On Fri, 27 Mar 1998, Tom Walker wrote:
> Peter,
>
> Which brings me to a question about the Project on Governance Implications
> of Labour Market Polarization. It seems to me that the key terms of
> "governance" and "polarization" portend troubling issues regarding the
> foundations for a democratic society. With this in mind, I would like to
> inquire about the criteria governing who is involved in the research group:
> who gets access to the group's deliberations and on what terms? who controls
> the process? and to whom must the process be legitimated?
>
> ...
>
> It just seems to me -- and I
> note Thomas Lunde's and Colin Stark's similar comments -- that there are a
> lot of people whose voices don't get heard or acknowledged on labour market
> issues. ...
>
Greetings ...
I am glad to find that you are so interested in my research group's
activities. I will be sure to notify members of futurework of our
published findings.
But I worry that there is a misunderstanding of the nature of this
endeavor. This is not a Royal Commission, a programme of political
activism, or a conspiratorial "star chamber," but scholarly research of a
more garden variety: an empirical analysis of labour market developments
given available quantitative data and attempts to shed light into the
future by way of international comparisons and econometric modelling. It
is largely an exercise in data mining, number crunching, and induction.
I understand that it is fashionable to insist on representativeness in
policy analysis activities of various kinds. I agree that it is
important to be careful about making statistical generalization for fear
of subsuming the stories of individuals and groups whose experiences
diverge in important respects. This is, in some ways, a chronic weakness
of this form of inquiry and demands a great deal of analysts' knowledge.
For example, the labour market experience of Canada's aboriginal citizens
differ in important respects, but underreporting of this group in official
statistics makes it difficult to identify valid trends. Some of the better
research I have read on the subject takes this sort of thing into account
and attempts to compensate, insofar as it is possible. Let me assure
you that these lessons are not lost on myself or my collegues.
If you are implying that the terms "governance" and "polarization" are
embued with ideological baggage of some sort, I have can only respond by
saying that: (1.) "governance" is just simply the jargon-de-jour for
"policy"; and (2.) "polarization" is a technical term with various
meanings, including (2.1.) the decline of the share of an income and/or
opportunity distribution held by a stratum defined as "middle class",
(2.2.) dispersion of income and/or opportunities between two strata
defined as "upper class" and "lower class", and (2.3.) dispersion of
income and/or opportunities between non-class groups (e.g. gender, age
cohort, ethnicity, etc.). This later definition seems to be what your
comments are about.
I hope this answers your questions.
Cheers, Peter Stoyko
