Democratic governance /

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 Policymakers cling to outdated con...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Bevir, Mark.
Corporate Authors: De Gruyter.
Published: Princeton University Press,
Publisher Address: Princeton, N.J. :
Publication Dates: [2010]
©2010
Literature type: eBook
Language: English
Edition: Course Book.
Subjects:
Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9781400836857
http://www.degruyter.com/doc/cover/9781400836857.jpg
Summary: 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 Policymakers cling to outdated concepts of representative government while at the same time placing ever more faith in expertise, markets, and networks.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.
Carrier Form: 1 online resource (320 pages) : illustrations
ISBN: 9781400836857
Index Number: JC423
CLC: D082
Contents: Frontmatter --
Contents --
Tables --
Preface --
Acknowledgments --
Abbreviations --
Chapter One. Interpreting Governance --
Chapter Two. The Modern State --
Chapter Three. New Theories --
Chapter Four. New Worlds --
Chapter Five. Democratic Governance --
Chapter Six. Constitutional Reform --
Chapter Seven. Judicial Reform --
Chapter Eight. Public Policy --
Chapter Nine. Joined-up Governance --
Chapter Ten. Police Reform --
Conclusion: After Modernism --
Bibliography --
Index.