Author meets critics : Mark Bevir

Bevir argues that the rise of modernist social science in the early twentieth century gave rise to new economic and sociological concepts of rationality.  The result was formal social sciences that revealed and constructed dilemmas for older theories of representative democracy.  For a while, hierarchic bureaucracy appeared to provide a solution.  But since the 1970s, these new theories have inspired a new governance of markets and networks.  Today, policy actors cling to outdated images of representative democracy buttressed by a faith in policy expertise.  Representative governments struggles to direct the policy process.  An illusory expertise crowds out democratic participation. Contemporary democracy thus suffers from blurred lines of accountabiltiy and declining legitimacy.

The panel(s) will take an author meets critics format.  The presenters will discuss Mark Bevir's Democratic Governance (Princeton University Press, 2010).  Presenters may discuss whatever themes and arguments in the book most grab their attention.  Themes might include the historical genealogy of modernist social science, the nature of the new governance, the problems governance poses for democracy, the nature of an interpretive and dialogical alternative to modernism, and the specific cases of constitutional reform, judicialization, joined-up governance, and police reform.  Potential participants may want to contact the chair for further details of the book.

Chair: Anna Durnova: Université de Lyon

 Discussant: Mark Bevir, University of California, Berkeley;

- Participants:

 Patrick Le Galès, Sciences Po, Paris

Michael Marinetto, University of Wales, Cardiff;

Vivien A. Schmidt, Boston University

Eva Sørenson, Roskilde University