Collaborative Governance and Civic Empowerment: A Discussion of Investing in Democracy: Engaging Citizens in Collaborative Governance

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 605-607
Author(s):  
Patrick J. Deneen

Whether as a solution to problems of political legitimacy or social mistrust, as a way of involving civil society, or as a method of crafting more effective “third way” policies, collaborative governance has been a topic of renewed interest for political scientists and policy intellectuals. Carmen Sirianni's Investing in Democracy: Engaging Citizens in Collaborative Governance (Brookings, 2009) is an important new book that raises many of these issues. Perspectives on Politics is a forum for raising questions of interest to a broad range of political scientists. In this symposium, we have asked a number of prominent political scientists and policy analysts to assess the book and to address two broader questions: in what ways does the book draw from and add to political science scholarship, and in what ways does political science scholarship help to shed light on the book's core themes?

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 601-604 ◽  
Author(s):  
Romand Coles

Whether as a solution to problems of political legitimacy or social mistrust, as a way of involving civil society, or as a method of crafting more effective “third way” policies, collaborative governance has been a topic of renewed interest for political scientists and policy intellectuals. Carmen Sirianni'sInvesting in Democracy: Engaging Citizens in Collaborative Governance(Brookings, 2009) is an important new book that raises many of these issues.Perspectives on Politicsis a forum for raising questions of interest to a broad range of political scientists. In this symposium, we have asked a number of prominent political scientists and policy analysts to assess the book and to address two broader questions: in what ways does the book draw from and add to political science scholarship, and in what ways does political science scholarship help to shed light on the book's core themes?


2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 595-598 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Weir

Whether as a solution to problems of political legitimacy or social mistrust, as a way of involving civil society, or as a method of crafting more effective “third way” policies, collaborative governance has been a topic of renewed interest for political scientists and policy intellectuals. Carmen Sirianni's Investing in Democracy: Engaging Citizens in Collaborative Governance (Brookings, 2009) is an important new book that raises many of these issues. Perspectives on Politics is a forum for raising questions of interest to a broad range of political scientists. In this symposium, we have asked a number of prominent political scientists and policy analysts to assess the book and to address two broader questions: in what ways does the book draw from and add to political science scholarship, and in what ways does political science scholarship help to shed light on the book's core themes?


2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 598-601
Author(s):  
Leslie Lenkowsky

Whether as a solution to problems of political legitimacy or social mistrust, as a way of involving civil society, or as a method of crafting more effective “third way” policies, collaborative governance has been a topic of renewed interest for political scientists and policy intellectuals. Carmen Sirianni's Investing in Democracy: Engaging Citizens in Collaborative Governance (Brookings, 2009) is an important new book that raises many of these issues. Perspectives on Politics is a forum for raising questions of interest to a broad range of political scientists. In this symposium, we have asked a number of prominent political scientists and policy analysts to assess the book and to address two broader questions: in what ways does the book draw from and add to political science scholarship, and in what ways does political science scholarship help to shed light on the book's core themes?


Author(s):  
Ewan Ferlie ◽  
Sue Dopson ◽  
Chris Bennett ◽  
Michael D. Fischer ◽  
Jean Ledger ◽  
...  

This chapter analyses the role of think tanks in generating a distinctive mode of policy knowledge, pragmatically orientated to inform and shape issues of importance to civil society. Drawing on political science literature, we argue that think tanks exploit niche areas of expertise and influence to actively mobilize policy analyses and recommendations across diverse stakeholders. Through our exploratory mapping of think tanks, geographically concentrated within London, we characterize their influence as significantly boosting knowledge intensity across the regional ecosystem. In particular, we study the empirical case of one London-based think tank which powerfully mobilized policy knowledge through its formal and informal networks to build influential expert consensus amongst key stakeholders. We conclude that such organizations act as key knowledge producers and mobilizers, with significant potential to influence policy discourses and implementation.


Author(s):  
Laura J. Shepherd

Chapter 5 outlines the ways in which civil society is largely associated with “women” and the “local,” as a spatial and conceptual domain, and how this has implications for how we understand political legitimacy and authority. The author argues that close analysis reveals a shift in the way in which the United Nations as a political entity conceives of civil society over time, from early engagement with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to the more contemporary articulation of civil society as consultant or even implementing partner. Contemporary UN peacebuilding discourse, however, constitutes civil society as a legitimating actor for UN peacebuilding practices, as civil society organizations are the bearers/owners of certain forms of (local) knowledge.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 509-526
Author(s):  
Rana B. Khoury

Survey research can generate knowledge that is central to the study of collective action, public opinion, and political participation. Unfortunately, many populations—from undocumented migrants to right-wing activists and oligarchs—are hidden, lack sampling frames, or are otherwise hard to survey. An approach to hard-to-survey populations commonly taken by researchers in other disciplines is largely missing from the toolbox of political science methods: respondent-driven sampling (RDS). By leveraging relations of trust, RDS accesses hard-to-survey populations; it also promotes representativeness, systematizes data collection, and, notably, supports population inference. In approximating probability sampling, RDS makes strong assumptions. Yet if strengthened by an integrative multimethod research design, it can shed light on otherwise concealed—and critical—political preferences and behaviors among many populations of interest. Through describing one of the first applications of RDS in political science, this article provides empirically grounded guidance via a study of activist refugees from Syria. Refugees are prototypical hard-to-survey populations, and mobilized ones are even more so; yet the study demonstrates that RDS can provide a systematic and representative account of a vulnerable population engaged in major political phenomena.


1973 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 661-664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Vaison

Normally in political studies the term public policy is construed to encompass the societally binding directives issued by a society's legitimate government. We usually consider government, and only government, as being able to “authoritatively allocate values.” This common conception pervades the literature on government policy-making, so much so that it is hardly questioned by students and practitioners of political science. As this note attempts to demonstrate, some re-thinking seems to be in order. For purposes of analysis in the social sciences, this conceptualization of public policy tends to obscure important realities of modern corporate society and to restrict unnecessarily the study of policy-making. Public policy is held to be public simply and solely because it originates from a duly legitimated government, which in turn is held to have the authority (within specified limits) of formulating and implementing such policy. Public policy is public then, our usual thinking goes, because it is made by a body defined somewhat arbitrarily as “public”: a government or some branch of government. All other policy-making is seen as private; it is not public (and hence to lie essentially beyond the scope of the disciplines of poliitcal science and public administration) because it is duly arrived at by non-governmental bodies. Thus policy analysts lead us to believe that public policy is made only when a government body acts to consider some subject of concern, and that other organizations are not relevant to the study of public policy.


2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (51) ◽  
pp. 59-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Gois ◽  
Giulia Falchi

Abstract Migration has been and will continue to be one of the key issues for Europe in the coming decades. Fundamental developments such as economy, climate change, globalization of transport and communication, war and instability in the neighbouring regions, are all factors that continue to drive people to come to Europe, in search of shelter and a better life or to reunite with their families. In recent years, vulnerability of forced migrants has been exacerbated by worsening conflicts in their home country, which make repatriation less and less a viable option, and by mounting intolerance within local communities. A growing number of potential refugees attempts to escape transit countries to reach the European Union by embarking in dangerous journeys to cross the Mediterranean Sea and illegally enter the European Union. Within the European Union resettlement represents a 'durable solution' for vulnerable forced migrants alongside local integration and voluntary repatriation, a protection tool for potential people whose lives and liberty are at risk. In Italy, a group of institutions from civil society and the Italian Ministries of Foreign Affairs and of Interior signed a Protocol of Agreement for the establishment of Humanitarian Corridors to ensure the legal and safe resettlement of asylum seekers. Our article will show how these Humanitarian Corridors proved to be a successful multi-stakeholder engagement to support safe and legal pathways to protection as well as durable solutions for third country nationals in need of protection.


2014 ◽  
Vol 47 (02) ◽  
pp. 468-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin R. Graham ◽  
Charles R. Shipan ◽  
Craig Volden

ABSTRACTWhat factors inhibit or facilitate cross-subfield conversations in political science? This article draws on diffusion scholarship to gain insight into cross-subfield communication. Diffusion scholarship represents a case where such communication might be expected, given that similar diffusion processes are analyzed in American politics, comparative politics, and international relations. We identify nearly 800 journal articles published on diffusion within political science between 1958 and 2008. Using network analysis we investigate the degree to which three “common culprits”—terminology, methodological approach, and journal type—influence levels of integration. We find the highest levels of integration among scholars using similar terms to describe diffusion processes, sharing a methodological approach (especially in quantitative scholarship), and publishing in a common set of subfield journals. These findings shed light on when cross-subfield communication is likely to occur with ease and when barriers may prove prohibitive.


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