Public Administration And Expertise In Democratic Governments

"This collection deals with challenges confronting public law and public administration in twenty-first century democracies across the world. It draws together contributions from leading scholars, examining cutting-edge topics, and projecting the scholarship forward. It emphasizes the importance both of justifying executive policymaking to citizens and of drawing on bureaucratic expertise and professional competence. Contributors examine the role of courts and argue for new forms of public participation that can incorporate democratic values into executive-branch policymaking. Finally, the work confronts problems in the administration of the criminal law that are generating increased public concern. Building on Rose-Ackerman's scholarship, writers compare the American experience with contemporary developments in other leading democracies - in particular, Germany, France, the EU, Canada, and Latin America. The work will be an invaluable resource for academics, researchers and policy-makers working in the area of Administrative Law, Public Law and Political Science"--

This collection deals with challenges confronting public law and public administration in twenty-first century democracies across the world. It draws together contributions from leading scholars, examining cutting-edge topics, and projecting the scholarship forward. It emphasizes the importance both of justifying executive policymaking to citizens and of drawing on bureaucratic expertise and professional competence. Contributors examine the role of courts and argue for new forms of public participation that can incorporate democratic values into executive-branch policymaking. Finally, the work confronts problems in the administration of the criminal law that are generating increased public concern. Building on Rose-Ackerman’s scholarship, writers compare the American experience with contemporary developments in other leading democracies – in particular, Germany, France, the EU, Canada, and Latin America. The work will be an invaluable resource for academics, researchers and policymakers working in the areas of Administrative Law, Public Law, and Political Science.

The true measure of the successful practice of public service is its ability to remain faithful to the tenets of democratic society. This introductory text links the practice of public administration to the core concepts of American democracy. It covers the nuts and bolts of public administration in the context of "delivering democracy" in public service - providing what the public really wants as opposed to what self-serving bureaucracies may call for. Chapters in "Democracy and Public Administration" discuss the functional topics covered in other texts, but from the perspective of this democratic ideal. Each chapter is written by an expert in the area, and summarizes previous research in the area, presents the author's research and thought, and offers ways in which practitioners can apply the concepts discussed to their daily work.

This book examines the role of policy expertise in a democratic society. From the perspectives of both political theory and policy studies, the chapters explore the implications of deliberative democratic governance for professional expertise and extends them to specific policy practices. Following the lead of John Dewey, the discussion focuses in particular on the ways professional practices might be reoriented to assist citizens in understanding and discussing the complex policy issues of an advanced technological society. In doing so, it also explores how public deliberation can be improved through more cooperative forms of policy inquiry. Adopting a deliberative-analytic approach , policy inquiry is grounded in a postempiricist, constructivist understanding of inquiry and knowledge and the participatory practices that support it. Toward this end, the chapters draw on thriving theoretical and practical work dedicated to revitalizing the citizen's role in both civil society and newer practices of democratic governance, in particular deliberative democracy in political theory, practical work with deliberative experiments, the theory and practices of democratic governance, and participatory research. Deliberative practices are promoted here as a new component part of policy-related disciplines required for participatory governance. Calling for a specialization of "policy epistemics" to advance such practices, the second half of the book takes up issues related to deliberative empowerment, including the relation of technical and social knowledge, the interpretive dimensions of social meaning and multiple realities, the role of narrative knowledge and storylines policy inquiry, social learning, tacit knowledge, the design of discursive spaces, and the place of emotional expression in public deliberation.

Democratic Governance examines the changing nature of the modern state and reveals the dangers these changes pose to democracy. Mark Bevir shows how new ideas about governance have gradually displaced old-style notions of government in Britain and around the world. Policymakers cling to outdated concepts of representative government while at the same time placing ever more faith in expertise, markets, and networks. Democracy exhibits blurred lines of accountability and declining legitimacy. Bevir explores how new theories of governance undermined traditional government in the twentieth century. Politicians responded by erecting great bureaucracies, increasingly relying on policy expertise and abstract notions of citizenship and, more recently, on networks of quasi-governmental and private organizations to deliver services using market-oriented techniques. Today, the state is an unwieldy edifice of nineteenth-century government buttressed by a sprawling substructure devoted to the very different idea of governance--and democracy has suffered. In Democratic Governance, Bevir takes a comprehensive look at governance and the history and thinking behind it. He provides in-depth case studies of constitutional reform, judicial reform, joined-up government, and police reform. He argues that the best hope for democratic renewal lies in more interpretive styles of expertise, dialogic forms of policymaking, and more diverse avenues for public participation.

Those who implement policies have the discretion to shape democratic values. Public administration is not policy administered, but democracy administered.

A timely new perspective on the impact of populism on the relationship between democracy and public administration.

A seminal collection of essays, addressing such questions as the evolving roles of civil servants, the education and training of civil servants, and the ways to balance civil servants’ expertise with respect for democratic governance This collection of essays highlights the “peculiarly American” issues of public administration ranging from 1870 to 1974, when they were first published. Every contributor was assigned a period of American history and given the opportunity to write on what he or she deemed the most important or relevant concern of that period. This method, employed for this book and the connected National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration conference, resulted in a wide-reaching, if eclectic, collection. Supplanted by Mosher’s impressive summarization of the field throughout the years, the book still holds prominence as a source for scholars, workers, and students alike in public administration. The essays raise such issues as the education of civil servants, the changes necessitated by crises, the growth of social sciences in governmental concerns, and primarily, the role of public administrators in America. Each author is a distinguished expert in his own right, and each essay can stand alone as a remarkable insight into the changing world of public administration within American society. Frederick Mosher’s expertise and supervision shapes this work into a remarkable and holistic perspective on public administration over time.