Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Ólafsson, Jón
• Ingimundarson, Valur
• Jóhannesson, Sveinn M.

Titel

Public engagement: An outline of a critical conception

Ist Teil von

• Liberal Disorder, States of Exception, and Populist Politics, 2021, Vol.1, p.163-187

Auflage

1

Ort / Verlag

Routledge

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This chapter suggests a way—through what the author terms a critical conception of public engagement—to alleviate the tensions between representative and populist forms of democracy and between deliberation and public participation. The author believes that the consensus-orientation of deliberative democracy and the problem-solving attitude of epistemic democratic theory put too much emphasis on reforming methods of policy- and decision-making. Therefore, much more pressure—or “infiltration”—of government or public administration is needed to enforce policies. To Ólafsson, a broad “political agency,” or general civic awareness of the ways and processes, which are indispensable for reaching political goals, is more important for the success of liberal and deliberative democracy than mass participation or, for that matter, mass deliberation.