980s, the art world was going through transformations that mirrored those of U.S. banking. Like deregulation, postmodernism broke down the hegemony of modernism by questioning assumed standards, challenging conventional approaches, and usurping traditional practices. Just as the banking industry was suddenly free to engage in mergers and acquisitions, so too was the art world liberated from following the premises of the current artistic style. This deregulation of aesthetics spawned contentious ideological battles as artists, critics, and patrons sought to understand the unfolding new era of art. Threats from outside the art world also escalated as the growing conservative movement of the 1980s attacked the arts as a whole, decreasing funding and even rejecting government patronage of the arts. The First Bank System Visual Arts Program was born out of a desire for bank employees to align with changes in the deregulated financial sector, a constitutive element of neoliberal hegemony. However, the freedom of banking deregulation to erase divisions between elements of the industry was appropriated in the Visual Arts Program as a different type of freedom, for employee voice, democratic decision-making, and collective action. As the Visual Arts Program developed democratic processes, the hierarchical processes of banking were challenged, countering the hegemonic culture of autocratic leadership and democratizing a very present visual construct of the institution. Dennis Evans became the president of First Bank System in 1981. His response to the insecurity of those changing times was to encourage a corporate culture of innovation. Evans initiated a contemporary art collection as a sign of change and as a symbol of the creative response required to succeed in the new industry. “At First Banks we believe that in a world where change is the most fundamental phenomenon of life, the stimulating ideas of contemporary artists can deepen and enrich modern business practice” (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 16). Implicitly, Evans was acknowledging the correlate between deregulation in the banking industry and postmodernism in the art world. The borders and limits of former grand styles and schools—which Lyotard (1984) theorized as meta-narratives—gave way to pastiche and hybridity (Jameson, 1998), where the intersection of previously defined styles was expected. The lines were being blurred or erased in banking as in art. Evans directed independent art consultant Lynne Sowder to move First Bank System art away from an emphasis on Midwest art of the 20th century (i.e., Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, etc.) to “an important collection of contemporary art” (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 33). Sowder accepted the new mission and rose to the challenge:

Case Studies of Democratizing Leadership    135 Like deregulation and $50-million paintings, corporate art programs are a product of the 1980s. More than a thousand sprang up during the greedand-glitter decade, and among these vehicles for corporate self-promotion First Bank System’s stood out. The most ambitious model of art/life interaction ever instituted in a large-scale workplace . . . a paradigm for many museums. (Atkins, 1990)

From this initial mission of promoting an innovative corporate culture in a rigid banking institution, the mission of the First Bank System Visual Arts Program changed substantially over the history of the program.

Voicing Discontent The new art collection began with a flourish, but its start did not herald a democratic future. Under newly hired Visual Arts Advisor Lynne Sowder, employees were assailed with strange new art and with an elitist attitude. The first acquisitions were fairly tame in comparison to later additions, colorful works by Jim Dine, Alex Katz, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Rauschenburg. The elitist attitude is captured in a memo dated March 27, 1981. Sowder wrote, First Bank Minneapolis has begun the development of an important collection of contemporary art . . . a policy has been established requiring that no one hang any artwork in their working space. When an adequate inventory of art has been amassed, individuals with private offices will be contacted and their need for artworks fulfilled. This is an exciting program which we are undertaking. (p. 33)

The presumptuous tone of the memo sparks the first of many forms of resistance, an anonymous memo circulates among employees referencing a satirical “Art Committee”: The Committee feels compelled to express its concern that pictures and other art be consistent with the image of friendly, stable, competent middle America. Of particular concern are family pictures. A recent random check revealed a large percentage of photographs which the Committee deems unattractive and in poor taste. (p. 33)

The memo continued by enumerating guidelines for family pictures, including: only legally formalized household relationships shall be displayed; large families are socially irresponsible so any more than three family members must be cropped out; names may be included but not if they reflect countercultural bias or nonmainstream values; and no ugly family

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members—substitute family photos are available. The memo ended with gratitude for “making our new office a place of which we will be proud” (p. 33), mocking the elitist tone of the original memo. This first act of sarcastic resistance to the new art program occurred before the art reached the walls. Sowder is initially taken aback but also enthused by the memo, appreciating the satirically represented values and eager to engage with an activated, if yet anonymous, audience. Art acquisitions in 1982 continued to push boundaries of bank culture. Abstractions by Lynda Benglis and contemporary works by Sol LeWitt, Robert Motherwell, and Mimmo Palladino graced First Bank Minneapolis walls and hallways. Amidst continuing complaints, Evans composed a memo to bank employees. “A few applaud innovation and imagination in our selections; an equal number feel it is not representative of First Bank Minneapolis.” He asserts, “If the true test of art is to create discussion and controversy, we have been successful.” In another memo Evans wrote, “The essence of art is to raise consciousness” implying that the new art must be viewed as a success. (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 40). The general approach to complaints during the early days of the program focused on explanation, including essays posted next to all artworks and tours led by Sowder. The art was not intended as an end in itself but as an instrument to advance Evans’ goal of forming a new corporate culture. Presumably, once employees understood contemporary art they would accept and appreciate it. Employees would learn to understand. Instead of compliance with patronizing presidential memos, bank employees advanced their subtle but subversive resistance to the new art. The Visual Arts Program found frames tilted and askew. Employees pulled tall, potted ficus trees in front of the art to hide it from view. Post-it Notes, recently developed by the local 3M corporation, were stuck to the artwork as unofficial didactic labels with angry or humorous commentary on the art. The Visual Arts Program responded with newsletters that included tongue-in-cheek comics by John Currie with captions such as, “Yes, it is an amazing manipulation of color, with a verve and visual agility unmatched since Cezanne. Now, give me my walleye back!” (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 40). The walleye is a native fish species, a stand-in for the fishing and huntingthemed personal art now banned from office walls. When Andy Warhol’s “Mammy” was is installed, depicting Aunt Jemima from a consumer ad, the bank’s Equal Opportunity Compliance Group was offended and registered a complaint to President Evans. Part of Warhol’s “myth” series, the piece raises questions about representation of race in corporate products and media. Sowder’s response to this complaint was an interesting counterpoint to the satirical employee memo of the previous year.

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She pointed out the “ironic intent” of the piece, arguing that the goals of the complaining group and the artist (and presumably the art program) are essentially the same, and cautioning, “censorship of the fine arts by a single interest group threatens the foundation of a free society” (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 41). The contrast between a free society and corporate bank culture was perhaps unintentional, but hinted at democratic developments to come. The art collection grew quickly with an annual acquisition budget of $350,000 in 1983. The first of 12 exhibitions in the employee cafeteria elicited one of the first appreciative notes from a bank employee: I want to extend my heartiest thanks for the art display in the cafeteria. Last Friday I went on a routine errand to the cafeteria to purchase cookies, and was knocked out of my shoes by the startling display . . . It is my belief that anything that stirs discussion and makes us think is probably good . . . I like to look at new things, and consider different ideas and points of view. I feel lucky to work for a company that provides me with the opportunity to nourish my soul while I eat my peanut-butter sandwich. Thank you. (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 49)

Even if the contrast between expensive art acquisitions and the employee’s inexpensive lunch was a subtle commentary on class distinctions, the memo expressed sincere appreciation. In 1984, Sowder became an official employee of First Bank System as Curator and Director of Visual Arts. The art acquisition budget surged to $500,000 and secured challenging abstract expressionist works from the United States and Europe. Elite contemporary art was joined by an exhibition of African-American artists in celebration of Black History Month. The following year another populist project moved art beyond the bank walls. “Artside Out” was a commission of eight artist-designed billboards in partnership with the nonprofit Film in the Cities. Controversial billboard images, like Barbara Kruger’s “Surveillance is Your Busywork,” prompted a public debate in local media about public art, corporate sponsorship, and censorship. And the Visual Arts Program propounded increasingly democratic values in program literature: “Living with the ideas of the most exciting contemporary artists helps us feel more confortable with the natural diversity of our world and encourages us to explore our own potential as creative, compassionate and courageous human beings” (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 69). However the Visual Arts Program remained an elite operation, engaging employees only through art installations, educational outreach, and missives in response to employee complaints. Resistance from employees continued apace. An informal didactic label appeared beneath “Si o No

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(Yes or No)” by Francesco Clemente, depicting two men behind a swirling orb. The employee-written label read, DREAM DATES Artist unknown This metaphysical exercise of color, form and malformed facial features best depicts the sorry state of men in the ‘80s. Looking as if they have spent a long day at the State Fair, these bland males are positioned by a pastel whirlwind, poised to suck them in at any second. The crazed expressions tell their pain; the undoubtedly polyester clothing reveals their poor taste. (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 68)

By 1986, such resistance prompted a significant response. The autocratic banking structure had very few democratic cracks, but they were widened from within when the Visual Arts Program initiated three projects: the Employee Survey/Seminar Project, the FBS Artclub, and Talkback questionnaires. All three projects encouraged unprecedented participation in the Visual Arts Program and began a process of innovation and democratization.

Evolution of Curatorial Decision-Making The Employee Survey/Seminar Project sent surveys to 2,500 bank employees and collected over 800 returns. The survey itself became an open space for employee voices, registering “extensive additional remarks” (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 95) in addition to the survey questions. Of the 69% who did not “like the type of art in the collection,” 22% admitted it enhances the workplace, and “70% say they read the essays posted next to artworks” (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 95). In a follow-up letter to the survey, Wally Norlander in Human Resources consoles Sowder by offering this insight: I understand some of your art survey responses were pretty brutal—I hope you aren’t too taken by that . . . you and your function serve as a convenient “lightning rod” for employees who are unhappy (and frightened by all the changes) for other reasons. You gave them an opportunity to dump on the organization without having to identify themselves . . . Keep up the good work! (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 101)

As if to capture this sentiment and somewhat ironically identify with the role of art in voicing social concerns, another employee installed in his office a painting by his daughter, complete with didactic label, which read,

Case Studies of Democratizing Leadership    139 Controller in the Red, fingerpaint on poster board Controller in the Red is a pictorial epic of the Catch-22 conditions controllers face during their working day. His whimsical smile, contrasting with the jarring reality of what is actually happening to him, personifies the total chaotic commitment necessary to Corporate Existence. (the artist) Mary Hegel [sic] is currently studying art technique in her nursery school in Minneapolis. We applaud her efforts and will be seeing much more from this young artist in the future. (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 104)

It’s not difficult to imagine this employee complaining about his job and the bank’s art at home where his daughter responds to her parent’s frustrations in finger-painting—evidence of art’s subtle and profound influence. The Employee Survey/Seminar Project provided space for employees to voice complaints about the art and about the bank in writing and in seminars. The responses pushed beyond the stated intent of both and exemplified the pent up demand for raising voices within the bank. Survey and seminar questions implicitly addressed democratic values of voice, decisionmaking, and collective action, as evident in employee responses: First I would like to say that I am delighted with this survey. Thank you for giving us, the employees, an opportunity to express our views. Basically, I love the idea of art in the work place, but I do not like much of the art in this work place. I sometimes feel like I work in a museum rather than a bank . . . but I cannot leave the “museum” until the end of the work day. Also, if I find a particular piece objectionable I do not have the option of moving on to the next piece but am “forced” to view the same work again and again . . . I personally don’t like most contemporary art, plain and simple—it’s my bias and seems to be that of many of the employees. If this is supported by the survey results, will this change the composition of our art collection? The art has generated a lot of dialogue. It challenges people’s ideas on what art is and should look like. If they are able to look at this seriously and give it some consideration, then they should be able to accept new ideas in other areas of their lives. Bonnie Gruberman, Secretary, International Banking, First Bank Minneapolis I resent having someone else’s tastes imposed on my workspace where I spend a considerable portion of my life. This smacks of “big brotherism” or “father knows best”—antiquarian personnel attitudes long since abandoned by progressive companies. Bank’s are traditionally thought of as being conservative—why do we have to lead the way into the modern and bizarre? (Sowder, 1990, pp. 99–101)

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Seminars follow the survey, attracting over 400 employees who discussed the survey results, and topics beyond the survey questions, including the process of change in a corporate environment. Shortly after the Employee Survey/Seminar Project, an FBS Artclub is formed to extend knowledge of contemporary art and to visit galleries, collections, and curators, eventually drawing more than 350 employees. Perhaps the most significant development in the democratizing structure of the Visual Arts Program is the Talkback form (see Figure 3.1). Given

Figure 3.1  Talkback form.

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participation in the survey, seminars, and Artclub, and in response to guerilla didactic labels posted by employees, Talkback was the first ongoing structure to provide an outlet for employee voices about First Bank System art. Wall-mounted plexiglas boxes appeared around the bank, filled with forms and providing a secure place to submit forms anonymously. Talkback responses are collated and distributed to all bank employees every 4 to 6 weeks. In Talkback #1—March 1987—Sowder explains its purpose: The TALKBACK project is part of an ongoing effort to encourage a meaningful dialogue about the presence of contemporary art in the workplace. These reports will feature anonymous employee quotes copied directly from the TALKBACK questionnaires. We hope these reports will both reveal the diversity of opinion regarding the art program and stimulate further discussion among employees. Thank you for your candid feedback. We look forward to your continuing participation. Lynne Sowder Visual Arts

The Visual Arts Program used artwork as Freireian codifications and Talkback forms as decoding opportunities for employees to begin their critical engagement with the socially constructed meaning of the art. Questions on the Talkback questionnaire included: Do you like this work of art? What kind of information do you want to know about this sculpture? Do you think this work of art contributes to the First Bank Art Program’s objectives of generating dialogue, presenting new ideas, and encouraging flexibility? Do you think these objectives have value for the bank? Do you think this artwork is appropriate for the workplace? Some responses to Talkback questions echo Visual Arts Program goals: “People who can accept and use new ideas are valuable to any company which wants to be a leader, especially in the banking business, which is changing so much.” Other responses addressed the role of art in maintaining corporate culture: “I don’t think art should be chosen because of being appropriate because then it becomes a political tool of the corporation, thereby losing its role as an intermediary for sharing other ideas.” Still others raised significant issues about corporate power and hegemony: FBS is in the business of banking. Our resources should not be spent on some tax-deductible purchases that serve neither shareholder or depositor interests. The art goals seem to be almost in opposition to the FBS Corporate goals. (anonymous)

142    Democratizing Leadership Having work by Barbara Kruger is kind of perfect for a male-dominated industry like banking, especially at First Bank System. Having controversial things in the collection is what the whole program is about. I think its really, really important. Matt Wagner, Corporate Security Services. (Sowder et al., 1990, pp. 128–129)

Even as the democratization of the Visual Arts program had begun, the banking industry was suffering a downturn. Net earnings at First Bank System fell from $202.9 million in 1986 to $49.6 million in 1987. One year later, the art acquisition budget followed suit, falling from $600,000 in 1987 to $300,000 in 1988, acquisitions funding was now entirely dependent on art deaccessions. Sowder was a savvy curator; her early acquisitions had multiplied in value many times over. Even considering this potential funding resource and some continued operational funding from the bank, the Visual Arts Program’s outlook seemed diminished in the context of a beleaguered industry. Yet programming and engagement with employees through art was increasing at a feverish pace. The Visual Arts Program continued to “deregulate” its program with You Be The Curator! project in 1987, which allowed employees to decide on the best and worst of the collection for an exhibition in the employee cafeteria, as described here: The YOU BE THE CURATOR! project explores and strengthens the relationship between the art collection and the people who work and live with it. It encourages greater participation in the visual arts program by giving employees the opportunity to single out objects they particularly like or dislike.

Pat Swindle, Vice President of Marketing and frequent participant in Visual Arts Program projects, recognized Larry Fink’s portrait of Meridel Le Sueur because, Making visible the lives of women has particular relevance for our community and the bank specifically. It speaks to the question of what women truly contribute to this organization, the low visibility of women in management and the need for recognition and affirmation. As such, it fills the primary goals of the art collection in an especially relevant way by creating a dialogue about our values and goals. (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 131)

“Is It About a Bicycle?” by Joseph Beuys was singled out for contempt by Larry Miller, a Commercial Banking Officer. “Here is a work of art where an artist can not only ‘laugh all the way to the bank’, but can admire his own work once he gets here” (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 130). The implication of an elitist artist conning the common people is ironic, given the didactic label accompanying Beuys’ work. It explains that he, “attacks the system

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whereby human creative energy is destroyed by being transformed into a product: official culture. He promotes instead a culture based on individual self-determined creative action.” The label continues by describing an “action” he organized to plant thousands of trees to “demonstrate the viability of direct democracy.” Talkback forms are a significant form of voice for employees. You Be the Curator! is the first foray into facilitated employee voice and decisionmaking over the art collection, yet it pales in comparison to the democratizing programs ahead. A sign of the Visual Arts Program’s bold new direction came with the 1987 acquisition of Jenny Holzer’s “Inflammatory Essays,” a provocative critique of power that shocked employees and disturbed bank executives, with lines of boldface text like, “THE MOST EXQUISITE PLEASURE IS DOMINATION. NOTHING CAN COMPARE TO THE FEELING . . . “ and, “YOU HAVE LIVED OFF THE FAT OF THE LAND. NOW YOU ARE THE PIG WHO IS READY FOR SLAUGHTER. YOU ARE THE OLD ENEMY, THE NEW VICTIM . . . “and especially troubling for the executives of First Bank System, “BURN DOWN THE SYSTEM THAT HAS NO PLACE FOR YOU, RISE TRIUMPHANT FROM THE ASHES . . . LET FIRE BE THE CELEBRATION OF YOUR DELIVERANCE. LET LIGHTNING STRIKE, LET THE FLAMES DEVOUR THE ENEMY!” (Sowde et al., 1990, p. 121). If abstract expressionist work sparked impassioned conversations about art, Holzer’s textual art was an affront to the civil and conservative identity of bank culture. Concern over such inflammatory art and questions about employee influence over the art collection raised in the free spaces of surveys and seminars led to a remarkable development. Controversy Corridor debuted in September 1987 along the wide hallway leading to the employee lunchroom. Bank employees were allowed to banish a work of art from their workspace with a petition signed by six or more people. But banishment was not censorship. Removal from a workspace meant the artwork was displayed in the accessible and traveled area of the bank for employees. I believe that the visual arts program’s function within FBS is to be provocative, to expand our horizons and to create dissonance. Dissonance implies discord, disagreement, a lack of consensus. It challenges us to re-examine our values and beliefs and our own role in the world around us. (Mary Melbo, Vice President, Human Resources, First Trust Company in First Bank Art Program Review Talkback)

Controversy Corridor was a highly visible representation and concentration of diversity and dissonance in an institutional culture that typically prided itself on uniformity, consensus, and control.

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Soon Controversy Corridor was filled to capacity with the most unusual and bizarre pieces from the collection, each accompanied by a didactic label and with comments from the petition for banishment. It was a democratically curated exhibition of protest and complaint, but also an unprecedented broadening of employee empowerment to effect decisions that impacted their daily lives. Within weeks, it also became a gallery for internal acquisitions. In response to employee inquiries, the petition process also allowed employees to request artwork be moved from Controversy Corridor to their workspace. The most inflammatory and controversial art begins to circulate throughout the back based on employee voice and decision-making. A “Grateful FBS Employee” responded to the development of Controversy Corridor with this memo: I feel you and your associates are to be congratulated on having come up with an excellent solution to the problem of dealing with people’s objections to certain works of art while maintaining the collection’s “avant-garde” flavor. Displaying “controversial” artwork in a special area rather than banishing it from FBS offices is a great idea! In this way those of us who appreciate art that is not accepted by the (moral?) majority can still have it around. As an “aside,” I’d like to personally congratulate you on your apparent willingness to acquire and display feminist works. If your intent is to challenge “orthodox thinking in the workplace” and “provoke dialogue about important issues of our day” I can think of no perspective more likely to do so. I love the idea of the piece showing a man with war tools protruding from his genital area [Jonathan Borofsky’s “Male Aggression Now Playing Everywhere”]. What a challenge to male complacency, in terms of both life and art!” (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 132)

Prior to the advent of Controversy Corridor, Communications Specialist Nathan Braulick joined the Visual Arts Program. Braulick continued existing communication with bank employees through regular Talkback reports. He also enhanced documentation of the Visual Arts Program, first through video production (e.g., Talkback Video), then through external business and arts media. Articles about First Bank System Visual Arts Program appeared in Minneapolis’ City Business, and the Milwaukee Sentinel, where the first major branch exhibition was curated. Articles also appeared in national publications like ArtNews, The New Art Examiner, American Banker, Fortune Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. The Visual Arts Program also increased its patronage of individual artists through commissioned works and exhibitions. Photographer Larry Fink was commissioned to photograph women over 70 in artist Susan Lacy’s “Whisper Minnesota Project—a major performance work designed

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to empower older women through new images of aging and an increased awareness of their contributions” (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 136). Upon viewing Fink’s portraits, one of the participants in the project asserted that the exhibit makes, “the voice and contribution of older women of Minnesota more audible” (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 137). Another commissioned exhibition of photography “Men in America” by Thomas Frederick Arndt explored male identity through group portraits that challenged dominant narratives about gender, ability, sexual orientation, and race. TALKBACK #9 April 1988 records an employee response that captured the mission of the Visual Art Program, “I don’t always agree that what I see in the art world, here and elsewhere, is right. However, I do believe that we need to be challenged in our thinking. This is not an excuse to be without taste or discernment, but a call to be responsible.” During this period of significant growth and change for the Visual Arts Program, Sowder and Braulick crafted a program manifesto, reprinted in catalogs and articles for the duration of the program: Manifesto (c. 1988) Division of Visual Arts First Bank System The First Bank Visual Arts Program is an organizational transformation too, an agent of change which acts as a catalyst for the ongoing examination of this corporate culture. The visual arts program makes visible the invisible, promotes diversity, open communication and the building of a community based on shared values and respected differences. We are involved with some of the most provocative artists working today because we believe that only through active engagement with innovative, critical cultural practices can we progress as an organization and a community in the flux of a changing world. We are committed to forging new, more democratic relationships between people and the art of our time. By empowering our audience we build the bridges necessary for meaningful encounters to take place between the public, artists and art. Through an empowered interaction with the culture of our time we acquire a greater understanding of ourselves and our community and are better equipped to contribute to the creation of a strong, positive and ethical future. Lynne Sowder Curator and Director Nathan Leo Braulick Communications Specialist

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Exhibition literature from the time distilled the manifesto into a formal mission statement: “The key objectives of the First Bank visual arts program are to challenge orthodox thinking in the workplace, provoke a discussion about important issues and provide a forum for the appreciation of contemporary art by as wide an audience as possible” (Critters exhibition postcard, 1988). The next and perhaps ultimate democratizing step in the Visual Arts Program was launched in February 1988 as the Employee Art Selection project. What began as an executive decision to influence bank culture from the top down was now transformed into bottom-up empowerment of employees to influence bank culture: This project invites employees in the corporate headquarters to form teams to select art from the collection for their floors. . . . Each group works with a facilitator to (a) designate sites for art on their floor, (b) establish criteria for excellent art, and (c) devise a working methodology for the process of art selection. (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 171)

Just 5 years prior, employees described the Visual Arts Program as presumptuous and elitist, forcing unappealing art on a powerless and captive audience. Now, that same audience was empowered to decide on site selection, criteria, and even the process of selection itself. Sowder and Braulick’s democratizing leadership went beyond providing the democratic process evident in Talkback and Controversy Corridor. Employees were now empowered to develop their own democratic process, tailored to the circumstances and politics of each floor in the corporate headquarters. Invitations to participate (in the form of corporate memos) were extended to particular floors in the corporate headquarters. The memo begins with terms every bank employee can relate to, “As a part of the ‘deregulation’ of art collection . . .” (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 178). Art selection worksheets delineated proposed site locations and the artist, title, and present location of artworks that met the committee’s criteria. A presumption underlies this democratic process—no one really cares about the art in its present location—but that was quickly proven wrong. When Arne Nyen’s large “Rhino Head” sculpture was selected by the committee to be moved from the Commercial Leasing areas to their floor, four employees petitioned to keep the piece in place: an example of the unexpected enlargement of free spaces by participants. When a democratic space is opened, that space tends to expand as political literacy leads participants to question less democratic spaces. The petition articulated arguments for retention of the Rhino Head: recalling its longevity in this location; citing employees, customers, and even downtown shoppers who call it

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a “bank landmark”; reminding co-workers of the disappointment expressed when it had been removed for a temporary exhibit; and making a populist call for support given the minority voice of four employees contending with a democratic process that threatened their preferred status quo. The petition closed its argument by stating, We are asking for your signature to keep the Rhino Head here, where more people can enjoy it! I would also like to mention that not only is it widely viewed here, but this coveted piece is very well protected (not to mention watered and fed). Will you help this staff of four with your signature? (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 179)

As evidence of growing political literacy in this ad hoc democratic process, the signatures of three Visual Arts Program employees, including Lynne Sowder and Nathan Braulick, appear on the petition. From my own observations of Employee Art Selection meetings, this free space for democracy was not an ideal exercise in equitable democratic practice (as if such a thing exists). Unacknowledged power dynamics, reflecting the hierarchal status of employees, restricted the voice of employees who are unaccustomed to speaking forthrightly and who were concerned about implications outside of this uniquely democratic space. At times, genuine consensus was reached among employees on process, criteria, and the art itself. Most often, differences were subsumed in deference to the employee with the most power over others in the bank. Agonistic debate was not often attempted, and when it was, it tended to be quickly squelched with the accompanying rationale of efficiency, or the reminder of this space as privileged, with the unspoken but implied threat that it could easily disappear. Some floors, however, found a deepening of relationships that extended to an appreciation for voices that had not been used or considered previously. Other floors celebrated their collaboration by hosting opening receptions for the new artwork and even inviting artists to give talks about new artwork. The acknowledgment of differential power dynamics between the Employee Art Selection meetings and the rest of the corporate culture was liberating to some employees, yet for others it only highlighted the lack of voice and decision-making opportunities that marked the majority of their work life. Consistent with other Visual Arts Program projects, Employee Art Selection participants were surveyed to evaluate the project and make suggestions. Responses addressed voice, decision-making, and collective action: The more bottom-up communication opportunities we [sic] provide, where employees have decision-making authority, the greater support and buy-in the organization will have for it policies and practices.

148    Democratizing Leadership One of the best things about this process was the interaction between people from separate areas of the floor who otherwise would never have gotten to know each other . . . I don’t think employees are given much control over other areas of their work lives. If employees were given even a fraction of this amount of input into their work stations and surroundings it would have a great impact on productivity and morale. The Employee Art Selection project is great, but if you’re really into risktaking, you should take it a step further. Now you let employees select from what is in the collection. To carry this to a logical conclusion, why not let employees participate in the acquisition process? . . . you would have to give up some of the expert mantle and do more education and consultation. (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 1990)

This sense of voice was repeated in other comments on Talkback forms, becoming part of the collective voice of employees as they requested more control over their lives. They challenged the bank to expand decisionmaking opportunities while widening the space for democratic collective action. Employees developed political literacy due to the democratizing leadership of the Visual Arts Program. And in response to these voices, the Employee Art Purchase Program began the following year. The first anniversary of Controversy Corridor was celebrated with a birthday party that exhibited banished art, featuring talks with banished artists, and served a cake decorated with Jonathan Borofsky’s “Male Aggression Now Playing Everywhere” in frosting. More significantly, the event was used to give voice to employees through publication in 1988 of a retrospective entitled, “The Ins and Outs of Controversy Corridor.” This large paper broadside profiled some of the most controversial art at First Bank System through divergent employee Talkback comments and excerpts from interviews with the artists. It also summarized the evolving democratic process of the Visual Arts Program. The voices of employees and artists reflected on the banished artwork and on the process that was well-established after a year of practice. Some critical voices, mostly anonymous comments from Talkback forms, continued to decry First Bank System’s art collection as inappropriate due to difficult subject matter, artistic technique (“my kid could do that”), or as superfluous to the real business of a bank. Other critical voices engaged the content of the art, writing comments and essays that interpreted what it means for art to be controversial, offensive, inappropriate, or challenging. These employees might still object to the work, yet they engaged with the democratic process by voicing their objections. “The people here have gone through much transition and downsizing and do not need [a painting

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of] a dying man/boy on the floor” (anonymous Talkback comment) referring to “Untitled” by Georg Baselitz from 1984. Employee comments also evidence developing political literacy in aesthetic debates: I think its great to have customers exposed to these things that controversial as long as we know how to bring it up to them and get them talking . . . I try my best as a manager to maintain a creative environment, where people can do their jobs easily and feel expansive about their job as opposed to feeling constrained. (Sophie Bell, Vice President, Financial Services Division, in Ins and Outs, p. 12)

Appreciative voices further engaged the conceptual nuances of the Visual Arts Program, even identifying and critiquing hegemonic corporate values in their commentary: I think a lot of corporate mentality is restrictive . . . everyone walks around as if they have blinders on and it really drives me crazy sometimes. And there is room for painting here . . . if folks have a problem with it maybe they should be examining their own assumptions a little more closely. (Jocelyn LaBerge, member of the Sixth Floor Employee Art Selection Committee, in Ins and Outs, p. 10)

Artist Dorit Cypis echoed this sentiment when she quoted an employee who called Controversy Corridor a “hall of mirrors” (Ins and Outs, p. 3). She described the role of art and artists as helping the audience engage in a process of critical assessment, akin to conscientization. Reflecting on the Borofsky print, she asserted, We have created a dominant culture where we give ourselves back to ourselves as flattened out, homogenized and sanitized . . . We must release ourselves from our own drawn veneer, sense more deeply into our hearts, express our differences, agree to disagree. The alternative is a cartoon. (Ins and Outs, p. 3)

In addition to the voices of employee’s and artists, the retrospective “The Ins Outs of Controversy Corridor”also included reflections by professional art educators like Susan Cahan of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, who raised questions about the ultimate goal of the art program, initially proposed as challenging orthodox thinking and promoting innovation. The democratic evolution of the Visual Arts Program policies and practices also led some employees through a process of conscientization about power in its many institutional manifestations. An excerpt from

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Cahan’s reflection summarizes the counter-hegemonic nature of the program and foreshadows its demise: My only reservation about the Bank’s programs is that they may deflect attention away from the larger political issues facing employees in a hierarchical, male-dominated corporate environment. They induce a feeling of empowerment while employees remain excluded from participation in other important decisions affecting their lives and work. Given the nature of the bank’s programs, I think their success depends on how well they are able to affect institution-wide thinking about power and identity, and ultimately, institution-wide practice. (Ins and Outs, p. 13).

The next step in the Visual Arts Program tested that key indicator in the midst of changing fortunes.

Corporate Collective Action This final development in the Visual Arts Program was the most democratic project, impacting personal workspaces and requiring significant participation. It was also the most contentious. Mouffe’s concept of conflictual consensus was in operation from the first questionnaire determining criteria, to tensions over how much voice and decision-making power employees would have in the process, to employee reactions when work was installed. The questionnaire collected “employee views, expectations and goals in terms of art and its role at the bank, its relationships to the marketplace, and their individual response to it” (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 202). A team of volunteers in each workspace evaluated data, developed selection criteria, determined a budget, visited galleries, reviewed slides, and purchased thirty artworks for their floor. Tony Schmitz of Harper’s Magazine followedthe project: Until I watched First Bank Employees buy art, I didn’t understand how it could be used as a pretext for picking up an old argument. Anyone who’s ever held a job already knows this tune by heart. Who has power? How can they be undermined? What is the chance this little battle will make the workday pass more quickly? (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 207)

Employees entered the process with the understanding that broad parameters governed their selection: living artists, recent work, and floor acquisition budgets. But questionnaires registered complaints about the Visual Arts Program manipulation of the process through consideration of a limited range of works, museum-quality art, and presumed market value for return on investment. One employee summed up this contention by asking whether art was being purchased for the FBS collection or for decorating a

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particular floor based on employee preferences articulated in criteria. This may have been a sign of mounting financial pressures in the institutional culture or of limited political literacy that presumed any democracy meant total and direct democracy. Even as this most democratizing project began, pressure to be more cautious and less radical came from management and employees. In 1988, First Bank System posted a $310 million loss, a record for any Minnesota Bank. Meanwhile local competitor Norwest Bank earned a record $211 million. Staff reductions followed. Visual Arts Program staff layoffs occured in proportion to overall bank staff, and no new art acquisitions were authorized to avoid the contradictory values implied by spending money on art as people lose their jobs. Funding for the continued operation of the Visual Arts Program, approximately $300,000, came primary from art deaccessions. As financial pressures on the bank increased, senior management directed Visual Arts Program to keep a low profile (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 201) and Controversy Corridor was relocated from the more accessible conference center lobby to the Human Resources lobby. A planned exhibition entitled, “What Does She Want? Current Feminist Art from the First Bank Collection” was shown at the Carleton College gallery. The exhibition catalog, with comments from women artists and female bank employees, was widely distributed outside of the bank, but selectively within. The contradiction was evident in two excerpts form the exhibition catalog: If art that’s deeply critical of social practices, including business practices, can simply be bought and exhibited trophy-like, what does that say about the power of art? Art isn’t “about” ambiguity or “about” pluralism any more than it’s about the enlightened attitude of those who own it; art is about specifics, not generalities. What does she want? Everything, just like everybody else! But not without bringing everyone else along. (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 208, emphasis in original)

In response, Patricia Swingle, Vice-President of Marketing and longtime supporter of the Visual Arts Program, provided a more specific critical analysis as if to refute the implicit suggestion by Rosler that art loses it’s power when purchased and exhibited by a corporate institution. “When feminist work is installed in the corporation, it is especially powerful because it is located within a patriarchal, male-dominated institution and a great disparity exists between the message in the art and the reality of the corporate culture.” However, Swingle agreed with Rosler that art’s counter-hegemonic efficacy is diminished and it’s challenge negated when the corporation “co-opt[s] this female voice” by “associating itself with the ‘progressive voice’ while allowing the inequalities to continue to exist” (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 209).

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Tensions over gender inequity at the bank also surfaced with a commissioned work by Mary Tortorici,” Portraits of Women.” Photographs and interviews of female bank employees exposed deep dichotomies between personal and work lives, feelings of gender oppression, and invisibility in the male-dominated corporate culture. When the project was completed, some of the participants had reservations about its exhibition at the bank. The Visual Arts Program responds by shelving the work, prompting a memo from another participant, Ellen Lane, to express frustration at this silencing of female voices, declaring, “It’s a sad testament to the environment here as a workplace when women feel pressured NOT to share their individual qualities as women with the rest of the corporation.” The artist removed herself from the project, which was never exhibited and the catalog never published except as excerpted in Talkback Listen (Sowder et al., 1990, pp. 212–217). “Controversy Corridor: The Second Year” described the mounting tensions in FBS corporate culture as reflected in the Visual Arts Program. The introduction, entitled Censorship or Democracy? affirms Controversy Corridor as “a project which acknowledges the need to name and own the political and social forces present for people who work at First Bank System” (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 1). After reaffirming the rules of banishment and retrieval, the introduction explains the relocation of this project from the very public area of the FBS Conference Center to a fourth-floor hallway leading to Human Resources; a less public site as an alternative to abolishment of the project. Page 2 reprints memos about the relocation controversy, focusing on the voice of a disgruntled employee, Mary Matthews, Assistant Vice President/AIM Operations, who complains about lack of employee voice in this development. Matthews expresses the widely held expectation that the Visual Arts Program respects employee voices and shows a growing political literacy in both individual agency and expectations of accountable to employees by leadership. A meeting of fourth-floor employees raised few objections and led to a minor compromise. Objects will be circulated after 3 months rather than 6, “in order to ease any psychological tension which especially provocative objects might generate among individuals” (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 2). Interviews with employees who participated in banishment petitions reflected contemporary national controversies over public art. Richard Jensen, Managing Director, First Asset Management, stated, “I agree with the concept of Controversy Corridor—It’s not like Congress where we say, ‘We’ll not spend money on things we find objectionable’” (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 9). The work of one artist who precipitated a debate on National Endowment for the Arts spending in Washington, DC (Vance, 1989, p. 222), was also banished to Controversy Corridor in 1988. Three pieces by Andres Serrano—“Milk Cross,” “Bloodstream,” and “Piss Elegance”—were installed on the third-floor of FBS

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with little concern. When the didactic labels appeared two weeks later with titles and medium spelled out, outrage was immediate, citing poor taste and objectionable content—banishment soon followed. “People kept wondering why the bank should have to pay for piss on a wall and somebodies [sic] blood” (Maureen Olson, FBS Leasing, Controversy Corridor: The Second Year, p. 4). Appreciation and good humor filled Talkback questionnaires and enlivened the second year chronicle: “We needed something interesting in the space AND WE KNOW the really interesting pieces are in Controversy Corridor” (Jan Plimpton, Vice President Real Estate Banking). But the deprecating comments evidenced a deeper hostility and resentment than earlier complaints. Boyd Webb’s photograph “Judy” depicts a bent-necked woman shouldering a massive draped prop as if holding up a planet. An anonymous questionnaire from Residential Banking stated, “This artwork is not appropriate for our line of business. Very depressing. It depicts an aspect of mortgage banking (lending money) as being the weight [of the world] on your shoulders to get a mortgage.” In the early days of banking deregulation, to a contemporary reader this might signal an ominous portent of the mortgage crisis two decades later. An anonymous response from Energy Industries Leasing Division requests the a Paul Benney piece entitled “What Dark is This?” “be removed, and that it be replaced with something colorful which does not depict violence or pain. We’ve had out fill of that” (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 5). It is unclear whether the objection refers to having their fill of violence and pain in art or if the complaint references the current troubles of the banking industry, and First Bank System in particular. Other comments exemplify contested interpretations of art’s meaningmaking function in the workplace. Werner Buttner’s piece, “Sofa” is interpreted in a Talkback form to condone laziness and therefore is inappropriate for executive offices during a time when, “We were getting all sorts of negative publicity” (Beth Correll, Administrative Assistant, Executive Offices). However, the piece is interpreted by more appreciative employee feedback as dealing with the dangers of ideology and abstraction. In Buttner’s piece, a small whimsical sofa is perched on a pedestal, and over it a plaque reads, The sofa which everyone has in their head is the biggest danger, because when the occasion arises and when it’s not carefully looked after, the brain jumps on the sofa and loafs and lounges about, sometimes four times a minute, and if worst comes to worst, a lot of evil results from this. (Controversy Corridor: The Second Year, p. 6)

The danger of lazy minds relying on ideology rather than critical thought is a powerful statement for a banking institution. It is at once in line with

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the original mission of the Visual Arts Program and contrary to the laziness attributed to the piece by complainants. Three comments typify the conflictual consensus represented by Controversy Corridor in its second and last year: Customers may decide to take their business elsewhere given how the art reflects on our collective judgment. What someone finds non-controversial, others may find controversial. Because of this, it is probably not possible to totally eliminate controversy. However, moving to a more middle ground could reduce the controversy.

This comment seems to reflect the liberal urge for a majority consensus that does not presume conflict to be constitutive of democracy. Another comment suggests that collective action requires decision-making: “I like the fact that we can remove something we don’t like— although the process takes enough effort that we won’t use it unless we are really upset over the art” (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 9). A threshold of urgency or importance is crossed that moves people from passivity to agency. And finally, “People like to feel as though they have some control over their lives. We spend so much time at work that it’s good to know we can do a little something about the environment” (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 9). But such expectations of control and democratic agency prove to be dangerous as they contradict the tightening budgets and shrinking spaces for voice, decision-making, and collective action at First Bank System. The Winnipeg Art Gallery hosted a major exhibition of the First Bank System Collection in summer 1989. Exhibited were 90 works from the collection alongside displays describing the participatory processes developed by the Visual Arts Program. A re-creation of Controversy Corridor brought together much of the controversial art that was banished by employees and some that was retrieved by others. Published in conjunction with the show, “Talkback-Listen: The Visual Arts Program at Frist Bank System 1980–1990” (Sowder et al., 1990) is proposed as an exhibition catalog, but develops into a retrospective and chronicle of the rise and fall of the program. Before it is published, the 1990 FBS Budget Plan rescinds funding for the Visual Arts Program, staff, and collection. The only budget item cut before the Visual Arts Program is the line item for decorative ficus trees that, incidentally, were once used in resistance to obscure the art. The Controversy Corridor and Talkback projects are shut down. Lynne Sowder resigns. Nathan Braulick and other staff soon follow. In the first quarter of 1990, a full 25% of the collection is deaccessioned. “Works sold are those which do not meet the new criteria of ‘harmony’ and

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‘unity’ established by the management’’ (Sowder et al., 1990, p. 249). When Talkback-Listen is published, it concludes with articles from major periodicals—Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Village Voice, The Journal of Art, Artpaper, New Art Examiner—eulogizing the end of the First Bank System Visual Arts Program. A commemorative ritual closing Controversy Corridor in 1990—witnessed by a small group of staff and supportive employees—included a performance piece by Ruth MacKenzie. The piece concludes with these lines: Hey, it’s a hall.

What’s a hall? A room built for some place to go. What did he say? Is this a bank or a museum? You’re getting us mixed up. What did she say? You have to get lost before you can find it. Hey, I get lost in this hallway, every day. I’m a janitor. But I’m trying to find my voice. The First Bank System Visual Arts Program opened cracks in a hegemonic corporate structure to create spaces (and corridors) for democratic voice, decision-making, and collective action. Initiation of the program occurred due to a unique context of banking deregulation, symbolic change by a corporate leader, creative responses to conflict by a curator, and evolving democratic spaces that were filled by motivated employees. Their hunger for expression and some measure of control over their lives led to engagement and development of political literacy, enhancing the democratic nature of programs and encouraging expansive and innovative projects. Soon programmatic experimentation led to structured processes, and participant expectations grew with each new crack in the hierarchical nonresponsive corporate culture. This case exemplifies participatory democracy as a burgeoning process, emerging from the initial space provided by the Visual Arts Program and evolving into structures—even a system—of democratic processes. It was a free space bounded primarily by the art program, but influencing the corporate culture of the bank in expected and unexpected ways. At the dissolution of the program, perhaps employees shrank back to their cubicles and offices, forgetting the democratic empowerment of the Visual Arts Program. More likely, the end of Talkback, Controversy

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Corridor, and the Employee Art Selection Committee was also the end of their compliance in the hegemony of domination: At the center of the most conservative institution possible, that art program in the bank has paradoxically been a powerful example of radical empowerment—through education, engagement and entertainment . . . the bank’s art program has developed a process of democratization . . . The capacity for criticality, formerly assumed as the exclusive right of art and artists, has been shown to be in the performance of audiences as well. (Bruce W. Ferguson, as cited in Sowder et al., 1990, p. 7)

Some bank employees who found and practiced their voice through contentious visual art debates could not return to being voiceless. Once their decisions found respect amongst a collegial community, they could not bind themselves again to a hierarchy of control. And once they found the energizing combination of camaraderie, privilege, and responsibility in collective action, they could not be bound by an iron chain of command. “In the end all art is political in its resistance to the global culture, which is intent on suppressing views and values that resist its spreading and monotonous patina” (Sandy Nairne, 1987, as cited in Sowder et al., 1990, p. 13). If they could no longer find liberating spaces within the narrowing confines of the bank, they liberated themselves to find work in more enlivening institutions and organizations. They used the power described by Gene Sharp as noncooperation, and by Hardt and Negri as desertion, which in its extreme is separation from the nondemocratic and oppressive institution; if not to weaken its power, then to end its power over them. Such are the choices that follow conscientization and the empowering legacy of democratizing leadership, even leadership that is terminated at the height of its innovation and empowerment. Conscientization and agency, democratic voice, decision-making, and collective action live in those who carry democratizing leadership forward.

May Day in In the Heart of the Beast Theater On the first Sunday of the fifth month of the year—every year since 1975— the May Day Parade has represented community hopes and fears on the streets of Minneapolis. Created by In the Heart of the Beast Theater, the parade began as a response to the Vietnam War and evolved into a community celebration attracting tens of thousands of spectators. Inspired by the pioneering performances of Peter Schumann’s Bread and Puppets Theater in the 1960s and 70s (Estrin, 2004), In the Heart of the Beast Theater has developed its own national and international reputation for visually compelling and community enhancing productions.

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In the Heart of the Beast Theater also produces main stage shows, touring shows, and lobby puppet shows in addition to school art residencies and commissioned works. The May Day Parade and Festival, however, is the centerpiece of its work and is known as a neighborhood institution and an annual rite of spring. This community-based organization contrasts in many ways with the First Bank System Visual Arts Program case study of counter-hegemonic work within an institution. In the Heart of the Beast Theater’s work is a counter-hegemonic cultural institution grounded in a larger community. A registered 501(c)3 nonprofit arts organization, it operates on a $1 million annual budget composed of private foundation grants, individual donations, public funding, and tickets sales. Approximately 30% of its annual funding supports the cost of producing May Day, primarily for artists’ compensation, marketing, publishing, permits, security, and prorated overhead for the theater. In addition to this contextual contrast, artwork at In the Heart of the Beast Theater is distinct from the museum-quality fine art of the First Bank Collection. Puppeteers at In the Heart of the Beast Theater have shared commitments and values I will describe as a puppetistia ethic. Puppetistas are activist artists, using traditional forms and contemporary variations of puppetry to address social justice issues. Some puppeteers use this descriptor to distinguish themselves from a purely aesthetic approach to form, or from connotations of puppetry as childish and naïve. Other puppeteers do not adopt the term yet appreciate its more radical, change-oriented connotations. In the Heart of the Beast Theater employs a full-time staff of 10 people with several part-time employees and many independent contract artists. The administrative side of the staff is led by the Executive Director (Nancy) and includes a financial manager, company manager, community programs director, volunteer coordinator, marketing and communications manager, and part-time office assistants. The artistic staff is led by the Artistic Director (Joni) and includes two staff artists (Masa and Doug), two education co-directors (Curt and Winona), and part-time associate artists whose numbers vary throughout the year. Many more artists are hired as independent contractors in relation to particular projects such as art residencies or productions like May Day. The staffing arrangement is fluid on the artistic side, accommodating the unpredictable commissions and sudden opportunities that characterize the work of professional puppeteers. The relationship between the informal and improvisational artistic staff and the more formal and structured administrative staff is usually complementary, but occasionally perceptions of differential status rise to the surface. Some dynamics within the artistic staff illustrate the creative and

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sometimes conflicting tensions among artists working cooperatively. Such conflicts however are the exception to a remarkably amiable and collaborative working organization of artists representing diverse backgrounds, identities, and experiences in and out of the May Day process. Wisdom figures advise and inform every level of the organization. These figures are longtime participants and volunteers distinguished by informal but specialized roles and long tenure with May Day (some are cofounders or were present in the first years). Ben has been the captain of the ceremony’s Sun Boat for two decades. John is an advisor to the artistic team and confidant to Joni. Dan is both on the Board of Directors and the steward of the May Day parade’s primary symbol, the Tree of Life. Former staff artists also function as minor wisdom figures or sometimes simply talented and experienced participants. Participants include neighbors and people from the wider community who are new to May Day, others who have contributed to May Day over years and even decades, and volunteers who fill specific roles in the tool room, clay room, or costume nook. Due to its iterative nature, this case study follows a single annual cycle of the decades-old May Day process, in contrast to the decade-long evolution and sudden end of the previous case study. The fiscal and organizational year for In the Heart of the Beast Theater begins on August 1. The fall season starts with school art residencies and rehearsals for main-stage shows that begin in October. Residencies involve part-time contract artists who spend 5 to 10 days in a school making masks and puppets with elementary-aged children. Main-stage shows typically feature puppets and live actors, who are both full-time staff artists and part-time contract artists, in production-length narrative performances. The theater’s auditorium is large enough to accommodate an audience of 300 and the stage accommodates puppets up to 25 feet high. Main-stage productions feature folk tales retold or original productions. Friday and Saturday morning puppet shows also begin in October and run through the end of March. These smaller productions are performed in the lobby of the theater, offering puppeteers the opportunity work on a smaller scale with an intimate and often young audience. Holiday main-stage performances present the birth of Christ through immigrant couple Maria and Jose or update an ancient solstice story. Following the New Year, shows are sometimes produced on the main stage by the theater, or contract artists use the facility to stage a major production. But through the months of January and February staff artists will increasingly focus on preparations for May Day, the theater’s defining event and the “high holy day” of their annual cycle. No other work at In the Heart of the Beast Theater is so well known or so essential to the theater’s identity and mission.

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The May Day Parade itself would seem to be the obvious unit of analysis for this case study. But this event on the first Sunday of May is the instrument rather than the goal of the theater’s mission “to bring people together for the common good through the power of puppet and mask performance.” Joni, the founder and Artistic Director of In the Heart of the Beast Theater, states that the parade and ceremony are only the culmination and enactment of the more important community-building work of the theater. The process leading up to May Day is the heart of In the Heart of the Beast Theater. The following description of the May Day process sets the context for democratizing leadership that enacts voice, decision-making, and collective action. The participation of community members, staff, and artists are summarized in this chronological account to illustrate what such dynamics look like in practice and in comparison to the previous case study. First Bank System and In the Heart of the Beast Theater employ the arts as instruments of change and through female directors but in very different settings marked by distinctions in mission, structure, political economy, and power dynamics. These distinctions provide an opportunity to witness the theoretical components of democratizing leadership as practiced in remarkably different contexts to counter nondemocratic hegemonic values and structures. Similar to the previous case study, a rich description of the May Day process demonstrates how democratizing leadership is operationalized in a community setting.

Voicing Hopes and Concerns The May Day process begins with the First Community Planning Meeting on the second Tuesday in February. Residents of the neighborhood, longtime participants from across the community, and staff artists gather in the theater lobby to tell stories about their individual hopes and concerns—in the language of the theater, “what raises them up and what drags them down.” The audience is diverse in age, ethnicity, ability, and economic class and comes to the theater from across the metropolitan area, although a majority of the participants live in the immediate neighborhood. The meeting begins as daylight fades through glass block windows on the South wall. A green and red Persian-design rug covers the middle of the green concrete lobby floor. Two bowls of sliced oranges and a clear plastic bucket of pretzel sticks sit in the center. Yellow fiberglass chairs form a circle, two rows deep around the perimeter of the lobby with black and beige folding chairs filling in the corners. Behind the chairs in one corner, five kids sit on stairs winding in a curve up to the theater offices. At a folding

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table against the North wall, staff artists Anita and Curt prepare to take notes with a large roll of wide white paper and a coffee can full of markers. Joni, the theater’s artistic director, paces nearby, glancing over to smile anxiously, watching the doors to see if more people are arriving. Doug is in the foyer handing out brochures for upcoming shows as he greets people. He welcomes many people by name and quickly ushers them to seats. By the time the meeting begins, more than 50 people fill the chairs: 12 kids, 20 young adults and parents, and 20 older adults. Joni begins the first community planning meeting with a welcome and introduction: It’s five after and the time goes pretty fast at these May Day Planning Meetings, so it’s good to get started. I just want to welcome you all here and you know you’re all here for the first May Day Planning Meeting. We have two community meetings: this first one, and one probably almost exactly one month from now, or maybe five weeks from now, something like that. And the two meetings are quite different from each other. The purpose of this meeting tonight is just to chat, just to talk with each other. But perhaps it’s more than chatting: It’s thinking as deeply as we can, from the place we know best, our own self in our own bodies. It’s our own selves and our own lives here in this place, at this time, with this community of people. And that’s the place that we speak from. So we will talk back and forth until 8:15. At that time we’ll go around so that everybody, everybody, everybody has a chance to speak so that if you haven’t before, you know you will have a chance at the end. Between this one and the second community meeting, a staff of artists will take the ideas from this meeting and pool them with ideas that sometimes people send in . . . Sometimes it’s easy discussion, sometimes it’s not at all, and we try to come up with an umbrella theme for this year’s May Day. And based on that theme then, there will be a number of different sections that look at the theme in a more intense kind of way. The second community meeting is the presentation of the work that’s happened in those meetings. And that’s open for comments and feedback to determine whether the talk has gotten too insular, or whether it has a breadth that is representative of the ideas that are fomented here—that are given voice in this meeting. So that’s the big picture.

Joni’s description is very succinct and barely hints at the intense weeks of deliberation and research the artist staff will undertake. However she sets a framework for participation and voice in this important first community meeting and foreshadows the second meeting to come. She also describes the process in terms of “representation,” a term with dual but related meaning. The political connotation suggests an individual who speaks for a larger group, a form of representation commonly proscribed when direct democracy is inefficient or impractical due to significant numbers of participants. The artistic connotation of representation is

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more concerned with authenticity, when an artwork conveys accurately the appearance or meaning of the original. Of course, these two definitions are related. If someone speaks for a group, they are expected to convey the original and authentic voice of the group. And an artwork is often valued for speaking visually for common human emotions and concepts. This may be a reason why populist art audiences tend to appreciate representational art over abstract art. The visual experience of abstract art can be alienating or inaccessible because it is not perceived as representing broad human experiences so much as a mysterious or coded individual expression, much the way that lack of transparency in leadership leads to distrust over the coded discourses of power. The May Day process integrates voice, decision-making, and collective action, but not in a tidy and distinct order. Much of the early process is centered on the voice of the community. Decision-making occurs throughout the process and becomes more limited toward the end, giving way to collective action in artist workshops and enactment of the parade. But May Day is an iterative process that weaves together these three elements to creative effect, informed by more than 30 years of practice. Yet even as the process has gained ritualized form, leadership in the theater continually interrogates the process, critically applying it to the unique hopes and concerns of the community gathered at In the Heart of the Beast Theater and in conversation with the pressing issues of the day. This dynamic is evidenced by Joni’s introduction to the voice-oriented questions of the first community planning meeting: We’ve thought about asking more specific questions, but the artists team decided that we’d keep with a very open-ended question and it is this: speaking from your own experience—whatever that means to you, it doesn’t have to be anything in particular, just your own self. So think from your own life— your family, your neighborhood, the city, the nation, the world—these two things: 1. What is it that is giving you joy and inspiration these days? 2. What is it that’s’ dragging you down and making you really angry.

Variations on these central questions are the opening ritual of the May Day process and the first definition of democratic spaces for participation. Individual voice is the first step into May Day. Responses to Joni’s questions are imaginative, thoughtful, sometimes pain-filled, but more often framed by laughter. Some hint at specific images and objects they hope to see in the parade: rats and the year of the rat, mother earth, bridges (many times), animal tracks, a rat sitting on a cat sitting on a dog, polar bears, spiral dances, cellular mitochondria, Hurricane Katrina, rat kings, swings, mycelium, trolls under bridges. Deborah

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facilitates this meeting while staff artists take copious notes and some begin to sketch the images even as they are spoken. Some participants have ideas and concepts to propose: the Native American ideal of deciding with the seventh generation in mind; The Eastern Pacific Gyre—a massive area of plastic refuse collecting in the ocean; shared meals; politicians talking about change—but change from what and to what? Capricorn-headed kids ramming us in the butt to move forward; leadership from the bottom-up instead the top-down; from isolation to community (as a bridge); microlending; economic infrastructure; poverty and the mortgage crisis. Phil, a White man in his 50s with thinning gray hair, a moustache, and glasses made this brief and remarkable comment: “Last year I received a new heart—a transplant. Now the simple things are the most precious. I appreciate every moment. And this year I don’t want to watch the parade— I want to be in it!” The crowd cheers and several artists excitedly sketch heart motifs. Robert, a White man in his 60s, balding with a comb-over and a deeply wrinkled face, greeted everyone with a loud, “Hi!” as he entered the room before the meeting. He is very enthusiastic when his turn comes, announcing: “I have all the parties! And I like the parade because people see me and shout, ‘The birthday party guy!’” Awkward silence follows Robert’s comments until Joni reminds us that everyone’s voice will be heard. She takes the opportunity to transition to the formation of collective voice, first by offering her own synthesizing comments: I’ve enjoyed all this—your listening and speaking—and I wish that I had this [quote committed to] memory . . . I went to a wonderful service that happened after the bridge fell [referring to the tragic collapse of a local interstate bridge]. The words that really stuck with me were spoken by one of the Muslim Imams, something about when a bridge of concrete and steel falls, then the bridge of . . . love and compassion must rise. And, so I just thought about that as everyone spoke tonight—talking about bridges and connection and isolation and swinging and all of that.

Joni’s positional leadership role as artistic director complicates the dynamics of democratizing leadership. She holds influential power over the assembled community as the founder and artistic director of In the Heart of the Beast Theater and May Day. She also holds economic power over the artists as the person who hires them and manages the daily work of artists. Her synthesizing commentary, which forms individual voice into collective voice, is sometimes criticized as undemocratic, suggesting that Joni’s predetermined ideas will shape the parade no matter what is said in community planning meetings. The tension in democratizing leadership is constant,

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between the authenticity of individual voices and accountability for forming an authentic collective voice. Joni ends the first community planning meeting with a longtime ritual: In closing, let’s stand and let’s just sing a song together—how about the song You Are My Sunshine? [Everyone sings] You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray. You’ll never know dear, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away.

As the song breaks out, most people join in singing. A few people in the audience keep the beat by drumming on chairs, and someone uses the pretzel can as a shaker. You Are My Sunshine is the unofficial anthem of May Day. No one could explain when it was adopted as the central song of May Day, but it is played by Your Community Band during the actual May Day Parade and sung at the end of the May Day Ceremony after the Sun Boat crosses the lake. Midway through the first chorus of Sunshine, a handful of people in the center of the room, perhaps in response to Joni’s last comment about the local bridge collapse, begin singing London Bridge is Falling Down, running under the outstretched arms of two young theater interns. The Sunshine singers almost overwhelm the sound of the others, but the counterpoint is dissonant, both in melody and lyrics. Suddenly the Bridge singers seem to realize their song was a break from tradition and inappropriate in light of the tragedy just mentioned and the presence of survivors’ family members in the room. As You Are My Sunshine ends, London Bridge trails off in nervous laughter. The First Community Planning Meeting functions as something of a town hall forum and the iterative start of communal voice formation. It creates space for individual voices to be heard through a simple and lengthy process, going around the circle so that everyone may answer the two questions that frame that democratic space. These voices must then be combined into a unified, if pluralistic, communal voice. The ideas and images raised by individual voices in the first community planning meeting are then deliberated and elaborated in artist meetings as a collective process. As May Day themes develop, the artists break into individual parade sections to develop visual imagery and performance possibilities that form the tentative parade design to be presented in the second community planning meeting. In that meeting, and with a communal voice, participants and artists challenge or affirm parade themes and visual objects that represent them. Then, during art workshops, objects are made together and then

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rehearsed in a deepening communal process that ends in the public performance of the May Day Parade. This is an abstracted and simplified version of the creative, iterative, sometimes frustrating process that does not flow neatly and in linear form as voice, decision-making, and collective action. Instead it starts and stops, doubles back, comes to a screeching halt, lurches forward and accelerates in a frenzied crescendo before bursting forth on the first Sunday of May. However chaotic it might be, this structure frames and defines democratic participation in the midst of a creative process that moves toward collective action defined by two fixed ends: a parade form and a calendar deadline. Participatory democracy in its purest form would most likely be a disaster for such a creative process, summarized in the pejorative phrase, “making art by committee.” In the initial stages of the May Day process, only two limits are placed on democratic participation as community members voice their hopes and concerns. But as the process continues, participation is constrained by increasingly narrow limits on individual voice to form a unified, complex, and plural communal voice. The next steps in the May Day process facilitate decision-making, then progress toward collective action. Yet the authenticity of voice is maintained throughout the process so that decisions have integrity and collective actions are responsible to initial individual voices.

Artistic Deliberations May Day artists spend much of their winter deliberations striving to authentically represent individual voices as they shape the collective voice of the parade. Representation in May Day is both an attempt to signify the voices of the community planning meeting and an attempt to perform those voices to an audience on parade day. Spivak addresses this distinction when she distinguishes between, “representation as ‘speaking for,’ as in politics, and representation as ‘re-presentation’ as in art” (Spivak, 1988, p. 28). In the democratizing leadership of May Day, the artists argue over both forms as they speak for the voice of the community, and re-present that voice to a larger community audience. Much of the deliberative work during May Day artist meetings is a slow shaping of consensus, occasionally marked by sudden clarity of artistic forms or flashing conflict or remarkable agreement. May Day artists begin debriefing the first community planning meeting just days after. Staff artists meet several times a week, over the course of 6 weeks, to explore, enhance, and elaborate the ideas and images raised by the community. This is a period of development when democratizing leadership appears in sharp contrast to other theaters that undertake

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performance development with a more expert and insular approach. Notes from the first community planning meeting are often referenced as artists develop images that coalesce into distinct themes for the parade. During these meetings, individual artists raise up images that have begun to take form in their imagination, presenting them in a deliberative process, representing patterns and connections between the community’s concerns and hopes. An ordinary puppeteer or theater company might strive first for a compelling story and visual impact, but these puppetistas attend to the social implications of their material so that the production authentically represents communal voice. Deliberation can become agonistic debate as artists grapple with ideas and themes that will resonate (represent) with the community participants’ hopes and concerns, and the way it might be read (perceived) by parade spectators. Artists also struggle to clarify which ideas spring from their personal artistic iconography and what has been raised up by the community. It reflects Freire’s decoding process, determining what is given and what is constructed, analyzing the ideological and hegemonic origins of ideas and images. Although there is much agreement in these weeks, arguments sometimes erupt regarding the meaning and cultural connotations of particular symbols, precedence and prevalence of themes in past parades, and the technical appropriateness of objects to the parade form versus a static work of art or theatrical performance. This process is a powerful example of agonistic approach to interpretation of the symbols and values that will represent the new hegemony of collaboration, both in process and product. Early in the first meeting, Anita pulls back her black hair and peers over black-framed glasses at the other artists. She asks rhetorically, but in a very emotional and expressive tone, I guess I want to use death as a perspective, sort of like, “What would I want my last May Day to be like?” I mean, if this was it, what would I do? [This comment draws intense silence and focuses the group] The bridge is an obvious theme from last night and I also heard about “gaps” as places that are uncomfortable but also where change happens.

This comment becomes eerily prescient by the next meeting, one week later, when Anita announces sullenly, Right after our last meeting, my children’s father had a massive heart attack and a quadruple bypass two days later . . . he is my ex but we live together to raise our children and this hits our family very strongly . . . he has participated in the parade for the last 10 years . . . he needs a left ventricular assist device placed on his heart so that he can live until he gets a heart trans-

166    Democratizing Leadership plant . . . they call it a bridge and in talking with a support group for heart attack survivors they say everyone gets this bridge until other technology or a transplant is available.

Immediately after her announcement, artists concern themselves with Anita’s well-being, then turn to implications for the parade. Someone recalls the participant whose heart attack compelled him to participate. Images of hearts and bridges receive intense attention and remain prominent metaphors in meetings that follow. Formation of communal voice uses integrative power in alignment with democratizing leadership. In some settings, communal voice may be formed by finding the common denominators between individual voices, lifting those common voices as communal, and discarding uncommon voices as extraneous. Such an approach may be expedient or efficient, but it also allows for the tyranny of the majority and is likely to lose the richness of thick democratic process (Carr & Lund, 2008). May Day provides a richly plural democratic space for voices that represent diverse, even divergent themes. In the midst of deliberations, artists propose a float themed on the “Seven Wonders of the Sustainable World,” including the bicycle, pad thai, ceiling fan, condom, lady bug, sari, and clothesline. These seven are held up as exemplary objects that directly or indirectly reduce human impact on the ecological world. There is substantial agreement that these objects all represent voices raised on this issue in the first community planning meeting. The last item, the clothesline, is described as saving substantial energy used by clothes dryers, thereby reducing carbon emissions and other detrimental impacts of energy production. But Joni points out that this image might read as liberatory or as oppressive depending on the identity of the spectator. To a younger audience, the clothesline might represent a liberating object, something that frees them from mechanized fossil-fuel energy-dependent devices. But to my generation, or especially my Mom’s generation and especially women, the clothesline is a symbol of oppression, of drudgery and women’s work that binds them to endless chores at home. So if we’re going to use clothesline as one of the Wonders, how do we communicate liberation in the mega watts saved by air-drying clothes to women who feel enslaved by the image?

Exemplifying attentiveness to the dynamics of representation in forming communal voice, Joni consistently analyzes how May Day images speak for, and speak to, the community. Perfect representation in both aspects may be impossible. But when she identifies problematic representation of voice, Joni challenges artists to address implicit ideological tensions. Developing

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communal voice is more problematic when tensions between hegemonic values remain unacknowledged and potentially less problematic when acknowledged and accounted for in processes that move from individual to communal voice through the artists’ decision-making. Such acknowledgement will likely extend or complicate the democratic processes and will be addressed to an extreme. It may also paralyze leadership or participants if their concern for authentic voice limits movement toward decision-making. Consideration of every individual voice equally would make developing a communal voice impossible. Therefore equity in the level and quality of representation for individual voices in the formation of collective voice is a significant temporal judgment to be made by democratizing leadership in light considerations past (injustice, oppression, silencing), present (access to power, political literacy, agency), and future (advocacy, urgency, exigency). Criteria for making such judgments are conditional on too many factors to be addressed by generalizations here, but it will be the constant work for democratizing leadership as evidenced in these case studies. Conscientious development of self-reflective and iterative processes for attending to voice (in order to grow political literacy among individual participants and develop communal voice) has potential to promote more authentic democratic decision-making and collective action. In another example of communal voice formation, artists discuss diverse associations with the image of rats that came up in the community planning meeting (rat races, rat kings, rats in cars, feeding rats at the bridge, rats getting fatter). At a pause in the discussion, Joni tries to clarify a point by affirming the extrapolation of mythic themes. This leads Joni and Lauren to debate a central orthodoxy of May Day, the use and construction of myths that constitute and reinforce hegemony. Joni: I think it’s really important that we . . . I like that we’re looking at our situation mythologically, or extrapolating it, but I think it’s really important not to mythologicalize [sic] it so much that we see it not as ourselves. Because I think it’s really, really, really important to see how we each in our own way contribute to that and in a sense, buy into that, which is what you’re saying. So that however we are taking that concept, we don’t see it as a mythological rat king unless somehow we see that as being . . . that we really see ourselves in it, I guess is what I’m saying. Keith: Agreed. Lauren: Actually I’d like to make a comment, because it caught my ear. We were talking earlier about not mythologizing things or not using mythology as a starting point because it’s too abstract or too

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far removed, and I’d like to challenge that assumption or assertion, because I think that stories go back a long way with people and I think there are Jungian . . . well whatever . . . I think there are basic ways that people understand. The image of the phoenix is a gorgeous image and it’s something that maybe people from Somali culture wouldn’t know, but it’s still beautiful and it will still look gorgeous curbside. People don’t necessarily know what the story is we’re doing from curbside, but if you have a lot of gorgeous images it’s still a great parade in some ways. So, um, I just really want to say that you can still get people on some level even if it’s not, “Oh I get it, the Trojan horse, the Trojan War, ‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.’ It was still a great section and I think it was a really strong one.” So I just really . . . I think that being afraid of using images like that for inspiration or as a starting place—maybe you want to expand it or explain it in the tabloid, which we did last year with the water goddess—um, I think the rat king would be a really cool image. I like that image. I think people would understand the crown or whatever kind of thing you have . . . this idea of the leader of the rat race or whatever. I just . . . for me, when I hear “don’t mythologize” or “don’t use mythology as a starting place” I start thinking really dry. It just makes me dry up. And it makes me . . . it just makes me feel so alienated from the process. Artists are struck by Lauren’s challenge to Joni’s statement. She speaks with emotion, almost indignation, about her perception that myth is rejected as a starting point or tool for the parade. Her long refutation of this presumed rejection of myth seems to be directed at Joni, as if Joni said “No mythologizing.” Whether Lauren misunderstood Joni or read something into her earlier remarks on myth, this is a topic Lauren is ready to defend. She is articulating her consideration of communal voice as representation, of and to the community. It exemplifies the tension-fraught process of developing communal voice among the artists for representation to the May Day audience. Joni: I didn’t mean to not use it. I just think we have to understand when we use it, where it’s coming from, and how resonant it is. And so to figure out ways of using it that resonate. That’s all I was saying. Lauren: But it’s going to be hard to find something that resonates with everyone because we have a very diverse population in our neighborhood.

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Joni: But to resonate specifically with the mythology . . . But let’s use the example you said of the phoenix, which I think is . . . I picked up on that and someone else in the community meeting talked about the phoenix, actually a couple of people did. This is another example of artists affirming or grounding their idea in individual voices from the community planning meetings; justifying ideas in the democratic space of that meeting such that it commands priority over extrapolations from within the artists’ meetings or altogether new ideas from the artists. Communal voice must be rooted in the actual voices of individuals in the community and not abstracted too many steps away from that original voice in artist representations. Joni: And who knows about the phoenix and who doesn’t know about the phoenix? But that image of something rising out of ashes— the core of what that mythological image came from is very powerful, so that if it’s used well, whether people know it’s called the phoenix or the Trojan Horse, it doesn’t matter because the strength of the image lives. That’s all I was saying. Lauren: No, totally. I was just hearing something other than . . . I was hearing something that really bothered me. Joni: Oh no, I didn’t mean it that way at all. Lauren: I would just hate to not see that image be included for that reason. This impassioned debate exemplifies the earnest integrity of democratizing leadership in the May Day process. Use of mythic imagery must acknowledge historicity, and yet it may also evoke new understanding from members of diverse population for whom it is unfamiliar. It is a problem of semiotics; images and objects are to be beautiful and memorable but not at the cost of meaning that is authentic to individual voices in community planning meetings, and resonant as representations of communal voice to the broader community. Ultimately the parade must be grounded in the voice of the community to represent both the general themes and particular images proposed in community planning meetings and give voice to those themes and images when re-presented to the larger community who gather to witness the parade. As the parade planning process continues, the section teams check-in with the whole artistic staff to negotiate the cohesiveness of the developing parade. As another step in developing communal voice, the diverse and divergent elements of the parade must in some way cohere into a narrative.

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Parade sections are loosely analogous to chapters in a story with some sense of development from beginning to end. In some instances, an individual section will begin to appear as a parade in its own right, as artists find themselves telling an entire story within their section, rather than just one chapter of the story. Artists have a fair amount of autonomy within their section but, as collective action, it must be responsible to the individual community voices that came before and to the other parade sections to constitute the overall theme. As the second community planning meeting approaches at the end of March, artists tentatively name and sketch out the five sections of the parade to be presented to the community for a decision-making process focused on critique and approval. As the community gathers for a second community planning meeting, artists prepare sketches and explanations of parade sections inspired by individual voices from the first meeting and artistic deliberations. Themes and images are critiqued, affirmed, and developed in a decision-making conversation between artistic staff and community participants. Whereas the First Community Planning Meeting creates space for individuals in the community to raise their voices, the Second Community Planning Meeting evokes an affirmation of the shared hopes and concerns of a communal voice to be represented in the parade. This meeting is a pivotal decision-making moment in the May Day process where the parade takes much of its final form. The theater’s lobby functions as a public forum where guests are greeted and the simple process for the evening is explained. Tonight, a green and red Persian-design rug covers the green concrete floor representing the ecological and human roots of May Day respectively. Forty fiberglass chairs again form an oval, two rows deep around the perimeter of the lobby with a dozen beige folding chairs in the corners. The roughly circular arrangement of seats suggests the desired egalitarian nature of this meeting. The only special seating considerations correlate with ease of access for older community participants, one example of equity rather than equality. Kids sit on the red-carpeted steps watching the meeting take shape. The theater auditorium is dark behind open double doors, signifying the open space waiting to be filled with the creative communal work of the parade. Joni, the Artistic Director of the theater, carries a watch in her hands as she slowly paces in front of the growing crowd. The object marks her as responsible for the meeting, even to those who may not know her. Other objects related to time adorn the wall above the doors separating the lobby and foyer. Sun and moon masks, four feet wide in red-orange and greyblue papier-mâché watch over the assembled crowd. They hang in the same place every time I’ve been in the theater and came from a puppet show several years prior. Most papier-mâché work (and there is a tremendous

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volume of papier-mâché production) is recycled or disposed after a performance, however treasured objects are stored in a “puppet warehouse” next door to the theater. These two objects have been privileged by placement in the lobby, the only objects on display here. Calendar time is significant in the May Day process. May Day is the midpoint between spring equinox and summer solstice. In northern climates, it is the beginning of summer weather and planting season, marked in history by fertility rites such as Beltane in Celtic tradition and related to the Christian celebration of Easter. This Second Community Planning Meeting is on or near the spring equinox, when daylight hours become longer than hours of darkness. This transition is especially significant to northern regions where increasing light means the long winter is over. This night marks the time in May Day preparation when the hopes and concerns voiced by individual community members and the thematic decision-making of individual artists transform into the communal themes of the parade. It is the transition from voice, through decision-making, to the collective action of making parade objects, the tangible result of the May Day process. Joni speaks a lengthy introduction to the assembled community. She is expressive, standing in the midst of the seated crowd, facilitating the gathering. Her voice changes dramatically in pitch and volume, sometimes a whisper, often exclamatory, and always more melodic than monotone. The quality of her voice is nurturing and inviting, like a gentle aunt rather than a commanding matriarch. After introductions, she describes the process noted above and the culminating parade, ceremony, and festival: Welcome again everybody. How great to see you! This is an exciting moment for us and also kind of scary, I have to say. The first meeting, for those of you who weren’t here, is very different from this one. The first meeting is brainstorming just kind of all over the map. It’s really pouring out ideas about what is important to people in this place and at this time. Since that time, everybody you’ve heard during introductions say “I’m on May Day Staff” have been meeting in big groups and in smaller groups to go over those notes, and adding our own notes into it, to figure out what an overarching theme might be, and within that [theme] certain sections that might illuminate it, that might help to invigorate our lives, containers to help us mourn, containers to make us laugh, containers to just invigorate us toward the work we have as citizens in this world and with each other at this particular time.

As Joni describes the various “containers,” she speaks the word “mourning” quietly into her cupped hands and lifts her hands and voice together with the word “laugh.” Then she spreads her arms wide to indicate everyone

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present as citizens. The sound of her voice and the movement of her hands communicate as much as her words. So I’m going to speak a little bit of an overview and then I’m going to turn the meeting over to the individual groups or sections, and after that we’ll have time for questions and discussion. So you might want to jot down some questions. If you have a question to just clarify something in the moment, you can ask that clarification. But if we stop and discuss at this point, before we get through the whole thing, then we may never get to the end.

This qualification is an example of democratizing leadership shaping the space for voice. Joni succinctly explains the tensions between voice and collective action. She also narrows the space for voice (described as a democratizing funnel below) in order to move toward decision-making and finally to collective action. How many of you have never seen May Day before? [hands raise] A few of you. The format of May Day, well . . . this is May Day! We are already doing May Day! The community brainstorm process, the staff meetings: its all part of May Day.

Joni regularly makes this assertion to participants. Because of the open process and the lack of initiation rites or membership obligations, it seems difficult for participants to acknowledge this as May Day, in the beginning or even in the midst of the process. Very experienced participants understand this, John for instance. He has been part of May Day for 15 years and now participates in the artist meetings by leaving notes and by working on papier-mâché projects during workshops. But he attends only the Saturday rehearsals, staying home on the Sunday of the parade, ceremony, and festival. He finds more personal meaning and community cohesion in the process than the event. Many participants I spoke with could only look back on the process to realize how important each early step was to their entire experience of May Day. Voice, decision-making, and collective action occur during a 3-month process, not just on the day-long parade over 12 city blocks. Joni describes it in this way: The more visible part of it will unfold when this area [the lobby] becomes a clay room, and the auditorium is set up with tables and it becomes a giant workshop for the making of what we’re going to be talking about tonight. There is a parade and a ceremony and a festival on May Day. The parade looks like other parades, but it is different too. We attempt to tell a story. It’s not necessarily a narrative story, but it is people thinking and making and

Case Studies of Democratizing Leadership    173 acting on a theme. That’s followed by the Tree of Life Ceremony in Powderhorn Park. It’s a renewal of community and a celebration of this green Earth that surrounds us and holds us. And then there’s a festival of performance and food that goes until dusk. That is the day of May Day. But since you’re all here, I suspect that you’re all interested in getting involved in the workshops, which I believe is really the heart of May Day; people working sideby-side, getting dirty, and being together. The networking and friendships that are made in that process are unparalleled. What happens on the street that day is another whole thing and very different form working together in the workshop.

The democratizing mission of the theater is evident here in Joni’s exhortations about relationships made in shared work. She constructs a larger frame of collaboration around the smaller frame of making art in workshops to provide context for collective action and the tangible work ahead. Lastly I want to say something about the meeting tonight. In some ways we’re in a good place to talk about ideas, and in another way it’s a very fragile time where ideas are beginning to come together and coalesce, but they’re not completely well formed. Because of that, it’s a really important time for you to be here because even in that fragile state of ideas, you’re going to be able to give feedback to all of us who have been in these meetings developing a sort of insular language. You’ll be able to know if something is resonating beyond our group. And that’s a really important part of these meetings. Does it mean something to you? Do you see yourself in it? If you were to choose a section to be in, is there one you’re really gravitating towards? For all those reasons we’re here together tonight.

In so many words, Joni describes the movement from voice, through decision-making, to collective action, but in very personal terms. Avoiding the abstractive potential in the movement from personal to communal, she continually grounds each next step in the people present. Analogous to praxis as the interplay between tangible practice and abstract theory, democratizing leadership also attends to the interplay between individual authenticity in the midst of communal identity. Joni continues by introducing the content of the parade sections to be discussed: First thing to say is we have no title for this parade yet. And if you say, “What’s the parade about, what’s the theme?” (and that’s the thing you say for May Day, “What’s the theme?”) I’m not sure I can say it in one sentence. But I can tell you that out of your brainstorming we have chosen “bridge” or “how to bridge” or the support structures that we give to each other to live in this world together. And of course it also comes from the local bridge disaster. In that moment we all saw something that we trusted to be there suddenly not be there. In the ecumenical service for the victims, this quote was read:

174    Democratizing Leadership “If a bridge of iron, steel and concrete can fall down, then a human bridge of faith, trust, confidence and hope must be established.” Bridges may show up in each of the sections, but we’re also talking about the ideas of a bridge, the place in a path that is a vulnerable place, a place where there is a gap, a place that brings two sides together. So be thinking about that as we go through these sections.

Here Joni lays out general and specific May Day terminology, themes and bridges respectively. She recalls the bridge theme from the first meeting and then adds the Imam’s words, modeling the integrative process of the artistic staff meetings she referred to earlier. There is also an overriding theme of May Day that is true every single year. We are celebrating the two roots of May Day: the green root and the red root. And the green root is the obvious root of the earth and the incredible energy we see waking us up from the spell of winter. The other one is the red root, the blood root, the human root, the power of change in peoples’ hands, hearts, and minds. Twining together of the change-bringing of the earth and the change-bringing of our hands; that’s May Day.

The linguistic struggle to speak about humans-in-nature without separating them is a recurrent concern for Joni. She searches for a single term to encapsulate ecology and humanity without distinction. The end of her introduction provides the largest of frames for May Day. The red and green roots form the counter-hegemonic structure of May Day, challenging the domination-driven, individualistic, and anthropocentric norms of contemporary society. Next in the Second Community Planning Meeting, each of the artistic teams presents its parade section to the community, providing visual symbolic representations of the still-forming communal voice. In twos or threes they hold up sketches, speak descriptively if sometimes confusedly about the images they envision, and invite critique or affirmation as part of the decision-making implicit in a democratically derived communal voice. Doug and Jerod present section one, titled “Racing Toward Collapse.” Jerod envisions a giant teetering bridge with people dressed as rats in cars racing around it, trying to get on it and race up it. He refers to the recurring image of bridge from the First Community Planning Meeting, but distinguishes his bridge from the specific tragedy of the bridge collapse. He wants to respectfully use this image to represent failed investment in infrastructure as we all pursue immediate gratification and individual rather than communal interests. Doug jumps in to describe his 24-foot, six-person

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puppet named “Consumo,” which represents all those things we pursue that distract us from what is really important in life. Joni introduces section two by referring to a question from the First Community Planning Meeting, “What raises our heads so that we may hope?” Staff artist Anita describes the heart attack and bypass surgery her partner experienced just after the first meeting. She holds back tears as she describes sweeping away fears with phoenix brooms, carrying the Tree of Life—the primary symbol of May Day—in this section, drumming the beat of a large anatomical heart float with spinning dancers; all images that emerged from a dream she had in the midst of her personal crisis. The crowd listens in hushed respect for the pain Anita is obviously feeling and again nods their approval as she relates this very personal iconography to voices raised in the First Community Planning Meeting. Mary also explains her contribution to the section. Future beans are large seed pod rattles in the form of baby animals, plants, and humans that speak of hope for future generations, based in part on Joanna Macy’s notion of “future beings” and the Native American concept of deciding with seven generations in mind. Section three, entitled “Now!” is premised around the innovation that comes from socioeconomic necessity. Artists had deliberated passionately over the language used in this section. Lauren and Aaron were both advocating for the celebration of slums, barrios, favelas and townships, without glamorizing the suffering and injustice of such communities. Joni and others felt strongly that celebrating these terms meant celebrating deplorable conditions. So during this Second Community Planning Meeting, Lauren and Aaron settled on the awkward phrase “heavily populated areas without resources” rather than slums. They also passed around sketchbooks with tentative ideas about community-based organizations marching in their section, double-dutch jump rope squads, swallow-nest slums, and graffiti panels on wheels. Next to me, a 20-something man of mixed race sketched these ideas excitedly in his notebook, but many participants looked confused or stared blankly at their description. This particular section did not resonate with most of the community as the artists had intended, nor as the previous two sections had, even though it incorporated many individual voices from the First Community Planning Meeting. The fourth section was equally opaque to many in the room. “But Think Ahead” was described as the struggle to move from present problems to future solutions; similar to Freire’s notion of limit-situations (1973, 1992). Lakshmi, Curt, and Keith took turns describing kids-as-horned-animals butting big-butted-adults forward, a giant brain on a float, permaculture-garden bicycle-propelled mini-floats, and something about dynamic balance. This section had struggled to differentiate itself from section three and to combine

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the visions of three artists rather than two. And, similar to section two, individual voices were not yet well integrated into this communal voice. In contrast to the previous two sections, and with communal effect, section five is named “We Are” and is made up of mushrooms and butterflies to represent interconnection and interdependence. Masa’s description of mushroom-capped kids and a giant earth-face has little connection to Augusto’s butterfly kids, butterflies on stilts, and butterfly kites. But the green-root images they communicate are simple, clear, tangible, and beautiful. The efficacy of this theme was evident in the scores of volunteers who flocked to section five that night and in the art workshops to follow. Joni recaps each section briefly and then invites decision-making comments and questions, critiques and affirmations, to be fielded by Deborah. One early comment creates tension because it strays from the Joni’s proscription for this meeting. Nick, a 20-something White male, all in black, begins a long description of an unrelated event occurring in the same park this coming September: a global prayer for peace that he hopes to connect to May Day in some way. This brings mixed reactions from the assembly; some grumble about self-promotion and others see obvious connections between the values expressed in both events. Lauren sees a connection with section three and redirects the meeting by offering to explore it further afterwards. This sort of facilitation by one of the artists is a strong example of democratizing leadership invested in a collaborative team rather than in a hierarchical position of authority. Many comments during the discussion affirm the artists’ ideas and images. One participant wants to “honor the work that has been done” but wonders if spectators will identify with rats, or if that image will make it too easy to see characters in the rat race as “those people who have it all wrong.” Another wonders if there is a unifying theme in the parade, but isn’t too worried because, “My daughter is gonna want to be a butterfly, I can tell you that!” During a pause, a 50-year-old man named Frank says, “My 9-year-old daughter is a survivor of the bridge incident and I think you are doing them an honor by drawing out the larger themes for the community. Thank you for approaching that with respect.” His voice leads to interrelated conversations about bridges, spans, spanning obstacles, lifespans, generations, transformations, and butterflies. A sense of affirmation and agreement, a collaborative, deliberative consensus, pervades the room as the close of the meeting approaches. Joni calls the meeting to an end without the finality of a closing song this time, only an invitation to join in the continuing process. Participants gather in knots around the artists to continue the discussion and celebrate

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the completion of this decision-making moment. It represents a movement from voice, through decision-making, toward collective action, however many more decisions lie ahead. The Second Community Planning Meeting narrows the democratic space to limit new or contending voices in order to move toward collective action. I find myself in conversation with Alex, a young White man who is confined to a wheelchair by cerebral palsy. Through his computer display, he tells me he is part of longtime May Day musical group Your Community Band. Every year we play You Are My Sunshine as a dirge. We lie down in the middle of Lake Street, except for me [followed by J], and then speed it up and sing it with joy as kind of a metaphor for the coming of spring. The song wakes us up and the end is like a jazzy “NO!” to winter. It’s like in one song, by changing the tempo, we can symbolize what this whole thing is about.

Although May Day puppetry is primarily a visual performance art, music and text also contribute to its counter-hegemonic messages. Alex and I make a point of connecting during the art workshops and I notice the same arrangements being made all around me: “See you at the first workshop next week,” or “Let’s get coffee at the May Day Coffee Shop before the workshop,” or “Do you want to be mushrooms together this year?” Collective action is already begun.

Community Collective Action Following the second community planning meeting, artist teams work intensely over a short week to incorporate community feedback into a single large sketch representing their design for the section. Then section sketches are posted as a single storyboard in the foyer of the theater to guide art workshop participants over the next 5 weeks. Public art workshops occur on Tuesday and Thursday nights and all day Saturday during the month of April. The theater overflows with participants making masks and section-specific oversized puppets and floats. Some participants stop in for a day to apply papier-mâché or paint a puppet. Others show up at each available opportunity to help shape the parade from start to finish. School classes, community groups, and neighbors join a section to make puppets or masks and eventually perform in the parade. At the start of each art workshop, new participants gather in the foyer as Joni describes the storyboard hanging on the high walls above the exterior and lobby doors. She briefly describes the process of voice and decisionmaking up to this point and tells the story of the parade section by section.

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Then she invites participants to choose whichever section appeals to them and guides them through the lobby or into the auditorium. Over the next few weeks, colorfully painted cardboard signs that identify each section will become lost in the papier-mâché creations that accumulate around them. As I busy myself with preparations at an early April workshop, Jerod pauses in his work on section one to offer me this advice: The first few workshops have to be about relationships and communication. There’s always work to do but the connections start early when people are open and wondering what to do. It’s a lot harder to connect with somebody when their stressing out over the last bit of papier-mâché work and don’t have time left to paint it. Take some time early on to just meet people, talk, and connect.

His advice about attending to voice in the early stages of art workshops deepens my research and my engagement with the May Day process. I do my best to take his advice and meet participants in the midst of their puppet-making to share their awe at the creative work of collective action. In this dynamic collaboration between artists and community participants, the physical artifacts of the parade are produced out of papier-mâché, cardboard, bike tires, and bamboo. Big sheets of single-ply cardboard are favored by many of the artists as precious flexible surface material, so much so that Curt owns up to hoarding “the good stuff” because he bartered some time teaching about puppetry to get donations. In the midst of a workshop, Joni wonders aloud about the growing scarcity of recycled puppet materials as people learn to reduce, reuse and recycle. When supplies occasionally dwindle, artists compare notes about the best places to “dumpster dive” for more. Much of the collective action follows the parade storyboard, but original additions spring from the ongoing decision-making of individual participants. In the midst of 40 round mushroom heads in section five, a tall morel mushroom head takes shape. A crowd of butterfly wings is joined by two water bugs with articulated exoskeletons—armadillo-like cardboard insects. An incongruous robot puppet with cardboard box body and PVC limbs grows out of the slums (heavily populated areas without resources) of section three. While small groups make giant papier-mâché roses at the section two station, Anita is on stage directing several dedicated participants and her son in the construction of an anatomically correct, eight-foot heart. It lies on a cart with wheels made of green wooden discs fitted with knobby tires. The heart is constructed of dozens of interconnected bamboo hoops,

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wrapped in papier-mâché and painted red, then tightly covered with clear plastic film. The main portion of the heart is constituted by four large barrels, covered with drumheads, near the back of the cart: the heart’s beating chambers. During one workshop, I find Anita deep inside the nearly completed heart, idly painting the hoop structures red, perhaps contemplating her poignant creation and its inspiration. By comparison, section three seems to be a more collaborative project, if also a messy collage of colors, textures, forms, and styles. Images and objects collected under the title “Now!” reflect the diverse themes Lauren and Aaron struggled to assemble during the artist meetings. This paradewithin-a-parade includes colorful cardboard models of slums and barrios constructed over kids’ wagons to be pulled down the street as minifloats. Graffiti-covered model tenement walls are punctuated by tiny tableaux in the open windows of apartment blocks and squatters shacks. A recycledfashion show displays outfits made from discarded plastic and compact discs. Large 6-by-6-foot double-sided panels are slowly covered with layers of graffiti-inspired images that burst from their borders in thematic and visual angst. Midway through the workshop month of April, the fragile structures of giant swallows appear, first a single prototype, then a handful and more. The body is made of thin bamboo hoops joined together by small cardboard squares that alternate with something of a checkerboard effect. The 8-foot wingspans are fashioned of long thin bamboo strips in graceful curves. These skeletal frames are soon covered in tissue paper and one by one their finished forms are hoisted on ropes into the upper reaches of the theater until a small flock of large blue and orange birds hover above the workshop/stage. The theater doors are locked most of the year because of a shortage of staff and the presence of some criminal activity in the neighborhood. But during May Day preparations the door are unlocked during cold days, then flung wide when the temperature climbs. Security remains a concern of the theater staff, yet the presence of so many people engaged in collective action is regarded as a deterrent to crime, a benefit of democratic engagement, and movement from protected interior to bustling exterior is free flowing. Sidewalks, streets, and theater workshops all function as free spaces; a mediating space between “private lives and large-scale institutions” (Evans & Boyte, 1986/1992, p. ix). In these spaces individual workshop participants create art in a parade section and as part of the whole, rarely as an isolated or private endeavor. This setting, “combines strong communal ties with larger public relationships and aspects” (Evans & Boyte, 1986/1992, p. ix). It draws people together out of shared interests (or sheer curiosity)

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to find a more assertive group identity between the intimacy of private lives and the formality of institutional membership. Democratizing potluck dinners take place half an hour before weeknight workshops in the office space overlooking the auditorium-turned-workshop. The potluck is intended for artists, staff, and volunteers who help run the various aspects of the art workshop, but no one who wanders upstairs is turned away. Volunteers in the clay room, costume nook, tool shop, and workshop at-large are treated to a feast prepared by the artists. The meal nourishes everyone for the intensely creative and chaotic workshop ahead. Artist teams, usually by section, sign up in advance to provide food for the potluck. Many of them are as creative in the kitchen as they are in the theater, bringing delicious dishes made from scratch and sometimes representing their ethnic background: venison wild rice mushroom stew, pasta and meat sauce, vegan soup. Those who can’t cook or don’t have time acknowledge these limitations by bringing in take-out food from local restaurants. Dishes are spread out on the office table overlooking the workshop and the rest of the tables are pushed together to form one large table ringed by chairs, stools, and even sturdy theater props. There are no assigned seats and artists tend to sit near strangers, to hear their story over stew or tortas from a nearby restaurant. There seems to be an unspoken prohibition against discussing parade or workshops issues. Instead, the focus is on relationship building and community happenings. It is an opportunity to dismantle the hierarchy of professional artist and theater volunteer to create a more horizontal model of collaborative, democratizing leadership. As May approaches, each section holds a rehearsal to move participants from the decision-making associated with aesthetics and meaning (What color? How big? Does it resonate with my section?) to making and performing as collective action. Puppet forms that seem enormous in the theater workshop shrink in the context of 3-story buildings and long city blocks. Colors vivify as they move from dark theater to bright sun. And the realities of wind and rain inspire last minute modifications to avoid papier-mâché disasters. This movement toward collective action mirrors the movement from theory to practice in democratizing leadership. Ideas developed in the insular spaces of small groups must be implemented in communities where they demand modification and adaptation to unique contexts and unforeseen circumstances. Lauren, the longtime contract artist from the neighborhood, labors to represent a cohesive artistic representation of the communal voice that emerges from community planning meetings while reserving democratic spaces for individual voices of participants in the midst of the process. To

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address this tension, she integrates some elements in her “Now!” parade section that have a more defined visual theme (like the 8-foot bamboo and tissue paper swallows) and others that are open to interpretation by participants (such as recycled-fashion outfits). Yet even her unified presentation of swallow puppets is secondary to the voice and decisions of participants. When Lauren explains to a group of kids that her barn swallows are blue and orange and that these are the thematic colors of her section, a young girl says she wants to paint a swallow red and black. Without hesitation Lauren responds, “Of course, of course you can honey. If you’re passionate about those colors then do it.” She gives a similar response to the father of a child with autism disorder who sheepishly explained that his son was really hoping to make a papier-mâché robot. When I asked about this later, Lauren explained, “I wanted him to have that ‘yes’ in his life. It’s soul-destroying to hear ‘no’ all the time, and we’ll find a way to make a robot fit in our section.” She says kids tend to jump right in to workshops and are comfortable being creative. Adults might seek artistic expression too, but also yearn for a place to belong and seem more willing to join in a consensus-based collective action, as Lauren describes: There’s something about all that music and drumming and chaos and colors and people and just wanting to be in it somehow and a part of it. I think that’s so bone-deep in human beings. I mean, there are people who will run away screaming from it. But most of us, even quiet, introverted types, tend to think it’s tribe time . . . we want to be a part of the tribe.

This need to belong is evident throughout the May Day process and other outreach efforts from In the Heart of the Beast Theater. Curt, a White staff artist in his 30s, describes a stilting class he taught in preparation for the Gay Pride Parade in Minneapolis. A lesbian couple brought along their teenage son who seemed embarrassed to be at the theater, perhaps embarrassed to be in a public setting with his parents. Then he saw one of his school classmates with his family. He had no idea his friend’s parents were gay too and they immediately bonded. “They were just thrilled to be in the parade and it was amazing to see them walking tall right down the middle Minneapolis on Hennepin Avenue.” In addition to raising them up on stilts, Curt’s class gave individual students the democratic space to raise their own identity, to find and use their voice in supportive collective action. Joni sums up the joy of democratic spaces when she expresses how much it means to see something articulated through shared creative collective action: “It says ‘Yes!’ we are moving together as a people, we are thinking these things, we are acting these things, we are seeing them together, we are doing them.” Such democratic spaces can be both refuge and stage

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for participants who need a supportive community to use their voice with others. At the first artist staff meeting of the May Day process, just prior to the First Community Planning Meeting, a neighborhood resident and longtime volunteer named Dede walked in during introductions. Instead of being excluded from the typically private artists’ meeting, she was greeted with a cheer and invited into the circle. At the public meeting later that night, she said, I’ve been living in poverty a long time and it’s disturbing to see more people coming down to my level [but] this theater is the epitome of sharing . . . people here are so generous. I’m sure the parade will incorporate what we share here together and it will give people hope.

Later in the May Day process, I spoke with Dede in the costume nook where she volunteers as a seamstress. This shy, 30-year-old African American woman said with tears in her eyes, “This is such an accepting community. When I’m lonely and just need to connect, everybody here is so welcoming and comforting.” For Dede, May Day provides a space for belonging and a democratic space to use her voice. In the Heart of the Beast Theater is transformational on many levels. It was developed in a derelict pornographic theater, transforming the physical space on Lake Street. Similarly, the May Day process creates a democratic space in a community struggling with economic hardship. Ben, another 70-year-old veteran of May Day and the Sun Boat captain, remembers the group of local teenage boys who got involved when the theater first moved into this building around 1987. “They were running around and I thought ‘This is going to be trouble!’ But then some years later, those same kids became the responsible leaders of the next generation of puppeteers.” The consistency and relative permanence of this physical space allows the community to anticipate the annual democratic free space. Ben says, “It’s the only thing in my life where I can say ‘I know where I was on that day in that year’—I can’t even say that about Christmas!” For over 30 years, participants have identified with the theater as their own and now can’t imagine its absence. In the Heart of the Beast Theater has become more than a physical public space—the theater is a significant democratic free space. Even so, theater staff wrestles with the tensions between the absolute inclusivity they espouse and the tendency for communities to define themselves by who belongs and who does not. “Community” has many connotations in the May Day process and is used to describe a variety of relationship systems. But central to the meaning of the word is the movement from

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isolation to participation and a sense of belonging to something bigger than one’s self or one’s biological family. When asked to define community, Dan, a board member who helped found the theater, said “community” at In the Heart of the Beast Theater is in the moment and best described by a series of concentric circles. “At the core you have the staff and board and key volunteers . . . then you have the neighborhood, the local business community, the broader neighborhood of South Minneapolis. And then you have the community of impact . . . which goes internationally.” For Dan, time, geography, and most of all, participation, define the May Day community. When his 6-year-old granddaughter Jenny asked Masa when she would be old enough to be a puppeteer, Masa answered, “Well, I think you are old enough right now.” Reflecting on that moment, Dan exclaimed with the pride of a grandfather, “That’s as democratic as you can be! Everybody gets to participate. Everybody is an artist. Everybody gets to be a star.” He continued, Thinking about it in terms of democratic spaces, it’s been a conscious discussion about In the Heart of the Beast Theater as a place that does participatory art. And that’s really been a direction of the theater for a long, long time and has been probably in the last half dozen years articulated in contrast to the spectator democracy of other places. Joni, well I know she didn’t just come up with this idea. These are things that obviously have been discussed among intellectuals and theater folk for a long time. But that’s a piece of how we need to be about working together, living in a community together, and learning to trust each other to work together. And I think that the parade really is about people . . . there’s a great deal of trust and energy created. I think it’s about how we model ways that we can actually do things together—and have fun and make art and replenish ourselves and our souls. I mean, that’s why people come to May Day—they come because for many people it is a very deeply and very, very important, deeply spiritual event for them.

Most empowering are the intentionally democratic spaces in the May Day process. These spaces flatten the vertical, hierarchical power dynamics that structure typical community relationships. In these spaces, plural and diverse voices come together as communal voices in an egalitarian process of creation to engage in collective action. Marcus, a mixed-race artist visiting from Chicago, says the theater’s openness and participatory character distinguishes it from all others: It’s multigenerational and encompasses an entire community surrounding this establishment, and I’ve met people today [in the workshop] from Germany, France . . . even Northern Wisconsin! What’s new to me about this is

184    Democratizing Leadership just the level of foundation, of community support that’s built up over so many years, and the level of awareness—and not just awareness like knowing about it, but awareness and a real personal investment in the spirit of the event.

Marcus was emphatic about his appreciation for the extended network of relationships and communication among artists and the level of awareness, support, and investment from the surrounding community. He claimed May Day allows people to practice democracy, developing essential skills while bringing the notion of community to life. May Day in itself has all the elements of what I would consider a movement. It effectively petitions the expression by the people of that which they laud and disdain. It reflects thoughtfully and generously its understanding of the people’s expression. It involves the people directly in the process of translating and connecting the abstract concept of their feeling about the state of things in the world, into a concrete interactive, representational form. And then finally, through the performance of the May Day ceremony and by responding to the ending of the ceremony—Tree of Life is reborn and Spring comes and peace, life, fertility, and abundance remain possible in the world—In the Heart of the Beast Theater has an opportunity to suggest a plausible path of transcendence. In this way, depending upon how personally moving or inspiringly rational the dramatic formula of each year’s parade and ceremony, each year’s May Day celebration has the potential to inspire movement. And by involving the community in the hopeful process of expressing its desire to a larger audience, it is a movement of its own, year after year.

Parade sections reflect “the peoples’ expressions” and “plausible paths of transcendence,” from individual to communal voice, culled out of the decision-making of community planning meetings and artists’ meetings, and moved to collective action through art workshops and parade performance. Counter-hegemonic messages emerged from the theater and onto the streets in parade rehearsals. In section one of the parade, a giant puppet named Consumo symbolizes the section theme, “Racing Towards Collapse.” The tone of the section is implicit in Consumo’s monstrous 20-foot form lumbering ominously over the crowd controlled by no less than five puppeteers. By the time Consumo emerges from the theater, its body is covered with newspaper articles, advertisements and words that convey an explicit, urgent consumerism: buy more, consume, sale, today only! On the parade route, Consumo is led by a carrot on a stick. This section presents consumerism as a threatening monster, a theme that was raised in the first community planning meeting, with images that were also raised in that meeting and later elaborated in artists’ meetings.

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Other sections express the parade’s counter-hegemonic messages with more subtlety. “Now!” (section three) juxtaposes the devastation of urban slums with the resiliency and innovation that emerges from dire need. Large swallow puppets fly in the parade with multiple metaphors: finding homes under bridges hinted at bridges as a refuge for the homeless; yet the communal swallow colony suggested the values of cooperative living. “But Think Ahead” (section four) imagines alternative technologies and social arrangements that sustain human and ecological balance, even as hornedanimal puppets butt along slow-moving humans wearing big pink papiermâché buttocks on suspenders. All of these imaginative, challenging, even ridiculous ideas and images are rooted in community planning meeting voices and art workshop decisions. The May Day process creates multiple opportunities for practicing democratic skills. The May Day Parade—the event itself—provides a public space for collective action, an opportunity to take the product of communal voice and democratic decision-making into the streets to an audience of more than 30,000 citizens.

The May Day Parade Its early morning on May Day! Theater doors are flung wide. Puppets and artists and participants pour out into the sunshine like bees from a hive. Rented delivery trucks are loaded to capacity and volunteers push floats eight blocks away to the line-up area. The parade route begins in a predominantly Native American neighborhood where an intentional Christian community first dreamed this parade decades ago. As I help load trucks and toss my own 14-foot backpack puppet aboard, Lauren follows her swallows out of the theater. She is visibly emotional and says simply, “I love this good spirit—the willingness to jump in and help. I wish it could be like this everyday.” As she proceeds to the line-up, I sit in the back of the delivery truck to help guide Masa’s 20-foot-long earth-face down the street. The bamboo frame is attached to the bumper and it rolls on makeshift casters. As we slowly turn the first corner onto a busy boulevard, I see Lauren’s sentiment in action. Cars make way, people honk and wave, and when the giant mask starts jack-knifing into the bumper of the truck, passers-by run to help, lifting the mask back in line and then walking with it the last five blocks. Line-up is a circus of people, puppets, masks, bands, stilt-walkers, and onlookers. The parade sections stretch four city blocks and the join-in section fills a nearby city park. Artists and volunteers engage in frantic last-minute preparations while participants adjust costumes, secure stilts, and wait impatiently for the parade to move. I get ready near the front of section five, “We

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Are,” and help kids around me tie on butterfly wings and mushroom heads. Our Community Band warms up and plays the songs we’ll hear for the next few hours, including You Are My Sunshine. In his electric wheelchair, Alex plays along with them and smiles each time he strikes his triangle. Fellow totem puppets show up and adjust their backpacks for the long walk. Word is passed down the parade line that the first section has started, but 30 minutes pass before our section slowly begins to move. A parade marshal accompanies each section and helps us navigate corners and police traffic control. Far ahead, at the very front, Veterans for Peace hold the title banner and lead the parade. Section one, “Racing Towards Collapse,” follows with a 30-foot-long, 20-foot-high “bridge of debt,” which teeters on a single pair of wheels. Ratmasked participants in cardboard car outfits race around the bridge trying to catch an elusive carrot dangled from above. The giant Consumo lumbers above the six puppeteers who control him, encouraging the crowd to “Buy more, keep shopping, spend, spend, spend!” The rat band stops at every pile of police-horse manure to get a good sniff. Then, following vertical black banners cataloging the social ills of our time, the Tree of Life is carried on a bier under a black shroud. Tall mourners follow: women 10 feet tall draped in black robes with papier-mâché faces and larger papier-mâché hands lifted and folded in supplication. At the end of section one, a yellow and black striped character gets a transfusion on a gurney, changing out oil for the blood of section two. Section two, “Change of Heart,” is escorted by women in white dresses carrying large papier-mâché roses. The enormous heart rolls by with drummers riding on the cart, keeping a steady beat. More women in white spin in the street and two 12-foot-tall puppets in the same outfits (wearing the masks I sculpted) spin there too. As the heartbeat sound fades, an Native American school and drum group marches up, followed by two dozen participants dressed in red and carrying the pod-shaped “future beans.” Section two concludes with Aztec dancers and a group of red-shirted sweepers with wide brooms. Section three, “Now!” begins with giant swallows suspended atop tall poles. An African American step dance team sets the beat for recycled fashion models on stilts. Graffiti murals pulled by bikes are followed by slum- and barrio-covered wagons close behind. A youth drum corps and step team accompanies blue banners, each with the name of a local social change organization. Another drum corps leads a shanty project and Argentine mummers in the celebratory end of “Now!”

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Section four, “But Think Ahead,” is led by black and yellow striped characters wearing huge pink papier-mâché buttocks on suspenders. Horned animal puppets on bikes “butt” these slow moving adults forward, as do dozens of horned mask-wearing marchers. More marchers dressed in green carry puppets representing future-thinking alternatives including a 3-foot papier-mâché rolling head with a butterfly chrysalis hanging above its open cranium. A room-sized papier-mâché head follows, beach-ball sized eyes looking up to its exposed purple-blue brains and down to the crowd. Next, an 8-foot skull built over a shopping cart rolls by with 3-foot worms wriggling from its eye sockets and a “fossil fuel gauge” in its forehead reading “empty.” The section ends with two-dozen characters in black and yellow striped shirts. Section five, “We Are,” begins with more than 40 participants in multicolored butterfly outfits. Some have fabric wings fluttering in the wind. Others have wings cut from cardboard and painted blue, green, and yellow. Ten young women walk on stilts with wings and robes flowing behind. Our Community Band comes next, all dressed in red and dancing with their instruments, whether they are playing or not. One instrument is an 8-footlong combination of brass horns; so long, it rolls on a pair of bicycle wheels. The first group of totems, including me under a 15-foot phoenix totem, accompanies more butterflies and the mushrooms that in turn make way for the giant earth-face. Held aloft by more than 20 participants, colored ribbons stretch out to represent the mycelium interconnections of fungal organisms. A handful of totems and dozens more participants wearing colorful papier-mâché mushroom heads and even more butterfly wings bring up the end of the section. The last element of the formal parade is the 43rd Avenue Misfits band and two streetwide banners that read, “End of Parade Story” and “Free Speech Section Begins.” The Join-in (or Free Speech Section) includes local elected officials, antiwar groups, a large Hare Krishna contingent carrying a red and yellow temple on a palanquin, other puppet theaters and groups, and individuals spontaneously inspired to add their voices. Even now, on the final and ultimate day, individual voices are raised in the democratic space at parade’s end. At the start of the parade route, the crowds are thin, mostly Latino and Somali families sitting on the curb or on lawn chairs. Two Somali girls stare in wide-eyed amazement asking, “What is this? What is going on? Can we come? How far does it go? We want to come, but we can’t leave this block, our Mom says!” A Latino boy on a bike rides up, “Dad says I can ride my bike if my brother walks me back from the park. Does this happen every year? I can’t wait for the next one!”

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As we turn onto Bloomington Avenue, spectators line the sidewalk. Six bicycle riders dressed in black race down the street on tall, free-form bike frames (also black) to catch up to the Christian-anarchist group at the front of the parade. Energy builds as Our Community Band starts swinging to their own music, and at every intersection the earth-face is lifted high by 20 participants and swung in a circle before it is set down and rolled forward. We totems take that time to circle around each other and yell “Happy May Day!” to the crowd, with joyful response from the sidewalks. By the time we cross the Greenway (below-grade railway-turned-bikepath), the crowd is two or three rows deep. When we cross Lake Street, the sidewalks are filled from curb to building. A stiff breeze catches us at each intersection and the totems and other big puppets all stagger to the left. Our Community Band plays You Are My Sunshine as a dirge and lays down in the intersection, much to the consternation of the substantial police detachment. Sights and sounds grow in intensity. Crowds sing along with Our Community Band. The parade marches over chalk drawings made by children on the blocked-off streets as they waited. Friends occasionally yell in recognition from the crowd. Videographers and photographers crowd in for a close shot. Another gust of wind catches my totem costume, spinning the sun form at the top and nearly taking me off my feet. Spectators crowd into the street, no longer constrained to the curb. The day grows warmer and 25¢ lemonade from an enterprising 9-year-old is a refreshing pause as the earth-face circles again. We approach the turn into Powderhorn Park and the crowd presses in leaving us little room to pass. A sharp right, then left turn, downhill into the park, brings the parade to a frenzied crescendo. There is no real choice but to step lively and quickly through well-wishers, cameras, and a parking lot filled with the big floats, then through the minidonuts and falafel and craft booths, weaving through the crowds to the other side of the lake. I set my phoenix totem in the “puppet corral” and gaze up at thousands of spectators covering the hillside amphitheater, waiting for the May Day ceremony. The crowd quiets as 30 bicycle riders circle the grassy lakeside stage area, blessing the ceremony space. Children in animal costumes and masks scurry into the circle and a squirrel speaks a welcome in its own “language.” Two stilt-walkers dressed in red translate the greeting into English and Spanish. The animals then announce the pregnant Tree of Life but quickly escort her lakeside as Consumo rambles down the hill, through the crowd, and into the ceremony area. The carrot-on-a-stick is held aloft enticing two-dozen actors in white and wearing cardboard automobile puppets to the stage. They chase the

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carrot until exhausted, but each time they rest, Consumo sends the carrot forth to drive them to frenzy again. As they finally mob each other in front of Consumo, grasping for the carrot, a conch shell is blown signifying an imminent birth. The white-clad actors, discarding their car puppets, wander to the Tree of Life. They kneel by her and pass a red thread of fabric around their circle. The Four Big Ones (puppets representing wind, water, prairie, sky) come to witness the birth. From between giant papier-mâché hands of the Tree of Life spring animals, children in yellow and black, and rats without their cars, as big blue and orange swallows fly through the crowd. In celebration, they line up on the lakeshore, facing the same direction as the hillside crowd, toward the lake. Raising hands, they call for the Sun. From the island in the center of the lake, it comes on a large red watercraft, accompanied by a red flotilla of five smaller boats. All boats have enormous papier-mâché phoenix heads at the bow and red wing-like appendages extend from each side. The Sun puppet rides amidst them, a large red hoop with a brilliant yellow sun-face suspended inside. Paddlers work furiously against the wind to the mounting roar of the crowd. Cheers greet them as they reach the shore and dozens of runners in red wave flags and flame-like paddles of the flotilla. All actors now ring the stage area, and where once the small Tree of Life puppet gave birth, a 30-foot Tree of Life is raised by sheer will into the wind. Its golden papier-mâché hands and head are crowned with black branches and red leaves holding white birds. White sleeves with black polka dots stretch 40 feet between its hands. The crowd continues cheering as the Tree turns a full circle in the hands of 10 puppeteers. Then actors grab red and white ribbons from the center to form a maypole. They dance around the Tree as the rest of the actors encircle the stage area and yell as one, “Behold the Tree of Life, gift to us all!” Dancing ensues amongst the crowd, and the ritual morphs into a festival of music, food, and dance well into the evening.

Counter-Hegemonic Red and Green Roots The name “May Day” references many historical precedents of traditional and counter-hegemonic events tied to human and ecological themes. Joni describes the historical context of May Day in poetic language grounded in ritual and symbolic meaning: There is also an overriding theme of May Day that is true every single year. We are celebrating the two roots of May Day, the green root and the red root. And the green root is the obvious root of the earth, and the incredible energy we see waking us up from the spell of winter. The other one is the

190    Democratizing Leadership red root, the blood root, the human root, the power of change in peoples’ hands, hearts, and minds. Twining together of the change-bringing of the earth and the change-bringing of our hands; that’s May Day.

Celebrated as a labor holiday or International Workers Day, the red root of May Day stretches back to Australia in 1856, when workers pressed for an 8-hour day, and spread globally as a commemoration of the Haymarket Riot of 1886. During a 3-day general strike in Chicago’s Haymarket Square, police killed four striking workers. A rally the next day ended when a bomb was thrown at police, resulting in a riot and a dozen deaths. The ensuing trial convicted four anarchists, more for their political beliefs than the crime, and they were hanged. International celebrations of May Day commemorate Haymarket and other labor struggles from India to New Zealand and throughout Europe. The United States, however, moved Labor Day to August in 1958 to distinguish it from communist celebrations. And in another alteration, the Roman Catholic Church in 1955 established May 1 as St. Joseph the Worker Day, declaring him the patron saint of fighting communism. But May Day has been wonderfully and democratically reinvigorated at In the Heart of the Beast Theater and on the streets of Minneapolis. The democratic spaces of May Day promote critical analysis of our local and global society, beginning with the simple questions, “What gives you hope? What causes you concern?” From these spring images of the most pressing problems emerging from hegemonic values of consumerism, capitalism, and neoliberal globalization. The parade begins with critique and concludes with visions of a hopeful alternative hegemony. Conflicting hegemonic systems are in evidence throughout the May Day process, but several examples highlight the tensions. This year, prior to the start of My Day art workshops, Minneapolis police contacted the theater to express concern that an anarchist group would disrupt May Day by practicing direct action techniques in preparation for a September political convention. Nancy, the executive director, wondered if their concerns were justified. A member of the RNC Welcoming Committee named Carl is a former student of mine, and I asked him whether the theater should be concerned or if the parade would be disrupted. Carl laughed hard before explaining his reaction. I grew up in this neighborhood, and so did a lot of other anarchists in this group, and none of them would even think of disrupting the parade. I mean it’s our parade! This event is the closest thing to our philosophy that happens in this city. If you want to worry about people disrupting the parade, worry about the cops who’ll be out practicing with all their new crowd-control toys.

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Carl not only feels ownership of May Day, but also believes that its participatory, democratic character exemplifies the best principles of anarchism. And he accurately predicted the increased police presence at this year’s parade versus previous years. Squad cars, mounted police, bicycle police, and officers on new pedestrian vehicles were abundant enough to be described by one spectator as “the new section of the parade,” and several May Day Parade marshals were frustrated by the heavy hand of police crowd control. Another agonistic democratic free space in the May Day Parade is the join-in section. Since 1978, the parade has always ended with a final section open to any group who follow “a few simple rules” that form this democratic space. The rules mandate a sign that identifies the group; a peaceful message and presentation; and prohibitions against motorized vehicles, amplified sound, soliciting, fliers, and such. A final rule represents the fine balance May Day leaders strike between open democratic spaces and concerns over order: “You must be respectful and follow the directions of parade officials, police officers, and others charged with keeping the parade a safe and fun experience.” This last rule had been added after a group in the join-in section expressed disapproval of the police presence by spitting on a uniformed officer. In years prior to this incident, the Minneapolis police provided security for free, but no longer. These new circumstances inspired Nancy to find an innovative way to maintain the democratic space of the join-in section amidst these tensions. Now, for a fee, the Minneapolis police provide security for the parade sections, those created and coordinated by In the Heart of the Beast Theater staff and participants. Tribal Security, a local organization of the American Indian Movement, now provides security for the more anarchic and less controlled join-in section. With this insightful administrative change, relations with the Minneapolis Police Department are maintained, and members of a social movement, who are respected by groups inclined to join in, enforce the join-in section. In a wonderfully ironic twist, Carl, the anarchist who laughed at my question about anarchists disrupting the parade, was on staff with Tribal Security, maintaining order for the join-in section. Several groups involved with the parade reflect May Day’s counterhegemonic red root. A group of Christian-anarchist-bicyclists called the Rogues rides with the parade on custom-made bikes of every imaginable configuration, and always in black. The join-in section on any given year might include progressive and leftist political candidates and their supporters, Veterans for Peace, and Food not Bombs. In 2007, the Kale People joined in. They might have been advocating for vegan food or for permaculture

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or for animal rights, but mostly spectators paid attention to their minimal and rapidly wilting kale leaf clothing, which resulted in citations for indecent exposure. Compared to the rapid rise and sudden demise of the First Bank System Visual Arts Program, May Day seems only to develop and continue. Yet the growth and longevity of May Day is a concern for some long-time participants. Though interlaced with democratic processes, Joni’s charismatic leadership and status as founder raises concerns about the long-term viability of May Day and the theater, with talk of succession planning becoming common. John, longtime supporter and wisdom figure, wonders if the pressure to sustain the parade and to retain funding, dulls the edge of its counter-hegemonic critique: I always say it’s time to build puppet shows to fit in the back of your station wagon and you go up to the intersection and you open the door and you rip them out and you do a little puppet show and then quick you throw them back in the station wagon and run. Because if you’re telling people what they need to know, it’s not going to be something that the powers-that-be are going to enjoy.

But critique is only part of the counter-hegemonic task. The current hegemony must be replaced with another hegemony—a positive vision to replace the current problematic one. A final May Day story exemplifies the power and depth of democratizing leadership that is creative and transformative. In an interview after May Day, Lauren, the staff artist who made beautiful, 8-foot-long swallow puppets for section three, spoke eloquently about the creative and transformative aspects of democratic work. She said, “It’s like learning to be emotionally responsible for each other . . . emotionally and materially.” When I asked her what was most powerful for her about May Day, Lauren said, I am always surprised by the beauty of teaching someone to walk on [wooden] stilts and they suddenly get it and they let go of your hand and they walk on their own . . . or they participate in the parade and hear the roar of the crowd and think, “I belong and I can go out in the world and make my little corner better.” It’s an amazing thing to experience.

When I turned my recorder off, Lauren seemed quite emotional. After moments of silence she continued, I’ve been pregnant four times and lost four babies. Creating things here fills a bit of that void. It takes me away from being that . . . a woman . . . a wife who can’t have children. And you know what the ceremony is about this year—

Case Studies of Democratizing Leadership    193 the Tree of Life giving birth. But at least I’m a narrator, not an actor . . . and in Spanish . . . and on stilts! All of that removes me from it a bit and gets me through it. I didn’t know if I wanted to say that in an interview, on a recording, but it feels healing to say it and important to the May Day process for me. So go ahead and use it if it makes sense.

I didn’t know how much her story would make sense to include until cleanup week, after the parade. I checked in with Lauren about her experience of the weekend: It was my best May Day ever! I loved making those swallows and watching them take form in the workshops. But it was even better to watch them emerge from the dark theater and see them take flight together. Suddenly those colors just blazed in the sunlight and the wind caught their wings and my participants just flew with them.

As she struggled to relay her feelings about watching her creations disappear down the street, Lauren gestured dramatically from her midsection outward, with both hands, three times. She seemed to be expressing, perhaps subconsciously, the birthing of her beautiful swallow puppets from the dark womb of the theater and the mixed joy and grief of watching them go out into the world. The pain of infertility was very present in her tears. That pain also seemed mitigated by the creative collective action inspired by her democratizing leadership. Most artists, participants, and spectators leave each May Day inspired by the artistic collective action and already giving voice to ideas for next year’s event. Democratizing leadership in the May Day process encourages everyone to identify with the parade as their own, bringing to life the world they wish to see. Through May Day, and other programs too, In the Heart of the Beast Theater continues to create powerful democratic spaces for voice, decision-making, and collective action. Dozens of artists, thousands of participants, and spectators by the tens of thousands will continue to find, use, and raise their voices in the May Day process, practice democracy through shared decision-making, and enact a counter-hegemonic vision through collective action and papier-mâché puppets.

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4 Applications and Implications

T

his theory of democratizing leadership emerged from my experiences and consequent research with the qualitative case studies describing the First Bank System Visual Arts Program and May Day in In the Heart of the Beast Theater. This section describes the application of this theory to an organization called the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers (MAP) and illustrates implications of this theory for counter-hegemonic democratizing leadership in organizations, institutions, and communities. Even before this grounded theory from my qualitative research case studies became clear to me, I was provided an opportunity to apply my developing ideas about democratizing leadership to an organization I had been involved with for several years. The following application case study is a testament to the contingent (already-and-not-yet) praxis-orientation of democratizing leadership. It is also a testament to the hunger people have for the authentic expression of voice and the hope for integrity in decision-making. Collective action is theorized above as an activity of democratizing leadership that is primarily internal to institutions, organizations, and communities. But the application case study below provides evidence Democratizing Leadership, pages 195–227 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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that internalized democratizing leadership finds expression in externalized actions. Following this application case study are two broad implications drawn from all three case studies, on democratizing funnels of voice, decisionmaking, and collective action; and on metaphors for democratizing leadership. I imagine this section as the current extent of my own clarified notions regarding democratizing leadership models and forms, with less-formed articulations of a new hegemony of collaboration to come. I hope you, reader, will find additional insights in your own praxis and share them too.

Application Case Study: Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers The Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers (MAP) case study examines an organization (a alliance) composed of delegates from 74 self-identified peace groups. It is similar to and distinct from the other two case studies in several ways. Like the Visual Arts Program at First Bank System, crisis and change created opportunities to experiment with democratic spaces, yet MAP is premised on peace over profits. Like In the Heart of the Beast Theater, its mission is focused on counter-hegemonic work, yet MAP struggled to develop a leadership and organizational model to sustain the ongoing operations of the organization for the long term. Shifting from the grounded theory of previous case studies to a focus on practical application of that theory, the MAP example provides comparisons and contrasts that will further elaborate on the practice of democratizing leadership. The Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers was initiated in 1995 by members of the United Nations Association to mark the 50th anniversary of the United Nations. In cooperation with several other organizations, it developed a mission and structure for the alliance, consisting of bimonthly meetings that were organized by a president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer, and facilitated through parliamentary procedure. In its 20th year, MAP counts 74 peace organizations as members. As an alliance of diverse organizations, MAP serves as a democratic free space marked by plurality and collaboration: Organizations represent a diverse range of causes and identities: Atheists for Human Rights, People of Faith Peacemakers, Muslims, Buddhists and Quakers. A local chapter of the Fellowship for Reconciliation brings its long historical presence to meet with the more recent Occupy Homes Minnesota. Artists and authors, film-makers, farmers, academics, veterans, feminists, organizers, pastors, architects. Neighborhood groups and international solidar-

Applications and Implications    197 ity projects: Haiti Justice Committee, Minnesota Cuba Committee, Iraqi and American Reconciliation Project, and Break the Bonds divesting as a protest of Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. (MAP website: www.mapm.org/)

Since 1995, the MAP Mission Statement has been, “To strengthen the effectiveness of the peace and justice community by enabling member organizations to share their resources, insights and ideas and devise cooperative strategies to accomplish common goals” (MAP website: www.mapm.org/). Each member organization is responsible for sending one delegate to bimonthly meetings, supporting MAP activities, and paying annual dues of $50. Most of the delegates are between 50 and 75 of age, with a few on either side of that range. Concern over the “graying of the peace movement” is a regular theme. Bimonthly delegate meetings typically focus on conversations about peace and justice, promoting the events of member organizations, and less frequently, collaborating on projects or programs. Occasionally MAP also issues position statements on global events and local issues proposed by some of its member organizations. A regular debate occurs within MAP and amongst its member organizations on the significance or priority of symbolic protest (voice as problematizing, conscientization, narrative reframing) over tangible change (collective action as public policy changes, structural changes, capacity building). Notable collective action by the alliance includes annual events featuring national speakers, sponsorship of a local Peace Festival, a billboard campaign on militarism, and a convention called Peace Island, offered as alternative to the 2008 Republican National Convention. The Guiding Principles of the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers are rooted in the discourse of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with amendments and updates that address contemporary issues, promote specific proposals, and respond to recent events. The principles are 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

The Primacy of Justice A World Based on Law Rather than Force Disarmament and Conflict Resolution Support for the UN System A Healthy Ecosystem Unity in Diversity Providing for Future Generations Fundamental Human Rights Responsibility and Accountability The Education of Children

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In December of 2010, MAP faced a leadership crisis. The president of MAP, an older White male, stepped down after three successive years in office, in accordance with Alliance bylaws. Prior to the annual election, the nominations committee could not identify a single delegate from its member organizations to run for president. Several people were willing to provide leadership, but no one wanted to serve in the singular, intensive, voluntary, and unpaid position. This leadership crisis led to an unusual proposal: the suspension of alliance bylaws and the formation of an interim leadership team to explore a new way forward. The next year would not be business as usual. On November 9, 2010, the MAP Executive Committee Meeting was convened with 18 delegates and former leaders present. Arvin, a graying African American former president of MAP, cautioned against radical changes but recommended a president’s council, as described in minutes from that meeting: A suggestion was also raised to change officers—eliminating the President and Vice President, continuing with only a Secretary and Treasurer. The idea was to start an “at-large” committee to run the organization and meetings, using more of a team effort . . . six delegates agree to be members of this ad hoc committee. At the 2010 Annual Meeting [in December] the ad hoc committee will offer suggestions for MAP’s future direction. Everyone agreed that we unanimously enjoyed former MAP President treats and table decorations.

At the December meeting, delegates worried over MAP’s future and doubted the proposal for an ad hoc committee to lead MAP. But faced with few other options, MAP by-laws were suspended for one year, and the ad hoc committee was approved with a broad mandate to reform the alliance. Even with Arvin’s caution, at the January 11, 2011 MAP Executive Team Meeting, new and radical changes were proposed in the early organizing period of the ad hoc committee, later renamed the Interim Leadership Team. This team spent the next year developing a new leadership model, having identified contradictions between the traditional hierarchical leadership model of president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, and the democratic mission of this peacemaking alliance. They began by stating that their work, even though conducted in the best interest of the alliance, may lead to the death of the organization. It was a sobering but honest moment framing the work ahead. Based on feedback from delegates at the December meeting, the team expanded their mandate for change to include the cumbersome meeting process of the alliance, based on parliamentary procedure. Meeting minutes summarize this development:

Applications and Implications    199 A Team member discussed, and provided a handout, on his proposal for MAP’s consideration of an “Open Space” approach to creating more synergy in how MAP member organizations might together work on common goals. Another noted that this is a transition year for MAP and that we need to ask ourselves the question: What “business as usual” activities do we need to give up in order to allow MAP to better fulfill its mission? He also affirmed the usefulness of the Open Space approach, given that MAP tends to do most everything in [bimonthly delegate] meetings.

This significant new proposal prompted the Interim Leadership Team to table the discussion until the next meeting to provide time for research and to review Open Space Technology. “A Brief Guide to Open Space Technology,” a 13-page overview found online, is used to familiarize the team with this approach (Owen, 2008). By the next meeting of the team, everyone approved of the new democratic facilitation technique and made plans to test it in the April delegate assembly. Sook Holdridge, a champion of this approach, drafts a worksheet to guide the facilitator and as a means of familiarizing the alliance with Open Space Technology:

THE CONVENER’S GUIDE WELCOME EVERYONE: My name is ________________________ , delegate for ________________________ , and I’m the convener for today. (say a little about yourself). (If time allows, have everyone introduce their name and one MAP organization they belong to.) MY JOB is to lay out our open space principles and process, and then get out of your way. CREATE AN INVITING ATMOSPHERE: How many of you are not delegates? Great. We want all of you to feel comfortable participating in everything we do here, except you can’t vote; only delegates can vote. If you are new to this process, just watch those familiar with it, and you’ll be just fine. THE KEY ELEMENTS AND PROCEDURES OF OPEN SPACE ARE: ///// 1 There’s full trust and confidence in the capability of people to selforganize around what has heart and meaning. Sometimes one is a leader; and sometimes a follower or responder; it depends on the person and the situation. ///// 2 Open Space relies on people attending who have passion and are, or will take responsibility for it. If you are one of those, you may qualify yourself to initiate a group dialogue.

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///// 3 A theme or challenge gives some context and direction relevant to everyone, but it doesn’t rule out other possibilities. Groups from previous sessions can be continued. A timely resolution might be formed, or creating a synergy tool, etc. ///// 4 The agenda board starts with a clean slate and is created by the people attending. To initiate a group come to the center, write down your topic on this paper, and tape it to the agenda board. I’ll number the locations before we divide. ///// 5 Each person always has choice with no one pressured to do anything. Go to the group of your choice, and at any time, or for any reason, you are free to apply “the law of two feet” and move to another group. This freedom of mobility helps ensure relevance. ///// 6 Quality group interaction is important. It’s the group’s responsibility to make sure no one dominates, over-lectures, applies pressure or shows disrespect for another. A moderator could also help. Notes should be taken by a volunteer, and make sure someone emails the notes to everyone in your group and anyone else interested in receiving them. ///// 7 When the first bell rings decide what your group wants to share in the large circle, whether its something you learned, a resolution to vote on, a group decision, or the strengthening of some trajectory, action or project. At the 2nd bell, return to the large circle for group sharing THE THEME (OR CHALLENGE) FOR TODAY IS ________________________ . (The theme or challenge is presented by the convener or someone else can be designated to do that.) Two ideas help frame conversations: 1) KEEP SYNERGY ALIVE, AND 2) RETHINK POSSIBILITY. OK, we’re ready to start. To create the agenda, will those self-qualifying individuals who want to initiate a group come to the center now and announce your topic to everyone. Write it down and tape it to the agenda board. Just before numbering locations, “The Three Open Space laws are: 1. Whoever comes are the right people. 2. Whatever happens is the only thing that could happen. 3. When it’s over, the meeting is over” (number the location for each group and send them off to the conversation of their choice.) The 3 × 5 cards are for evaluation and comments: Also, write down the groups for which you want to receive their conversation notes. Drop the 3 × 5 cards in the box at the exit door as you leave.

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Before this experiment can be enacted, a conflict arose within the coalition, between the former president and the Interim Leadership Team. At the February delegate meeting the former MAP president made a proposal for MAP to contribute funding toward the Peace Festival, to promote the alliance to potential allies and the broader community. The proposal was discussed but not widely accepted by MAP delegates. Of his own accord, he coordinated a contribution among several individuals from MAP member groups. The slow decision-making process of the alliance and bimonthly meetings that did not allow for quick decisions and prompt collective action frustrated him. A subtext to his critique seemed to promote the strong presidential model of leadership to make executive decisions without the cumbersome democratic process of the delegate meetings. He emailed the Team on March 6, 2011, with the subject, “MAP’s Future?” The text of his email praises the Peace Festival, notes minimal representation by MAP, and decries, “The biggest public relations fiasco I have ever seen is one of our delegate’s Huffington Post exposé of allegations against the Nobel Committee.” He described it as an, “ill-timed gotcha” and compared it to “killing someone before realizing the consequences” (private correspondence). An older female team member makes a terse reply: MAP is not a funding organization. MAP is not responsible for the actions of its member organizations; we cannot control them. And we are certainly not responsible for what individual people in the peace community do. She is her own person and she will do what she will; it has nothing to do with MAP. These are my own personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Leadership Team. (personal correspondence)

This conflictual interaction, exemplifying Mouffe’s agonistics, is not new to MAP, but was certainly exacerbated by the uncertainty of change. As the team moved toward democratizing leadership, it began to agitate those who were comfortable and well served by the status quo. The former president responded by forwarding a collection of his own writings entitled “Uneasy Theses,” which summarize his critique of what he called “the problems with the peace community.” While off-putting to some team members, the decision was made to invite the former president to join a new strategic planning process as a critical participant. In the meantime, the new Open Space approach is employed at the April 10, 2011, Delegate Meeting. Previously, content of a MAP Delegate Meeting would have to be planned in advance, engaging a guest speaker or outlining a discussion on a topic identified by the president or brought forward to officers by a delegate. The agenda below gives a flavor of the new approach and the topics that emerged in the process:

202    Democratizing Leadership Open Space: The chairing of the meeting was turned over to a Team member at 11:50 to introduce “Open Space” Adapted for MAP Overview The Team member presented the principles and processes of the Open Space approach to meetings, reviewed six key elements of Open Space, and explained the basic procedures. Creating an Agenda Seven topics were nominated for discussion: • Re-electing Obama • Educating and Motivating Peace • Proposing a Constitutional Amendment to Abolish Corporate Personhood • Effective Advocacy/Lobbying • Establishing MAP as Real Peacemakers (Demilitarization) • Building a Peaceful Revolution • Economic Systems, Growth, and Sustainability. Seven discussion groups Approximately 20 minutes were available for groups to discuss the above topics. Return to the large-group circle

Conversations were lively and engaging. When delegates returned to the large-group circle, the Constitutional Amendment discussion group proposed a resolution asking the Legislature to pass a bill establishing that corporations are not persons with the same rights as individual persons. They called it “Abolishing Corporate Personhood.” The motion was approved by acclamation of the delegates present. The meeting ended with a simple evaluation of the Open Space process, when each delegate indicates on an index card what was positive (+), what was negative (–), and what they would change (Δ). Evaluations revealed initial discomfort with this unfamiliar and somewhat messy democratic process, but also enthusiasm, mixed with wary appreciation, for increased delegate voice and participation. Some delegates and former leaders were unconvinced that such an open process would allow anything to get done. Indeed, over the course of the next three delegate meetings, planning for some annual events reverted to an older committee structure, and bimonthly business items were addressed through a simplified and brief parliamentary procedure. But Open Space discussions also led to dynamic collective action, carried out by small groups of

Applications and Implications    203

delegates empowered by the experiment. Previously, delegate ideas would be passed on to the officers who would enact them, or appoint committees. Now, power rested with delegates directly, with Sook’s admonition, “If you don’t decide what to do right here and now, and don’t take action on it yourself, it ain’t gonna happen!” The leadership team model and Open Space approach allows for shared responsibility but lacked accountability until roles were better defined. By June, the alliance had further developed a structure for democratizing leadership evidenced in the meeting agenda: Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers Delegate Council Meeting Agenda June 14, 2011 Business Meeting Opening Reading Secretary’s Report by Team member Treasurer’s Report by Team member New Members Report by Team member–Vote to approve new members Program Committee by Team member Open Spaces Facilitator: by Team member • Northside Eating Project–on hunger and food justice • Government deceit–supporting capitalist interests over citizens • Abolish Corporate Personhood Large Group Open Space group reports MAP decisions or actions: Resolution To Seek the Abolishment of Corporate Personhood Next meeting: August 9, 2011 11:30 am – 1:30 pm Volunteer Facilitator/Volunteer for Reading Evaluation

Delegates came prepared to propose topics, present information through articles and handouts, propose resolutions, and pursue collective action, summed up in the resolution that emerged from this meeting (See Figure 4.1): MAP’s democratizing leadership is overtly focused on counter-hegemonic work to resist domination and advance the democratization of

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MAP Resolution: To Seek the Abolishment of Corporate Personhood Proposed at the MAP Council Meeting, June 14, 2011 Whereas, government of, by, and for [real] people has long been a cherished American value, and Whereas, corporations are not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, and The People have never granted constitutional rights to corporations, and Whereas, corporations have for 125 years acted under the illegitimate premise of having the rights of “persons,” which was ruled official by the U.S. Supreme Court on January 21, 2010 in the Citizens United decision, and Whereas, the ruling by the Supreme Court and its ruling that “money is speech” has effectively rolled back the limits on corporate spending to influence elections, candidate selection, policy decisions and sway votes, and Whereas large corporations own most of America’s mass media and use that media as a megaphone to express loudly their political agenda, and Whereas, tens of thousands of people and municipalities across the nation are joining campaigns to abolish corporate personhood, and guarantee democracy of, by, and for The People, Therefore, be it resolved that the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers (MAP), hereby calls for Congress to forge an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to Abolish Corporate Personhood and return our democracy, our elections, our communities back to America’s human persons and thus reclaim our sovereign right to self-governance. Be it further resolved that MAP member organizations call on other communities and jurisdictions to join with us in this action by passing similar resolutions. Be it further resolved that MAP member organizations take action to increase public awareness and discussion of the threats to our democracy posed by Corporate Personhood

Figure 4.1  MAP resolution to seek the abolishment of corporate personhood.

culture. And the MAP Interim Leadership Team had found new ways to encourage voice, decision-making, and collective action, with accommodations for the business tasks that sustained the alliance and within the limits of their bimonthly meetings. By the August delegate meeting, isolated actions were becoming more collective in support of each other through multivalent strategies. The resolution “To Seek the Abolishment of Corporate Personhood” was brought to the floor during the large group, Open Space discussion, moved, seconded, and approved by acclamation. No delegates voted in opposition. A program committee that met earlier in the day reported that the Annual MAP Peace Celebration would occur on November 8 with a Leadership Team member

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as program emcee, David Cobb from the Move to Amend project as featured speaker, and the Metropolitan Gay Men’s Chorus to open and close the event. A delegate provided an update on the “War is expensive, peace is free” billboard project and identified the need for financial support. Other Open Space topics included ◾◾ “The Shock Doctrine” and communicating about 9/11 ten years later ◾◾ Expose the cost of war ◾◾ Dialogue regarding Palestine ◾◾ Election fraud ◾◾ MAP member organizations must take further action on the resolution against corporate personhood in their own organizations ◾◾ Food justice nourishes peace ◾◾ Foreign Policy—international interests of corporate entities— must be our No. 1 concern The meeting closed with a spontaneous sing-along to It’s a Corporate Flag (to the tune of It’s a Grand Old Flag), written and performed by MAP delegate: It’s a “corporate” flag It’s a high “lying” flag It was meant (pause) to stand for you and me It’s time to change the rules don’t follow the fools Corporations aren’t persons, you see! We must cut them off of the welfare trough Cuz they’re greedy and do no good (Yankee Doodle Went to Town tune here) Make corporations pay their share of their billion dollar profits Good-bye to Corporate Personhood!

By the October delegate meeting, the Interim Leadership Team recognized the need for continued work on democratizing leadership and continued to develop the democratic structure and boundaries of the alliance. The team announced its willingness to continue for another year and proposed a strategic planning committee to look at other leadership options, to meet on November 8 with the leadership team, or another date

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of their choice. A single team member was identified to handle correspondence after confusion was expressed about how to communicate with the Interim Leadership Team. A 5-minute period was instituted at the end of the meeting for announcements and invitations to events. The MAP leadership recognized and responded to tensions between democratization and efficiency by developed and shifting structures that allow for both priorities to exist in tension the with other. Further developments are evident in the minutes of the November 8, 2011, Interim Leadership Team Meeting.



1. Brief evaluation of last meeting: Process good for group discussion, connecting. Does it lead to action? Two actions have come out of the process—focus on Move to Amend and billboard. Facilitators do a great job. Evaluations that were turned in by delegates were generally positive. Marie will bring to January team meeting. Some concern expressed regarding numbers being down at the last meeting. No one made reminder calls. Positive sign is that groups are paying dues so they apparently want to be in MAP. Announcement process went well at the last meeting; there might be a time problem if we have more announcements. Will deal with that if/when it happens. One Team member recommends no announcements due to time constraints; groups can bring literature/flyers. 2. Planning for December 13 annual meeting. Begin business meeting at 12:00 noon (or a little before): ◾◾ Reading assigned ◾◾ Treasurer and secretary reports ◾◾ New membership report—two group have expressed interest

in joining MAP ◾◾ Team member suggests that we must also acknowledge that

we are not currently following the by-laws, particularly as they relate to officers. He pulled out information in the bylaws related to same, which was very helpful. We discussed one option—waiving the by-laws for another year and reconstituting the Strategic Planning Committee, which would analyze strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities (SWOT analysis) to determine a future course for MAP.

3. Report regarding planning for December Annual Meeting and Luncheon. A state representative has agreed to speaking at the event on “Corporate Personhood: A Threat to Democracy?” He will talk about what is happening in the Legislature relative to corporate personhood and what we can do to protect our

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democracy. A liaison delegate is meeting with the food person about providing a meal for $10, so that we can also cover $125 for maintenance. Total charge for the luncheon is $12.00. If they cannot provide a meal for $10, the team agreed that MAP could cover the maintenance fee of $125. Team member agreed to put together a simple flyer about the MAP Annual Meeting and Luncheon for distribution at the MAP Annual Event on November 8. She will also send out a notice to delegates. Team member suggests MAP make a donation to their hosts for at least $250 for the use of space for the year. We will discuss this further at our next team meeting when more members are present. 4. Leadership team. Discussed clarifying responsibilities of the leadership team. Developed criteria for MAP expenditures: “All committees must stay within a budget approved by the membership council. Non-approved expenses will not be paid by MAP.” We discussed the fact that we no longer have committees as we had in the past, including 1) Strategic Planning Committee, 2) Program Committee that is ongoing, 3) Nominating Committee, and 4) Legislative Committee. We need a Strategic Planning Committee; however, the question was raised as to whether the other committees could come out of Open Space if anyone is interested. Will discuss further at our next meeting. We will also ask for volunteers for the Strategic Planning Committee at the annual meeting. 5. Administrative tasks. Most groups have paid their dues. A state fair committee has been formed and will meet soon. Will discuss the budget for 2012 at the January team meeting. Team members agreed to call the delegates on our lists and encourage them to make reservations for the Annual Meeting and Luncheon. All Team members will be responsible for helping with check-in, welcome, registration table.

Next on the calendar was the MAP Annual Event, the highpoint of the year, a public event for MAP delegates, alliance group members, and the public; and a test of the new alliance structure. Delegate meeting discussions, MAP resolutions, and even original songs come together in the November 8 event: “‘The Move to Amend’ with David Cobb, National Movement Spokesperson.” Following the talk, and a performance by the Metropolitan Gay Men’s Chorus, a team member speaks from the podium: As we conclude our evening, we invite you to reflect on what you’ve heard tonight.

208    Democratizing Leadership We all have a role to play in promoting a more authentic democracy. I invite you now to commit or recommit to the next step you will take: If you are an educator, how will you tell this story and teach others about this issue? If you’re an organizer, how will you bring people together for change? If you’re an activist, how will you challenge institutions nonviolently and effectively? If you’re a volunteer, how will you serve this movement? If you love the symbols of change—if you are a button person—please stop by the table on the way out to purchase buttons and help spread the word. And for all of you who bring your individual gifts to the common table of peace, I urge you to bring it now and every day after! Please take a moment right now to commit yourself to the next step on your journey—on our journey—toward a more just and peaceful world. Good night and thank you for the world we are creating together! (event notes).

This informative and inspirational event is followed the next month by the MAP Annual Meeting and Luncheon. A state representative spoke on “Corporate Personhood: A Threat to Democracy?” and the need for legislation in defense of democracy. In the first year since MAP stumbled into its leadership crisis, democratizing leadership provided dynamic new experiments and some real successes, assuaging dire concerns about the alliance’s ability to sustain itself. But the real challenge lay ahead as MAP engaged in a more rigorous strategic planning process. By the March, 2012, Interim Leadership Team meeting, Open Space delegate meetings continued to raise their voices and hint at new decisions and collective action to come. The strategic planning committee was taking shape, with five team members and five delegates, including the former president, committing to a 6-month process. The Program Committee agreed that it would be ideal if the subject for this year’s fall program would come out of an Open Space group as it did last year. If that did not happen by the June delegate meeting, it was agreed that one of the Interim Leadership Team members should call for a Program Committee through the Open Space process or by just asking for volunteers. It was also suggested that this committee might have two sections, one to plan the fall program and another to plan the annual meeting event in December.

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The first convening of the MAP Strategic Planning Committee occurred on April 10, 2012. The goal was to plan a leadership and participant structure that reflected the mission and guiding principles of the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers for approval at the annual meeting on December 11, 2012. The Strategic Planning Committee was to convene Open Space dialogues at delegate meetings and provide other avenues for input (surveys, subcommittees, and individual interviews) related to each objective (below) and between each delegate meeting. Reports of findings were to be sent prior to the following delegate meeting to inform the next objective. Power to impact development would be grounded in participation and investment in input processes. The objectives of the process were ◾◾ To affirm or change the MAP Mission Statement to ensure that it reflects alliance: ◾◾ To analyze MAP in light of our values, duties, and outcomes to determine, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). ◾◾ To examine alliance leadership and participant structures that might best serve MAP now and into the future ◾◾ To propose our best recommendations to the alliance in the form of new bylaws ◾◾ To inaugurate new leadership to lead MAP into the future by December 2012 The strategic planning process was approved. It would begin with a survey of delegates, at the next delegate meeting and via email, to give them a voice in the process by identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in the midst of these two transition years. The April 2012 Strategic Planning Meeting concluded with a discussion of the Alliance Mission Statement that affirmed the statement in its current form. By May, the Interim Leadership Team was distinguished from the Strategic Planning Committee and continued working to sustain the operations of the alliance. Functional responsibilities for the Leadership Team were to be redistributed amongst the team whenever its composition changed or events warranted change. This was a significantly different approach from the familiar positional leadership of officers with presumed but inflexible and unequal responsibilities. The Strategic Planning Committee met again in June to review survey responses (see Appendix) and develop next steps to address the responses. Given appreciative and challenging responses to the survey, the following steps were decided by the Strategic Planning Committee.

210    Democratizing Leadership To explore: • Organizational structure and meeting format: parliamentary, open space, circle process, world cafe, guest speaker/presenter, or no agenda at all • Leadership formats: hierarchical, collaborative, democratic, rotating, anarchic • Meeting Logistics: –– Frequency: monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly –– Time: day of week, time of day, length of meeting –– Technological: Consent agenda, online discussions, online collaborative work –– Expectations: all/some required, tracks, leveled participation

By the August MAP delegate meeting, the Open Space process had deepened to include brief reports of the content of discussion and action steps proposed for individual delegates and MAP as a whole. In addition to Open Space groups that met on the Protesting the War in Afghanistan and National Resolutions Week on Military Spending, the MAP Annual Event was framed by an Open Space group interested in working with the Occupy Movement: Group 3: MAP/Occupy Program Planning Discussion Points: • Pulling together feedback from July 31st MAP/Occupy planning group regarding the MAP Annual Celebration on November 13. • Settled on “Occupy Live—Building a World that Works for Everyone” • Key focus is to establish commonalities between MAP and Occupy • This event will be a good way to engage young people as well as older people Group Action: • Plan to meet next week to refine the November 13 program Action taken by MAP delegates: • Would like a show of consensus once again from this group (thumbs up all around)

The MAP Strategic Plan was also discussed in light of the SWOT Analysis Survey results. Discussion included insights from delegates such as, “The MAP meeting format needs to be more frequent, perhaps every second Tuesday, alternating between traditional mid-day meeting and evening meetings with more movement from ideas to action.s” Another delegate argued that the clear priority needs to be, “Connecting to youth through evening meetings instead of mid-day, action rather than just discussion, outreach to youth rather than invitation—(Go to them!), use of social media,

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and MAP as elders funding youth actions.” Proposed actions included taking action instead of just talking, that is, email members to ask that they bring garden tools for the Northside Food Project to the next delegate meeting (using technology to take action between meetings). The meeting ended with a request that the Strategic Planning Committee make a formal proposal for MAP’s purpose, structure, and leadership to be discussed and approved at the next delegate meeting in October. In September, the Strategic Planning Committee reviewed the planning process: an April review of mission, a June SWOT analysis, an August SWOT Report, an October Presentation of Organizational & Leadership Models, and a December Voting to approve revised bylaws and elect a new Leadership Team. The September meeting agenda was the most ambitious moment for democratizing leadership in MAP. Voice in strategic planning had been compiled from members and Interim Leadership Team members. It was now time to decide on the future of the organization. Past disagreements hung heavy in the air as the committee discussed three leadership models: coordinators of convening and communications, or a leadership team of five to seven people with distinct roles and equal decision-making authority and on staggered terms, or the former model of a strong president and executive committee (vice president, secretary, and treasurer). To everyone’s surprise, 18 months of tense dissension evaporated into a general if conflictual consensus, summed up in a pithy quote from the former president: “A strong executive is more efficient at getting things done, but if democracy is just as important to us, then what’s happening now is working well enough.” Discussion about potential models for the organization focused quickly on the existing alliance form, and agreement on the continuation of an Open Space process modified by an abbreviated parliamentary business meeting was unanimous, even if some reservations remained. It was decided for the October delegate meeting that if the assembly of delegates reached consensus on the proposed model, there would be a vote to make unanimity official. If, however, the assembly is split, the team would review options explored in the Strategic Planning Committee and vote on a way forward. At the October MAP delegate meeting, the following proposal was presented for consideration: The Strategic Planning Committee reviewed: ◾◾ Our planning process since April, 2012 ◾◾ A report from the August MAP Delegate Meeting—Open Space Small Group on SWOT Analysis The Committee discussed three potential models for leadership:

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◾◾ Coordinators Model (Convener, communicator roles) ◾◾ Leadership Team/Committee Model (Distinct functions, equal decision-making authority) ◾◾ Strong Executive Model (President, VP, Treasurer, Secretary) The Committee also discussed three potential models for the organization: ◾◾ Association/network—sharing information ◾◾ Alliance/coalition—Sharing information, resources, events ◾◾ Organization—Accomplish shared mission, provide programming and services The discussion focused on these points: ◾◾ The former Strong Executive Model (President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer) ended because no one agreed to step into the position of president ◾◾ The Leadership Team Model developed out of the resulting leadership vacuum. It was approved for 2011 (MAP bylaws on leadership waived), then approved again for 2012 (MAP bylaws waived again) with the provision of convening a strategic planning committee ◾◾ This interim leadership experiment should come to a conclusion by presenting a leadership and organizational proposal for discussion at the October, 2012, MAP Delegates Meeting ◾◾ The leadership and organizational proposal should be voted on at the October meeting following that discussion ◾◾ If approved, leaders should be nominated for a vote at the December MAP Delegate Meeting

PROPOSAL: MAP LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL MODEL The MAP Strategic Planning Committee agrees that



1. MAP’s mission reflects that of an alliance (sharing information, resources, events), and it has also functioned as an organization (creating by-laws, providing programming, etc.) and we affirm this flexibility of organizational form to keep MAP responsive to internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats 2. Definition of leadership functions would help MAP members and the community-at-large understand how to connect with MAP (who to go to for what). These six functions should include:

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◾◾ Convener—convenes leadership team meetings, delegate

meetings ◾◾ Spokesperson (external)—letters, press releases, ◾◾ Communications (internal)—emails, announcements, webpage ◾◾ Contact person—new members, roster, point of contact for

external groups ◾◾ Treasurer—keeps budget, tracks member dues, handles

requests for funds ◾◾ Recorder—takes minutes of meetings, distributes to members

Leadership should be elected by MAP delegates, rather than recruited or appointed. Leadership should be elected for limited terms of 3 years to make roles easier to accept. Leadership should be elected for staggered terms to promote leadership continuity over time—2 people replaced each year.

The committee disagreed on 1. The term “Leadership Team,” although a majority supported the current structure with added clarity for functions, specifically communication procedures. 2. One member asserted the importance of a position named “President” to promote recognition of leadership for both purposes of both communications and decision-making 3. One member did not support the current structure of Leadership Team No consensus was reached on whether new Leadership Team members should be ◾◾ elected to specific functions (see list above), or ◾◾ elected to the Leadership Team in general, then functions divided among the team (presumably with each new election)

The MAP Strategic Planning Committee Proposes: A discussion by all delegates present at the October 2012 MAP Delegate Meeting (in large group rather than Open Space Small Group) The two goals of the discussion should be: ◾◾ To affirm—or challenge—the points agreed on by the MAP

Strategic Planning Committee (section 1.)

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◾◾ To clarify the points of disagreement among members of the

MAP Strategic Planning Committee and reach agreement on these points (section 2.) Following this discussion, two votes are recommended: ◾◾ First, to determine whether discussion has led to agreement

among MAP Delegates on sections 1 and 2 of the MAP Strategic Planning Committee Proposal ◾◾ And if the first vote passes, to charge the MAP Strategic Planning Committee with re-writing the by-laws to reflect approval of this proposal Note: If MAP Delegates cannot come to agreement on the proposal as written, or come to agreement on a proposal amended by the delegates at the October 2012 meeting, recommendations may be returned to the MAP Strategic Planning Committee with the likely consequence of extending the planning process beyond December, 2012 MAP Annual Meeting and this calendar year.

The latter italicized section functioned as something of an ultimatum from a weary Interim Leadership Team to a delegate assembly that had been variously involved in the process. Discussion amongst MAP delegates was vigorous but limited to ensuring that the structure as it currently operated would continue under these arrangements and to ensuring due diligence about potential unintended consequences of this leadership and structural form. A vote was called and the new structure was approved to the relief of everyone involved. The meeting proceeded with Open Space sessions on the MAP Annual Program, Haiti, Bioneers, Military Spending, a Petition for a Kellogg-Briand Pact National Holiday, and a resolution against a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers had achieved a milestone in democratizing leadership and celebrated simply by moving on to a delegate meeting—enacting democratizing leadership through practice. The November 2012 MAP Annual Event brought delegates and organizational membership together with Occupy veterans and activists in the Occupy Homes movement to explore collective action between younger and older peacebuilders. The invitation read, This will be an opportunity to learn more about what is happening within the local Occupy Movement, and to determine how each one of us can make a difference. As corporations are taking over the political process in

Applications and Implications    215 our country, it is time to raise up the voices of the people—our voices. Join the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers for an uplifting and informative evening. Admission: $5.00. Sliding scale if necessary.

At the December 2012 MAP Annual Meeting, after a reading and business reports, delegates reviewed and then voted unanimously to approve new bylaws. Five members of the Interim Leadership Team and two delegates were voted into the new Leadership Team. They would meet in January to redistribute functional responsibilities. The luncheon then proceeded with a talk by an eminent scholar on “The Consequences of the American Election for U.S. Relations with Iran,” followed by questions and answers. The Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers remains a graying organization, anxious about its relevance and afraid that it may come to an end along with its aging members. It is an organization that might have continued unchanged over the course of a slow decline, but its leadership crisis combined with a willingness to experiment with democratizing leadership has revitalized the alliance. A collaborative leadership team and participatory structure for delegate meetings brought new energy to MAP, and some increased intergenerational involvement, even if delegate meetings are still scheduled at mid-day on a Tuesday. Affirming its mission led to an awareness of contradictions between democratic ideals and autocratic practices. Changes in structure enhanced individual and collective agency by giving delegates regular opportunities to use voice together, structured consensus decision-making processes, and opportunities to engage in collective action. Challenges and opportunities lie ahead for MAP. Voice remains a function of delegate representation of disparate organizations at infrequent delegate meetings. To enact the potential of a dynamic alliance, new and more frequent opportunities to develop and raise voices together will be required. Decision-making is primarily deliberative and consensus-based amongst organizations with diverse normative frameworks. Sustained agonistic pluralism will require more and deeper engagement of differences in addition to the common concerns that bring the alliance together. Collective action has been meaningful and has potential to grow. Significant and relevant annual events resist the hegemony of domination. Billboards questioning militarism and alternative political conferences are examples of creative cultural production supporting the democratization of culture. But more work is needed to connect these efforts to broader movements that increase solidarity and enhance impact. Perhaps the most significant collective action has been the development of a democratizing leadership structure that provides a smart flexible platform (Lederach, 2005) for counter-hegemonic democracy in the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers.

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Figure 4.2  How the Alliance [MAP] Works—Sook Holdridge.

Implications: Funnel Diagrams of Democratizing Leadership In the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers and in each of the case studies presented above, a critique was leveled against processes that were not absolutely democratic from beginning to end. Once leadership began to develop democratizing structures, the critique continued, suggesting that only total democracy would do and that anything short implied continued domination. Such an all-or-nothing approach to democratic work is a threat to the practice and growth of democracy, reflected in the proverb “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” Striving for a perfectly democratic process is an example of antagonism leading to no real improvement at all, rather than the agonism of living together amidst our disputed visions of democracy and contested implementations.

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In the practice of democratizing leadership, a temporal narrowing of democratic spaces toward decision-making and collective action is essential and contingent on context. A praxis orientation requires that democratic spaces must regularly broaden again to make room for voices raised in support or critique, in the cycle from voice to decision-making to collective action and back to voice. If absolute freedom of voice is maintained indefinitely, individual voices are unlikely to become a collective voice and may continuously disrupt decision-making and collective action. Similarly, if every decision occurs through direct democracy, then making final decisions in the apt moment will be difficult and the continual freedom to question and critique decisions or the constant call for new decisions will inhibit movement toward collective action. Leadership must structure democratic spaces temporally such that there is a shift from individual voice and collective voice to decision-making and from decision-making to collective action. This is not to suggest dissent must be excluded from the continuing process over time, but that the value of dissenting voices, even in a conflictual consensus, must be weighed against achieving counter-hegemonic collective action. At times, democratizing leadership may need to reform temporal funneling to extend a period of voice or decision-making or even acknowledge the need to return to a previous stage before continuing the process, that is, from decision-making back to voice before collective action. Wrestling over the ontology of democratic spaces, arguing whether a process or structure “is” or “is not” democratic, is too binary an approach. In some of my case studies, participants or leaders critiqued leadership or organizational structure as being undemocratic per se. This binary ontological judgment of “is” or “is not” tends to be accompanied by implications for continued participation—or not. Schugurensky argues that, “Democracy should not be perceived as a static structure, but as a long historical—and probably endless—process shaped by the struggle of subordinated groups for freedom and equality” (Abdi & Carr, 2013). This is true of democracy as a concept and of democracy in practice, in national governance and in organizations, institutions, and communities. A more useful critique might address a measure of just how democratic a space might be and when different forms of democratic spaces might be more or less appropriate. Our three case studies illustrate examples of temporal and structural considerations that are shaped to address different contexts for democratizing leadership. May Day is an annual ritual process that moves from broad and shallow democratic spaces. Anyone who considers themselves part of the community gathers to answer two questions: “What gives you hope and inspires you? What causes concern and drags you down?” Each step in the May Day

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process deepens participant engagement in decision-making and collective action, yet narrows the space for new voices or different decisions, culminating in the May Day Parade on the first Sunday of May. Leadership does not become less democratic over this time period. Rather, democratizing leadership continually reshapes democratic spaces over time in order to accomplish a goal determined in a decades-long cyclical process of voice, decision-making, and collective action. The funnel diagram for May Day (see Figure 4.3) begins with an open democratic space, then narrows and deepens in graduated increments through ritual processes, to end in a narrow but still-open passage of democratic collective action that ultimately pours into the open democratic space of the next annual process. In contrast to this consistent annual cycle, the First Bank System Visual Arts Program case study examines a decade-long development of democratic spaces. It begins with the nearly absolute autocracy of a corporate bank in the 1980s and through undemocratic attempts to create institutional change in response to significant industry developments. When the first democratic spaces emerge, it is an experiment initiated by risk-taking leadership in response to resistance. Participants engage in the early manifestations of democratic structures that provide opportunities for voice and co-opt resistance. But as participants become accustomed to democratized spaces, they agitate for broader and deeper spaces, stepping into cracks in

Figure 4.3  HOBT May Day Funnel diagram of democratic spaces.

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institutional autocracy to expand then multiply them. Democratic spaces grow wider, more substantial, and more numerous. Some 10 years after its inauguration, the Visual Arts Program is almost entirely participatory rather than autocratically administered, with significant and institutionalized democratic structures. But changes in the banking industry, corporate leaders, and financial standing made the political literacy learned in art-oriented democratic spaces untenable. Democratizing leadership in the Visual Arts Program threatened the political stability of autocratic leadership throughout the rest of the institution. Democratic structures were dismantled and spaces filled in. The funnel diagram for democratic spaces at First Bank System (see Figure 4.4) begins with a small space initiated by leadership, expands quickly almost exponentially near the end, and then closes entirely when it threatens the hegemonic order of the institution. This funnel diagram for the Visual Arts Program depicts the program over its entire lifecycle. Each project within the Visual Arts Program had its own funnel of voice, decision-making, and collective action. Democratizing leadership will articulate decision-making processes effectively as it diagrams each funnel independently and then coordinate the diagrams to illustrate concurrent, consecutive, and cyclical processes.

Figure 4.4  FBS Visual Arts Program funnel diagram of democratic spaces.

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The Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers case study examines a leadership crisis, followed by a 2-year strategic planning period and then the ongoing functioning of the organization. MAP had functioned well under strong presidential leadership for many years, with more and less democratic meeting structures—from parliamentary procedure, to circle processes. When no one was willing to serve as a candidate to take on the intensive and uncompensated presidential role, a leadership crisis led to a moment for broad democratic discussion about how the organization would move forward. An interim leadership team called for a one-year suspension of the by-laws (later extended to 2 years) to explore options. This exploration opened democratic spaces by experimenting with Open Space Technology (Owen & Lund, 2008), reaffirming the organizational mission, and conducting an internal SWOT analysis of MAP’s leadership and organizational structure. As the end of the second year drew near, structural forms were explored and then a proposal made by the interim leadership team to delegates. MAP adopted a team leadership model with articulated but shared responsibilities, and a hybrid organizational model utilizing parliamentary processes for business items and Open Space Technology for discussions, resolutions, and programs (analogous to voice, decision-making, and collective action). Bimonthly delegate meetings with this hybrid model addressed many concerns raised during the contentious strategic planning process, however the alliance is still limited by what it can accomplish during its 2-hour, midday, bimonthly meetings or by any ad hoc groups that work between delegate meetings. The funnel diagram for democratic spaces in MAP (see Figure 4.5) began with a fairly open space, expanded and contracted during the strategic planning process as decisions opened and closed the spaces, and continues in a predictable bimonthly cycle of open possibilities and intermediate limitations on action. In these funnel diagrams of democratic spaces, each change in the shape of the democratic space indicates a leadership decision: in order to reach a particular goal, the current form of democratic space must shift from voice to decision-making, from decision-making to action. Sections defined by vertical lines describe times for voice, stretching across broad or narrow horizontal boundaries of voice. Diagonal lines indicate narrowing the democratic space toward a decisional moment, or opening toward increased opportunity for voice. Collective action may come in the narrowing point of final decision-making or emerge in the midst of voice and decision-making cycles.

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Figure 4.5  MAP Strategic Planning Process funnel diagram of democratic spaces.

These diagrams illustrate the changing breadth and depth of democratic spaces contingent on the particular contexts of democratizing leadership, broad or narrow, deep or shallow. They also illustrate that democratic spaces are not empty spaces. Each of them are structured by mechanisms for voice, decision-making, and collective action that move the organization, institution or community toward a particular goal. In the words of puppetista Lakshmi, the difficult task of democratizing leadership is “doing what needs to be done in the apt moment.” The shaping of democratic spaces, especially determining the moment of decision-making, is a key aspect of what Mouffe describes as political action: In order to envisage how to act politically, the moment of decision cannot be avoided, and this implies the establishment of frontiers, the determination of a space of inclusion/exclusion . . . an approach that avoids this moment will not be able to challenge the dominant hegemony and transform the relations of power. (2013, p. 14)

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Democratizing leadership requires decision-making that moves beyond political compromise with a given hegemonic system, to shape democratic spaces that provide alternatives to, contend with, or displace the normative hegemonic order. May Day shapes an alternative community space for participants to practice voice, decision-making, and collective action. The Visual Arts Program shaped a contentious institutional space. The Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers displaces a hegemonic form of governance with democratizing leadership that is effective in practice, authentic to its mission, and imperfect enough to warrant continued praxis. This funnel concept for democratizing leadership will require much more articulation to make it a viable operational concept. In these brief examples, I have only diagrammed what I have witnessed in retrospect. Describing the power dynamics to shape decisional funnels from bottom up and top down will help clarify the developmental tensions of changing democratic processes. Using such funnel diagrams as planning tools in deliberative work or as representations of conflicting models in agonistic work might provide form to otherwise ill-defined debates. Funnel diagrams might also provide a more nuanced image of democratic spaces and leadership control over apt moments for broad direct democracy in contrast to executive decisions made with integrity in relation to collective voice. And when the time for collective action comes, funnel diagrams might also call us to anticipate the movement from action back to voice to ensure the continuation of praxis in the always-contingent process of democratizing leadership.

Implications: Metaphors for Democratizing Leadership If you give me a fish I will eat for a day. If you teach me to fish then I will eat until the river is contaminated or the shoreline is seized for development. But if you teach me to organize then whatever the challenge I can join with my peers and we will fashion our own solution.1

Due to the complicated nature and complex interactions between democracy and leadership, both concepts are often described through metaphor. Some of our political metaphors, however, are too simplistic to adequately encompass a concept or too co-opted by hegemony to be meaningful in countering it. For instance, the U.S. multicultural metaphor of the “melting pot” actually denies diversity and difference, instead conveying something more akin to assimilation. It is important, “to provide a ‘metaphoric redescription’ of liberal democratic institutions—a

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redescription that could grasp what was at stake in pluralistic democratic politics” (Mouffe, 2013, p. 6). The melting pot metaphor has been reimagined as a cultural stew or tossed salad to represent diverse ingredients that retain their identity while making together something more than the sum of their parts. Given the social construction of the political, and the role of language in constructing, deconstructing, and reconstructing hegemony, one implication of this research is to provide metaphoric redescription of democracy to indicate its social and cultural dimensions, in addition to explicitly political dimensions.

Leadership Jazz Music is an apt metaphor for democratizing leadership given its variation of form and style, reflecting the contextual variation offered in this theory. Max De Pree’s Leadership Jazz (2008) begins with a musical metaphor, but this leader (in the business of furniture manufacturing) only references jazz in three short paragraphs of an otherwise long text somewhat liberal, but not counter-hegemonic, leadership. One of his quotes illustrates differential spaces for democratizing leadership in the midst of institutions that predominantly function through authoritarian structures: Jazz Band leaders must choose the music, find the right musicians, and perform—in public. But the effect of the performance depends on so many things—the environment, the volunteers playing in the band, the need for everybody to perform as individuals and as a group, the absolute dependence of the leader on the members of the band, the need of the leader for the followers to play well. What a summary of an organization! (pp. 8–9)

It is also an apt summary of the shared responsibility for performing democratizing leadership. In the case of top-down leadership, the positional leader may shape democratic spaces by developing new structures to hold open that possibility. But it is incumbent upon people within that organization to enter the space, filling it with their voices, working in that space to make decisions together, and acting together from that space to make it more than an empty space. De Pree applies his jazz metaphor specifically to creative work similar to Margaret Wheatley’s fractal fern metaphor for mission: Creative work needs the ethos of Jazz. A leader will pick the tune, set the tempo, start the music, and define a “style.” After that, it’s up to the band to be disciplined and free, wild and restrained, leaders and followers, focused and wide ranging, playing the music for the audience and accountable to the requirements of the band. (2008, pp. 102–103)

224    Democratizing Leadership

In the case of bottom-up leadership, the space may begin as an indeterminate space, neglected or left open by the oversight of otherwise authoritarian leadership. The task, then, is for people to step into that space, widen it by creating structures that hold it open, and reinforce the democratic nature of the space. In a musical metaphor, bottom-up leadership might be in the form of improvisation or even a jam session before or after a recording session. Stepping into such a space can be risky for several reasons. Peers may see democratizing leadership from below as presumptuous, or unnecessarily upsetting the status quo they find familiar and safe. Widening that space might involve inviting others to take the same risk, and drawing together enough people to sustain the space might also call attention to it. Participation in that space may be encouraged by positional leaders if it is positive for morale, or innocuous enough to cost the organization little in the beginning. But as power is manifest by participation in the space, can structures be raised that may be difficult to undo. A new musical riff or catchy bass line might infect the next practice or performance. Authoritative leaders may be moved to counter or dismantle the effort, but if it catches on with enough people who are willing to sustain it, the music or the movement might have new life. Of course, musical metaphors might also reinforce the hegemony of domination and control. An orchestra is composed of many more institutions than a jazz ensemble, all with highly individualized parts and typically premised on leadership by a single authoritarian, or charismatic, conductor. Even this form, however, can be enlivened by democratizing leadership. The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra (2015) “places democracy at the center of artistic execution,” performing collaboratively without a conductor and using their process to model collaborative creative work for businesses, schools, and other organizations. While not explicitly counterhegemonic in its work, Orpheus models democratizing leadership as an alternative to other forms. I look forward to continuing my exploration of the potential for musical metaphors to inform leadership through next steps in my own theory and practice.

Social Fabric “Destroying the social fabric” has been the rallying cry against democratizing leadership and change agents wherever interest in maintaining current power relations is threatened. Promoting the voices and decisionmaking power of those excluded or controlled by hegemonic domination is a subversive act, a rending of the social fabric. Yet the metaphor of fabric implies weaving—a construction—with intentional choices about

Applications and Implications    225

underlying structure, characteristics, and outward appearance. If the current social fabric is inflexible and comforts only the elite, then it is not a democratic fabric, and it needs to be redesigned and rewoven. In many traditional societies, looms are a traditional means of production, often owned and worked by women. In the case of a backstrap loom, they are physically tensioned by the weight of women’s bodies. A frame loom is purposefully tensioned to create a working structure for a certain approach to weaving fabric. As in linguistic framing, the structure of the loom and the elements woven together frame the final project. In another framing reference to weaving arts, the design is created by choosing which colors and images are included in the field of work and which are excluded. Strong warp strings are placed first in a meticulous process that determines the final product. Then resilient and colorful weft threads are woven into the warp strings in patterns, passing under and over while also skipping some threads in a pattern. The strongest fabric weaves every weft thread over and under every warp string. Skipping every other, or third, or fourth warp string can create interesting designs and lightweight fabric that is not as strong, but might serve some purposes better, perhaps providing more adaptability or stretch, but less bulk or strength. Such alterations and choices highlight the metaphorical implications of “social fabric” for democratizing leadership. If democratic values (freedom, solidarity, inclusivity, diversity, etc.) are the warp strings of the social fabric, running through organizations, institutions, and communities, the identities of everyone in that society are the weft threads that provide color, pattern, and texture to the social fabric. If, however, some groups with the society (weft threads) are denied contact with significant elements of democratic social fabric (warp strings) the social fabric may be weakened or some colors left out. For example, if indigenous communities do not have access to popular sovereignty or if migrant workers do not have access to economic benefit proportional to production value, the social fabric is weakened by this construction. Comparable to a loose weave fabric, where weft threads skip several warp strings, a loosely woven social fabric might provide more economic or political flexibility to those who construct the weave to their benefit. Some groups may be tightly woven into the dominant hegemony, maintaining contact with the democratic structure underlying the social fabric, thereby accessing full participation and also the benefits of a more flexible structure. Other groups may be woven loosely into the same social fabric or left to the margins without the same contact with all elements of the

226    Democratizing Leadership

democratic structure, thereby providing flexibility to the structure, but also lacking access to significant elements of a full and authentic democracy. Hegemonic concepts act as the fibers that hold voice together coherently and bind voice to systems and structures. As these fibers are acknowledged, we can choose to reweave those that cohere to our identity and values and cut those that tangle in unjust biases and conflicting values. This cutting is an act of conscientization, the root of the word “decide,” and one that reflects liberation. Mouffe claims the objective of artistic intervention in the hegemonic order of capitalism “should be to undermine the imaginary environment necessary for its reproduction” (2007, p. 9). Weaving may be seen as tangible cultural production, but it is also a metaphor for the intangible construction of culture that either reinforces or provides an alternative to the dominant social construction.

Challenging Hegemony Through Metaphor Can you begin to imagine musical and artistic metaphors for deliberative, agonistic, and revolutionary democracy? Lederach’s “web of relationships” (2005) comes to mind. Alternative less mechanistic metaphors for organizational, institutional, and community life might help challenge domination and reshape our political relations often premised on mechanical and industrial images. For example, a multivalent metaphor for the complex relationships and tensions between democracy and leadership might be summed up by a garden. Free spaces are shaped by a more or less determined structure (boundaries, raised bed, horizontal rows, vertical frames, etc.) and are influenced by its constituent members (vegetables, legumes, herbs, etc.) in dynamic relationship with each other, such as chemical interactions (nitrogen fixing, moisture, decomposition, nutrient exchange), mechanical interactions (competition for sunlight, water, and nutrients), intervention by a gardener (governance, policy formation), and weather (natural dynamics). Gardening choices such as organic or synthetic chemicals, tillage or permaculture might serve as submetaphors within the primary one. Metaphors are most successful (and surprising) when their own internal logic offers unintended insights, in addition to intended alternative perspectives. Democratizing leadership should attend to metaphor as a meaningful element of framing democracy in organizations, institutions, and communities. Metaphors as codifications help construct a shared understanding of a changing reality and provide a conceptual framework to imagine the new

Applications and Implications    227

hegemony. I offer this brief treatment as an implication for democratizing leadership and as an invitation to explore the potential implicit in metaphorical conceptualizations.

Note 1. Anonymous graffiti, addressing organizing within the context of neo-liberal capitalism.

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Conclusion

D

emocratizing Leadership: Counter-Hegemonic Democracy in Organizations, Institutions, and Communities focuses on social and cultural democracy while drawing from political theory and avoiding politics as such. This is not to deny the importance of democratic practices and values in local, state, and national politics, perhaps even global politics. Ultimately, I believe in the potential of grassroots social and cultural movements as a primary lever for change. I hope the democratization of culture will infuse social systems so completely that political structures will have no choice but to codify and enact vibrant democratic practices into new forms of government; truly governance of, by, and for the people. This agonistic dynamic is evidenced by the present moment. As I finish writing the book, the world is observing the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights March from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama and the codification of those dreams in the Civil Rights Act. I traveled to Selma eight times in the context of an undergraduate course I taught on the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. The Edmund Pettis Bridge is a brilliant codification of the original marches and of the continued conflict in Selma and in the United States. The bridge is named after a Confederate General and Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama, who spent his life using direct and structural violence to maintain oppression and inequality. Now the bridge is a symbol of the nonviolent fight for equality and a reminder of the repressive violence used to maintain the status quo. Many stories and symbols of Selma, and

Democratizing Leadership, pages 229–233 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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the people of Selma today, continue to inform my teaching and my concept of the political. Initially, I reacted with a simple and profound hope to the speech given by President Barack Obama on this anniversary. However, the story of that day was filled with the contradictions implicit in the conflictual consensus of democracy. Many people attended the event to recall the historical voices of grassroots activists, social movement organizers, and radical educators whose long and tireless work fomented the democratizing spaces of Citizenship Schools and voting rights protests. Some people attended to draw parallels between that history and current struggles for democracy, equality, and equity. Others attended to attach their own political identity to a movement they would have likely opposed in its own day. Their elite political interests and values were, and continue to be, in conflict with the conscienticized subjects of that movement. So, I offer below an excerpt of President Obama’s speech (2015) as a codification of contradictions and conflictual consensus, to be decoded in the ongoing agonism of democracy in the United States and beyond: The Americans who crossed this bridge, they were not physically imposing. But they gave courage to millions. They held no elected office. But they led a nation. They marched as Americans who had endured hundreds of years of brutal violence, countless daily indignities—but they didn’t seek special treatment, just the equal treatment promised to them almost a century before. What they did here will reverberate through the ages. Not because the change they won was preordained; not because their victory was complete; but because they proved that nonviolent change is possible; that love and hope can conquer hate. As we commemorate their achievement, we are well-served to remember that at the time of the marches, many in power condemned rather than praised them. Back then, they were called Communists, half-breeds, or outside agitators, sexual and moral degenerates, and worse—they wre called everything but the name their parents gave them. Their faith was questioned. Their lives were threatened. Their patriotism was challenged. And yet, what could be more American than what happened in this place? What could more profoundly vindicate the idea of America than plain and humble people—the unsung, the downtrodden, the dreamers not of high station, not born to wealth or privilege, not of one religious tradition but many, coming together to shape their country’s course? What greater expression of faith in the American experiment than this; what greater form of patriotism is there than the belief that America is not yet finished, that we are strong enough to be self-critical, that each succes-

Conclusion    231 sive generation can look upon our imperfections and decide that it is in our power to remake this nation to more closely align with our highest ideals? That’s why Selma is not some outlier in the American experience. That’s why it’s not a museum or static monument to behold from a distance. It is instead the manifestation of a creed written into our founding documents: “We the People . . . in order to form a more perfect union.” “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

May the words spoken here inspire our authentic voices used together across our differences. May the contradictions of power, privilege, and inequity lead to political decisions made with integrity. And may our identities intersect in the solidarity of conflictual consensus, to motivate nonviolent collective action that promotes thick democracy, ever-more equity, and democratizing leadership for a more common good. Democratizing leadership is a counter-hegemonic challenge to the hegemony of domination through cultivation of collaboration and the democratization of culture (Freire, 1973). Finding voice, using voice, and using voice together increases political literacy to prepare people for decisionmaking and promotes authenticity in the democratic process. Developing knowledge and skills suitable to deliberative, agonistic, and revolutionary democratic frames provides democratizing leadership with a range of options for decision-making leading to collective action. And strategic collective action, prepared for cooperation, agonism, or exodus, will better counter the current hegemony of domination to enact an alternative hegemony of collaboration. Operationalizing democracy means practicing it throughout society, not just in formal politics, but also in social and cultural spaces where it can take root philosophically and instrumentally. Where there are free spaces, use democracy skillfully to create a collaborative culture. Where opportunities exist within agnostic pluralism, use democracy wisely to promote new possibilities. And where there are cracks in otherwise hegemonic monoliths, use democracy subversively, striving tenaciously and nonviolently to provide an alternative to domination. In all cases, sharpen the contradictions between a democratic culture of the people and the autocratic, oligarchic culture of the elite. Propose alternative values to neoliberal hegemonic assumptions and emphasize the dignity and fullness of life that may develop in the creative tensions between freedom and responsibility, equality and solidarity. Create the conditions and cultivate the capacities for change. Supplant before revolt, but when repression is used to defend the current hegemony, and domination

232    Democratizing Leadership

is unshakeable, desert oppressive structures, resist cooperation, and withdraw into democratic alternatives to grow them in opposition until they become the new norm. In the case of First Bank System, democratizing leadership promoted conscientization and challenged domination by exploiting the cracks in an autocratic institution. The experiment persisted for a decade until it was suddenly ended. Some might deem this a failure because it did not change the institution permanently. Yet those who participated—who found and used their voice with others, made decisions together, and took collective action—would be unlikely to emphasize programmatic failure so much as freedom to develop individual and collective agency. The ultimate decisionmaking and action for them might have been leaving the institution to seek more democratic work in other fields. In the case of the In the Heart of the Beast Theater, democratizing leadership promoted participatory values and practices in a community divided by economic and racial inequities. May Day continues to create a space for voice, decision-making, and collective action that articulates the concerns and hopes of a community and demonstrates them in creative, resistive celebration. Against many expectations and in the face of significant obstacles, this theater and ritual are marching into their fifth decade of defiant and hopeful praxis. Like the phoenix image I wore in the parade, the theater’s Lake Street neighborhood has risen from near ashes to become a more vibrant community, in no small part due to the presence of this theater and parade. And the case of the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers shows that participants can enact democratizing leadership form the bottom up in the midst of a crisis to develop meaningful leadership and a dynamic organizational process. Perhaps this example offers the most compelling hope. Organizations, institutions, and communities are shaped by policy and practice, complicated by bureaucracy and inertia, but also composed of individuals who have some degree of agency for change and more as they take strategic collective action together. How might our world look in decades and centuries to come as democratizing leadership is more fully and richly realized at all levels of society and culture? No doubt conflictual still, yet with the dynamic and positive understanding of agonism as the creative democratic tensions that divide us as adversaries and yet bind us through shared commitments to democratic values and practices. I hope this theory may have application beyond the mesolevel contexts presented here, in grassroots organizing and social movements, in the halls of government and relations among nations. Whether you are inspired

Conclusion    233

by these examples or critical about their transferability to other contexts, please add your voice to what de Tocqueville called the “great experiment” (2012, p. 27), in this potentially expansive moment, through both local and global iterations of democracy. Democratizing leadership is rooted in authenticity of voice, integrity in decision-making, and responsibility for collective action. May this serve as the inspiring mission statement for future appropriations of this theory: to deepen our understanding of a praxis-oriented democracy; infuse it throughout organizations, institutions, and communities; and enact the democratization of culture. We reach toward our ideals by starting in the real. Is there truly any other way forward?

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APPENDIX

MAP SWOT Analysis Report— August 2012 (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)

Methodology The MAP Strategic Planning Committee developed the following list at our June 5, 2012 meeting. Delegates prioritized the most significant issues to consider as we imagine a new leadership and organizational structure for MAP. 25 responses (n = 25) were received representing a 33% response rate from MAP’s 75 organizations. 8 responses were returned on paper at the end of the June 12, 2012 Delegate Meeting. 17 responses were returned via email in reply to the survey through the MAP Action Options Tool on June 12, and a reminder email sent August 1, 2012.

Executive Summary Strengths: MAP’s role connecting peace groups in the Twin Cities is clearly it’s highest priority. Accomplishing that role is supported by promoting knowledge and awareness of peace and justice issues, maintaining interfaith and Democratizing Leadership, pages 235–241 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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236    Appendix

non-faith diversity, using processes (like open space) that allow networking on current issues, and staying involved in local, national and international issues. A core of strongly committed members is also a significant strength. Weaknesses: Most significant was the lack of youth involved in MAP, little member ownership, and fragmented interests. Of secondary concern was old thinking about strategies, tactics and technology, reluctance to be more visible, lack of focus, a structure that mitigates against action, time between meetings to take action, and lack of recruitment. Opportunities: Doing larger projects together and understanding/working with the Occupy movement were top priorities with a stronger voice for peace a significant opportunity. Of secondary concern was a State Fair Booth, better use of technology, MAP’s collective wisdom, and alliance potential. Threats: The clear issue is lack of feeling ownership among delegates/ groups. Secondary concerns include MAP members not seeing MAP as a priority, burnout, lack of appropriate action on important issues, lack of structural clarity, and the power of the political right.

Recommendations Leadership: Identified priorities should guide MAP’s strategic planning for leadership and organizational structure. The structure should clarify what MAP is and is not, what MAP will do and will not do. MAP’s identity as an alliance, organization, or network should be decided and implemented structurally. MAP structures should not only rely on, but also promote member ownership and responsibility. Connections: A focus on maintaining and strengthening connections between Twin Cities peace groups should remain its central concern. Changes to MAP should focus on how connections are made and maintained, and the nature of those connections. Are MAP connections to focus on: awareness of member organizations, knowledge about issues of common concern, resolutions to influence political decisions, media stories to influence our culture, actions for social change? MAP is unlikely to do all of these things well and should decide how it fosters connections. Outreach: A significant strength is a strong core of committed members who are deeply concerned about burning out and attracting younger members. A strong effort should be made to identify barriers to new and younger members, and then engage in a recruitment campaign. Special attention should be given to understanding and outreach to the Occupy movement.

Appendix    237

Priorities by Category Based on Vote Tally Statements that received 10 or more votes are listed below as top priorities (bold). Statements in each category that received 7 to 19 votes are listed below as secondary priorities (plain text). Votes

Strengths

15

Potential to connect organizations and make the whole greater than sum of its parts

11

75 groups committed to peace & justice

11

Major peace and justice groups in Twin Cities are connected

10

Knowledge and awareness about Peace & Justice issues—breadth of issues and some individual

10

Interfaith diversity & faith/non-faith diversity

9

Open space keeps things fluent and current—networking on specific issues



8

People know each other, find commonalities, build trust



7

Core of strongly committed individuals



7

Members involved in local, national & international theaters

Votes

Weaknesses

19

Lack of youth—youth participation not integral to the structure of MAP?

16

Little member ownership—loose connections and minimal requirements to belong

11

Fragmented interests



Old thinking about strategies, tactics & technology

9

8

Reluctance to be more visible as an organization (not having staff or volunteers to do this)



Lack of focus

7

7

Structure mitigates against action—especially on political issues, i.e., concerns about 501(c)3



7

Time between meetings to carry on/take action (Delegate majority voting required for MAP to group leaders)



7

Lack of recruitment—other individuals

238    Appendix

Votes

Opportunities

12

Can do larger projects, bring in major speakers, do together what would be difficult to do alone

11

Understand and work with Occupy movement

10

Stronger voice for peace—need promotion, public relations, writers



State Fair booth and other actions

7

7

Better use of new technology—utilize the expertise of younger members

7

MAP’s collective wisdom, including understanding of power and methods of non-violence



An alliance to support member groups and activities

7

Votes

Threats

13

Lack of feeling of ownership among MAP delegates/groups



9

MAP members don’t see MAP as priority



9

Burnout of MAP members

8

Lack of appropriate actions on important issues—i.e., Patriot Act, National Defense Authorization Act

7

Lack of structural clarity—is MAP an alliance, organization, or coalition?

7

Power of the political Right and corporations to overwhelm the media with money

Complete Vote Tally for MAP SWOT Analysis The MAP Strategic Planning Committee developed the following list at our June 5, 2012 meeting. Delegates prioritized the most significant issues to consider helping imagine a new leadership and organizational structure for MAP. Instructions: Place a checkmark ( ✓) next to the five most significant issues in each category. Votes

Strengths

11

75 groups committed to peace & justice



Have the structure so hard work is done

3

9

Open space keeps things fluent and current—networking on specific issues

Appendix    239



8

People know each other, find commonalities, build trust

11

Major peace and justice groups in Twin Cities are connected



Core of strongly committed individuals

7

10

Knowledge and awareness about Peace & Justice issues—breadth of issues and some individual expertise about specific areas



6

Online Action Toll and website



3

Mission & Guiding Principles are used as beacon & filter



7

Members involved in local, national & international theaters

10

Interfaith diversity & faith/non-faith diversity



4

Specialize in nonviolent conflict resolution



1

Long history 1995 to present

15

Potential to connect organizations and make the whole greater than sum of its parts



1

Ideas, values, convictions



4

Meeting, minutes, meeting space (HAUMC greatest asset)



5

Stimulates thinking for members (exposure)



4

Openness about process

Votes

Weaknesses

11

Fragmented interests

19

Lack of youth—youth participation not integral to the structure of MAP?

8

Reluctance to be more visible as an organization (not having staff or volunteers to do this)



1

Loose processes



7

Lack of focus



3

No spokesperson



2

Message too complex



0

No track record of success



9

Old thinking about strategies, tactics & technology

7

Structure mitigates against action—especially on political issues (i.e., concerns about 501(c)3 status)



Lack of funding—culture of scarcity/poverty

6

240    Appendix



7

Time between meetings to carry on/take action (Delegate majority voting required for MAP to sponsor, co-sponsor events or approve resolutions—voting possible only every 2 months)

16

Little member ownership—loose connections and minimal requirements to belong



3

Lack of appreciation of MAP—peace accomplishments



7

Lack of recruitment—other individuals

5

No longer have committees—members won’t join; people are too busy to take on more responsibility

Votes

Opportunities



State Fair booth and other actions

7

11

Understand and work with Occupy movement

6 Instruction—teaching—outreach 7

Better use of new technology—utilize the expertise of younger members



Encourage participation among groups

2

3

Value member participation (understand and recognize worth of participation)

7

MAP’s collective wisdom, including understanding of power and methods of non-violence

10

Stronger voice for peace—need promotion, public relations, writers

12

Can do larger projects, bring in major speakers, do together what would be difficult to do alone



7

An alliance to support member groups and activities



4

Support for new groups emerging out of Occupy



5

Support Nobel Peace Prize Festival/Forum



4

Learn from the “Right” (methods & messaging)



4

Learn from successes & failures



1

Make opportunity out of setbacks (“lemonade from lemons”)



0

Connect work & communication to messaging, e.g., 1%, 99%

7

Fall 2012 Election—opportunity to raise consciousness related to the economic disparity; cost of war; why corporations are not people



Hold accountable our elected officials to their slogans and promises

5

Appendix    241



3

Public is more aware of conflict over everything and more aware of damage being done, i.e., why the two proposed MN constitutional amendments should be defeated



0

Endless opportunities!

Votes

Threats

5

Long time MAP members fear change—losing control of the organization



5

Compromising individual group focus for shared MAP goals



6

Risk aversion—don’t want to risk making fundamental changes

6

Generational ownership—letting go, making room for new members and groups to step up

4

Meeting structure—timing makes participations difficult (can change, is changing)

7

Lack of structural clarity—is MAP an alliance, organization, or coalition?



2

Lack of understanding and appreciation of MAP values and process



4

Egocentricity of individuals gets in the way of collaborative work

13

Lack of feeling of ownership among MAP delegates/groups

8

Lack of appropriate actions on important issues—i.e., Patriot Act, National Defense Authorization Act



2

Apathy in American culture



5

War as a norm in American culture



9

MAP members don’t see MAP as priority



4

MAP members not feeling ownership (weakness too)

7

Power of the political Right and corporations to overwhelm the media with money



1

Supreme Court willing to discard precedent



2

Use of state constitution to imbed special interest (50% + 1)



0

Tyranny of the majority



0

Increase of taxes requiring a super majority vote



3

Use of terrorism to justify oppression (overt & covert)



9

Burnout of MAP members

1

Without habeas corpus—“material support for terrorists” “people disappear”

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Democratizing Leadership, pages 243–249 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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Name Index

A

E

Arendt, Hannah, xii, 20, 86, 92–93

Evans, Sarah, 5, 19, 64, 85, 100, 179 Evans, Dennis, 134, 136

B Borofsky, Jonathan, 44, 144, 148–149 Boulding, Kenneth, 10, 13 Boyte, Harry, xii, 3–5, 19–20, 23, 27, 33, 64, 84–85, 91, 98, 100, 106, 112–113, 179 Braulick, Nathan, 144–147, 154

C Carr, Paul, xiii, 4, 22, 24, 66–69, 108, 125, 166, 217

D De Pree, Max, 223 De Tocqueville, Alexis, 81, 233 Della Porta, Donatella, 32, 106, 114 Dewey, John, 3–4 Derrida, Jacques, 31 Diani, Mario, 32, 106, 114 Dzur, Albert, 3, 23

F Foucault, Michel, 14, 87 Fraser, Nancy, 31, 106 Freire, Paulo, vii–viii, 16, 19, 26, 29, 39, 40, 45–58, 64–72, 84, 87, 97, 101, 105, 109–112, 119, 125–127, 165, 175, 231

G Gablik, Suzi, 26–27 Galtung, Johann, 79 Ganz, Marshall, 115 Giroux, Henry, 16 Gramsci, Antonio, 12, 16, 24, 99

H Habermas, Jurgen, xii, 64, 81–85, 90, 92–93, 97, 106, 112 Hanisch, Carol, 73, 107

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252    Name Index Hardt, Michael, xii, 13, 27–28, 86–91, 94, 98, 101–103, 108, 156 hooks, bell, 16 Honneth, Axel, 32, 106 Horton, Myles, vii, 2–3, 6–7, 21–22, 64, 71–72, 97, 115

K Klein, Mike, 50, 53

P Piven, Francis Fox, 32, 115

R Rand Corporation, 34–36, 87 Rosenberg, Marshall, 70 Roy, Arundhati, 15

L

S

Lederach, John Paul, 18–19, 26, 29–30, 43, 54, 110–112, 117, 215, 226 Lyotard, Francois, 134

Sandoval, Chela, 17 Schirch, Lisa, 26 Schugurensky, Daniel, 217 Sharp, Gene, 11–12, 88, 120, 156 Smith, Dorothy, 130 Sommer, Doris, 28–29, 55–56 Sowder, Lynne, 26, 133–156 Spivak, Gayatri, 58–59, 164

M McAdam, Doug, 32, 106, McCarthy, John, 32, 114 Michels, Robert, 13, 32, 116–118 Morris, Rosalind, 58–59 Mouffe, Chantal, xii–xiii, 10–13, 17, 24–18, 37–40, 61, 65, 74–75, 79, 93–103, 106–107, 110–112, 115, 118–119, 150, 210, 221, 223, 226

N Negri, Antonio, xii, 13, 27–28, 86–91, 94, 98, 101–103, 108, 156

O Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, 224 Owen, Harrison, 127, 199, 220

T Tarrow, Sidney, 32 Tilly, Charles, 32, 106, 114, Tuchman, Barbara, 78

W Wheatley, Margaret, 117, 223 Weiler, Kathleen, 60

Z Zald, Myer, 32, 114

Subject Index

A Agonistic Democracy, (see Democracy, Agonistic) Art, 26–30 Artists, 85, 111

Democracy, 2–6, 19–26 Participatory, xii, 2–3, 23, 155, 191 Deliberative, 81–85 Revolutionary, 86–91 Agonsitic, 24–25, 92–7 “Thick,” 4, 125 Democratizing, xii–xvi, 5

C Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 78, 204 Civil Rights Movement, 71, 112–114, 121, 129 Commonwealth, 84–85, 91 Conflictual Consensus, 25, 39, 61, 79, 93–96, 107, 111, 115, 119, 150, 154, 211, 217 Conscientization, 46–54, 58, 66, 68, 125–127 Controversy Corridor, 143–144, 146, 148–149, 151–155 Counter-hegemonic, 15–19, 83–84

D Deliberative Democracy, (see Democracy, Deliberative)

E Empire, 86–91 Exodus, 13, 28, 87–90, 97–98, 231

F First Bank System Visual Arts Program, 129–130, 133–156 Funnel diagrams, 216–222

H Hegemony, 11–20, 28–29, 31–40, 74, 90, 99–100, 192, 226 of collaboration, 46, 64, 101–103 of domination, 59–61, 64, 79–80, 86–88, 115–119

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254    Subject Index

I In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater, 130–131

L

Power, 6, 10–19, 44–59, 82–84 Political literacy, 56–57, 66, 69, 125– 126, 147–152 Praxis, xiv–xvi, 19, 21–22, 25, 45–46, 77–78, 95 Public Sphere, 64, 82–83

Leadership (definition), 6–10

M Marxism, 12, 20, 39, 55, 64, 86, 88 May Day Parade, 27, 67, 127, 130–131, 156–193, 217–218, 222 Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers, 76, 119, 127–131, 196–216, 220–222, 232 Moral imagination, 18, 29, 110–112

O Occupy Wall Street (Occupy Movement), 2, 33, 35, 37, 87, 102, 113–114, 196, 210, 214, 236 Oligarchy (Iron Law of), 13, 32, 38, 116, 118

P Pedagogy, 48, 55 Feminist, 59

R Revolutionary Democracy, (see Democracy, Revolutionary)

S Social Change Wheel, 120–125 Social Justice, 3–4, 35–37, 101, 125

T Talk Back, 44

V Violence, 10, 29–33, 37–38, 46–47, 57–58, 75–80, 87–89, 111–112, 229–230 Direct, structural, cultural, 79

About the Author

M

ike Klein, EdD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Justice and Peace Studies at the University of St. Thomas. He teaches undergraduate courses on Leadership for Social Justice, Conflict Analysis and Transformation, Introduction to Justice and Peace Studies, and seminars in: vocational discernment, art and social change, and coffee as lens for interdisciplinary analysis. He also teaches graduate courses on critical education in social movements and the pedagogy of Paulo Freire. His research and publishing focus on: leadership, peace education, critical pedagogy, artistic pedagogy in peace studies, popular film in peace studies, and service-learning. Klein received a 2007 Bush Foundation Leadership Fellowship for doctoral research on ritualizing leadership for democratic decision-making and action. He completed the James P. Shannon Leadership Institute in 2011, and consults with the Neighborhood Leadership Program at the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation. A muralist focused on community-based projects, Klein has worked with participants in boxing and African dance programs, a youth farm, a multi-cultural immigrant community, an alternative high school, a crisis nursery, and a food program for people living with HIV/AIDS. He lives with his wife Theresa, daughter Mikayla, and dog Maggie in St. Paul, Minnesota.

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