Public Participation and Innovations in Community Governance by Peter McLaverty

Author:Peter McLaverty [McLaverty, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9780754615668
Google: 8cyNAAAAMAAJ
Goodreads: 2936870
Publisher: Ashgate
Published: 2002-01-15T12:58:26+00:00

Theoretical Propositions in Examining Issues of Democracy in Metropolitan Governance

When it comes to questions of democratic legitimacy of public policies, scholars of governance have viewed the transition from government to governance with a somewhat uneasy feeling. In western democracies, the legitimacy of the state and state policies is generally seen to rest upon transparent procedures that give good reasons to believe that decisions made and policies implemented are, ultimately, the result of public deliberations among free and equal citizens (Habermas, 1992). This is the raison d’etre for mechanisms assuring democratic accountability and citizen control over state activities and public policies (Ingraham and Romzek, 1994). From that perspective, it becomes clear that, when looking at the transitions from government to governance, one must keep an eye on eventual consequences that new mechanisms of governance may bear not only at the ‘output-side’ of policy implementation, but also at the ‘input-side’ of formulation and democratic control of public policies. This point is evidently not overlooked in the governance debate. As Rhodes, for example, points out, governance is likely to pose a considerable ‘challenge for democratic accountability’ (Rhodes, 1996, p. 53). In our view, in the ongoing intense debate on this point, two main lines of reasoning can be distinguished, which we propose to term the pessimistic and the optimistic view on governance and democracy.

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