Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-m8qmq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T22:55:06.024Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

New Modes of Governance, Political Accountability and Public Reason1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2013

Albert Weale
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

New modes of governance are said to create problems of political accountability. To understand this claim, we need a theory of accountability. Electoral accountability provides authorization and sanction, but it neglects the problems entailed in the requirement to provide explanation and justification. Political accountability in this discursive sense can be understood through the idea of public reason, where this is defined in terms of substantive rationality and an orientation to the public interest. This conceptualization leads in turn to the requirement of replicability and openness in public reasoning. The problem of accountability is one of securing the conditions under which the institutions within which policy deliberation takes place can merit the confidence of citizens in these terms, and the Commission White Paper on European governance is used to illustrate the application of these tests.

Type
Symposium on Democracy and New Modes of Governance
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , 2011 , pp. 58 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2011.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

A version of this paper was originally presented at the NEWGOV Workshop at the European University Institute in June 2008. It was also presented at the University of Mainz on 10 June 2008. I thank the participants on both occasions for comments. I also thank Ruth Zimmerling for her written comments, as well as two anonymous referees for this journal.

References

2 Kjær, Anne Mette, Governance, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2004 Google Scholar.

3 Albert Weale, Geoffrey Pridham, Michelle Cini, Dimitrios Konstadakopulos, Martin Porter and Brendan Flynn, Environmental Governance in Europe, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000.

4 Adrienne Héritier, ‘New Modes of Governance in Europe: Policy-Making Without Legislating?’, Max Planck Institute Pre-Print, Project Group, Common Goods: Law, Politics and Economics, 2001.

5 Myrto Tsakatika, ‘The Open Method of Co-ordination in the European Convention: An Opportunity Lost?’, in Lynn Dobson and Andreas Føllesdal (eds), Political Theory and the European Constitution, London and New York, Routledge, 2004, pp. 91–102.

6 Thatcher, Mark, ‘Delegation to Independent Regulatory Agencies: Pressures, Functions and Contextual Mediation’, West European Politics, 25: 1 (2002), pp. 125–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Héritier, ‘New Modes of Governance in Europe’.

8 Commission of the European Communities, European Governance: A White Paper, Brussels, Commission of the European Communities, COM (2001) 428 final, available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/com/2001/com2001_0428en01.pdf.

9 Beate Kohler-Koch, ‘Civil Society and Representation: Is There a Hole in the Whole?’, paper presented at the CONNECT Workshop on Representation, EUI Florence, 23–4 April 2008.

10 Adrienne Héritier and Dirk Lehmkuhl, ‘New Modes of Governance and Democratic Accountability’, in this issue, below.

11 Compare Jon Elster, ‘Accountability in Athenian Politics’, in Adam Przeworski, Susan C. Stokes and Bernard Manin (eds), Democracy, Accountability, and Representation, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 253–78.

12 Bovens, Mark, ‘Analysing and Assessing Accountability: A Conceptual Framework’, European Law Journal, 13: 4 (2007), pp. 447–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For similar accounts, see Bovens, Mark, ‘New Forms of Accountability and EU-Governance’, Comparative European Politics, 5: 1 (2007), pp. 104–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dario Castiglione, ‘Accountability’, in Mark Bevir (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Governance, London, Sage, 2007, vol. 1, pp. 1–7; and Andrew Rehfeld, The Concept of Constituency, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 189.

13 James Mill, Government, reprinted in Terence Ball (ed.), James Mill: Political Writings, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992, ch. 7.

14 Weale, Albert, Democracy, 2nd edn, Houndmills, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, p. 134 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Bernard Manin, Adam Przeworski and Susan C. Stokes (eds), Democracy, Accountability, and Representation, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999, at pp. 29 and 44–6.

16 Ian Budge, Hans-Dieter Klingermann, Andrea Volkens, Judith Bara and Eric Tanenbaum, Mapping Policy Preferences: Estimates for Parties, Electors, and Governments 1945–1998, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001. For commentary, see Albert Weale, ‘Party Competition and Deliberative Democracy’, in Judith Bara and Albert Weale (eds), Party Competition and Political Democracy, London and New York, Routledge, 2006, pp. 271–86.

17 McDonald, Michael D. and Budge, Ian, Elections, Parties, Democracy. Conferring the Median Mandate, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 ‘Pluritarian’ because these democracies only require a simple plurality winner in each constituency, and typically governments only have the support of a plurality of the electorate. For the importance of adding this category, see Nagel, Jack H., ‘Social Choice in a Pluritarian Democracy: The Politics of Market Liberalization in New Zealand’, British Journal of Political Science, 28: 2 (1998), pp. 223–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 226; and Jack H. Nagel, ‘Occam No, Archimedes Yes’, in Bara and Weale, Party Competition and Political Democracy, pp. 143–58, at p. 144.

19 Héritier and Lehmkuhl, ‘New Modes of Governance and Democratic Accountability’.

20 Underdal, Arild, ‘Integrated Marine Policy. What? Why? How?’, Marine Policy, 4: 3 (1980), pp. 159–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Klaus Jacob, Axel Volkery and Andrea Lenschow, ‘Instrument for Environmental Policy Integration in 30 OECD Countries’, in Andrew J. Jordan and Andrea Lenschow (eds), Innovation in Environmental Policy? Integrating the Environment for Sustainability, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, 2008, pp. 24–45.

22 For a discussion of these concepts in the policy process, see Giandomenico Majone, Evidence, Argument and Persuasion in the Policy Process, New Haven, CT, and London, Yale University Press, 1989.

23 Skinner, Quentin, ‘Some Problems in the Analysis of Political Thought’, Political Theory, 23 (1974), pp. 277–303 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in James Tully (ed.), Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and His Critics, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1988, pp. 97–118.

24 See, among many contributions, James Bohman and William Rehg (eds), Deliberative Democracy, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1997; Joshua Cohen, ‘Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy’, in Alan Hamlin and Philip Pettit (eds), The Good Polity, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1989, pp. 17–34; John S. Dryzek, Deliberative Democracy and Beyond: Liberals, Critics, Contestations, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000; James S. Fishkin, The Voice of the People: Public Opinion and Democracy, New Haven, CT, and London, Yale University Press, 1995; James S. Fishkin and Peter Laslett (eds), Debating Deliberative Democracy, Oxford, Blackwell, 2003; Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, Why Deliberative Democracy? Princeton and Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2004; Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, trans. William Rehg, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1996; Henry S. Richardson, Democratic Autonomy: Public Reasoning about the Ends of Policy, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002.

25 John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government, reprinted in J. Gray (ed.), John Stuart Mill On Liberty and Other Essays, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991 (originally 1861), p. 282.

26 Ernest Barker, Essays on Government, Oxford, Clarendon, 1951, pp. 67–8.

27 Chambers, Simone, ‘Behind Closed Doors: Publicity, Secrecy, and the Quality of Deliberation’, Journal of Political Philosophy, 12: 4 (2004), pp. 389–410 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Weale, Democracy.

29 Mill, Representative Government, pp. 238–9.

30 Albert Weale, ‘Political Accountability and Normative Rationality’, in Martin Hollis and W. Vossenkuhl (eds), Moralische Entscheidung und rationale Wahl, Munich, R. Oldenbourg, 1992, pp. 175–81.

31 Fuller, Lon L., The Morality of Law, New Haven, CT, and London, Yale University Press, 1964, ch. 2Google Scholar.

32 Pettit, Philip, Republicanism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997 Google Scholar.

33 Rawls, John, Political Liberalism, revised edn, New York, Columbia University Press, 1996 Google Scholar.

34 Weale, Democracy, pp. 12–18.

35 Andreas Føllesdal, ‘The Legitimacy Challenges for New Modes of Governance: Trustworthy Responsiveness’, in this issue, below.

36 Compare Tsakatika, Myrto, Political Responsibility and the European Union, Manchester and New York, Manchester University Press, 2008 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Commission of the European Communities, European Governance: A White Paper.

38 Greenwood, Justin, ‘Organised Civil Society and Democratic Legitimacy in the European Union’, British Journal of Political Science, 37: 2 (2007), pp. 333–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.