Fifty approaches, sixty-seven voices, twelve parts: a book-world rather than a manual, whose richness lends itself to several reading itineraries. Two are proposed here — mine, and yours.
It is delicate to give an account of a book in which one has taken part oneself. One cannot quite take the reader's distance, nor can one cite oneself without giving the impression of pulling the cover. And yet this is the exercise I am going to attempt here, because Démocratie(s) en action seems to me too notable to let simply pass.
It is a thick, choral work — fifty approaches signed by sixty-seven voices of researchers, executives, trade unionists, jurists and practitioners, gathered in twelve parts. The editorial choice is explicit: not to settle, not to unify, but to let the diversity be heard of what democratising an enterprise might mean today. That choice is already a position — the one that recognises that democracy at work is a living, discussed, formative object, and not a finished model to decree.
I am not going to summarise, nor go through chapter by chapter — Babelio and the publisher's site do it better. I prefer to dwell on three ideas, read in other contributions, that dialogue with my own convictions.
In Part 1 (“A historic step: the Spanish Government embarks on the democratisation of enterprises”, interview by Corentin Gombert), Isabelle Ferreras recalls a distinction she has carried for a long time: management concerns the modalities of organising work, while government concerns the ends pursued by the collective — and it is the latter that calls for democratic legitimacy. The distinction seems simple; it is in fact cutting. It explains why so many so-called participative experiments end up going in circles: they democratise management while leaving government entirely to capital. It also sheds light on why serious legislative proposals in this area bear first of all on the organs of governance, not on “quality of life at work”.
In Part 4 (“The debate of norms as the foundation of democracy at work”), Ingrid Dromard approaches democracy at work from a very concrete angle, inherited from ergonomists and work clinicians: what makes a collective democratic is its capacity to put into deliberation the norms that govern its activity, rather than receiving them from above. One understands that democracy is played out not only in formal bodies, but in the way real work is spoken about, in the tensions one accepts to bring up, in the arbitrations one makes visible. A reading that gives a central role back to line managers and craft collectives, often forgotten in the more institutional debates.
In Part 7 (“The question of work at the hour of democracy”), Christian Guibert reminds us that it is not enough to add democracy to a form of work whose damaged features would be kept — indefinite subordination, detailed prescription, dispossession of meaning. Giving back the power to act to workers presupposes transforming also what they are asked to do, how, and for what. One can read it as a friendly objection to all “democratic” enterprises that would leave their production dead-ends intact. This reading seems indispensable to me if one wants to avoid that the democratic enterprise become a façade on unchanged content.
These three entries, taken from among fifty possible, give an idea of the grain of the book. One finds there strong institutional proposals (statutes, codetermination, measures of democracy), concrete experiments (the Duralex takeover as a SCOP, Upcoop, activity cooperatives), critical reflections — is corporate democracy not sometimes the placebo of an enlightened despotism, asks Thibaud Brière — readings of classical authors (Mary Parker Follett, Dewey, Ostrom) and field testimonies. This diversity is sometimes dizzying; it is also the best proof that the subject is alive.
My own contribution, Une entreprise démocratique dans une république sociale : pour qui ? pourquoi ? comment ? (A democratic enterprise in a social republic: for whom? why? how?) (Part 1), starts from a simple intuition: the democratisation of the enterprise makes complete sense only when inscribed in a societal project that carries it. I refer readers who want the detailed thread to the chapter itself.
What I retain, beyond the disagreements running through the work — and there are some — is that we are several, coming from different horizons, converging on a common observation: democracy needs, to refound itself, to find its place where a decisive part of our lives is played out. The rest — the statutes, the procedures, the bodies — is indispensable, but comes after that conviction.
Five hundred pages, sixty-seven authors, twelve parts: a book-world rather than a manual. One can read it in one go, but one can also enter it through a chosen door — either by what one is looking for, or by an author who intrigues one.
You are not hostile to democracy at work, but you wonder whether it isn't just another dressing, or a constraint you cannot afford. Start with the critiques — they are often the best introductions — then a long testimony that shows it is neither theory nor magic.
You are a consultant, coach or trainer; you intervene on issues of organisation or governance. What you are looking for: operational frameworks and concrete points of vigilance, not just political philosophy.
You wonder what these debates on democracy at work change — or do not change — in the social dialogue as you practise it. You also want to know whether the proposals in circulation are allies or competitors.
Interview by Corentin Gombert. Ferreras has long carried the distinction between government and management. This chapter shows its concrete political scope: when a European State decides to legislate, it is this distinction that is the hinge. To be read to grasp what is at stake at the institutional level.
A seasoned critic who worked for a long time in “liberated” enterprises. His question disturbs, including the enthusiasts: what if all this were only a new façade on an unchanged authority? The most disturbing chapter of the book, to be read early.
Ternier does the work every debate deserves but often skips: establishing a reasoned list of the arguments before taking sides. Useful to verify one's convictions are solid, whichever side they lean.
Fraisse reverses the dominant question of the book: rather than “how to democratise the enterprise?”, he asks “what does the enterprise contribute to democracy?”. From his experience of sustainable development and systemic responsibility — developed at greater length in Comprendre la RSE, levier de transformation durable (with Antoine Jaulmes and Frédéric Ménard, Larcier, 2023 — Babelio page) — he defends the enterprise as one of the rare places capable of a collective learning at the scale of the century's ecological and technological stakes. A practitioner's voice, singular in this work, whose positions on CSR/CSRD frameworks as vectors of democracy will deserve to be discussed with other contributions in the book.
My own contribution — so I switch to the first person. I start from a simple intuition: the democratisation of the enterprise makes complete sense only when inscribed in a societal project that carries it. The three questions of the title — for whom to democratise, why, how — organise the chapter. I prefer to refer to the book rather than summarising its thread here; the exercise would be delicate.
Five scenarios to assess where an organisation stands, without the illusions of fashionable managerial vocabulary. A practical chapter to open in front of a whiteboard, with one's management or one's team.
The title is misleading: this chapter is in reality a guide for any outside person — consultant, researcher, trainer — who claims to accompany a collective towards more democracy. A precious compass against the traps of the intervener's posture.
Dromard approaches democracy through real work: what makes a collective democratic is its capacity to put into deliberation the norms that govern its activity. A chapter that gives a role back to line managers and craft collectives, often absent from more institutional debates.
How to assess where a collective stands, with what indicators, without reducing democracy to a score that would betray it? Useful for whoever wants to build an honest dashboard rather than a dressed-up KPI.
The most thoroughly worked institutional proposal of the book, by an economist who has been carrying it in France for twenty years. To be read in order to know precisely what is at stake in the current legislative debates — and to understand why this path is neither cosmetic nor inaccessible.
An honest chapter on what happens when formal authority is removed without addressing authority itself. To be read by all those tempted to install arrangements that produce, in practice, the opposite of their intention.
Guibert reminds us that it is not enough to add democracy to a form of work whose damaged features would be kept — indefinite subordination, detailed prescription, dispossession of meaning. A friendly objection to all “democratic” enterprises that would leave their production dead-ends intact.
A historical reframing that shows France has already attempted something radical, from which there is much to relearn. Useful to avoid starting from zero in the current debates and to avoid false starts.
How social dialogue can become an engine again, provided it is renewed in its modalities and its ambition. Written by someone who knows from the inside what she describes.
The account of an emblematic takeover by those who led it. A case from which every union section can draw lessons — not as a model to copy, but as a mirror of the dilemmas every collective will meet.
From his observatory as an insurance operator, Waknine documents what the statistics of absenteeism, claims and workplace suffering say about the democratic — or non-democratic — state of French enterprises. He presents the IBET (Indice de Bien-Être au Travail, Well-being at Work Indicator), a tool he developed, which is the subject of a dedicated chapter in Comprendre la RSE, levier de transformation durable, a work co-edited by Henri Fraisse with Antoine Jaulmes and Frédéric Ménard (Larcier, 2023 — Babelio page). A contribution that reminds us that democracy at work is also read in the health of those exposed to it.
Interview by Marc Buisson. A long, embodied testimony of an enterprise that has lived democratically for six decades — with its tensions, its successes and what it has learned from its mistakes. Precious to show that it is neither theory nor magic.
Corentin Gombert, Eline Vivet-Maladry and Fadi Joseph Lahiani (eds.), Démocratie(s) en action. 50 approches renouvelées de l'entreprise et du travail, Le Bord de l'Eau, 2025.
Publisher page — Babelio page.