Coordinative practices

This preprint develops a structural framework for explaining why citizen participation often fails to translate into democratic outcomes, and what institutional architecture could resolve this failure.

The central diagnosis is "coordinative displacement", the structural decoupling between participation processes and the implementation stages where outcomes are actually determined. Most democratic systems embed citizens in consultative moments (votes, hearings, surveys) while leaving execution to administrative and political actors operating in separate institutional spaces. This displacement, rather than insufficient participation or weak deliberation, explains why high-engagement democracies often produce low-impact outcomes.

In response, the paper proposes Five-Domain Governance Implementation Platforms (5GIP) as a coordination architecture that resolves displacement through synchronous embedding of five actor categories (state, business, civil society, knowledge institutions, and media) across the full policy cycle of co-design, co-execution, and co-evaluation. The framework introduces three measurable constructs: Civic Engagement Rate (CER) for participation depth, Democratic Competence (DC) for societal outcomes, and Public ROI (ROI_public) for coordination efficiency.

A secondary implication of the model is that complete coordination architecture structurally reduces the economic space available for extractive coordination industries, sectors whose revenue depends on perpetuating collective problems rather than solving them. The framework thus connects governance design to broader questions of democratic resilience under contemporary informational and economic pressure.

The paper presents a first-order conceptual formalization with falsifiability conditions, empirical anchoring through three documented programs (participatory budgeting in Lisbon, the Irish Citizens' Assembly, Better Reykjavík), and a methodology for pilot implementation. It contributes to political economy, institutional design, and public administration research, and is intended as a foundation for subsequent empirical work through pilot deployments in EU and adjacent democratic contexts.

In the winter of 1991-92, Liam Bannon and Mike Robinson were hanging out in Copenhagen, visiting me. Liam was, as so often back then, in a temporary job, jumping from one visiting scholar stint to the next, typically in another city or country. Mike was then at the University of Amsterdam. Officially, Liam was visiting the Department of Computer Science at Copenhagen University (DIKU), while Mike was visiting a female friend at the same place. This was just a few months after the three of us had survived organizing the second European CSCW conference, in Amsterdam (Bannon, Robinson and Schmidt, 1991), and it was during the reckless months when we were struggling to get the CSCW journal up and running. (To tell the truth, it was running late, that was all the running it was doing … but I'm digressing). One day, Liam comes to me and says, with an expression close to anguish, 'Kjeld, I have a problem'. 'What problem?' I asked. 'I have just been offered a tenure position as associate professor in Human-Computer Interaction at DIKU', Liam replied. He was really concerned. Later that day, when the three of us teamed up, probably over beer, I related the incident to Mike. When the roaring laughter had subsided, Mike and I agreed to give Liam the nickname 'Walkabout'. We were of course making fun of him, mocking him for his ridiculous dilemma, a manifestation of his voluntarily nomadic lifestyle, conspicuous already then, his predilection for changing city, country, continent on an irregular basis, from one temporary affiliation to the next. But we were not just taking the piss out of him. We were using the term in reference to the spiritual practice of Australian Aboriginals of walking journeys in the wilderness, guided by ancestral knowledge embodied in songs and stories, connecting the landscape to the spiritual world. (We had all recently read Songlines by Bruce Chatwin (1988), an author Liam was very fond of. And for those of you who haven't read the book, yet, 'songlines' are the stories and songs that in Aboriginal mythology trace the creation and ongoing history of the land). But we were also, at yet another level of allusion, referring to his enormous curiosity, a disposition that made him engage with a host of different schools of thought: going now down this path ('what is to see there?), going now down that one ('where will that take us?'). He had by then, at the age of 37, visited or

[This is an English translation of the summary report on the findings of the IDAK project from 2001, an important Danish Participatory Design project carried out in collaboration with and under the leadership of partners in the Danish trade union movement]

The report is based on studies of the work of production groups in five very different Danish industrial companies and summarizes these studies.
The first part of the report shows that the production groups in the five companies differ significantly in terms of their role in production and their organization.
However, there are also notable common features. The tasks of the production groups are highly varied and diverse. They perform duties that might be classified as personnel administration. They prepare staffing plans and allocate work. They adjust production schedules — modify, correct, and redo them. They move production orders to other machines, delay or expedite them. They ensure that materials, tools, and drawings arrive on time. They collect data, formulate experiences, and improve processes. And so on. Not all production groups perform all of these tasks all the time, but this is the clear picture that emerges.
The production groups extensively use existing IT systems in their work: for production planning, production control and follow-up, personnel administration, etc. However, the systems are not designed for this purpose. Planning systems do not support local decisionmaking. All too often, the systems are cumbersome and even confusing to use. Despite large investments in IT infrastructure, paperwork is often still extensive.
The second part of the report therefore outlines a series of requirements for IT systems that should be capable of supporting the delegation of responsibility and authority in production.
The systems must support the variation and diversity of tasks. It should be possible at the user level to adapt and expand the systems according to changing local needs.
The plans expressed by an IT system will always be abstract and incomplete. They must always be translated into practice under conditions that may require adjustments or revisions. Unforeseen situations will also inevitably arise, requiring plan modifications. IT systems must therefore support production groups in these tasks. Based on the available data, the system should propose a plan, but as a rule, the production group must be able to change the production schedule, rearrange the sequence, move orders to other machines, modify staffing, and so forth.
The production group should not merely be allowed to improvise. These are often very complex situations. The group must also be supported in this task. IT systems should help provide an overview of how a change might impact the situation the following day or in other parts of the production process. Similarly, the systems should help assess whether the current situation aligns with expectations: Are the goods arriving on time? Are we behind schedule? Are the recipients ready?
Finally, production groups have several important tasks related to communication and experience-sharing. These are often best handled through direct conversation. However, IT systems can serve as useful communication tools and as means for organizing and managing large collections of documents and data.

This paper examines physicians' progress notes, an artifact that, in spite of its obvious importance in the coordination of cooperative work in clinical settings, has not been subjected to systematic study under CSCW auspices. While several studies have addressed the role of the medical record in patient care, they have not dealt specifically with the role, structure, and content of the progress notes. As a consequence, CSCW research has not yet taken fully into account the fact that progress notes are coordinative artifacts of a rather special kind, an open-ended chain of prose texts, written sequentially by cooperating physicians for their own use as well as for that of their colleagues. We argue that progress notes are the core of the medical record, in that they marshal and summarize the overwhelming amount of data that is available in the modern hospital environment, and that their narrative format is uniquely adequate for the pivotal epistemic aspect of cooperative clinical work: the narrative format enables physicians to not only record 'facts' but also-by filtering, interpreting, organizing, and qualifying information-to make sense and act concertedly under conditions of uncertainty and contingency.

The last few decades have witnessed a veritable upsurge in the use of the concept of 'practice' in the social sciences broadly understood and, more importantly, the concept is being deployed to perform the work of a cornerstone concept, that is, the concept in terms of which research questions are articulated and results compared. Across disciplines and research areas, scholars engage in a 'turn to practice', and nothing less than a 'practice theory' has been announced. At the same time, however, the word 'practice' is used in distinctly different and even varying ways to the extent that it is questionable if the different schools of thought in this movement are in fact employing the same concept. What has led to this state of affairs is primarily the fact that the concept, in the course of its history, has undergone a series of 'conceptual inversions'. The result is a concept with serious complications, which makes it quite easy for authors to lose their semantic bearing.-This chapter examines how the concept was developed on the threshold of the Modern Era as a way to reflect on and debate the relationship between, on the one hand, technical knowledge as expressed and conveyed in authoritative texts (law, grammar, medical recipes and procedures, geometrical calculi and architectural plans, navigational charts, and so on), and on the other hand, the application of that knowledge under the conditions of those particular circumstances from which the authoritative texts necessarily abstracted, the inexorable variations and contingencies, the known and unknown unknowns. To express this relationship, scholars adopted the Greek terms 'theoria' and 'praxis'. The concept-pair 'theory and practice' has since then been stabilized and institutionalized but has also, subsequently, been applied to a host of different purposes far beyond concerns with application of technical knowledge: the philosophy of ethics and rights, the philosophy of history and social change, the philosophy of scientific discovery, the philosophy of logic and mathematics, the philosophy of the foundations of social sciences, and so forth. The cumulative effect of the attempts to adapt the concept of 'practice' to fit these different purposes is a concept with serious complications but also practical potentials. The aim of this chapter is to clarify the point of the conceptthat is, the distinctions we use it for and the work they help us doand, in doing so, retain its practical utility.

The issue of 'awareness' has been on the agenda of CSCW research since the field first formed in the 1980s, yet nothing remotely similar to consensus about what the issue is and how to understand it has been achieved. This Special Issue is an attempt to bring this central research problem forward. The centerpiece of this Special Issue is the article by Josh Tenenberg, Wolff-Michael Roth, and David Socha (2016) in which some of the established positions on 'awareness' are subjected to critical discussion and an alternative conceptualization is proposed. To give this bold attempt its due, we have invited a number of scholars from different schools of thought within CSCW to respond to the challenge. We are pleased that Gutwin and Greenberg (2016); Harper (2016); Koschmann (2016); Robertson (2016); and Stahl (2016) found time to write thoughtful, critical, and constructive commentaries. Co-editor Kjeld Schmidt also contributes with a commentary (2016). Tenenberg, Roth and Socha have, of course, the opportunity of replying to the six commentaries (Roth et al. 2016). To wrap up the discussion, for now, co-editor Dave Randall summarizes the discussion and maps out the various positions as they appear at this stage (Randall 2016). To bring readers who may not be familiar with the research tradition that has developed under the label 'awareness' up to speed, a brief account of the different sources to the tradition may be helpful. (For a systematic overview of the research that has been conducted under the 'awareness' label, see Gross 2013). In the 1980s computer technologists began to explore the issues of developing 'multiuser interfaces' that would facilitate the collaborative use of application programs, both ordinary single-user programs used collaboratively and application programs specifically designed to facilitate human interaction such as 'group editors', 'conferencing systems', etc. (cf., e.g., Sarin and Greif 1984; Stefik et al. 1987). To distinguish, the latter were referred to as having 'collaboration awareness' or

Many manufacturing enterprises are introducing various forms offlexible work organizations on the shop floor. However. existing computer-based production planning and control systems pose serious obstacles for self-governing groups and other kinds of shop floor control to become reality. In order to understand and overcome these obstacles we have undertaken a series of six field studies in manufacturing companies. Based on our findings from these studiesand inspired by the research field of Computer Supported Cooperative Work-we present a first set of requirements and principles for IT-based systems for selfgoverning production groups. The intention is to support responsible workers in their situated planning. control and coordination of shop floor activities.

The issue of 'awareness' has been on the agenda of CSCW research since the field first formed in the 1980s, yet nothing remotely similar to consensus about what the issue is and how to understand it has been achieved. This Special Issue is an attempt to bring this central research problem forward. The centerpiece of this Special Issue is the article by Josh Tenenberg, Wolff-Michael Roth, and David Socha (2016) in which some of the established positions on 'awareness' are subjected to critical discussion and an alternative conceptualization is proposed. To give this bold attempt its due, we have invited a number of scholars from different schools of thought within CSCW to respond to the challenge. We are pleased that Gutwin and Greenberg (2016); Harper (2016); Koschmann (2016); Robertson (2016); and Stahl (2016) found time to write thoughtful, critical, and constructive commentaries. Co-editor Kjeld Schmidt also contributes with a commentary (2016). Tenenberg, Roth and Socha have, of course, the opportunity of replying to the six commentaries (Roth et al. 2016). To wrap up the discussion, for now, co-editor Dave Randall summarizes the discussion and maps out the various positions as they appear at this stage (Randall 2016). To bring readers who may not be familiar with the research tradition that has developed under the label 'awareness' up to speed, a brief account of the different sources to the tradition may be helpful. (For a systematic overview of the research that has been conducted under the 'awareness' label, see Gross 2013). In the 1980s computer technologists began to explore the issues of developing 'multiuser interfaces' that would facilitate the collaborative use of application programs, both ordinary single-user programs used collaboratively and application programs specifically designed to facilitate human interaction such as 'group editors', 'conferencing systems', etc. (cf., e.g., Sarin and Greif 1984; Stefik et al. 1987). To distinguish, the latter were referred to as having 'collaboration awareness' or

As an established field of research, Computer Supported Cooperative Work or CSCW is now well beyond its first quarter century of existence. It is an appropriate time to take stock: What has been achieved, and what issues remain as challenges for the field?-This introductory article will assess what has become of the field, its position as a research field in the wider context of technology development, and its complex physiognomy.

This is a study of the cooperative work of making steel in a contemporary steel plant. The study is, first of all, a study of the coordinative practices of a cooperative ensemble of operators controlling a time-critical transformation process, while spatially dispersed at different work stations across the plant, working under quite different and varying local constraints and requirements, with only rudimentary means of ongoing communication. Their individual and local contributions to the overall effort must be minutely synchronized to meet the strict temporal requirements of the operation as a whole. These challenges notwithstanding, the operators manage to act concertedly to produce quality steel and to do so routinely. The question is, how do they manage to do that? As the workers in the setting generally are not able to coordinate their cooperative effort discursively, it is analytically both feasible and necessary to foreground and identify the knowledge of metallurgy of steel and of the plant that enables them, as they go about their own local activities, to apprehend the problems and intentions of their colleagues as reflected in the changing state of the technical processes. The underlying thesis of the study is that in order to answer the general question of how workers engaged in cooperative work are able to heed the activities of their colleagues, and to do so routinely, we are well advised to 'take the concept of practice seriously'.

At the beginning of 1845, Marx (1818-1883) began his studies that led him to develop and mature his technological thinking, focusing on it in 1851 and maintaining this interest in 1860. In these early studies, Marx used sources and a German bibliography, in particular the writings of J. Beckmann (1739-1811) and J. H. M. von Poppe (1776-1854). In this paper, we will study the main influences that Marx received from the aforementioned authors, from his works published in the first half of the 19th century, and then, also highlight some influences arising from the English thinkers of the Industrial Revolution in England Charles Babbage (1791-1871) and Andrew Ure (1778-1857).

Forum adaptability. It is thanks to this adaptability that values coming from historical and cultural traditions of different epochs have been reassembled in a mosaic, diffused and transmitted inside the social system and the relations of the productive world. If Japan assumed the western model of doing technology its possible evolutions would inevitably imply a great involvement of their cultural traditions. The final outcome might consist in the discovery of the same problems and polemics that characterize in Western culture the relationship between tradition and scientifictechnological progress. The Japanese productive world remains, in this sense, at the periphery of culture, which does not feel either the need of it or its crucial relevance for the future. Thus instrumentality in the end prevails without jeopardizing the cultural models that are, and remain, extraneous to it, differently from what occurred and occurs in Europe. For Japan, presumably the problem of the two souls, as we know it, is of no relevance. It is, however, also important for the international relations which Japan has developed, to wonder for how long this will be true, and what syntheses Japanese culture will turn to when it has to deal with the consequences of the diffusion of a technology that until now has been, so to speak, bracketed, as pure instrumentality. References

Simply put, the research area of computer-supported cooperative work-or CSCW-can be defined as an attempt to explore how information technology may be designed and used so as to enable people engaged in cooperative activities to accomplish their work more efficiently and effectively. It is not quite as simple as that, of course. Opinions differ, also regarding the overriding question of what CSCW is all about. However, the different approaches can roughly be grouped into two loosely defined research programs.

At the beginning of 1845, Marx (1818-1883) began his studies that led him to develop and mature his technological thinking, focusing on it in 1851 and maintaining this interest in 1860. In these early studies, Marx used sources and a German bibliography, in particular the writings of J. Beckmann (1739-1811) and J. H. M. von Poppe (1776-1854). In this paper, we will study the main influences that Marx received from the aforementioned authors, from his works published in the first half of the 19th century, and then, also highlight some influences arising from the English thinkers of the Industrial Revolution in England Charles Babbage (1791-1871) and Andrew Ure (1778-1857).

Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) is an interdisciplinary research area concerned with developing computing technologies that facilitate, mediate, or regulate interaction between people engaged in cooperative work or similar kinds of sustained social activities. CSCW is a heterogeneous enterprise, addressing a motley of computational technologies and assimilating contributions from a host of scientific disciplines. What unites CSCW research is a shared concern with the fundamental problem of incorporating models of coordinative practices in computational artifacts and to do so in such a way that actors are able to deal with contingencies and are supported in that by the functionalities of the computational artifacts. Reflecting this shared concern, CSCW research is also united in a symmetrical commitment to ground design efforts in studies of actual work practices and to orient studies of actual work practices towards informing the development of collaborative technologies. As a field CSCW focuses on a variety of domains where complex cooperative practices occur. Due to the heterogeneity of the field and of such domains, a range of approaches and frameworks are applied to CSCW research. A notably established approach that has shaped substantial part of CSCW scholarship and had influence beyond the discipline are in-depth ethnographic studies of actual practices in their naturally occurring settings. In this regard CSCW has been influential in championing a hybrid approach to the study of computing systems encompassing concerns for understanding and for designing.

was written early 2011 for a Festschrift (in the form of a special issue of the journal Language Sciences) cele brating the work of Professor Roy Harris on the occasion of his 80 th birthday, but for various reasons the manuscript could not be finished in time to be included in the special issue.1 It is made available here as an unfinished manuscript. Comments are welcome.