Integrating participatory institutions into the traditional representative and bureaucratic model of public governance

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 642-658 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Bandeira ◽  
Agustín Ferraro
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Public Governance ◽  
Democratic Quality ◽  
Participatory Institutions ◽  
Governance Practices ◽  
To Come

Does more citizen participation necessarily improve the democratic quality and/or the effectiveness of government? What forms of participation have the potential to accomplish these goals? And, more important, how can these participatory mechanisms be integrated into traditional representative and bureaucratic governance practices, in order to grasp this potential? We discuss these questions in the article, building on theories and empirical evidence provided by both political science and public administration studies. The conclusion we reach is that participatory empowered mechanisms, such as popular initiatives and referendums, and public–private co-governance councils, have a clear potential to enhance the effectiveness and responsiveness of public governance. However, we also find that in order to secure these benefits and not compromise equality and accountability, the introduction of these mechanisms needs to come together with strong and highly representative legislatures, and with reforms that align the powers and increase the representativeness of interest groups.

scholarly journals Public Administration in the Reputation Era: A Conceptual Exploration

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 418-438
Author(s):  
Staci Zavattaro ◽  
Jasper Eshuis
Keyword(s):  
Performance Management ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Reputation Management ◽  
Public Values ◽  
Digital Space ◽  
Democratic Practices ◽  
Governance Practices ◽  
Administrative Development

While public administration scholars have studied reputation management for a while, the concept of reputation is coming front and center in governance practices – for better or worse. In this paper, we introduce the Reputation Era, building upon other schemas of understanding administrative development. While reputation management has always been part of public administration, we argue the Reputation Era emerges in a postmodern condition focusing on images and slogans as creators of knowledge, coupled with a digital space that creates instantaneous opportunities to bolster or ruin a reputation. Reputation in this era becomes an input, throughout, output, and outcome rather than only an afterthought. Public values, then, shift in a Reputation Era as cornerstones such as transparency, performance management, and citizen participation, get subsumed into constructing a positive reputation and could lose their mooring to democratic practices if not carefully managed. We offer testable propositions based on our Reputation Era argument.

Organizing Public Governance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morten Egeberg ◽  
Jarle Trondal
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Organization Theory ◽  
Organizational Factors ◽  
Design Approach ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Public Governance ◽  
Science Understanding ◽  
Organizational Approach

Chapter 9 concludes the volume by offering the contours of a design approach in political science. The ambition is to use insights from the volume to set out design implications from an organizational approach to public governance. The chapter thus draws a middle ground in an old turf war in organization studies and public administration between science and craft. Insights into how organizational factors affect public governance is a necessary precondition for using organization theory to meta-govern. This concluding chapter advocates that organization theory as craft requires organization theory as science. Understanding and design are thus complementary and not opposed, as is too often assumed.

Social mobilization and tackling the performance of local government in rural Nepal

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ganesh Prasad Pandeya ◽  
Tatsuo Oyama ◽  
Chakrapani Acharya
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Social Mobilization ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Local Power ◽  
Local Planning ◽  
Rural Villages ◽  
Disadvantaged Groups ◽  
Participatory Institutions ◽  
Rural Nepal

Abstract Based on extensive fieldwork in two rural villages, this paper qualitatively examines how social mobilization initiatives influence local government (LG) performance in Nepal. LG mobilized community people to empower them for their effective participation in local planning and decision-making processes. Comparing with the prior period of mobilization, evidence demonstrates that mobilization promises to boost LG performance through empowering communities to enhance their agency and entitlements, promoting democratic and effective citizen participation, and strengthening LG responsiveness and social accountability. But these connections are not straightforward, as there appeared discrepancies in parallel in recognizing equal participation rights of disadvantaged groups and equitable distribution of public resources among social groups. The findings imply that mobilization can be an effective strategy for tackling many challenges of participatory institutions, as it tends to create social pressures for making participatory institutions more democratic and changing the local power dynamics in favour of disadvantaged groups.

Exploration of the technocratic mentality among European civil servants

2021 ◽  
pp. 002085232199642
Author(s):  
Ringa Raudla ◽  
James W. Douglas ◽  
Zachary Mohr
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Performance ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Positive Interactions ◽  
Technical Knowledge ◽  
High Level ◽  
Proper Balance

Civil servants vary in the degree to which they hold technocratic attitudes. We explore whether bureaucrats’ exposure to politics and politicians is associated with the depoliticization dimension of the technocratic mentality. We use survey data of high-level executives in 19 European countries to explore factors that are associated with executives’ perceptions that removing issues and activities from the realms of politics leads to more farsighted policies. We find that respondents’ level of exposure to politics and politicians is indeed negatively associated with technocratic mentality. Bureaucrats have studied political science or public administration, work closer to politicians (in terms of type of organization), interact with them more frequently, and have more positive perceptions of these interactions tend to have lower levels of technocratic attitudes. Points for practitioners Beliefs affect behaviors and behaviors affect outcomes. Technocratic attitudes may limit the ability of civil servants to work effectively with politicians. We show that educational degrees that promote democratic values and exposure to politicians (particularly positive interactions) are associated with lower levels of technocratic attitudes. Given that a proper balance between political and technical knowledge can enhance organizational performance (Krause et al., 2006), these findings should be taken into account when staffing and structuring public organizations.

Teaching Campaign Finance with Federal Election Commission Resources

1987 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 14-15
Author(s):  
Clyde Wilcox
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Campaign Finance ◽  
Public Office ◽  
Federal Election ◽  
Science Courses ◽  
Federal Election Commission ◽  
Campaigns And Elections ◽  
Student Projects ◽  
Election Commission

Many Political Science courses include sections on campaign finance activity. Courses on Congress and on the Presidency may include sections on the financing of elections for these offices, and courses on campaigns and elections will probably cover campaign finance. In addition, courses on interest groups and on parties may include sections that focus on the activities of these actors in financing campaigns for public office.The Federal Election Commission can provide an assortment of materials that may be useful in teaching about campaign finance. Some of these materials are most useful as sources of data for lecture preparation, while other offerings can be used as part of student projects or papers. In the sections below, these materials will be described, and some classroom uses will be suggested.

A Note on “Public Policy”

1973 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 661-664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Vaison
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Studies ◽  
Policy Analysts ◽  
Government Body

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.

Political Science and Public Administration: A Note on the State of the Union

1952 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 660-676 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roscoe C. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Russell Sage Foundation ◽  
Special Study ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
State Of The Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
Original Essay ◽  
The Subject

By tradition public administration is regarded as a division of political science. Woodrow Wilson set the stage for this concept in his original essay identifying public administration as a subject worthy of special study, and spokesmen for both political science and public administration have accepted it since. Thus Leonard White, in his 1930 article on the subject in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, recognizes public administration as “a branch of the field of political science.” Luther Gulick follows suit, observing in 1937 that “Public administration is thus a division of political science ….” So generally has this word got around that it has come to the notice of the sociologists, as is indicated in a 1950 report of the Russell Sage Foundation which refers to “political science, including public administration….” “Pure” political scientists and political scientists with a public administration slant therefore are not alone in accepting this doctrine, which obviously enjoys a wide and authoritative currency.But if public administration is reckoned generally to be a child of political science, it is in some respects a strange and unnatural child; for there is a feeling among political scientists, substantial still if mayhap not so widespread as formerly, that academicians who profess public administration spend their time fooling with trifles. It was a sad day when the first professor of political science learned what a manhole cover is! On their part, those who work in public administration are likely to find themselves vaguely resentful of the lack of cordiality in the house of their youth.

MODERN MEANS AND MECHANISMS OF CIVIC ACTIVISM AND INITIATIVE IN SOCIETY

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-44
Author(s):  
Nurali Shodiev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Civic Activism ◽  
Political Communications ◽  
Modern Methods ◽  
Methods And Techniques

The article examines the development trends of modern networks of political communication, the growing influence of social networks on the Internet on the civic engagement of citizens. At thesame time, the role of various blogs in expanding citizen participation in public administration is scientifically analyzed.The analysis ofsocial networks, blogs and various media resources used on the Internet as a platform and tool for civic initiatives and activity in society is carried out. The article also discusses modern methods and techniques for using political communications to increase civic engagement.

British Politics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter John
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Political Behaviour ◽  
Media Agenda ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Politics And Law ◽  
Institutional Foundations

British Politics provides an introduction to British politics with an emphasis on political science to analyse the fundamental features of British politics, and the key changes post-Brexit. Part A looks at constitutional and institutional foundations of the subject. Chapters in this part look at leadership and debating politics and law creation. The second part is about political behaviour and citizenship. Here chapters consider elections, the media, agenda setting, and political turbulence. The final part is about policy-making and delegation. The chapters in this part examine interest groups, advocacy, policy-making, governing through bureaucracy and from below, delegating upwards, and British democracy now.

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