The WorldBlu Blog

An article entitled,“Freedom’s ring not reaching new ears,” which appeared in yesterday’s Christian Science Monitor newspaper, reports that according to Freedom House, the overall growth of political freedom in the world has stalled.

The “Freedom of the World 2007″ report that Freedom House releases each year states that overall levels of freedom have “remained largely unchanged for nearly a decade” and that just under half of the world’s population actually lives in nations deemed “free.”

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

“If you look at the world in five-year intervals beginning in the late 1970’s, there is no question that freedom was advancing – more countries were becoming democracies, elections resulted in more orderly changes in administrations, and more citizens were enjoying a greater array of civil liberties,” says Arch Puddington, vice president for research at Freedom House. “But beginning in 1998 that trajectory stagnated, with some notable ups and downs since then but a halt to overall improvement.”

Reports such as this one lead me to wonder what impact organizational democracy — that is, freedom in the workplace — can have in advancing the role of political freedom in the world. It makes sense that if people can go to work each day and have a voice and influence in decisions that affect them, be empowered, learn about self-management and accountability, and practice anti-corruption behavior such as open-book management that this could, over time, have a ripple-effect on bringing more freedom to the world.

About a year and a half ago Gretchen Spreitzer, a business professor at the University of Michigan released a ground-breaking report that stated that indeed, work environments that are democratic and participatory in nature can help bring more peace and prosperity to a nation and fight corruption in the process. Learn more about her work by clicking here.

I think it’s safe to say that the majority of the world’s population wants to live in a free society, yet we can’t always influence the large bureaucratic and political systems that are not free as easily or as quickly as we’d like.

We can, however, in our own way, make strides to bring democracy into our workplaces which thus in turn, day by day, can influence behavior and attitudes, restoring a sense of hope for a world governed NOT by fear or a heavy hand but human potential, possibility and yes, true freedom.