Narratives of participatory governance: Social science and democracy in mark bevirʼs a theory of governance
International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior
ISSN: 1093-4537
Article publication date: 1 March 2016
Abstract
Mark Bevirʼs A Theory of Governance proposes a Copernican revolution in the way we understand the role of social science in public administration. Conventional accounts assign social science the role of instructing public administrators how to steer its machinery towards the public interest, based on social scienceʼs alleged ability to explain how people act and what they need. Bevir offers a vision of public administration in which ordinary people take a leading role by engaging in dialogues in which they articulate their needs. In this vision, the role of social science is to facilitate those public dialogues. This essay offers a sympathetic critical evaluation of Bevirʼs exploration of what it means to understand social science as a facilitator.
Citation
Ron, A. (2016), "Narratives of participatory governance: Social science and democracy in mark bevirʼs a theory of governance", International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior, Vol. 19 No. 3, pp. 372-388. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOTB-19-03-2016-B006
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016 by Pracademics Press