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Mark Bevir

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"Democratic Governance is a highly original, broad-ranging, and ambitious book that makes distinctive contributions to democratic theory, the sociology of knowledge, and public policy. Its major contribution is to show how relatively abstract social theories have informed, down to the details, agendas of political, administrative, and policy reform."--Archon Fung, Harvard University

"This impressive book draws upon a wide range of literatures in political science, sociology, policy analysis, and public administration to raise--and attempt to answer--pressing questions about the undemocratic or even antidemocratic implications of emerging models of 'governance.' Bevir traces the appeal of this recently coined term of art to conservative and neoliberal dissatisfactions with government, whose supposed inefficiencies could be corrected by allegedly more efficient modes such as markets."--Terence Ball, Arizona State University

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Democratic Governance

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

List of Tables...........................................ixPreface..................................................xiAcknowledgments..........................................xiiiAbbreviations............................................xvChapter One Interpreting Governance.....................1Part I: The New Governance...............................15Chapter Two The Modern State............................17Chapter Three New Theories..............................39Chapter Four New Worlds.................................65Part II: Constitutionalism...............................93Chapter Five Democratic Governance......................95Chapter Six Constitutional Reform.......................122Chapter Seven Judicial Reform...........................147Part III: Public Administration..........................175Chapter Eight Public Policy.............................177Chapter Nine Joined-up Governance.......................199Chapter Ten Police Reform...............................227Conclusion After Modernism..............................251Bibliography.............................................275Index....................................................293

Chapter One

Once you start to listen out for the word "governance," it crops up everywhere. The Internet faces issues of Internet governance. International organizations promote good governance. Hospitals are introducing systems of clinical governance. Climate change and avian flu require innovative forms of global and transnational governance. Newspapers report scandalous failures of corporate governance.

Unfortunately, the ubiquity of the word "governance" does not make its meaning any clearer. A lack of clarity about the meaning of governance might engender skepticism about its importance. The lack of clarity lends piquancy to questions such as: How does the concept of governance differ from that of government? Why has the concept of governance become ubiquitous? What is the relationship of governance to democracy? How do policy actors respond to the challenges of governance?

This book attempts to answer these questions. It argues that:

The concept of governance evokes a more pluralistic pattern of rule than does government: governance is less focused on state institutions, and more focused on the processes and interactions that tie the state to civil society.

The concept of governance has spread because new theories of politics and public sector reforms inspired by these theories have led to a crisis of faith in the state.

Governance and the crisis of faith in the state make our image of representative democracy implausible.

Policy actors have responded to the challenge of governance in ways that are constrained by the image of representative democracy and a faith in policy expertise.

While these arguments might seem straightforward, we will confront a host of complexities along the way. These complexities often reflect the limited extent to which we can expect concepts such as governance to have fixed content. "Governance" is a vague and contested term, as are many political concepts. People hold different theories and values that lead them, quite reasonably, to ascribe different content to the concept of governance. There are, in other words, multiple theories and multiple worlds of governance, each of which has different implications for democracy.

I have responded to this complexity in part by mixing general discussions of the new governance with specific case studies that locate Britain in various comparative and international contexts. In the particular case of Britain, this book argues that:

The concept of governance evokes a differentiated polity that stands in contrast to the Westminster model.

The concept of governance has spread because new theories of politics and also public sector reforms inspired by these theories have eroded faith in the Westminster model.

A shift of perspective from the Westminster model to the differentiated polity poses challenges for the constitution and public administration.

Policy actors have generally responded to these challenges by promoting reforms that remain constrained by the Westminster model and a faith in policy expertise.

Diagnosis and Prescription

My aims are primarily diagnostic. I identify trends and problems in current democracy. Governance undermines old expressions of representative democracy including the Westminster model. Policy actors typically remain trapped by the image of representative democracy buttressed now by a faith in policy expertise. Their policies restrict democracy. Representative governments struggle to direct the policy process. An illusory expertise crowds out citizen participation.

While this book is mainly diagnostic, it contains prescriptive arguments. Just as the diagnosis points to modernist theories as a source of current problems of democracy, so the prescription involves turning away from these theories. Modernist social science has restricted democracy. Interpretive social science may be a cure.

Interpretive social science certainly shifts our perspective on the relationship of knowledge to the state. Modernist social scientists generally see only how their theories analyze the state. An interpretive approach enables us also to see how social science partly constitutes the state. It may be controversial to argue that social science makes the world as well as analyzing it. But the argument is obvious: if policy actors form policies using formal or folk theories from social science, then social science partly constitutes those policies.

Approaches to social science do not have logically necessary relationships to democratic theories and practices. However, my diagnosis suggests that historically modernist social science has undermined faith in representative democracy and led policy actors to turn increasingly to an expertise based on modernist social science itself. My prescriptive hope is that an interpretive social science may reveal the limitations of this expertise and encourage more pluralist and participatory forms of democracy.

These diagnostic and prescriptive arguments reflect a historical narrative about the changing nature of social science and democratic practice. The new theories and worlds of governance are part of a long process of rethinking and remaking the modern state. My diagnosis narrates the shift from developmental historicism to modernism. My prescription advocates another shift to interpretive social science, dialogue, and participation.

Much of the nineteenth century was dominated by a developmental historicism in which the state appeared as a consummation of the history of a nation that was held together by ties of race, language, character, and culture. This developmental historicism promoted the following three ideas. First, the state was or at least could be the expression of the common good (or public interest) of a nation (or people) that was bound together by prepolitical ties. Second, social science grasped the character of any particular state as a historical product of a prepolitical nation. Third, representative institutions enabled citizens to elect and hold accountable politicians who expressed, acted on, and safeguarded the common good of the nation.

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