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Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
The democratic state is unravelling. Authoritarians exploit its deficits to disguise attacks on democracy as democratic renewal, while Silicon Valley searches for ways to replace public service with private technology. Countering these threats to democratic governance requires thinking administratively about democracy and democratically about administration.
This book develops a novel democratic systems theory that puts public administration at the heart of democracy. The new approach is then applied to the project of democratic innovation, exploring the potential of public participation and digital technologies to democratise the administrative state. It is essential reading for defending democracy in an age of resurgent authoritarianism, providing both theoretical innovation and practical pathways towards a more democratic future.
"This sophisticated analysis of how different forms of participation interact with the political-administrative system opens important new ways of thinking about democratic innovation." Graham Smith, University of Westminster
1. Introduction: Democracies are Political-Administrative Systems
Part I: Theorizing Political-Administrative Systems
2. Towards a Democratic Theory of Political-Administrative Systems
3. System Legitimacy: A Plural Grounding of the Norms and Functions of Political-Administrative Systems
4. System Interventions: The Actors, Practices and Arenas of Political-Administrative Systems
Part II: Democratizing Political-Administrative Systems
5. Towards a Systems Approach to Democratic Innovation
6. Pluralizing Participation: Four Modes of Democratic Innovation
7. Digital Democratization? Democratic Innovation in a Datafied Administration
8. Conclusion: Democracy, Participation and Public Administration in the Face of Authoritarianism